Play Sixteen Soldiers Online Free | Sholo Guti vs AI

1. The board is a standard alquerque lattice of 25 points with a triangular extension on two opposite sides, six points each — 37 points in total. Each triangle hangs from a single attachment point at the middle of the lattice edge and widens outward. Soldiers sit on the intersections.
2. Each player has 16 soldiers, filling the two lattice rows nearest to them plus their own triangle. The lattice's middle row — all five points — starts empty.
3. Players alternate. On your turn you use one soldier and either move or capture — never both.
4. A move is one step to a vacant adjacent point along a marked line.
5. A capture is the short leap: hop an adjacent enemy into the empty point directly beyond it, in a straight line following the board pattern. The leapt soldier is removed — traditionally, it is "chopped".
6. Captures are not compulsory, and after one leap the same soldier may keep leaping. You may stop the chain at any point.
7. Capture all sixteen enemy soldiers to win.

• Any direction, from move one. Unlike most draughts variants there is no forward-only restriction and no promotion: every soldier moves and captures in every direction the lines allow, for the whole game.
• Both halves of a leap must follow a line. The alquerque diagonals only pass through half the points, so a soldier on an "odd" point has four ways out, not eight.
• The triangles are part of the pattern, not an annexe. Their slanting sides are the short alquerque diagonals carried straight on past the edge, so leaps cross the join in either direction — a soldier in a triangle can be leapt into the lattice and back out again.
• Optional captures. Declining a chop is a legal and often useful choice.
• Chains may be broken off. A capturing soldier can stop after any leap in the chain.
• The win condition is annihilation — take all sixteen. Arcadia adds two house rules so a game always ends: a player with no legal move loses by blockade, and after 60 turns without a capture the side with more soldiers wins.

Count the lines, not the pieces. Seven points connect to eight neighbours: the centre, the four "even" interior points, and the mouth of each triangle. The four outer corners of the triangles connect to only two. A soldier parked in a triangle corner is nearly out of the game, so empty your triangle early rather than late — and fight for the two mouths, which are the busiest junctions on the board.

The empty middle row is the opening. Nobody has a capture on move one; both sides simply pour into the five vacant points. Whoever occupies that row on good terms dictates the first exchanges.

Every empty point is a landing zone. Because captures work in all directions, a hole you create behind your own line is a hole the opponent can leap into. Advance so that the point behind each soldier is filled.

Optional capture is a real weapon. Taking one soldier often hands back a three-chain. Count the reply before you chop — sometimes the strongest move is a quiet step that closes the landing square.

Trade down when ahead. Material is decisive here: with no promotion, ten soldiers against six is close to won. Simplify once you lead.

• Red dots mark leaps; green dots mark quiet steps. Both are always offered, because captures are optional.
• Mid-chain, the End turn button stops the sequence — use it when the next leap would expose your soldier.
• Start on Easy to learn the lattice, then move to Hard, which searches three plies deep with alpha-beta pruning.
• Watch the no-capture counter. Long stand-offs are normal in sholo guti; at the limit the bigger army wins.
• The outer corners of the triangles are the weakest points on the board — two lines out and no more. Get those soldiers into the lattice early.