Battleships

Battleships is a classic strategic guessing game between two people that can be played with pencil and paper. The objective is to sink the other player's ships before they sink yours.

To setup the game, each player receives a piece of paper. Use graph paper if you have it. Each player draws two grids on their paper. The grids are typically 10x10 square, but can vary by agreement. Label the grid with letters for the rows and numbers for the columns. One grid will be where you place your ships and the other grid will be where you make guesses about your opponent's ships.

Each player secretly places their ships into their grid however they want. Ships have different sizes and can be placed horizontally or vertically, but cannot overlap or go off the edges. This is the standard list of ships, although you can vary the number and sizes of ships as desired.

1. 1x Carrier - 5 Squares
2. 1x Battleship - 4 Squares
3. 1x Cruiser - 3 Squares
4. 2x Submarine - 3 Squares
5. 2x Destroyer - 2 Squares

Example Battleship game setup.

Players take turns shooting at one square on their opponent's grid by calling out the letter and number (for example, F4). Your opponent looks at their grid and indicates whether you got a "hit" or a "miss". If it was a hit and every square of that ship has now been hit, your opponent reveals which ship you sank by saying something like, "You sank my battleship!" As you discover information about your opponent's ships, you should notate this on your second grid by placing an X for a hit a O for a miss.

Example of notating your guesses.

The first player to sink all of their opponent's ships is the winner.

Strategy

When guessing, it is important to take shots that give you as much information as possible. For example, if there is a 5 space gap between two misses, it would be best to take a shot right in the middle because this could find a carrier, a battleship, a cruiser, or a submarine hiding anywhere in that spot. If you instead shot at a square adjacent to one of the existing misses, you would only be guaranteed to hit a carrier and the other ship sizes could still be hiding in that space. Usually, you'll want to avoid taking a shot that is directly adjacent to an existing miss.

When placing your ships, avoid placing your ships touching each other. If your opponent gets a hit, they will likely make additional adjacent hits to find your ship and may end up finding your second ship as well.

Don't place all of your ships on the edges or all in the middle, and don't place your ships in a pattern. Your opponent may see the pattern and get an advantage.

Other Ways To Play

This game originated as a paper and pencil game, but you can also play the board game, or play it electronically. Braingle has it's own simple version of this game, that you can play by yourself right now.