A Better Battleship Strategy
Battleship, a game of fun, chance and wait, strategy? In what once boiled down to inspired guessing, the mathematicians of the world have optimized an organized guessing pattern greatly enhancing one’s chance at emerging with ships un-sunk. How do you do it? Follow closely:Your first two guesses will need to be spaced out 5 spots (meaning 4 empty squares in between). For example, if you guess A1 to start the game, your second guess should be A5. This allows the maximum possible distance without the potential for overlooking an aircraft carrier (the largest of the ships at your opponent’s disposal). From this point, guesses should proceed in a in a diagonal fashion, like so (numbers represent guess number):1 – - – - 2 – - – — 3 – - – - 4 – - — – 5 – - – - 6 – — – - 7 – - – - 8 — – - – 9 – - – - 1011 – - – - 12 – - – — 13 – - – - 14 – - — – 15 – - – - 16 – — – - 17 – - – - 18 — – - – 19 – - – - 20After 20 guesses, hitting the aircraft carrier is a mathematical certainty. Once the aircraft carrier is sunk, guesses should move to 4 spaces apart (3 spaces in between), as you search for the destroyer, shown below in brackets.1 – - – 21 2 – - – 33- 3 – - – 22 4 – - — – 5 – - – 23 6 – — – - 7 – - – 24 8 -27 – - – 9 – - – 25 1011 28 – - – 12 – - – 26- 13 29 – - – 14 – - — – 15 30 – - – 16 – — – - 17 31 – - – 18 -34 – - – 19 32 – - – 20Continue on in this manner decreasing your spacing as it caters to smaller and smaller existing ships. Once you hit a ship it is obviously advantageous to restrict your guesses to this area, so as to complete each ship’s demise as quickly as possible.This method does not take into individual account player tendencies. If you are familiar with your opponent and have on good intelligence that he or she always places a ship on D6, for example, it is well within reason to make your first guess D6 and continue onwards from there in the fashion described above.