Smarter, not sneakier
Every computer captain in Scallywag Seas sees exactly what you see: its own hits, misses and sonar readings, never where your ships are. So a harder captain does not cheat. It simply thinks harder: Beginner and Easy fire mostly at random, Normal hunts on a checkerboard and finishes what it hits, and Hard counts every way your fleet could be hiding.
Pick your search
Put to the test
Which strategy wins?
We let an autopilot play every one of the 81 campaign missions at Normal difficulty with each strategy, thousands of battles apiece, all using special items the same way. The probability heatmap came out on top.
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Shots land all over the sea. Gold rings: anywhere is as good as anywhere else. Strategy 1
Random Search
Fire wherever the wind blows.
How it works
Pick any cell you have not fired at yet, completely at random, every single volley. A hit changes nothing: the next shot is just as random as the last.
Strength
Impossible to predict, needs no thinking, and every cell gets an equal chance.
Weakness
It ignores everything it learns. Even after a hit it wanders off, so damaged ships sail on for ages.
Fits Beginner, Easy
Beginner and Easy captains fire mostly at random. Beginner follows up a hit only now and then (about 15% of shots) and Easy a bit more often (about 40%), which gives new captains room to learn.
In our trials: 1.1% of battles won, 17.0% of shots on target.
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Only the shaded squares are fired at. A 2-cell ship cannot hide between them. Strategy 2
Checkerboard (Parity) Search
Only fire on the dark squares.
How it works
Paint the sea like a checkerboard and fire only at one color. Every ship covers at least two cells in a line, so every ship must touch a dark square: you can find the whole fleet with half the shots.
Strength
Halves the search without missing a single ship. Easy to do in your head.
Weakness
On its own it is just a pattern. It still needs a plan for what to do after a hit, or it finds ships and walks away from them.
Fits Normal (while hunting)
The Normal captain hunts this way between hits, spacing the pattern by the shortest enemy ship still afloat.
In our trials: 1.0% of battles won, 17.3% of shots on target.
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Bright: the first diagonals, four apart. Soft: the second pass between them. Strategy 3
Diagonal Search
Sweep the sea in slanted lines.
How it works
Fire along diagonals spaced four cells apart, then along the diagonals halfway between them, then anything left. It is a checkerboard visited in a different order: long ships get crossed early by the widely spaced lines.
Strength
The first pass crosses every ship of four or more cells quickly, and the pattern looks random to a watching opponent.
Weakness
Like the checkerboard it never chases a hit by itself, and small ships can slip between the first diagonals.
Fits Normal (as a hunting pattern)
None of the game's captains uses it, but it is a fine hunting pattern to pair with Hunt and Target at Normal.
In our trials: 1.1% of battles won, 17.6% of shots on target.
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After a hit, the four neighbors are the next targets. See it step by step below. Strategy 4
Hunt and Target
Search, then pounce.
How it works
Two modes. Hunt: search on a checkerboard. Target: the moment you score a hit, fire at its four neighbors. Once two hits line up you know the direction, so keep firing along that line, both ends, until the ship sinks. Then go back to hunting.
Strength
Finishes every ship it finds and wastes very few shots once it has a hit. The single biggest jump in skill you can make.
Weakness
Hunting is still blind. It treats every unexplored cell the same, even ones where no remaining ship could fit.
Fits Normal
This is the Normal captain: checkerboard hunting, neighbors after a hit, and lines extended once two hits align. It also uses its special items now and then.
In our trials: 36.0% of battles won, 38.8% of shots on target.
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How Hunt and Target works
1. A hit!
While hunting on the checkerboard, a volley at D4 strikes timber. Somewhere around it is the rest of a ship.
2. Search the four neighbors
A ship lies in a straight line, so the rest of it must continue up, down, left or right. Those four cells are the next targets.
3. Find the direction
D3 is a miss, but E4 is a second hit. Two hits side by side mean the ship runs across, so only the two ends of the line are worth a shot now.
4. Finish the ship
Keep firing at the ends of the line until the ship goes down: C4 hits, F4 hits, and all four cells of the War Brigantine are gone. Sunk! Back to hunting.
- Hit
- Miss
- Next targets
- Sunk
Step 1 of 4 -
Warmer cells have more ways for the remaining ships to fit. Misses cool their neighbors. Strategy 5
Probability Heatmap
Fire where ships are most likely to be.
How it works
For every ship still afloat, count every way it could be placed without crossing a miss or a sunk ship. Add the counts up per cell: that is the heatmap. Fire at the hottest cell. After a hit, placements through the hit count far more, so the map lights up around it and finishes the ship.
Strength
Uses everything you know: misses, sunk ships, sonar readings, even which ships are left. The middle of open water glows, dead corners go cold.
Weakness
Lots of counting (fine for a computer, hard in your head), and it assumes the enemy placed ships at random. A captain who hides ships in corners can fool it.
Fits Hard
The Hard captain hunts this way, folding sonar and compass readings into the map, and uses its special items strategically.
In our trials: 52.9% of battles won, 44.6% of shots on target.
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Both dinghies are sunk, so the smallest ship left is three cells: every third cell is enough. Strategy 6
Ship-Size-Aware Search
Space your shots by the smallest ship left.
How it works
A checkerboard works because the smallest ship is two cells long. Once the little ones are sunk and the smallest survivor is three cells, fire every third cell instead. Pick the lattice offset that keeps the shots you already fired.
Strength
Gets faster as the battle goes on: fewer shots are needed to sweep the sea once only big ships remain.
Weakness
Early on it is a plain checkerboard, and it still needs a target mode after a hit to finish ships.
Fits Normal
The Normal captain already spaces its hunt by the shortest ship afloat. Paired with Hunt and Target it is a strong Normal.
In our trials: 37.9% of battles won, 39.4% of shots on target.
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Misses fence the sea into pockets. The biggest open pocket gets the next volley. Strategy 7
Density and Cluster Search
Aim for the widest open water.
How it works
Look for the biggest pockets of water you have not fired into and shoot at their middle, skipping gaps too small for any ship still afloat. Targeting after a hit works like Hunt and Target.
Strength
Easy to do by eye, and it quickly breaks the sea into small pockets that cannot hide much.
Weakness
Open water is not the same as likely water. Ships pressed against walls or edges get found late.
Fits Normal to Hard
A good fit for a strong Normal or a gentle Hard captain, and a great habit for human players.
In our trials: 48.1% of battles won, 42.8% of shots on target.
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This opponent hid ships near the edges before, so the edges glow hotter. Strategy 8
Adaptive Opponent Modeling
Remember where they hid last time.
How it works
Start from the probability heatmap, then tilt it toward the spots where this opponent's ships turned out to be in earlier battles. If they love the edges, the edges get warmer.
Strength
Punishes habits. Against a human who always hugs the coast, it gets better every rematch.
Weakness
Needs a history, and against a captain who places ships at random the tilt is just noise. A clever opponent can bait it.
Fits Hard
Ideal for a rival you meet again and again, like a boss rematch. The game's own captains do not keep notes on you (yet).
In our trials: 49.5% of battles won, 43.7% of shots on target.
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Each cell shows how many of 400 imagined fleets put a ship there. Strategy 9
Monte Carlo Simulation
Imagine a thousand fleets.
How it works
Dream up hundreds of complete enemy fleets that agree with everything you have seen: misses are water, every unexplained hit has a ship through it. Count how many imagined fleets put a ship on each cell, and fire at the most popular one.
Strength
Handles messy situations (several damaged ships, odd board shapes, decoys) that simple counting gets wrong.
Weakness
Slow, and a little random: with too few samples it can chase ghosts.
Fits Hard
A Hard-level brain. In our trials it was the closest rival to the heatmap.
In our trials: 50.5% of battles won, 44.0% of shots on target.
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Brightest where the outcome is closest to a coin flip, not where a hit is most likely. Strategy 10
Information Gain
Fire where the answer teaches you most.
How it works
Instead of the likeliest cell, pick the shot whose result you can predict least. A cell that is a coin flip (hit or miss, and which ship) tells you the most either way. Once a ship is damaged, switch to finishing it.
Strength
Learns the layout of the sea fastest, and it is the natural way to aim scouting items like Sonar Pulse.
Weakness
A shot that teaches a lot is not always a shot that hits. On small boards the likeliest cell is usually just as good.
Fits Hard
A Hard-level idea, and the thinking behind the best use of recon items in Pirate Tactics.
In our trials: 49.7% of battles won, 43.8% of shots on target.
Know the rules of engagement
The best strategy depends on the rules
Can ships touch?
In some versions of the game ships may never touch, so every cell around a sunk ship is guaranteed water and you can skip it. In Scallywag Seas ships may touch, even diagonally. A hit next to a sunk ship can be a brand new ship, so never write off its neighbors.
One shot or a salvo?
In Salvo Mayhem you fire one shot per surviving ship each turn. Spread a hunting salvo across the sea, and once you hit something, spend the rest of the volley finishing it before its captain can hit back.
Special items
Sonar Pulse, Parrot Scout and Ghost Vision count ship sections in an area. That is exactly what a heatmap or information gain search feeds on: scout the hottest region, then fire where the count says. Watch for decoys, fog and mirages that tell fibs.
Strange seas
Icebergs, floating islands and odd-shaped boards in the later realms block cells. Fewer places to hide means hotter heatmaps, and a checkerboard has to step around the rocks.
Ready to try it on a real fleet?