Dice Wars

Dice Wars strips a strategy game down to almost nothing: a randomly drawn map of hexagons, a stack of dice sitting on each one, and a single combat rule. There is no economy, no unit roster, no research tree, no fog of war. You attack, both sides roll every die they own, and the higher total takes the ground. That austerity is exactly why people kept coming back to it years after the Japanese studio GameDesign first put it online.

One Rule, Eight Dice

Every territory holds between one and eight dice, and that number is both its garrison and its attacking strength. To attack, click one of your territories that has at least two dice, then click an adjacent enemy hex. Both stacks roll everything they have. Beat the defender's total and the territory becomes yours: one die stays behind in the hex you attacked from, and the rest move forward. Lose the roll and your attacking stack is knocked down to a single die, leaving a hole in your border.

Ties go to the defender. That one detail catches out most newcomers, because it means a five-on-five attack is not a coin flip — you are the underdog. Attacking with more dice than the defender is not a nicety, it is the whole game.

How a Turn Plays Out

You may attack as many times as you like on your turn, in any order, as long as you have stacks of two or more sitting on an enemy border. When you finish, reinforcements arrive, and here the game shows its cleverness: you receive dice equal to the size of your largest unbroken chain of connected territories. They are scattered across your holdings at random, skipping any hex already sitting at the maximum of eight, and surplus dice go into a reserve that is spent on later turns.

Total territory count is irrelevant. A player holding twenty hexes split across three separate clumps generates fewer dice than a player holding twelve in one continuous run. Up to seven computer opponents take their turns in sequence around you, and the round only ends when a single colour owns the whole board.

Controls

There is nothing to learn beyond clicking a source hex and then a target hex. Click the same hex twice to deselect it.

Reading the Odds

• Cut chains, not tails. The most valuable attack on the board is usually the one that splits an opponent's connected run in half. Take a single hex in the middle of their territory and you can halve their income for the rest of the game.
• Don't attack just because you can. Every failed attack leaves a one-die hex behind. Two or three of those in a row along the same border invites a counterattack that unravels your whole flank.
• Stack the borders, hollow the interior. Dice land randomly, so you cannot choose where reinforcements go, but you can spend interior dice by pushing them outward into fights you are heavily favoured to win.
• Watch for a full board. Once your territories are all sitting at eight, extra reinforcements go into reserve rather than being wasted, but you are still better off spending dice on expansion than hoarding them.
• Let the computer players fight each other. Sitting out a turn is legal. If two neighbours are grinding each other down, the patient move is to consolidate and take the winner's leftovers.

The map is different every time, and a bad opening position — a thin sliver squeezed between two large neighbours — genuinely can be unwinnable. That is part of the appeal. Rounds last a few minutes, and losing one costs you nothing but the click to restart.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the attacker have an advantage in Dice Wars? Not at equal numbers. Both sides roll every die in the stack and ties go to the defender, so attacking with the same count as your target puts the odds slightly against you.

How are reinforcements worked out at the end of a turn? You get one die for every territory in your single largest group of connected hexes. Separate clumps do not add to that number.

What happens to a territory I attack from? It is always left with exactly one die, whether you win or lose. Winning moves the remainder into the captured hex; losing discards them.

How many players can be on the map? You plus up to seven computer-controlled colours, all sharing a randomly generated board.

Can a territory hold more than eight dice? No. Eight is the cap, and reinforcement dice skip any territory already at that number, going into reserve for a later turn instead.

Who made Dice Wars? It was built by GameDesign, a small Japanese developer with a long catalogue of minimalist browser games.