Order and Chaos Strategy

Each side has its own game. Order attacks with threats; Chaos poisons the board. New here? Read the rules first.

Order

Work the centre. The middle sixteen squares sit in the most five-long windows. A symbol there threatens in more directions.

Build double threats. A single four is blocked with one move. Two fours at once, or a four and a shape that becomes two fours next turn, cannot be stopped.

Keep lines pure. Choose the symbol that already dominates the line you're extending. Mixing symbols in your own line is doing Chaos's job.

Chaos

Poison early. Any window of five holding both symbols is dead for Order. Place the symbol that spoils the most pure windows at once.

Block with the other symbol. Facing four X's in a window, put an O in the gap: it kills that window and every other window through that square for X.

Count the open lines. Chaos wins when no window is still pure with room for five. Track how many such windows remain and spoil the ones with the most of one symbol first.

Never give a free move. Every Chaos move should spoil something. A move that spoils nothing hands Order a tempo to build a double threat.

Last updated 2026-10-20