Ludo

How to play

Each colour has four tokens waiting in its own corner. Roll the die, then tap a token to move it that many squares. A six brings a token out of the yard and costs the whole roll to do it.

A token walks fifty-one squares of the shared ring, then turns into its own home lane — five squares nobody else can enter — and needs an exact roll to reach home. Fifty-six steps in all from the start square.

Land on an opponent on an unmarked square and it goes back to its yard. The eight starred and start squares are safe: nobody can be knocked off one, so nobody can be held in their corner. First colour with everything home wins.

Where the skill is, and how much of it there is

Ludo is mostly luck. That is not a criticism of the game and it is not something this page is going to talk around — the dice decide more here than anywhere else on Zerdly, and two identical players will trade wins for as long as you care to watch.

What it is not is only luck, and the part you control comes down to one calculation:

an opponent d squares behind takes you on a roll of d

• So count backwards. One enemy three squares behind your landing square is one roll in six. Three enemies at three different distances is three in six, and that is usually not a square worth standing on.
• A token cannot reach past its own turning. An opponent close to their own home lane has almost no reach left, which makes the squares just in front of their corner some of the safest on the board rather than the most dangerous.
• A capture is worth what the victim loses. Sending a token back from three squares out costs its owner three steps; from fifty it costs fifty. Breaking a good position for a small capture is the commonest mistake in the game.
• Leaving a square matters as much as arriving at one. A token that is about to be taken is worth moving for that reason alone.

The board can mark your own tokens that are in reach. That is the same arithmetic, written down, and it shows you nothing your opponents do not already have — every token is face up.

Which Ludo this is

Every family plays this differently and each of these changes the game. Four of the six are switchable on the page.

• Six to come out. The classic rule. Switch it off and any roll releases a token — much faster, and much flatter.
• A six means another go, and so does a capture. Both switchable.
• Three sixes in a row forfeits the turn. Not decoration: a six earns another roll, so without a cap a lucky turn has no end.
• An exact roll to finish. Switch it off and a token that would overshoot simply lands home.
• No blockades. Some rules let two tokens on one square bar the way entirely. Here a stack is just two tokens in one place — and landing on it sends both home.
• Eight safe squares: the four starts and four stars. A token on one cannot be taken.

Tables

Two players

You and one opponent, sitting opposite so both have the same run to the home lane. The default, and the clearest place to see what a safe square is worth.

Four players

A full board. Three opponents means far more chances to be sent home and far more to send home — judgement is worth about twice what it is worth heads-up.

Quick two-token

Two tokens each instead of four. A different game rather than a shorter one: with half the tokens you can rarely afford to leave one exposed, so every capture hurts twice as much.

Pass and play

Everybody at one device, taking turns. No computer players at all — the page says whose turn it is and waits.

Daily dice

Three players and the same sequence of rolls for everybody today. Ludo's usual complaint is the dice; on the Daily, everybody had the same ones.

The opponents

They weigh how far a move gains, what it costs to be caught on the square it lands on, what a capture would really be worth to the player it hits, and whether a token is better off in its lane than on the ring. The three levels differ in judgement, never in what they can see — Ludo has no hidden information at all, so there is nothing to hide.

Casual

Runs for home and takes a capture when one is under its nose. It does not look behind it, so its tokens spend a lot of time back in the yard.

Steady

Weighs what a square costs against what it gains, likes the safe squares and knows what a capture is really worth. A solid opponent that will punish a loose token.

Sharp

Prices every landing square by exactly how many dice faces would hit it, values a capture at what it costs its owner, and never wobbles. Luck still decides plenty — but not the parts that are decidable.

Against a reference player that moves a legal token at random, and with every game played from every chair on the same dice, the strongest level takes about 170% of its fair share of wins heads-up, 240% at three players and 290% at four. Two copies of the reference player come out level, which is how those numbers are known to mean anything.

Those are much smaller gaps than a card game would show, and deliberately reported as such: Ludo’s noise floor is around eight points even over four hundred games, so nothing below about fifteen is claimed anywhere in this route’s tests.

Privacy and local play

Your game, your settings and your record are stored on this device and nowhere else. There is no account, no sign-in and no gameplay request to any server. The reset button clears this game’s data and leaves every other Zerdly tool alone.

Questions

Is Ludo just luck?

Mostly, and this page will not pretend otherwise — the dice decide more here than in any other game on Zerdly. But choosing which token to move is a real decision about a dozen times a game, and the strongest computer player takes about 1.7 times its fair share of wins heads-up and 2.9 times at a full table against one that moves at random. That is a much smaller gap than a card game would show, and it is the honest number.

Where exactly is the skill?

In one piece of arithmetic: an opponent sitting d squares behind you takes you on a roll of d. So before you land somewhere, count the enemy tokens within six squares behind it — each distinct distance is one roll in six. Everything else follows: a safe square is worth several squares of progress, a token in the yard is doing nothing, and a capture is worth exactly as far as the token it sends back had travelled.

Can the computer change the dice?

No, and not as a promise — as a shape. The die is rolled by the rules engine and the number is written into the game before anything is offered to anybody. The computer player is then handed that position and asked which token to move; it returns a token. It has no generator, no roll action and no field in its reply through which a die could travel. Difficulty changes how it weighs a move and nothing else.

Can I reload to get a different roll?

No. The committed die is part of the saved game, so reloading gives you back the number you were holding. On the Daily the save also records how many rolls have been taken and the day's sequence is wound forward to exactly that point, so you cannot reload for a fresh run of dice either.

Why do I need a six to get started?

That is the classic rule, and it is why the first minute of a game can feel like nothing is happening — four rolls in five are dead while everything is in the yard. You can switch it off in the settings, and then any roll releases a token; the game becomes much faster and much flatter.

I rolled three sixes and lost my turn. Is that a bug?

No, it is the traditional rule and it is load-bearing. A six earns another roll, so without a cap a lucky turn would have no end at all. It applies even when the third six was going to be useful.

Two of my tokens were on one square and both went home. Why?

Because Zerdly does not use blockades. In some house rules a pair on one square bars the way entirely; here a stack is just two tokens in one place, and landing on it sends the whole stack back. Stacking is therefore something to do on a safe square, not in the open.

Why do two players sit opposite rather than side by side?

Because adjacent seats would give one player a twelve-square run to their home lane and the other forty — the same game with a large invisible handicap. Seated opposite, the chair is worth almost nothing: measured over 400 games on three different sequences of dice, the two seats came out 97.5/102.5, 98/102 and 101/99.

What is the Daily?

The same sequence of rolls for everybody, today. Ludo's usual complaint is that the dice decided it; on the Daily everybody had the same dice, so what differs is what each player did with them. It is three-handed and keeps a streak.

Is anything sent to a server?

No. The rules, the dice, the computer players, the sounds and your saved game all run in your browser. There is no account, and clearing this game's data leaves every other Zerdly tool untouched.

More Zerdly Interactive

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• Yacht Dice — The other dice game here, with an exact coach behind it.
• Six-Dice Risk — Push your luck, and find out exactly when to stop.
• Zerdly Memory Cards — Thirty-two symbols that work in greyscale, like this board.