Ludo guide
Ludo rules for two players, and when to capture or stay safe
Ludo is a race with a mean streak. Each side has four pawns and one loop of track, and the pawns share it, so anyone can be sent back to the start. Here are the rules as we play them with two players, then how to decide between a capture and a safe square.
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The board and the yard
Two players sit in opposite corners of the cross-shaped board. Each has four pawns, and all eight begin in the yard, the box in your corner. The loop the pawns run on is shared and has 52 squares. Your start square is half a lap, 26 squares, from your rival's.
A pawn can leave the yard only on a 6, and it goes onto your start square. Until you roll one you can't move at all, and the turn passes after each other number.
Moving and getting home
Tap anywhere on the board to roll the die, then move one pawn that many squares. If more than one can move, the glowing pawns are your choices. All pawns go the same way round.
From its start square a pawn takes 56 steps to get home: 50 along the shared track, then 5 up its own coloured lane and one more onto home. The lane belongs to you alone, so nothing can be captured there. The last roll has to match what's left. A pawn two steps from home needs a 2 or a 1 and then a 1, and a 3 can't move it.
You win when all four pawns are home. A game takes about 10 minutes against the computer.
Captures and safe squares
If you end a move on a square where a rival pawn stands, that pawn goes back to its yard and has to wait for a 6 again. If two or more rival pawns stand there, all of them go. Your own pawns never block you, and you can't capture yourself.
Eight squares are safe: the four start squares and the four stars. Nothing is captured on them, and two pawns of different colours can sit side by side. Counting your own start square as 0, the safe squares on your way round are steps 0, 8, 13, 21, 26, 34, 39 and 47. Step 26 is your rival's start square.
When you roll again
A 6, a capture or a pawn reaching home gives you another roll.
Three 6s in a row end your turn on the third one, with no move. The first two moves stay. A capture or a pawn getting home starts the count again, so a 6 after one of those is your first.
If no pawn can move, the turn passes, except after a 6, which still gives you another roll.
When to capture and when to stay safe
The computer's order shows what usually works. It looks for a capture first, then a pawn that reaches home, then a pawn that lands on a star or a lane to get out of danger, then a 6 to bring a pawn out, then a pawn to run from a rival. Otherwise it moves the pawn furthest along. Hard follows that order every turn, Medium 7 turns in 10 and Easy 1 in 5. Hard beats Easy 88% of the time.
- Capture whenever you can. It costs your rival every step that pawn had made, they need a 6 to bring it back, and you roll again. The computer values a capture at 1000, and being in reach of a rival only costs it 150.
- You are in danger when a rival pawn is 1 to 6 squares behind you on a plain square, because one roll can hit you. Move that pawn, or put it on a star.
- Don't end a move just in front of a rival pawn if another move is as good. A pawn on a star can wait there for as long as you like.
- A pawn on your start square is safe, so a pawn waiting there costs you nothing while your rival's pawns are close.
- Push your lead pawn into its lane. Past step 50 it can't be hit, so a pawn that's nearly there is worth getting to safety first.
- A pawn in the yard is only a roll away, but it takes a 6 to get out. Bringing one out is worth a lot early on, when you have no pawns on the track, and much less later.
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