How to play Admiral Down: sea battle rules and strategy

Admiral Down is Stockboi’s take on the classic paper-and-pencil sea battle: hide your fleet, then hunt your opponent’s ships one shot at a time. It is the same game people play on squared paper, except nobody can fudge a hit. Here is our exact fleet, the rules that matter, and the shooting strategy that wastes the fewest shots.

Play Admiral Down

What is Admiral Down?

Each player has a hidden sea of 8x8 squares, 64 in all. First, both sides secretly place their fleet; you never see the other player’s ships.

Then you take turns firing at your opponent’s sea. Sink the whole enemy fleet first and you win. There are no draws: shots alternate, so someone always finishes first.

How many ships are in the fleet?

On Stockboi, each fleet has five ships covering 14 squares:

Flagship: 4 squares
Cruiser: 3 squares
Submarine: 3 squares
Gunboat: 2 squares
Dinghy: 2 squares

Admiral Down rules

Paper versions usually use a 10x10 grid and a bigger fleet, and some house rules give an extra shot after a hit or let ships touch. On Stockboi the sea is 8x8 to fit a phone, a hit never earns a bonus shot, and ships never touch at all.

Ships are straight, either horizontal or vertical. No diagonal ships.
Ships cannot overlap or touch each other, not even corner to corner, so every ship has at least one square of open water around it. Placing ships against the edge of the sea is fine.
You take turns firing one shot each. Hit or miss, the turn passes to your opponent.
You cannot fire at the same square twice.
A ship sinks when all of its squares are hit, and the game announces which ship went down. Its position is then revealed.
Because ships cannot touch, the water around a sunken ship is marked empty automatically. No need to shoot there.
You can always see which of your opponent’s ships are still afloat.

A turn, step by step

Place your fleet: drag a ship to move it, tap it to rotate. Shuffle places everything at random, always within the rules.
When the battle starts, tap a square in your opponent’s sea.
Read the result: miss, hit or sunk. A sinking names the ship and marks the water around it as empty.
Your opponent fires back at your sea; your small board shows where you were hit.
Keep going until one fleet is completely sunk.

How to place your ships

Spread out: a tight cluster means one hit gives away your whole fleet.
Mix directions: if every ship is horizontal, your opponent will guess the line right after the first hit.
Use the edges wisely: a ship on the edge has less open water around it, so sinking it reveals fewer free squares. But putting every ship on the edge is easy to read.
Hide the small ones: the 2-square ships are the hardest to find, and hunting them costs your opponent the most shots.
Change it up every game: against the same opponent, habits are your biggest weakness.

Shooting strategy: how to find ships fast

Checkerboard pattern: the smallest ship is 2 squares, so every ship covers one light and one dark square. Fire only at one color and you are guaranteed to hit every ship within 32 shots instead of 64.
Thin it out later: once both 2-square ships are sunk, the shortest ship left is 3 squares. Firing at every third square is enough, cutting your search to about a third of the sea.
Diagonals of a hit are empty: ships are straight and never touch, so the four diagonal neighbors of any hit cannot hold a ship. Never shoot there.
After a hit, probe the four directions: up, down, left, right. The second hit tells you the ship’s direction.
Once you know the line, shoot the ends. The sides are already guaranteed empty.
Skip small gaps: if a gap between misses and sunken-ship borders is shorter than the smallest ship left, nothing can be there.
Check the fleet list: if only the 4-square flagship is left, every area too short to fit 4 squares is empty.

Common beginner mistakes

Getting a hit, then firing somewhere else and forgetting the damaged ship.
Shooting at the diagonals of a hit, where the rules say no ship can be.
Wasting shots around a sunken ship; that water is already known to be empty.
Clearing one corner of the sea before moving on, instead of using a pattern.
Lining up all your ships side by side in the same direction.

A short history of the sea battle game

Ship-hunting has been a pencil-and-paper game for a long time: draw two grids, call squares out by letter and number, and the other player answers hit or miss. It was later turned into board games and became one of the early ideas adapted for computers.

In Turkey it is known as amiral battı, literally the admiral is down, and for many people it is one of the first strategy games they ever played. On paper the hard part is keeping score and trusting the other player; on Stockboi the game does that for you.

Playing Admiral Down on Stockboi

Play in your browser, no sign-up or download. Solo, you face the computer on Easy, Medium or Hard. Easy fires at random, Medium hunts around a hit once it finds one, and Hard fires at the most likely square. The computer never sees your ships.

Online, create a room and send the link to a friend, or get matched with a random opponent. You both place fleets at the same time with a 3-minute limit, then get 60 seconds per shot. In a rematch, fleets are placed again and the first shot switches sides.

Frequently asked questions

How many ships are in Admiral Down?

Five: a 4-square flagship, a 3-square cruiser and submarine, and a 2-square gunboat and dinghy. That is 14 squares in total.

What size is the board?

The sea is 8x8, or 64 squares. Paper versions often use 10x10; we kept it smaller so it is easy to tap on a phone.

Can ships touch each other?

No. Ships cannot touch, not even diagonally at the corners. Every ship has at least one square of empty water around it.

Do you get another shot after a hit?

Not on Stockboi; hit or miss, the turn passes to your opponent. Some paper house rules give an extra shot after a hit.

What is the best strategy for a sea battle game?

Fire in a checkerboard pattern to find ships quickly, then probe the four squares around a hit. Never shoot at the diagonals of a hit, since no ship can be there.

How do you play the sea battle game on paper?

Each player draws two grids on squared paper: one for their own ships and one to track shots. You call out a square by letter and number, and the other player says hit or miss.

Can the game end in a draw?

No. Shots alternate, so both fleets can never sink at the same time. Whoever sinks the whole enemy fleet first wins.