Fair point. I was just harking on the word perfect. To me a perfect strategy: -always leads to the best possible outcome -can deal with any randomness In that sense, there probably is no perfect strategy for Threes - but it somehow would be boring if there was one. What you call perfect strategy I would call best possible (or optimal) strategy under the given information. To give this more context: a game like chess has perfect knowledge. There are no secrets regarding the game state. Chess has so far not been solved but it is within the realm of possibility at which point the result of a perfectly played game would be known beforehand. Poker on the other hand is an incomplete-information game where statistically optimal choices can be found but no strategy exists to win every time. Threes is clearly an incomplete-information game. You would like to have a little more information and the devs decided otherwise. To be honest, I think it would work equally well in either case.
Finally got 768!!!! Almost wet my pants when the little dude appeared!! 20k+ well chuffed! That's the first game I played where I tried approaching with a strategy rather than just slide n hope lol!
And was it corner, center or freestyle strategy? In other news, I just beat the previous lowest score. It's a nice 27, can you get lower?
How the hell did you gent 27 lol! Have you got any of the other hidden achievements? Strategy was freestyle in regard to big numbers. I find trying to get them to the edge or keeping them in the middle futile. Focus on making sure you remove all 3's from the board. Actively plan your next 2-3moves ahead with the aim of making sure you don't get any stranded 3's that can't be matched. (This strategy up scales to higher numbers accordingly as you progress.)
First of all, I planned on getting a low score. Second of all, it took many attempts because the initial board configuration is random and you just need the right configuration and a little bit of luck with the card draw. It's a challenge nonetheless. Sadly, I did not get any of the hidden achievements. The one where you have to end a game with 8 3s on the board (which is the highest number possible) seems quite daunting to me. For those who don't know: Apart from the 12 achievements for unlocking the cards and the above mentioned "Threelock", there are 6 hidden achievements. I really wonder what they are for.
Just wanted to share my new Threes strategy guide. Using these strategies I can consistently get 10k+ scores, and often 20k+. High score so far is 27321. Hope it helps!: http://blog.braceyourselfgames.com/post/76156777645/threes-strategies I'll watch this forum thread from now on! Hope to contribute + learn
We know from the designer Asher Vollmer that the distribution of numbers on drawn white cards is biased towards 3s (and probably low numbers) and capped at your current highest number. To be honest, it does not help much but it is something.
Can Mr. Math (kamikaze28) try and uncover the "random" algorithms this game employs? I feel sure there must be some rhyme and reason to it. Btw, I just got 7k!
Useful tips dude. My best is 21k, I desperately wanna top 30k now! I did notice a lot of your blog was pleaing for an understanding of the algorithms of the game rather than giving tips tho lol! I too pray at night to be enlightened as to how the random chaos works in this game lol!
Haha, good point! I'm working on deciphering the algorithms Just scored a 28k! New personal best. Woo!
New tip: I find that as I improve my games take a lot longer than they used to. To mitigate this time sink, I now start every game by repeatedly swiping RIGHT and then DOWN. Do this enough times and you will usually end up with a 48 in the bottom right corner, and sometimes even a 96 or higher, before you start to get into "bad" situations that require alternate moves. And even then, sometimes all it takes is a few RIGHT, RIGHTs or DOWN, DOWNs and you're back on track. Doing this also seems to be a helpful exercise in terms of seeing how the numbers naturally "want" to stack. Give it a try!
I edited my guide (http://blog.braceyourselfgames.com/post/76156777645/threes-strategies) a bit. Added these two sections: I tried recording the colours of all incoming cards, and there does seem to be some function ensuring an even distribution. I did receive one string of 5 red cards in a row (followed by a white and then another red) so I suspect a grab bag with 3 of each colour, which means you could theoretically receive 6 of the same colour in a row (VERY rarely). During this exercise it became obvious that recording the colours like this made it possible for me to make educated guesses about the upcoming colours. If youre getting close to your personal best high score it may make sense to start recording the colours! I tried to track these non-3 white cards and while they do seem to increase in average value over the course of a game, they do not necessarily increase consistently. For example I received a 24, then later a 48, then another 48, then a 12, all during the same game.
I certainly could but to be honest, I won't. Understanding randomized algorithms purely by their output requires meticulous statistical work and playing Threes is just that much more fun to do. I suspected what Ryan Clark just posted. The card drawing algorithm is designed to prevent in imbalance between red and blue cards which would end games all the time otherwise. I would however refrain from recording the color of the cards you draw and rather look at your board. If there are 3 reds and 1 blue then I would say that getting a blue card is more likely than getting a red one.
That's a good point! Since red and blue cards must cancel each other in order to disappear, if there is an imbalance it will show up on your board. However, that won't work for white cards. To know if there's a high chance of a white card coming up, you'd have to count.
