Checkers strategy for Ink Clans
Under the fights, Ink Clans is ordinary checkers, so the classic advice holds. This page concentrates on what is particular to this game: the strict and free capture setting, the way each rule set crowns, and how the three computer levels actually choose their moves.
How the computer chooses
The three computer levels think very differently. Settings describes them as "Easy plays loosely" and "Hard looks several moves ahead". Here is what that means in practice.
Easy
Easy picks a random legal move, except that when a capture is available it takes one about 70% of the time. With strict captures that changes nothing, because whenever a capture exists every legal move is a capture. With free captures it means Easy can walk past a free piece, up to about three times in ten, and it never plans ahead. It is the right level for learning a new rule set.
Normal
Normal looks exactly one move deep. It scores each candidate move: a capture is worth a lot, reaching the far row a fair amount, and a move is marked down if the fighter it just moved can be jumped straight back. It also prefers not to move men off its own back row, and a little randomness keeps it from repeating itself.
What Normal does not check is everything else. It will make a move that leaves a different fighter hanging, and after a capture it only checks whether the fighter it moved can be jumped straight back, a risk the capture itself outweighs. The classic two-for-one works well against it: offer a man where taking it pulls the capturing fighter onto a square from which you jump two. With strict captures it has no choice but to take; with free captures it almost always takes anyway.
Hard
Hard searches ahead: five half-moves on an 8×8 board with strict captures, four with free captures, and three on the 10×10 International board, with any chain counted as part of the move it belongs to. It values men by number and by how far they have advanced, gives a small bonus to men still on their own back row and to fighters on the side edges, and rates a king at roughly 1.7 men under American rules and 2.6 men where kings fly.
One-move bait will not fool it. What does work is the horizon: Hard cannot see a combination that pays off beyond its search depth, and on the 10×10 board that depth is short. Slow plans, such as building a solid group of men in the centre or walking a man toward the far row behind a screen, are your best tools against it.
Strict captures are a weapon
With strict captures, the default, your opponent must jump whenever a jump exists. That lets you choose the capture for them. If you can see where their capturing fighter will land, and that square lets you jump back over two of theirs, giving up one man wins material. In pass and play, Capture hints help you check your own moves: on your friend's turn, red rings mark the fighters of theirs that are allowed to capture. With strict captures in Brazilian and International that means only the fighters with the longest capture, so a shorter jump you left open gets no ring.
Free captures: when not to jump
With free captures nothing forces either side to take, so the sacrifice above stops working against a careful opponent. Use the End turn button instead: if the next jump of a chain would leave your fighter where it can be recaptured, stop one jump early. Free captures also let your opponent ignore your bait, so tempting the computer with a man is only reliable on Normal.
Keep your back row
Every rule set crowns on the far row, so the men on your own back row are what stand between your opponent and a king. Moving them early opens doors. Hard rewards itself for keeping its back row and Normal avoids moving its back-row men, which is a hint about how much they matter. Leave yours until the middle of the board has cleared.
Plan the crowning around the rule set
In American, a capture that reaches the far row ends the move, so a chain that would run through the far row stops there. American has no maximum-capture rule, so even with strict captures you may pick any available capture and weigh the crowning jump against a longer chain elsewhere. In Russian, the far row is the best square for a chain to pass through, because the new king continues with a flying reach. In Brazilian, International and Pool, a man that can keep capturing has to leave the far row uncrowned. In Brazilian and International with strict captures the longest capture is compulsory, so you cannot choose to stop on the far row; in Pool, or with free captures, a chain that ends there can be worth more than a longer one that runs through it. The rules guide walks through an example of each.
Kings and the maximum-capture rule
Where kings fly, a single king controls whole diagonals and captures from across the board, which is why Hard counts one as worth more than two and a half men. Choose the landing square after a king capture with care: the squares beyond the captured piece are not equal, and the right one often sets up the next jump or keeps the king out of reach.
In Brazilian and International with strict captures, the maximum-capture rule can make your opponent's move completely predictable: if one capture takes more pieces than any other, it is the only legal move. That makes it possible to sacrifice so that the forced longest capture lands their fighter exactly where you want it.
When the fights get in the way
Fights never change the result, but a long International game with full fights takes a while. Fight length Short or Off keeps the tactics moving, Speed up plays the current fight four times faster, and Stay in the action skips the zoom out when the computer strikes back right after your capture.