The 8 Levels: From Initiation to High Strategy
This guide helps you choose a bot not just based on its strength, but on the specific skill you want to master: defense, tactical vigilance, board control, endgame play, tempo management, or controlling large seed accumulations.
Phase 1: Learning the Mechanics
1
Novice Sower
The simplest level. It doesn't truly calculate: it mainly chooses from available legal moves.
- Behavior: Its engine is nearly random. It only respects the basic filter that avoids starving the opponent when another option exists, but it doesn't evaluate traps or future responses.
- Why Play This Level: Perfect for learning the flow of sowing, captures, and the feeding rule without tactical pressure.
- What to Watch for in Replays: Look for moves that leave you an immediate capture: this level doesn't try to avoid them or plan several turns ahead.
2
Seed Guardian
It doesn't look far ahead, but it compares moves rather than playing randomly.
- Behavior: It evaluates every move on a single horizon: immediate captures on one side, risks left to the opponent on the other. It often chooses an instantly profitable move without deep reading.
- Why Play This Level: Very useful for learning to spot obvious captures, avoiding basic blunders, and understanding local risk.
- What to Watch for in Replays: When it makes a mistake, it's often because a seemingly good move hides a poor outcome on the next turn: it sees the immediate gain, but still reads the follow-up poorly.
Phase 2: Tactical Awakening
3
Ancestral Spirit
The first real search level. It begins to build sequences, not just isolated moves.
- Behavior: It looks several moves ahead for a short time. It strongly values captures, mobility, camp control, and vulnerable 2 or 3-seed holes.
- Why Play This Level: Ideal for building tactical vigilance: it punishes fragile holes, reduces your options, and quickly exploits a poorly held camp.
- What to Watch for in Replays: In your replays, watch for moments where your mobility drops. This level targets positions where you have few clean responses left.
4
Furrow Traveler
A more cautious tactician than its name suggests: it hunts for traps and then double-checks its own safety.
- Behavior: Under the hood, this level looks further ahead, spots tactical patterns more reliably, adapts a little to your style, and checks more carefully that an attractive move does not give away a huge capture in return.
- Why Play This Level: Excellent for working on consistency: it forces you to play clean, as it spots trap-moves and refuses most gross tactical errors.
- What to Watch for in Replays: Observe moves it refuses to play even though they look tempting. Often, it declines because a powerful counter-capture exists immediately after.
Phase 3: Professional Rigor
5
Immutable Sage ZAK
A structural reader. It calculates like Ancestral Spirit but with a tactical grid focused on 'marches' and guaranteed capture positions.
- Behavior: It reads variations more rigorously and gives extra weight to 'marches': empty holes favorable for attack on one side, opponent holes with 2 or 3 seeds on the other. It recognizes positions where a capture is prepared by the board's geometry.
- Why Play This Level: A great level for learning tactical discipline and move preparation. It rewards structured positions over simple immediate takes.
- What to Watch for in Replays: When ZAK dominates, look less at the final capture and more at the setup: often the real advantage comes from a favorable 'march' established one or two turns earlier.
6
Immutable Sage SIR
A transition level to high-level play: more methodical, more protective, and much stronger in the endgame than previous levels.
- Behavior: Its evaluation includes protection for vulnerable holes, seeds protected behind a rampart, accumulation bonuses on end-holes, and a significantly more aggressive endgame mode. It excels at converting small advantages when seeds become scarce.
- Why Play This Level: Perfect for practicing endgames, camp security, and managing functional rather than decorative accumulations.
- What to Watch for in Replays: In replays, monitor how it cleans up its fragile holes and prepares its reserves at the edge of the camp before accelerating in the endgame.
Phase 4: High Strategy
7
Probabilistic Strategist
A different style entirely: this level explores many candidate plans, compares their likely outcomes, and adjusts based on what it observes.
- Behavior: It explores many possible continuations, remembers useful positions more effectively, and explicitly manages kroos, large opponent reserves, blocking, and long-term threats.
- Why Play This Level: Play this to develop global vision. It better weighs heavy accumulations, waiting positions, and lines where the advantage shifts several moves later.
- What to Watch for in Replays: Look for positions where it accepts a less spectacular move now to set up a stronger capture or block later: that is one of its signature habits.
8
Oware Master
The sharpest level on the site. Less scattered than level 7, but more precise, more severe, and more surgical in critical phases.
- Behavior: It combines very deep reading with strict selection of the most useful continuations. It closely tracks tempo, marches, blocking, dangerous runs, and how to convert an advantage into real points.
- Why Play This Level: The ultimate challenge if you want to face an AI that calculates fast, chooses its priorities extremely well, and converts favorable positions cleanly.
- What to Watch for in Replays: Its most instructive moves are often the simplest: a small structural or tempo adjustment that suddenly strips the opponent of several good responses.