Barricade strategy: how to win
Barricade looks like a race, but most games are decided by when you stop running and start building. These eight ideas will win you more games against friends, strangers and the computer.
Practise against the computerRead the rules
1. Count the race every turn
Every decision starts with two numbers: how many steps your pawn needs to reach its goal, and how many your opponent needs. If you need fewer, or the same number and it’s your move, you’re winning the race, and walking forward is usually right. Walls are for when you’re behind. Turn on Show shortest paths in Settings to see both routes, and while you aim a wall, the wall preview numbers show how many steps it costs each side.
2. Make every wall cost at least two steps
A wall uses up your turn. If it only adds one step to your opponent’s route, you’ve traded your step for theirs, gained nothing in the race and spent one of your ten walls. Good walls add two steps or more, usually by cutting across the shortest route at a point where there’s no quick way round.
3. Don’t wall too early
At the start, your opponent has the whole board to walk around a wall, so an early wall rarely costs them much and they have plenty of time to answer it. Walls get stronger as a pawn gets closer to its goal and has fewer ways round. Spend the opening walking forward and keep your walls for the second half.
4. Keep walls in reserve
Walls you haven’t placed are a threat. While you still have some, your opponent can’t simply walk the shortest route; once you’ve run out, they can race and build against you freely. Running out first is a common way to lose a race you were winning, so try to keep at least as many walls as your opponent.
5. Build long detours, not single blocks
One wall on its own is easy to step around. Two or three in a line, ending at the edge of the board or at another wall, make a fence your opponent has to walk the whole length of. You can never close it completely, since every pawn must keep a path to its goal, so leave the opening at the far end, where the way round is longest.
6. Guard your own path
Walls block everyone, including you, so check that a wall doesn’t lengthen your own route before you place it. Then look at your path the way your opponent does. If one wall of theirs could add several steps to it, a wall of yours in that spot shuts the door first: walls can’t cross or overlap, so a place you’ve taken is a place they can’t use.
7. Win the face-off
When two pawns meet face to face, the player to move can jump over the other and gain a step. As you close in on each other, count ahead so the jump falls to you, and avoid stopping right in front of your opponent when it’s their turn. If a wall or the edge of the board is behind the other pawn, the jump goes diagonally instead.
8. Practise endgames
Close games are decided in the last few moves, where exact counting beats instinct. The daily puzzle and Puzzle Rush are positions like this: find the moves that win, whatever the other side does. Endgame drills start you in a won position against the hard computer, and turning them into wins is one of the fastest ways to improve. Against the computer, Coach mode warns you before a move that gives away your lead.
Do these tips work in Quoridor?
Yes. Barricade plays by the same core rules as Quoridor: a 9×9 board, ten walls each, jumps over pawns in your way and no sealing anyone in. Every idea here applies there too.
Quoridor is a trademark of Gigamic. Barricade is an independent game, not made or endorsed by Gigamic.