Coordinate-checked board
Fortress at a glance
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Stack
- 3 layers
- Opening access
- 36 of 132 tiles free
Opening priority
Inspect the four isolated tower tiles for a match. If they do not pair, compare the 12 free tiles on the raised left and right wall faces with the 20 outer base row ends, favoring available pairs that remove upper cover.
The matching and free-tile rules are shared across layouts. See How to Play for the general rules.
Read the wall before the floor
The bottom layer is a solid 10×10 square of 100 tiles. An inset 28-tile ring sits above it, and one tower tile covers each ring corner. That produces three separate opening groups: 20 free outer base ends, 12 free wall tiles on the left and right faces, and 4 free towers.
The top and bottom stretches of the wall are not open corridors at the start. Their corners are covered by towers, while tiles between those corners remain blocked from both sides. Access improves as cover comes off the corners and the vertical faces shorten.
Wall-reading errors to avoid
- Assuming the towers must pair simply because all four are free.
- Spending only outer base pairs while every raised blocker remains in place.
- Treating the covered wall corners or side-blocked top and bottom runs as selectable.