Beleaguered Castle Solitaire Strategy Guide
Beleaguered Castle is a pure planning game. All 52 cards are face up, the four Aces already sit on the foundations, and the other 48 cards are dealt into eight columns of six. There is no stock and there are no free cells: you build down by rank (any suit), one card at a time, and an empty column is the only spare room you ever get. This guide covers the opening, how to avoid burying the cards you need, how to use empty columns and the mistakes that lose the most games.
Opening principles
You start with the four Aces on the foundations and 48 cards in eight columns of six. You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations, and you lose when no legal move is left.
- Locate the four 2s first. The Aces are free, so the 2s are the real start of each suit. Note how deep each one is buried.
- Count the cards above each low card. The 2 with the fewest cards on top is usually the first one to free, but check whether the cards above it have a place to go.
- Look at every bottom card. Eight bottom cards give you a handful of moves; find all of them before choosing.
Do not bury the low cards
Every card you place goes on top of everything below it. Low cards are the ones you need next, so burying them is the most common way to lose.
- Avoid building on a column that hides a 2, 3 or 4. A neat run of 7-6-5 on top of a 3 means you must move all three before the 3 can leave.
- Prefer to build on columns whose cards you will not need soon. High cards at the top of a column are a good base: Kings and Queens are the last cards each suit needs.
- Dig the column with the next foundation card first. If a 2 and a 3 of the same suit are in two columns, clear the 2 first.
Using empty columns
Beleaguered Castle has no free cells, so an empty column is your only spare room. It accepts any card.
- Empty a short column early. A column of one or two cards is the cheapest to clear, and it gives you a spare spot for a blocker.
- Park a card there only to free something better. Moving a single card to an empty column does nothing by itself; do it when the card underneath is a card you need.
- Keep the empty column empty if you can. Once you put a card in it, you lose the spare room, so only park a card that will leave again soon, such as one that can go to a foundation.
Building chains
Because suit does not matter, almost any card can go on the next higher card of any suit. That makes chains easy to build and easy to regret.
- Short chains are flexible. Only the bottom card can move, so a chain of five has to be taken apart one card at a time.
- Think about the next two moves. Before putting a card on a column, ask where the card above it and the card below it will go afterwards.
- Move cards to foundations as soon as it is safe. If every card one rank lower is already on the foundations, nothing can need that card as a base, so send it up.
Common mistakes
- Building on top of a needed 2. It looks tidy and costs many moves later.
- Filling the only empty column too early. Without it you have no spare room at all.
- Forgetting that suit does not matter in columns. A 6 of spades can go on a 7 of any suit; look for those moves.
- Expecting every deal to be winnable. Not every random deal can be won, so if you are stuck, use Undo or the Solver to see where the position went wrong.
- Moving only for the sake of moving. Each move should free a card you need or open a column.
How winnable are the deals?
In our screening, the solver found a full winning line within its search limit of 200,000 positions for about 46% of 8,000 random Beleaguered Castle deals (3,681 of them). That figure is a lower bound, because a solver with a limited search can miss lines. New games and the Daily Challenge only use deals the solver has proved winnable, so a winning line always exists. Winnable does not mean easy: the line can be long.
Practice and play
Play a few deals with one habit: before you place a card, say which card you will need next and whether this move buries it. Use Undo and the Solver in the menu to compare lines.