About Iron Tide
Iron Tide is a free battleship game that runs in your browser. It has a 20-mission campaign against the computer, a weekly arena tournament, and private rooms for playing a friend. There is nothing to download, and you can play without an account.
What we built
- Classic rules on a 10×10 grid with the standard five ships, for anyone who wants the game they remember.
- Tactical rules that add one ability per ship class, for players who want more to think about.
- A story campaign with narrated scenes, where the board, fleets and conditions change from mission to mission.
- Online play against friends by link, or in the arena’s weekly tournament with a Hall of Fame for each week’s winner.
How the computer opponents work
There are three levels. The Ensign fires mostly at random until it gets a hit. The Captain hunts methodically and finishes ships it has found. The Admiral works out, for every open square, how many ways the remaining ships could fit across it, and fires where a ship is most likely to be. None of them can see your ships.
Fair play online
Online matches are run by our server, not by either player’s browser. Your device is never sent the positions of enemy ships that have not been sunk, so there is nothing hidden in the page to peek at.
How we research the guides
The strategy figures on this site come from our own simulations, run on the same rules engine as the game; the strategy guide says how many games each number is based on. Rules pages describe the standard published rules and say so where a common house rule differs. Pages show the date they were last reviewed.
Trademarks
Battleship is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. Iron Tide is an independent game and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Hasbro. We use the word “battleship” to describe the traditional naval guessing game.