Dice Wars — Play Free Online

Dice Wars is a turn-based territory game, and it has very little in common with the shooters and action titles its category label suggests. The board is a map split into regions, each one held by a player and topped with a stack of dice. You win by conquering every region, and the only weapon you have is a handful of dice and the order in which you choose your fights.

A game is a series of short, tense decisions rather than reflex tests. You pick one of your regions, pick a neighbouring enemy region, and both sides roll their dice. The higher total takes the fight. That makes it a different kind of break from the jumping and platforming that dominates Doodle Jump's catalogue: nothing here punishes a slow hand, and a full match fits comfortably into a few minutes of thinking.

It rewards the same instinct that keeps people coming back to a high-score climber, which is the urge to run one more round and play it better.

How to play

The page lists arrow keys or WASD, but the game itself is driven by the mouse: you select and attack by clicking. On a phone, tapping does the same job. Click one of your own regions that holds more than one die, then click an adjacent region you want to attack. Each side rolls every die it has there, and the larger total wins.

A region needs at least two dice to attack, because one die always stays behind. When you have no good attacks left, end your turn. You then receive reinforcement dice, which are placed on your regions, and the other players take their turns in order.

Tips

• Attack when your stack is clearly larger than the target's. A stack of eight against a stack of two is a strong bet, while an even fight is close to a coin flip.
• Think about how your territories connect. Reinforcements are tied to how well your land holds together, so a tidy, joined-up block is worth more than scattered regions.
• Do not leave a thin region next to a large enemy stack at the end of your turn. It will be the first thing attacked.
• Early on, take weak neighbours to grow steadily instead of gambling on the biggest enemy stack.

Similar games on Doodle Jump

If you want something with a different pace, Bloons Tower Defense 2 is the closest match here for planning ahead, since you place defences and wait for the outcome. Fireboy and Watergirl asks for careful thinking too, but as a platform puzzle you can pair up on. Helix Jump and Doodle Jump itself are the reflex-driven end of the catalogue.

Dice Wars suits players who like to think in short bursts, on a keyboard-and-mouse desktop or a touchscreen. It runs in the browser with nothing to install.