Atlantis is an abstract strategic board game for 2 to 6 players (best played with 2, 3 or 6 players). Each game takes around 1 to 3 hours to play, depending on the number of players and the size of the board.
Atlantis was invented by Martin Medema in 1980 (?), while he was a student at the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands. The game was played often at the university games club Fanaat, and from there spread across campus. It was never produced commercially, so enthusiastic players would craft the necessary game materials themselves. The online version aims to make it easier for people to get to know the game.
Atlantis is played using:
Traditional stones are flat (like draughts pieces, but smaller) so that they can be stacked. Each field should be able to support a stack of up to six stones of a single color.
In the online version, stones are drawn side-by-side instead of on top of each other, and white and black stones are not used. Instead, live, growing and dead fields are drawn with a yellow, green or blue background respectively.
The figure below shows a game in progress, with three players: red, green and blue. For illustration, some of the fields are marked with letters:
Atlantis is played on a board made by connecting several board segments. Many different shapes are possible, and different shapes call for different strategies. There are no definite rules or restrictions on which boards may be constructed, but for reasons of fairness, symmetrical shapes are usually preferred.
For beginners, some suitable starting shapes are:
Each player starts with some stones on the board; typically seven stones covering a single segment near a corner of the board. Starting on a segment on the side of the board is possible too, which causes a slower start of the game. Starting near the middle is not recommended because of the difficulty of creating initial growing fields.
Beginners may be tempted to play on small boards initially, fearing that games played on large boards take too long or become too complex. However, play time does not grow linearly with the size of the board, and large boards do have some advantages: they give players more room to recover from mistakes, and make it easier to fence off territory. Therefore, beginners should not be afraid to play on larger boards.
Each player controls the stones of a single color. Players take turns in a fixed order, usually corresponding with the placement of their stones on the board (e.g., in clockwise order).
Each field may contain stones belonging to a single player only. Additionally, each field is either alive, growing, or dead. Initially, all fields are alive. Fields can explode, the details of which are discussed later. When a live field explodes, it becomes a growing field. When a growing field explodes, it becomes a dead field. Dead fields cannot contain any stones, and are equivalent to nonexistent fields beyond the edges of the initial game board.
A player’s turn consists of three phases:
A player only makes decisions during the movement phase; the other two phases are deterministically executed according to the rules described below.
During the movement phase, a player can make any number of moves (including none at all). A move consists of taking some stones from a field and moving them to a different field, according to the following rules:
Below is an example. Starting from the stack of 3 red stones, the red player can choose to move:
Note that the red player does not have to move from the stack of 3 red stones; it's possible to move from a different field as well. However, it's not possible for red to make more than one move this turn, since all red stones are on the same board segment (rule 5).
Here are a few other things that are forbidden by the rules:
Finally, an example of rule 4 (stones are eliminated one-to-one). Suppose red decides to move to c. During the move, red's three stones cross two of blue's stones. Red and blue lose two stones each, and red ends up with a single stone at the destination field.
If blue had had more stones, as in the example below, then red's stones would be eliminated completely and the destination field would remain occupied by blue. This is still a valid move for red.
Recall that the number of stones moved must equal the distance to the destination field. This is true regardless of how many stones actually reach the destination. In the example below, the red player can eliminate only one of blue's stones, because moving two red stones would imply that the destination field lies beyond the edge of the board.
It's possible to make multiple moves that end on the same field (as long as they start from different segments, see rule 5). In fact, this is often a good way to combine stones into large stacks.
The order in which moves are executed matters only when they cross fields occupied by an opponent. In the example below (left), red can choose to move from a to b and then from c to d, to end with a single stone on d (middle). Alternatively, red can execute the moves in the reverse order to end up with a stone on b instead (right).
After the player has executed his moves, he enters the explosion phase. To explain how explosions work, it is helpful to introduce some additional terminology.
The capacity of a field is the number of adjacent live fields. If the number of stones on a field is strictly less than its capacity, the field is called stable. Otherwise, it is volatile. During the explosion phase, all volatile fields occupied by the current player explode. This includes live fields and growing fields alike.
When a field explodes, all stones are removed from it and redistributed onto the live fields surrounding it. Each neighbor receives exactly one stone; any excess stones are discarded (when this happens, the exploding field is said to be over capacity). If the exploded field was a live field before, it now becomes a growing field for the current player. If the exploded field was already a growing field, it becomes a dead field instead.
Note that only live fields are counted and included in the redistribution of stones; specifically, growing fields do not count as live neighbors and do not receive stones during the explosion phase.
Explosions continue until all fields occupied by the current player are stable. The order in which explosions are resolved does not matter.
Let's look at an example.
As can be seen in the above example, exploding fields often cause neighboring fields to become volatile too, triggering a chain reaction of explosions that can wipe out a large chunk of the board in a single turn.
If a stone is distributed onto a field occupied by an opponent, stones are eliminated on a one-to-one basis, as in the movement phase. The figures below shown an example of this.
Note that the red stone that was distributed onto field c has eliminated a blue stone. And although exploding field a has made field b volatile, it does not explode while it's the red player's turn. It will explode in the explosion phase of the blue player's turn instead.
After all volatile fields have exploded and all remaining fields are stable, the player moves on to the growth phase. In the growth phase, each growing field belonging to the current player gains one additional stone.
After the growth phase, the player's turn ends, and the next player moves.
The goal of the game is for players to capture as much territory as possible.
A closed region is a maximal connected set of live fields. A region is called settled if it contains stones belonging to at most one player, and it is not adjacent to any growing fields.
The game ends when all regions are settled. Then, each player's score equals the total number of fields in the areas they occupy. The player with the highest score wins. Ties are possible.
The best way to master the game is by playing it. However, below are a few tips to get you started.
Because of the six-fold rotational symmetry of the board, Atlantis is best played with 2, 3 or 6 players. Games with 4 players are possible, but because game boards lack reflection symmetry, two of the players will be at a disadvantage.
Games with an unusual number of players can be balanced out by adding dummy players that follow some predetermined rules. For example, instead of starting with seven stones spread across a single segment, a dummy player could start with a stack of six stones in the middle of the segment. During his turn, the dummy player will not move any stones, but his fields will explode and grow as usual. Obviously the dummy player is unlikely to win the game with this strategy, but the uncontrolled explosion will create a challenge for the human players nearby.
Written by Maks Verver
Last updated: March 21, 2025.