• Control the centre of the board.

  • Avoid trading higher-valued pieces for lesser ones unless you have a definite plan in mind.

  • Plan for a few lesser ranked players to stay alive in favourable position for the end game. This way these pieces have a chance of promoting to higher ranked ones if they reach the enemy base.

  • Try to trade away the enemy leaders. Keep multiple leaders yourself. If your opponent has a single leader and you have two leaders, you are at an advantage.

  • Avoid allowing enemy magicians to demote your khan. If your khan has lesser mobility after being demoted, then your opponent can trap him more easily and win the game.
    • Recall is demoted to=> which can be demoted to==>

Example winning scenarios:


#1 White moves his archer from D8 to C8, thus attacking the black khan. After a long, drawn out game, black has lost in material, and is cornered at his home base. Black has nowhere to go, without being captured by enemy pieces, so must admit defeat:



#2 In a similar scenario, white has managed to get an assassin to the enemy home base (one of squares a7,a8,b7,b8 for white). The assassin (B5->B7) has been promoted to a warrior, the next in rank. The black khan is under direct threat by the warrior and cannot move. Black loses:





Avoid forced draw scenarios:


#3 White's khan which has been demoted by the black magician to a KHAN ARCHER, is now not able to move anywhere. Black moved F4 to G3. It is white's move, so the game is declared a stalemate. Black could have avoided this scenario by threatening the khan archer with his warrior, thus winning the game.



There is another draw scenario notable to avoid: 100 moves passing with no captures. A draw is automatically declared.