Colonel Blotto

How to Play

1. You receive a fixed troop budget for each round.
2. Distribute the entire budget across the three battlefields before revealing your choice.
3. The computer independently chooses its own allocation at the same time.
4. Each battlefield is won by the player who assigns more troops there; equal assignments split that battlefield.
5. The round winner is determined by battlefield points. Repeated rounds let you adapt to patterns in the opponent's allocations.

Why Predictability Is Dangerous

There is no single allocation that is best against every opponent. If you always concentrate troops in the same way, an observant rival can sacrifice one battlefield and win the other two efficiently. This is why randomization and opponent modeling are central to Blotto.

Computer Strategies

• Random creates unpredictable allocations.
• Greedy tends to concentrate resources where it expects immediate value.
• Predictive uses your previous allocations to guess where you will commit next.
• Adaptive mixes several behaviors and reacts to your emerging pattern.

Game-Theory Connection

Colonel Blotto is a simultaneous resource-allocation game and a classic example of strategic randomization. It demonstrates mixed strategies, best responses, budget constraints, opponent exploitation and the tension between concentrating resources and spreading them across multiple contests.