Theater Five

Puzzle collection index

Player One (West) to play

Show a hint

Player One will win in two turns. Player One is pretty obviously ahead, but winning in just two turns is a little tricky.

Show solution

Capturing both of Alpha's reds seems like the obvious choice, but that's a mistake since Alpha can then regain control of their home with a red catastrophe. Instead, One must capture Alpha's r2 and one of the g1 ships. Then, Alpha must cause a red catastrophe to prevent One winning by capture:

Player One
Player Alpha
1.
sacrifice r2 Homeworld_One
attack r2 Homeworld_Alpha
attack g1 Homeworld_Alpha
1...
build r2 Homeworld_Alpha
catastrophe Homeworld_Alpha r

But One still wins with a green catastrophe of their own:

2.
sacrifice g2 Ursa_Major
build g2 Homeworld_Alpha
build g2 Homeworld_Alpha
catastrophe Homeworld_Alpha g
1-0

This position arose in Homeworlds Theater Episode Five after Andy and John have taken over for the original players. Andy (having taken over for Player One) won slightly slower than possible in three moves, starting with the color change

1.
trade r3 b3 Homeworld_Alpha

In a conversation on the Discord server, "VIVIT" suggested analyzing the puzzle position, and "thelast19digitsofpi" found the correct solution.