Guide
Meet the Hex Path bots: how each AI opponent thinks
Hex Path has six computer opponents with different priorities. Learn how each bot picks its move, what it ignores, and how to beat it.
You can fill any empty seat in Hex Path with a computer player. The bots aren't one AI with different names. Each one weighs the same information differently, so it plays a recognizable style. Once you know what a bot cares about, you can predict it and punish it.
How every bot decides
All six bots share the same basic method:
- List every legal move. That's every tile in hand (two, normally) in every rotation, up to twelve options.
- Simulate each one. For each option, the bot works out exactly where its path would go, which players would be eliminated, and what its score would be afterward.
- Throw out suicide. If at least one option keeps the bot alive, it never picks a move that eliminates itself.
- Score the rest. It ranks the surviving options using its personality's weights: eliminations, path length, points, and, for some bots, distance from rivals.
- Play the best one. Ties go to the first tile and the lowest rotation, so a bot is fully predictable for a given board and hand.
There are two things no bot does, and both are your openings:
- No bot looks ahead. It judges only the board right after its own placement. It doesn't consider what you or anyone else can do next turn.
- No bot plans for shared hexes. It won't avoid ending its path pointing into the same empty hex as yours, which hands you control of its next move.
The six personalities
Deep Echo: the balanced planner
Deep Echo puts survival first, then path length, then points. It does like eliminations, but only as a tiebreaker. It's the closest thing to a sensible beginner: it takes long safe runs and rarely does anything surprising.
How to beat it: Deep Echo values length over loops, so it tends to wander instead of building the doubling revisits that score big. Outscore it by looping through your own territory and let it spread out.
Steel Sentinel: the hunter
Steel Sentinel ranks eliminations above everything except staying alive. Given any safe move that takes out an opponent, it takes it, even if a different move would score many more points.
How to beat it: Its aggression is predictable. If a shared hex lets it push you off the board, assume it will. Keep your glowing hex away from its path, and use its greed against it: a hunter chasing one player often leaves its own flank open to another.
Protocol-Seven: the cautious one
Protocol-Seven survives first and then pays a heavy penalty for ending its turn with an enemy path head next to its own. It would rather take a much shorter run than sit beside a rival.
How to beat it: Crowd it. Moving your head next to its head forces it into awkward placements to escape, and in tight quarters it gives up points to keep its distance. On small boards, it often runs out of comfortable space.
Spark Tinker: the point maximizer
Spark Tinker still prefers long runs, but it values each extra hex a little less than the other bots and weighs its score three times as heavily. When two runs are close in length, it reliably picks the one with more points, which usually means the one with more revisits.
How to beat it: Its loops get more valuable with every pass, so don't let one region become its home. Look for shared-hex moments to cut a loop short before the doubling adds up.
Chiplet: the forgetful one
On its first pass, Chiplet considers only part of its hand and "forgets" the rest. It looks at the whole hand only when the tiles it remembered have no legal placement. It often plays a fine move while a better one sits unused.
How to beat it: Chiplet is a good opponent for new players. Against experienced players, it leaks points every few turns. Play your own game and the scoreboard takes care of itself.
Nearscope: the short-sighted one
Nearscope tries only the first three of six rotations for each tile. It checks the other three only if none of the first three is legal. Half of its options are invisible to it on most turns.
How to beat it: Nearscope misses escapes that require the "other half" of rotations, so it can walk into trouble an attentive player would avoid. Pressure it near the edge, where safe rotations are scarce.
Picking opponents for your table
| If you want… | Seat these bots |
|---|---|
| A gentle first game | Chiplet, Nearscope |
| A fair, steady challenge | Deep Echo |
| Constant pressure | Steel Sentinel |
| A scoring race | Spark Tinker |
| A slow, cagey game | Protocol-Seven |
| Chaos | Steel Sentinel and Spark Tinker on a 3-ring board |
Bots also make good stand-ins online. If a friend can't make it, fill the empty corner with a bot so the board stays balanced.
Why the bots are built this way
We wanted computer players that feel different without being unfair. Every bot sees the same board and the same hand you'd see. None of them can see the deck, and none of them looks further ahead than one placement. They're opponents you can learn to read, which is half the fun of a table game.
For the habits that beat human players too, read Hex Path strategy: 10 habits of players who win.