How many legal turns does a Hexodic position have?
The Hexodic branching-factor explorer counts every legal complete turn — each legal Project combined with every Shape and Echo the rules allow after it — for one position that you choose. The branching factor of a position is that count: the number of different turns the player to move could make.
How to use the explorer
Start from the opening position, or load a replay code (a dot-separated list of turn numbers from the engine’s ordered list of legal turns). The explorer shows the exact count, how many Project options it comes from, and the first legal turns in the engine’s order. Choose a listed turn to play it and count again in the new position; the replay code updates so the position can be shared or checked in the move-legality checker.
What the explorer computes
- Exact legal complete-turn count for the current position, from the engine’s own counting function.
- Project breakdown — how many legal Places, Moves or forced skips the count starts from.
- An ordered sample of legal turns, each with the index a replay code uses.
What the explorer cannot determine
The Hexodic branching-factor explorer gives the count for one position, not an average over many games. Hexodic’s published averages — 910 / 1,021 / 666 legal complete turns at half-moves 5, 10 and 20 — come from an existing simulation report, and the explorer does not run simulations to reproduce or update them. A single position’s count can be far above or below those averages. The explorer also does not say which turns are strong, and it does not apply the repetition rule, which needs a game’s full history.
For why the count is high on such a small board, see hex-grid strategy games and abstract strategy games. Then get the Hexodic app.
Reviewed 2026-09-15.
Part of the Hexodic AI and research hub, which links CL3O, what playing records, and how every published number was measured.