How to Play Castle Solitaire

Castle Solitaire is an easier version of Beleaguered Castle, where you can build cards up and down with any suit.

Objective

The aim of the game is to build the foundations from Ace to King in ascending suit order. For example, a foundation pile will begin with the Ace of Diamonds and finish with the King of Diamonds.

The Setup and Play Area

Foundation piles: You’ll start with all 4 Aces face-up in each foundation. You’ll build them in ascending order from Ace to King by suit.

Tableau piles: The remaining cards are placed in 8 columns, each with 6 cards face-up.

Available moves

• You can only move 1 card at a time.
  
• The bottom exposed card of each tableau column is playable.
• Cards in the tableau can be moved and placed on top of other cards if they are in descending or ascending order, regardless of suit. For example, a 9 of Hearts can be moved onto an 8 or 10 of Spades, Diamonds, or Clubs.
• Once you’ve removed all the cards from a tableau column, you can move any card into that space.
• Build foundation piles from Ace to King by moving playable cards from the tableau.
• When all cards have been moved to the foundation, you win!

Strategy

• Because you can see all the tableau cards, you can evaluate and strategize your moves.
• Find the 2s early. Aces are already placed in the foundation to start the game, so your first step is to find the 2s. They might be buried under high cards, so you may need to do some planning to get to them. After you clear the 2s, look for the 3s and work toward freeing them.
• Don’t rush to move cards to the foundation. For example, instead of adding a 4 of Clubs to the foundation, you may want to leave it on the tableau so a 3 of Spades can be placed under it in order to free up another important card.
• Prioritize clearing out columns. Because any card can be placed in an empty column, you can move cards blocking others to empty columns to help you advance in the game.

How difficult is the game?

Castle is an easier solitaire game. When looking at 324 random games played, 118 were won, making the win rate 36.42%. Beleaguered Castle, on the other hand, has a win rate of 23.75%.

What are similar games to try?

Beleaguered Castle is a harder version, with the only difference being that you can only build cards in descending order in the tableau piles.

What are other popular Solitaire games?

Be sure to check out these games:

• Solitaire
• Spider Solitaire
• Golf Solitaire
• Yukon Solitaire
• TriPeaks Solitaire
• Pyramid Solitaire
• Scorpion Solitaire