Fortress Solitaire
How to play Fortress
Fortress is a one-deck solitaire game dealt face up into ten rows that build up or down in suit, with no free cells, so only one card ever moves at a time.
Ten rows that build up or down in suit, one card at a time.
The goal of Fortress
Move every card onto the four foundations, building each one up by suit from Ace to King.
How to set up Fortress
The whole deck is dealt face up into ten rows, shown here as columns: the first two get six cards and the other eight get five. The four foundations start empty, and there are no free cells and no stock.
Fortress rules
Rows build up or down one rank at a time in the same suit, so the Seven of spades can go on the Six or the Eight of spades. A row can change direction as it grows, but a King and an Ace never count as next to each other.
Only the top card of a row moves, one card at a time, onto its foundation, onto a row where it builds, or into an empty row. Any card can fill an empty row. A card on a foundation never comes back into play.
Click a card to play it: to its foundation if it fits, otherwise onto a row, and only then into an empty row. Drag a card to choose where it goes yourself. With Autoplay off in Settings, only a drag moves a card.
How to win at Fortress
You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations. Once every row is in descending order, Auto complete, on by default in Settings, moves the remaining cards up for you. The game is stuck when no card has a legal move left.
Fortress strategy tips
With no free cell, the first empty row is the whole game: it is the only place a card can wait. The rows start with five or six cards, so pick the one whose cards can all go onto other rows or home, and clear it before you build anywhere else.
A run in one suit can rise or fall, but the foundations take each suit from the Ace up. A run that falls toward the top, like the Six of hearts on the Seven, can go home card by card from the top. One that rises usually has to be turned round first, card by card into an empty row.
Only single cards move, so a long row is slow to take apart. Build long sequences only on rows that hold nothing you still need.
An empty row is the one spare place in the game. Moving a sequence of one suit into it card by card turns its order around.
Fortress questions and answers
How do you play Fortress solitaire?
Deal the whole deck into ten rows, then move the top card of a row onto the next higher or lower card of its suit, or up to its foundation. The foundations build up by suit from Ace to King, and only one card moves at a time. Any card can fill an empty row.
Can you build up and down in Fortress?
Yes. A card goes on the next higher or the next lower card of its own suit, and a row can go down and then back up. A King and an Ace do not count as next to each other.
Can every Fortress deal be won?
Most cannot. The solver settles every Fortress deal it is given: of 100 shuffled deals, it proved 22 winnable and the other 78 impossible, all within the small search it runs while dealing. About one deal in five comes out, so a stuck board is usually the deal and not a mistake. Switch on Winnable in the menu beside New deal to skip the lost ones; a proved board took four shuffles on a typical deal and up to twelve in testing, and the Hint button then follows a winning line.
Is there a daily Fortress game?
Yes. Fortress has a daily board, the same deal for everyone that day, dealt the way a Winnable board is. You need to be logged in to play it.