Technique 1 of 5 · Easy boards
Last Cell
The first technique, and the one you will use most: when a row, a column or a color has exactly one open cell left, its crown has to go there.
The idea
Every row, every column and every color needs exactly one crown. As you cross out cells that can't hold one, those lines and colors lose options. Sooner or later one of them is down to a single open cell. There is no choice left, so the crown goes there.
already ruled outthe cells the step looks atruled out by this stepa crown this step places
The example
On this 6×6 board, the crown in the orange region (row 1, column 4) has crossed out the rest of row 1 and the cells around it. The red region has five cells. Three of them are in row 1, and one touches the crown diagonally, so four are crossed out. Only row 2, column 1 is left, and the red region's crown goes there.
Place it, cross out everything it rules out, and look again. One crown usually opens up the next: here the new crown leaves the yellow region with a single open cell, which is the next Last Cell.
How to spot it
- Check the small colors first. A color of two or three cells runs out of options fastest.
- After every crown, look at what it touched. Each crown clears a row, a column, a color and its neighbors, so the lines and colors next to it are the likeliest to be down to one cell.
- A color with only one cell is a free start. It is a last cell before you make any move. In Logic Legends, a board that has one opens empty and rings that cell in gold, so you place the first crown yourself.
Why it works
Each row, column and color must hold one crown, and a cell marked × can't hold one. If only one cell is still open, it is the only place the crown can be. Nothing is guessed.
In Logic Legends
The hint calls this step Last cell and outlines the row, column or color it found. Easy boards can be solved with Last Cell and Confinement alone.