Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Standard Sudoku Rules apply to the final numerical layout.

The Battlefield Basics: On this ancient battlefield, 36 armies fought: 9 from each horizontal direction, and 9 from each vertical direction. Each army advanced X cells, with X being the first number at their end of their row or column, and counting the first cell as part of their advance.

Where two opposing armies overlapped, there was a bloody battle and resulting casualties. Where two opposing armies ceased advancing and declared a truce before a battle could ensue, lives were thankfully spared.

The Numbers outside each row and column indicate the sum of either the casualties or the lives spared, but do not indicate whether it was a battle or a truce.

*****

Setter's Diary :: June 15, 2020 :: I have ventured to create a Battlefield that relies solely on the outlying numbers, with no pre-colored squares to aid the solver (i.e., "uncharted"). Mr. Seeliger demonstrated this was possible, so I figured it was time to try it. I can't tell you how much graph paper is in the trash because of the attempts that were unsolvable, couldn't be disambiguated, etc.

And as a novice solver, I found that proving this one was a number-crunching slog. The more expert solvers tend to fancy those puzzles that have a tricky but organized flow of logical revelations. I can't promise that here, but maybe the experts will find a flow I did not observe while frying my brain to make this work! I look forward to how you rate this one, and any comments.