Where and How to Play Fanorona in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced

Learn the rules for Fanorona, how and where to play it, and what rewards you get with this tavern game in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced.

How to unlock Fanorona in Black Flag Resynced?

You have to visit a tavern that has an NPC you can challenge. First, you must approach the bar and interact with the bartender. This will trigger a scene where some drunk men start a fight with Edward. After defeating them, you’ll be able to play in that tavern.

The thugs will surround you and approach you one by one, performing heavily telegraphed attacks, these you can try to parry.

The fastest way of incapacitating these enemies is to perform a sweep kick, if you’re playing with keyboard and mouse you can perform a sweep kick by pressing your “2” key, if you’re playing with a controller you have to hold-press your right trigger and press either “A” or “X” depending on your controller button layout.

There are three taverns where you don’t have to fight to unlock the mini-games: these are the ones in:

• Havana
• Nassau
• Great Inagua

The first two you visit as you go through the main storyline of the game. As for Great Inagua, you need to pay to restore the local tavern, which will unlock three different NPCs to play each of the tavern games.

Fanorona

This is an evolution of the original form of checkers, called Alquerque. Its origin being traced back to 16th century Madagascar, there are three different variants that depend on the size of the board, the one most widely played, and the one we can play in the game is called Fanoron-Tsivy.

How to play Fanorona

The game is played on a 9×5 board, and each player starts the game with 22 pieces, leaving the center position empty.

Players take turns moving one piece at a time, trying to capture as many opposing pieces as possible. Pieces can move on vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines as long as the desired position is empty and there’s an available connecting line.

Capturing can be accomplished in two different ways, by moving towards or away from an opposing piece through one of the connecting lines, after which all of the subsequent pieces connected to that enemy piece by the same line are captured.

Consecutive captures can be made in a single turn, but you can’t move in the same direction two times in a row or visit a position you’ve already used this turn.

In the following example, the white piece will move left, capturing four uninterrupted enemy pieces by approaching them, then move downwards to capture another piece by approaching it, lastly, it will move left again, capturing one last piece on the right by retreating away from it.

The game can only be won by capturing all of the opposing player’s pieces. If no more possible moves are available to either player, the game is declared a draw.

Where you can play Fanorona

• Beginner: Crooked Island (777,520)
• Intermediate: Nassau (595,762)
• Expert: Great Inagua (820,444)

Tips and Tricks

• Consider where a move would leave you and if that would give the opponent an opening
• Always prioritize getting multiple captures or capturing multiple pieces in a line over a single piece
• Prioritize getting control of positions with diagonal lines

Money Rewards and Achievements

At the start of each game, you have to choose one of three wagers; the amount you will either win or lose depends on the difficulty of the NPC.

As for rewards for beating the tavern games, there’s only one achievement called “Grandmaster” with the condition: “Win at each of the different tavern games”. The other two tavern games are Checkers and Nine-Man Morris, this means you can get the achievement by defeating each beginner NPC once.

Check our guides for Checkers and Nine-Man Morris for more information on how and where to play them.