12x12 Queens Puzzle #266
Difficulty: hard. Place 12 queens on this 12x12 board so that no two share a row, column or color region and none touch — including diagonally. This puzzle has exactly one solution, and it has been verified solvable by deduction alone: the complete 23-step reasoning is written out below.
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Step-by-step solution for puzzle #266
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #266, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 23 deductions — 12 queen placements and 11 elimination steps that narrow the board between them. Each step names the rule that forces it, so nothing below is a guess, and the hardest idea required is the pairing argument on columns.
Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region shadow, region confined to one line, pairing argument on columns, line confined to one region, pairing argument on rows.
Show the full walkthrough (17 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 1, column 12 is still open in indigo, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 1, column 12, the rest of the indigo region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. Amber is down to 4 candidates in rows 2 and 3, columns 1–3, and they overlap enough to cover 1 square elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about amber itself.
Step 3. The blue region has 3 squares left, spread across rows 3 and 4, columns 10 and 11. You do not need to know which of them takes the queen: every one of those options attacks the same 1 square, so they can be crossed out now.
Step 4. Wherever pale yellow ends up among its 5 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
The board after step 4 — 1 of 12 queens placed. Step 5. Khaki cannot leave column 11 — every one of its open squares (3 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to khaki, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 8 squares in all.
Step 6. The blue region is down to one open square, at row 3, column 10. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 3 and column 10, the remaining blue squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 3, column 10.
Step 7. Only row 2, column 1 is still open in amber, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. Everything else in row 2, in column 1, in amber and in the ring around that square is now dead.
Step 8. The mint region is down to one open square, at row 4, column 7. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Row 4 and column 7 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 9. The red region has 4 squares left, spread across rows 5–7, columns 6, 8, and 9. You do not need to know which of them takes the queen: every one of those options attacks the same 1 square, so they can be crossed out now.
The board after step 9 — 4 of 12 queens placed. Step 10. Wherever sea green ends up among its 4 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 2 squares in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 11. Sea green and rose are now boxed into columns 8 and 9 and nothing else. That is 2 colours needing 2 columns, so they fill those columns between them — which locks every remaining colour out and removes 2 squares at once.
Step 12. The red region is down to one open square, at row 6, column 6. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Row 6 and column 6 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 13. Wherever pale yellow ends up among its 2 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 3 squares in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
The board after step 13 — 5 of 12 queens placed. Step 14. Teal is down to 5 candidates in rows 10–12, columns 4 and 5, and they overlap enough to cover 1 square elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about teal itself.
Step 15. Row 5 has only slate squares left (3 open squares). The row needs a queen and only slate can provide one, which pins that colour to this row and kills its squares elsewhere: 4 squares.
Step 16. Here is the pairing argument. The pale yellow and khaki regions have no open squares outside rows 7 and 8 — 2 colours confined to 2 rows. Between them they must take one row each, in some order, so every other colour is shut out of all of them: 3 squares come off in one stroke.
Step 17. From here the board cascades. Keep alternating the region sweep and the line sweep and 7 queens fall out in order without any new idea being needed: sea green has one square left, so its queen takes row 10, column 8; rose has one square left, so its queen takes row 12, column 9; teal has one square left, so its queen takes row 11, column 5; pale yellow has one square left, so its queen takes row 7, column 4; khaki has one square left, so its queen takes row 8, column 11; orange has one square left, so its queen takes row 9, column 3; slate has one square left, so its queen takes row 5, column 2. After each one, clear that row, that column, the rest of the colour and the ring of neighbours before looking for the next. The last of them seats the queen on row 5, column 2.
The board after step 17 — 12 of 12 queens placed.
That completes the board: 12 queens seated, one in every row, one in every column and one in every colour, with no two of them touching. Notice that nothing in the sequence above required a guess — each placement followed from an elimination already on the grid, which is what “single solution, solvable by logic” actually means in practice.
About 12x12 Queens puzzle #266
Board #266 of the 12x12 bank carries a hard rating. Its 144 squares are shared between twelve colored regions, and the solution places twelve queens: one per row, one per column, one per region, none of them side by side or corner to corner.
As with every puzzle in this collection, #266 has a single verified solution and needs no guesswork. Each queen follows from something already visible. What the board controls is tempo — how soon the first forced move shows up and how far apart the rest are spaced — and that is a direct consequence of how these colors are cut.
How the colors divide this board
From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #266 are: indigo (1 square), pale yellow (5 squares), amber (6 squares), khaki (6 squares), teal (8 squares), blue (11 squares), red (11 squares), sea green (13 squares), mint (14 squares), orange (17 squares), rose (21 squares), slate (31 squares). An even split would hand every color 12 squares, so the indigo region is running 11 squares under that average while the slate region is the roomiest area on the grid with 31 squares.
Why does the split matter? Because a region's square count has no bearing on how many queens it gets — the answer is always one. So indigo, with 1 square, is under far more pressure than slate with 31. A 30-square gap like this one rewards players who start where the choices are fewest.
A region's outline can constrain it more than its size does. Here indigo is the most solid, filling 100% of its 1×1 box, and sea green the most diffuse at 33% of its 8×5 box. Solid blocks give clean eliminations; diffuse ones spread across the board and stay open longer.
Region by region
Each region's exact extent on this grid is listed below, starting with the most constrained. Knowing which lines a color can and cannot reach is most of the work on a hard board.
Indigo occupies 1 square within rows 1–1, columns 12–12. It never leaves row 1, so its queen is locked to that row.
Pale yellow: 5 squares across rows 7–9, columns 4–6.
Amber covers 6 squares, spanning 3 rows and 3 columns (rows 1–3, columns 1–3).
Khaki occupies 6 squares within rows 6–8, columns 11–12.
Teal: 8 squares across rows 10–12, columns 4–6.
Blue covers 11 squares, spanning 5 rows and 4 columns (rows 1–5, columns 9–12).
Red occupies 11 squares within rows 4–7, columns 6–9.
Sea green: 13 squares across rows 5–12, columns 7–11.
Mint covers 14 squares, spanning 4 rows and 6 columns (rows 1–4, columns 5–10).
Orange occupies 17 squares within rows 8–12, columns 1–5.
Rose: 21 squares across rows 7–12, columns 8–12.
Slate covers 31 squares, spanning 9 rows and 6 columns (rows 1–9, columns 1–6).
Where to start on this board
Indigo is the natural opening on #266: it is the smallest region on the grid at 1 square, boxed into rows 1–1 and columns 12–12. Since one of those squares must hold a queen, that block of 1 row and 1 column is the most contested part of the board.
Because indigo never leaves row 1, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 1 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not indigo. Then look at which colors just lost ground: on a grid this size that one observation usually forces a second region within a move or two.
No region here is pinned to a shallow band of rows, so turn the same idea sideways: khaki spans only two columns. Two narrow regions sharing the same two columns take one column each and lock everyone else out of both, which is usually enough to crack a board that offers no free opening.
The tightest lines on puzzle #266
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, rows 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11 and 12 are the narrowest, touched by only 4 colors. Columns 1, 2, 3 and 7 are the tightest columns, with 3 colors.
The fewer colors a line touches, the sooner it surrenders its queen. A row meeting just 4 colors has to be claimed by one of them, which pushes every remaining region into the other 11 rows. Row 8, meeting 6 colors, is the opposite case — the busiest line on #266 and the last one you should expect to crack.
Working through the middle game
Once two or three queens are down, the board changes character. Each queen removes an entire row, an entire column and the ring of up to eight squares around it, so the grid shrinks faster than most people expect. The habit that pays here is marking rather than remembering: after every placement, cross out the full row, the full column and all eight neighbours before hunting for the next move.
The whole middle game reduces to two sweeps. Sweep the twelve colors looking for one with a single square left; sweep the twelve rows and twelve columns looking for the same. Each sweep feeds the next, and switching between them deliberately — rather than drifting — is what separates a fast 12x12 solve from a stalled one.
Say the reason out loud: "this region has one square left", "this column has one square left". If no such sentence is available, the eliminating is not finished. One more pass of X marks is almost always quicker than committing to a placement you cannot defend.
Why puzzle #266 is rated hard
The hard label comes out of four measurable things about #266: two of its regions are locked to one row or column, its smallest color spans 1 square, its least crowded row meets 4 colors, and its largest and smallest regions differ by 30. Boards that score tight on those measures give up their first queen fast.
Difficulty in Queens is never arithmetic and never luck. Every board has one solution and none require guessing. What varies is the length of the chain you must follow before the next queen becomes certain — one or two steps on an easy board, five or six on a hard one, sometimes with several partial eliminations held in play at once.
A board that feels above its rating is nearly always a board with a missing X. Audit every queen on the grid: full row cleared, full column cleared, all eight touching squares cleared. Diagonals are the common omission, and missing one is far more often the cause of a stall than any genuine difficulty in the puzzle.
Techniques that work well at 12x12
At 12x12 you are managing 144 squares, and holding the whole board in your head will not work. Split it into quadrants and solve locally. Most useful deductions on a grid this large are regional — a color pinched between two placed queens, or a band of rows that two regions must share. Trust the marks on the board over your memory.
Learn the pairing argument and you will use it on every board, this one included. If two colors can only sit inside the same two rows, between them they consume both rows and every other color is shut out. It generalises to any matching count — three colors across three rows, four across four. On #266, start hunting for it near column 1.
Here is a shape check that gives nothing away: when #266 is solved, 3 queens sit on the outer edge of the grid and 9 sit inside it, with 1 queen in a corner. A work-in-progress board that clusters its queens in one quadrant while leaving others bare is usually carrying a mistake.
How to play Queens
- The board is an N×N grid divided into N colored regions.
- Place exactly one queen (♛) in each row, each column, and each colored region.
- No two queens may touch each other — not horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
- Tap once to mark a square with an X (where a queen can't go), tap again to place a queen, and once more to clear it.
- There is always exactly one valid solution. Use logic, never guessing, to find it.
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Questions about this puzzle
How hard is 12x12 Queens puzzle #266?
Puzzle #266 is rated hard. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 4 colors, and two of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 12x12 puzzle #266 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 12x12 collection, including #266, has been verified to have exactly one valid arrangement of twelve queens, and it can always be reached by logic alone — no guessing or backtracking needed.
Where should I place my first queen on puzzle #266?
Start with the indigo region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 1–1 and columns 12–12. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.