![]() ![]() The average chess game takes around 40 moves while Stratego takes more than 380. It also helps that chess is a game that tends to be won or lost by in a few key moments rather than by gradual pressure. It gives them a serious strategic advantage over even the best human players. A computer can look at your defences, simulate 10 or so moves ahead for a few different options, and pick the best one. Chess is relatively easy because all the information is visible to everyone-in game theory, it’s called a “perfect information game”. The game only ends when one player’s flag piece is captured or they can no longer make any legal moves.Īll this is to say that Stratego creates a unique challenge for computers to solve. Some of the other playable pieces include bombs (powerful but immobile), scouts (that can move more than one square at once), and miners (who can defuse bombs) which all add to the tactical complexity. When you are planning an attack, you don’t know if the defender is a high-ranked Marshal that will beat almost all your pieces or a lowly Sergeant that can be taken out by a Lieutenant or Captain. Both players have 40 pieces with different tactical values that can are deployed at the start of the game-the catch is that you can’t see what your opponent’s pieces are and they can’t see what yours are. ![]() Each game takes place over a 10 x 10 gridded board with two 2 x 2 square lakes blocking the middle of the board. The goal is to move across the board and capture the other player’s flag piece. Stratego is a game with two distinct challenges: it requires long-term strategic thinking (like chess) and also requires players to deal with incomplete information (like poker). It’s a huge and surprising result-at least to the Stratego community. I like Atamasama’s clever idea of a 9 fakeout.A new AI called “DeepNash” has mastered Stratego, one of the few iconic boardgames where computers don’t regularly trounce human players, according to a paper published this week. I would also sometimes place a BB roadblock across one of the chokepoints (with 7s behind each, naturally), to allow me in the opening game to focus on the other two attack routes. That would keep the enemy from ever getting to my Flag. (My mom had the bright idea of numbering the spaces in the pieces tray, so you could always tell at a glance what pieces your foe had left). In the endgame I would take advantage of the three access corridors or chokepoints between the opposing sides, and, if I had enough by then, put pieces that I knew outranked any of the enemy there. More than once I would allow an overaggressive enemy to take his Marshal, on a rampage, right past my Spy and then pounce. I would often keep my Spy near my General (2), and liked to reveal the latter relatively early in the game, to lure the enemy Marshal (one “l,” BTW) out. So that my 7s could immediately pounce on any 8 who made it that far. I would also always have a Sergeant (7) behind or beside any Bomb (B) to immediately kill any Miner (8).Ī typical setup for my Flag along my back row, with bombs, would be My typical setup was similar to solost’s. I got to be good enough that eventually no one in my family would play me, but there were always other kids to play against. I was given Stratego as a gift when I was eight or nine, and took to it like a duck to water. I guess ‘higher number means higher rank’ makes logical sense, but I do not like it! And the miners were always 8, now they’re 2s or 3s I think. I cannot get used to the highest rank being 10 now, not 1. ![]() I’d like to pick up a classic version like the OP for just this reason. But the newer games reversed the numbering, which I could never get used to. When my two boys were old enough I bought a new Stratego game and introduced the game to them. Sometimes two groups in a flanking formation. Offensively, after clearing many of my opponent’s higher ranking pieces and using scouts to determine bomb locations, I’d move in little groups a high-ranking piece, a low-ranking sacrificial piece and a miner. So you had a 50/50 chance of knowing where my flag was- if you chose wrong you lost a lot of moves, pieces and effort for nothing even if you chose the correct corner you had to work for it. I did the same setup without the flag in the other corner for a decoy. I always went with the flag in one corner surrounded by bombs and by a couple pieces which were one rank higher than miners, so your miner would be sacrificed right after clearing the bomb. ![]() I always used pretty much the same initial setup, just fine-tuning it over time. None of my classmates could ever beat me (except one who just went Kamikaze on me and got lucky one time). I was the Stratego equivalent of a Grand Master in 5th or 6th grade. ![]()
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