I loved Stratego so much as a kid. But, I eventually couldn't find anyone to play with me because I crushed everyone, including my dad who was much better than me at chess. But, I never would have thought it'd be a game that models would have a hard time with. It feels relatively simple. And, inexplicably, I never even thought that there might be serious players...I've kept the board game, one of the very few things I have from young childhood, but it's been twenty years since I played. I guess it's time to find an online Stratego. Surely someone in the whole world can beat me.

Too bad I never played against an AI before they cracked it.

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FiatLuxDave a few seconds ago | parent | next [-]

Does anyone else remember playing Electronic Stratego? The version where the identity of each piece was encoded on the bottom with a series of bumps? It was an even more incomplete information game: attacking a piece would only let you know if the piece was higher, lower, or even, instead of revealing the piece's identity. I played it so much as a kid that I can't even think of Stratego without hearing that electronic bomb sound in my head. I feel it is actually a better game than the original.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratego#Electronic_Stratego

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m463 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> But, I eventually couldn't find anyone to play with me because I crushed everyone

I think this is a problem with many deeper games. I remember going over to other people's houses and they would pull out obscure-board-game-xyz. The rest of the night for me was trying to figure out how to play, while others were 30 steps ahead of me.

I think you need something like chess club - stratego club - where people have all gotten to the nuance level and you can play with people of appropriate level.

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karim79 13 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> including my dad who was much better than me at chess.

My experience as well unfortunately. No matter how many books on chess I read, no matter how many games I played against Battle Chess to try to get better, he always won.

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NDlurker 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I live Stratego. I used to play with my girlfriend and my brothers. We started playing with different rules too to switch it up. Like moving bombs or the flag. Or playing with the pieces reversed. Reversed pieces were interesting because the hidden information was swapped, made for some funny games.

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VladVladikoff an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Stratego has a special place in my heart. I have fond memories of playing it with an old family friend. Later in life I sought out an old set off eBay so I could play it with my kids. I really love that game!

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cainxinth 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I also enjoyed it. We even used to play live Stratego at camp with index cards in our socks with our ranks.

What was the secret of your success?

	▲	SwellJoe 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't actually know. I had a few strong setups that I rotated through, but even after I started explaining my strategy after every game, and even giving hints during the game, my best childhood friend would still lose so much it wasn't fun for either of us so we stopped playing. He's smart, and was fine at most games, but no match in Stratego. I guess I'm just good enough at the various aspects of the game, memory, bluffing, planning, that it added up to being a pretty strong player even without much in the way of study or practice. I'm sure I'd crumble against an actual serious player, and would have back then, too, it was just that I wasn't around anyone else who liked the game enough to become good at it.
	▲	SamBam 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I'm curious. I could kind of see that being fun, but I could also see 1 person moving with 79 standing still, and two players who get to make all the decisions. Did you guys modify the rules?

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Cider9986 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It has such a strong story despite being so simple.

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WalterBright 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I, too, remember figuring out a strategy when I was around 11, and never lost a game after that.

It's been a loooong time, and I don't recall all the details. But it revolved around doing probing attacks to determine where the ranks were in the enemy formation, and then having "channels" in my side to move up a soldier that outranked by 1 a targeted attack.

Color me surprised that it would be difficult to write a program to play it.

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SwellJoe an hour ago | parent [-]

Most of my setups, though not all, revolved around bombs and strong soldiers held in reserve behind the bombs, sort of a rope-a-dope...sometimes, I'd kill all of their miners before the bombs surrounding the flag could be disarmed which guarantees no quick win for them. There are risks to that, in that the strong pieces can be stuck while the opponent picks off everything else, but even once people knew I regularly did that, I could still win pretty much always, so it's more than a strong opening layout.

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WalterBright 21 minutes ago | parent [-]

Sounds good. My "channels" were a way to move the right pieces to where they were needed. I did this repeatedly, and my opponents never learned.

One thing Stratego did was implement the "fog of war". My Empire game took inspiration from Stratego and Risk.

	▲	SwellJoe 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		In hindsight, maybe Stratego in childhood is part of why I love Civ games so much, which, I think, tickles a lot of the same brain parts. The setting up the board part is heavily why I liked Stratego so much, and in Civ games, you get to plan your cities and empire. Or, maybe it's just the kind of game I find satisfying, and Stratego was the first instance of it I played. And, I'm also working on a game that kind of pulls on that same kind of upfront planning, where how you place your pieces to start is as important as how you move them; a settling and strategy game that's heavy on clever defense and using terrain and the interplay of pieces.