Games - Stratego

	Games - Stratego

Stratego is a strategic board game featuring a 10 × 10 square board and two players with 40 pieces each. Pieces represent individual officers and soldiers in an army. One player uses red pieces, one player uses blue pieces.

Pieces are colored on both sides, so players can easily distinguish between their own and their opponent's. But the ranks are printed on one side only, and placed so that players cannot identify specific opponent's pieces. Players may arrange their 40 pieces in any configuration on a designated 4 ×10 section of the playing board. Such pre-play distinguishes the fundamental strategy of particular players, and largely influence the outcome of the game.

Two zones in the middle of the board, each 2 × 2, cannot be entered by either player at any time. They are shown as lakes on the battlefield.

Gameplay

The object of the game is to find and capture your opponent's Flag, or to capture so many pieces that your opponent cannot move at all.

Each player moves one piece per turn. If a piece is moved onto a square occupied by an opposing piece, their identities are revealed, and the weaker piece is removed from the board. Pieces may not move onto a tile already occupied by the same team. Ties result in both pieces being removed.

For most pieces, its rank alone determines the outcome, but there are special pieces: Bombs (which only Miners can defuse, but which cannot move) and the Spy (which wins when it attacks the highest-ranked piece, the Marshal, but loses when attacked by any piece, including the Marshal).

From highest rank to lowest the movable pieces are: : 10 or 1. Marshal : 9 or 2. General : 8 or 3. Colonel : 7 or 4. Major : 6 or 5. Captain : 5 or 6. Lieutenant : 4 or 7. Sergeant : 3 or 8. Miner (only piece that can defuse Bombs) : 2 or 9. Scout (only piece capable of moving more than one space) : S. Spy (kills Marshal, but killed by all others)

Some versions have higher ranks with higher numbers, while others have higher ranks with lower numbers.

All movable pieces may move only one step to any adjacent tile vertically or horizontally. The exception is the Scout, which may move any number of steps vertically or horizontally (such as the rook in chess). Additionally, no piece may move back and forth between two tiles for three consecutive turns.

The Bombs and the Flag cannot move once placed on the board.

Variants

Hertog Jan, a Dutch brand of beer, released a promotional version of Stratego with variant rules. It includes substantially fewer pieces, including only one Bomb and no Miners. Since each side has only about 18 pieces, the pieces are far more mobile. The scout in this version is allowed to move three squares in any combination of directions (including L-shapes) and there is a new piece called the archer, which is defeated by anything, but can defeat any piece other than the Bomb by shooting it from a two-square distance, in direct orthogonal directions only.

Sabotage is an online variant of Stratego played at . The most notable differences are the introduction of the Saboteur and the Recon. The Saboteur combines the Spy and Miner giving it the ability to eliminate both the highest piece and Bombs. The Recon replaces the Scout and instead of being able to 'fly' (move several places in one move) it moves like any other piece, but can identify all the opponent pieces on the 8 squares around its own square. Once identified, the opponent pieces remain visible during the rest of the game. The same game is called Espionage on , where Saboteur is called Sapper and Recon - Spy.

Sabotage has 4 variants. Apart from regular Sabotage where each player moves 2 pieces per move, there are also Mini Sabotage (smaller board, fewer pieces), Sabotage Rush (each player moving 4 pieces per turn), Sabotage Open Rush (without volcanoes, 5 moves per turn), Sabotage MiniRush (small board, no volcanoes, 3 moves per turn). Each variation requiring a different strategy.

Sabotage has its own group of very active fans joined in the .

History

The origins of Stratego can be traced back to traditional Chinese board game Jungle also known as Game of the Fighting Animals (Dou Shou Qi) or Animal Chess. The game Jungle also has pieces (but of animals rather than soldiers) with different ranks and pieces with higher rank capture the pieces with lower rank. The board, with two lakes in the middle is also remarkably similar to that in Stratego. The major difference between two game is that in Jungle the pieces are not hidden from the opponent and initial setup is fixed.

A modern, more elaborate, Chinese game known as Land Battle Chess (Te Zhi Lu Zhan Qi) or Army Chess (Lu Zhan Jun Qi) is a descendent of Jungle, and a cousin of Stratego - the initial setup is not fixed, one's opponent's pieces are hidden, and the basic gameplay is similar (differences include "missile" pieces and a Chinese Chess style board layout with railroads and defensive "camps"; a third player is also typically used as a neutral referee to decide battles between pieces without revealing their identities). An expanded version of the Land Battle Chess game also exists - this adds naval and aircraft pieces and is known as Sea-Land-Air Battle Chess (Hai Lu Kong Zhan Qi).

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Stratego ]

Games - Stratego

Gameplay

Variants

History

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