Stratego, the art of war

So what is Stratego and what does it take to become a world champion?

Just like in real warfare, the board game stratego features an army of marshals, generals, colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, sergeants and spies who fight to conquer the opponent’s flag, or to capture so many pieces that the opponent cannot move. While similar to chess, stratego is different in that it’s an abstract strategy game, where information is hidden and incomplete: you cannot see the ranks of your opponent’s pieces, and the positions of these pieces aren’t fixed.

Vincent de Boer, a computer science student at TU Delft who became the World Champion of Stratego for the third time this year, says there are probably more differences than similarities between chess and stratego. “Both games require analytical thinking, but whereas chess requires you to look as far as you can forward, the challenge in Stratego centers on thinking backwards, remembering as much as you can about the game history and then drawing conclusions from this.”

Stratego’s origins can be traced back to the traditional Chinese board game, ‘Jungle’, (also known as ‘Game of the Fighting Animals’ (Dou Shou Qi), which also has pieces (of animals, not soldiers) with different ranks. The ‘Jungle’ board, with two lakes in the middle, is similar to Stratego, although in ‘Jungle’ the pieces’ values aren’t hidden from your opponent and the initial setup is fixed. A modern Chinese game, called ‘Army Chess’ (Lu Zhan Jun Qi), is also very similar to stratego, as the initial setup isn’t fixed, one’s opponent’s pieces are hidden and the basic gameplay is similar.

In its present form, stratego appeared in Europe before World War I as a game called ‘L’attaque‘, which was designed by a Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Hermance Edan, who patented the game in 1909. The modern game, with its Napoleonic imagery, was originally produced in the Netherlands by the Jumbo games company.
Creativity

De Boer played Stratego for the first time at age nine, but then abandoned the game very quickly soon after, only to start playing it again years later as an online game. “In 1999, when we just got Internet at home, I was looking for a game to play online and accidentally came across stratego,” he recalls. “I got addicted after the first game.”

De Boer turned out to be a talented stratego player from the outset. Within a year of having started playing in real life tournaments, he became one of the top five players in the Netherlands, a country where the game is very popular.

Although De Boer had won the world championship in 2003 and 2004, this year’s victory was a complete surprise for him: “In last year’s World Championships I ended in a disappointing 12th place. Although I felt a lot better about my play heading into this year’s tournament, it was hard to really expect that I’d win.”

According to De Boer, every stratego game is different, because part of the game is to do something your opponent doesn’t expect, while trying to find out what it is your opponent is trying to make you believe. Tricking your opponent into making misjudgments is an important part of the game. De Boer: “Unlike chess, you can’t get far in stratego by just repeating standard openings. So this aspect gives lots of room for your own creativity.”

In stratego, the opponent’s piece is captured if, following a piece-to-piece confrontation, your piece turns out to be of a higher rank than your opponents. The rank of a piece is revealed when a piece is moved onto a square occupied by an opposing piece.

Before a game starts, the players arrange their armies of 40 pieces each on the 10×10 square board in an order that they deem most appropriate for victory. This initial layout of the pieces fundamentally influences the outcome of the game. Players then move their pieces forward seeking confrontation with their opponent’s pieces. Players cannot move across the two lakes pictured on the battlefield, and as such the lakes serve as obstacles that make frontal attacks more difficult.

By following the patterns of movement of the opponent’s pieces, the player can unravel the structure of his opponent’s initial layout. For the clever player, this layout gives clues as to where his opponent’s stronger and weaker pieces are positioned, and most importantly where the flag is located.
Hobby

Besides the ability to calculate tactical and strategic plans based on the received information, a good memory is fundamentally important in stratego. Losing a piece to an opponent’s piece always reveals the rank of the opponent’s stronger piece in return. De Boer: “If you forget that information, losing your piece is a complete waste; but if you remember it, then you’re likely to profit from it later in the game.”

One of the games De Boer is most proud of was a game in which he ultimately had to determine which of the seven remaining pieces on the board was the flag. “All seven pieces were reachable, but if my first guess was wrong I’d lose. I spent the remainder of my time analyzing the game, remembering which of my opponent’s moves had seemed odd to me at the time, then applying this information to situations that occurred later in the game. In the end, I took an educated guess and won.”

Although stratego is becoming increasingly popular internationally, it’s still a game that’s played on a relatively small scale. De Boer: “It’s not possible to play stratego professionally, and I’m not sure I’d want to either. In the end, it’s just a hobby. I don’t know what I’ll be doing next year after finishing my studies, but maybe I try to equal the record of Erik van den Berg, who won the championship four times.”

Just like in real warfare, the board game stratego features an army of marshals, generals, colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, sergeants and spies who fight to conquer the opponent’s flag, or to capture so many pieces that the opponent cannot move. While similar to chess, stratego is different in that it’s an abstract strategy game, where information is hidden and incomplete: you cannot see the ranks of your opponent’s pieces, and the positions of these pieces aren’t fixed.

Vincent de Boer, a computer science student at TU Delft who became the World Champion of Stratego for the third time this year, says there are probably more differences than similarities between chess and stratego. “Both games require analytical thinking, but whereas chess requires you to look as far as you can forward, the challenge in Stratego centers on thinking backwards, remembering as much as you can about the game history and then drawing conclusions from this.”

Stratego’s origins can be traced back to the traditional Chinese board game, ‘Jungle’, (also known as ‘Game of the Fighting Animals’ (Dou Shou Qi), which also has pieces (of animals, not soldiers) with different ranks. The ‘Jungle’ board, with two lakes in the middle, is similar to Stratego, although in ‘Jungle’ the pieces’ values aren’t hidden from your opponent and the initial setup is fixed. A modern Chinese game, called ‘Army Chess’ (Lu Zhan Jun Qi), is also very similar to stratego, as the initial setup isn’t fixed, one’s opponent’s pieces are hidden and the basic gameplay is similar.

In its present form, stratego appeared in Europe before World War I as a game called ‘L’attaque‘, which was designed by a Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Hermance Edan, who patented the game in 1909. The modern game, with its Napoleonic imagery, was originally produced in the Netherlands by the Jumbo games company.
Creativity

De Boer played Stratego for the first time at age nine, but then abandoned the game very quickly soon after, only to start playing it again years later as an online game. “In 1999, when we just got Internet at home, I was looking for a game to play online and accidentally came across stratego,” he recalls. “I got addicted after the first game.”

De Boer turned out to be a talented stratego player from the outset. Within a year of having started playing in real life tournaments, he became one of the top five players in the Netherlands, a country where the game is very popular.

Although De Boer had won the world championship in 2003 and 2004, this year’s victory was a complete surprise for him: “In last year’s World Championships I ended in a disappointing 12th place. Although I felt a lot better about my play heading into this year’s tournament, it was hard to really expect that I’d win.”

According to De Boer, every stratego game is different, because part of the game is to do something your opponent doesn’t expect, while trying to find out what it is your opponent is trying to make you believe. Tricking your opponent into making misjudgments is an important part of the game. De Boer: “Unlike chess, you can’t get far in stratego by just repeating standard openings. So this aspect gives lots of room for your own creativity.”

In stratego, the opponent’s piece is captured if, following a piece-to-piece confrontation, your piece turns out to be of a higher rank than your opponents. The rank of a piece is revealed when a piece is moved onto a square occupied by an opposing piece.

Before a game starts, the players arrange their armies of 40 pieces each on the 10×10 square board in an order that they deem most appropriate for victory. This initial layout of the pieces fundamentally influences the outcome of the game. Players then move their pieces forward seeking confrontation with their opponent’s pieces. Players cannot move across the two lakes pictured on the battlefield, and as such the lakes serve as obstacles that make frontal attacks more difficult.

By following the patterns of movement of the opponent’s pieces, the player can unravel the structure of his opponent’s initial layout. For the clever player, this layout gives clues as to where his opponent’s stronger and weaker pieces are positioned, and most importantly where the flag is located.
Hobby

Besides the ability to calculate tactical and strategic plans based on the received information, a good memory is fundamentally important in stratego. Losing a piece to an opponent’s piece always reveals the rank of the opponent’s stronger piece in return. De Boer: “If you forget that information, losing your piece is a complete waste; but if you remember it, then you’re likely to profit from it later in the game.”

One of the games De Boer is most proud of was a game in which he ultimately had to determine which of the seven remaining pieces on the board was the flag. “All seven pieces were reachable, but if my first guess was wrong I’d lose. I spent the remainder of my time analyzing the game, remembering which of my opponent’s moves had seemed odd to me at the time, then applying this information to situations that occurred later in the game. In the end, I took an educated guess and won.”

Although stratego is becoming increasingly popular internationally, it’s still a game that’s played on a relatively small scale. De Boer: “It’s not possible to play stratego professionally, and I’m not sure I’d want to either. In the end, it’s just a hobby. I don’t know what I’ll be doing next year after finishing my studies, but maybe I try to equal the record of Erik van den Berg, who won the championship four times.”