Stratego Analysis

This week we got to choose a new game to write an analysis about. We picked the game Stratego; a game that I would describe as “Chess meets Memory meets Roshambo”.

Stratego is a game made for two players and takes place on a field of 10*10 squares. There are two lakes close to the middle and no units can walk on them.

This is the game space:

Each player is given 40 game pieces and gets to place them however he likes across the 40 tiles closest to him. These 40 pieces consists of following:

1 Marshal, it has the highest ranking of all the pieces (10) and wins against everything except the bombs and the spy.

1 General, there is nothing special about this one really, except that it has got the second highest ranking (9). It can take one step every turn (not diagonal).

2 Colonels pretty much the same as above but with rating 8. It can take one step every turn (not diagonal).

3 Majors, rank 7. It can take one step every turn (not diagonal).

4 Captains, rank 6. It can take one step every turn (not diagonal).

4 Lieutenants, rank 5. It can take one step every turn (not diagonal).

4 Sergeants, rank 4. It can take one step every turn (not diagonal).

5 Miners, rank 3. This is the only unit that is able to remove enemy bombs from the field. It can take one step every turn (not diagonal).

8 Scouts, they can move any distance in a straight line

1 Spy, the spy loses a fight against anything but the Marshal; that one he wins. It can take one step every turn (not diagonal).

Then there are 6 bomb pieces. Anything that attacks a bomb is destroyed (if it wasn’t a miner that is). Bombs cannot move.

And the final piece – the Flag. If one of the players captures the other one’s flag he is the winner. You can also win by destroying the opposite player’s pieces until he cannot make a move any more. The flag rem

A typical round goes something like this: You first put a wall between both of the players so they can place their pieces without the other player looking. You place the pieces so that the symbols on them are facing you (so that your opponent cannot see them). When the two players are done placing their pieces the wall is removed and the game begins. The player with the red team starts to make a move. At first you can really only move the six pieces closest to the enemy. Only one piece can be moved each turn.

If one piece is moved to the same square as one of the opponent’s pieces they will fight. Both players say the rank of their piece and the one with the highest rank will be the winner and be left on the square at which the fight took place. The one with lower rank will be removed from play completely. There are some exceptions when it comes to which piece wins or loses. See the description of the different pieces, I explained it there!

One of the things I like about this game is that it, compared to chess for example, contains a lot of random elements. If we would compare this to chess, where the location of every piece is already decided before you start playing, and both players starts out exactly the same, knowing the location of every enemy piece, Stratego becomes a lot more random and unpredictable. None of the players can really know how the opposing player has placed his pieces and is therefore forced to some caution. You do not really want to charge in with your Marshal the first thing you do, risking hitting a bomb, However there is nothing that prevents you from doing it. What if you got lucky as hell and manage to take out half of the enemy troops before losing your Marshal? Knowing the location of the enemy’s troops becomes essential if you want to be able to play tactically, but sometimes you could get a real lucky shot, striking the enemy where he least expected it.

That is where I think this game starts to resemble Roshambo. If you would for example place all of your strongest troops on the far right in the beginning, deciding to strike there with all your might, your opponent would not know about it at all. He might have placed his flag exactly where you are planning to go all in (to your advantage), or he could have placed it on the other side of the field (to your disadvantage).

The fact that you can place your own troops in the beginning without the enemy knowing about it also opens up to a LOT of different strategies. You can do crazy unexpected stuff, and it is so fun to see the reaction on your opponent’s face when he realizes that for example your flag is not in a corner, but almost in the front row, and that he has been ignoring it, thinking it was just some shitty piece of no significance not worth giving any attention.

Another fun element of this game is the one considering information. You send in your troops to die, just to find out what your opponent is up to. It is kind of realistic when it comes to wars of the past I believe.

One thing that I do not like about this game is the amount of brain capacity it requires to play it seriously (a good thing is that the random elements in it makes it possible to win even if you are not super serious though). Firstly, you have to plan a lot on forehand, thinking of how the opponent would place his pieces, at the same time as you have to place 40 of your own pieces. You could really sit all day coming up with different strategies and none would be right or wrong. Just different!

And then the game becomes like memory. The only way to get to know what pieces the opponent has where is to remember stuff. The bombs cannot move, and the flag cannot move. So if you want to be serious you will have to remember which ones of the enemy’s pieces have been moving. And as if that was not enough, you will have to remember the rank of the enemy pieces as well. If you battle one of them and lose, you will still go out with important information. You will know what piece you lost against and by knowing that you will be able to create a strategy for taking it out, and perhaps get a clue about your opponent’s plans. This becomes really annoying if you have lost a lot of troops to different enemy pieces. Then you will have to keep all of their rankings in your head if you want to have a good chance at winning.

Another irritating aspect of the game is how big the board is and how many pieces there are. It takes 9 rounds for every moveable piece (except the scout) to cross the field. And that is not considering the fact that you will have to move around a lot of object, incapable of walking diagonally.

This does not necessarily result in anything bad however. It is just that sometimes it really bothers you that everything feels so slow. Sometimes it is not noticed at all. When we played Stratego we had games that varied between almost two hours to ten minutes.

As for the target audience I think the title of the game pretty much gives it away. Stratego; strategists. This game is for the same people who like chess. The ones who likes to challenge another mind to an epic battle to see which one is capable of outsmarting the other. But it is not a game as hardcore as chess. Because of the random element where you get to place all your pieces as you wish in the beginning it becomes a lot more relaxed. You will probably in most cases not benefit from planning your next move for hours (as you may do in chess), since this game is a lot about taking risks not knowing what enemy piece you might run in to.

The setting of the game though, is not the same as the setting of chess. I mean they could have just kept it straight and went with the numbers on the pieces, kept everything black and white and stylish. Instead they chose a renaissance-ish approach on everything, and made the game area look like a land scape covered with grass and lakes. I don’t really know what they hoped to achieve by doing that, since I believe a more artistic approach could have reach out better to the desired audience. I imagine the traditional strategist would appreciate a black, white or wood colored board more than one with childishly many colors and images. It all feels very plastic as well.

All and all I think this is a good game! Personally I don’t really like the intimacy of a dueling game like this, but I guess some people do! This game has a lot of depth into it even though it might seem simple at first glance; it contains just enough random elements to make it unpredictable but still predictable enough to be able to plan at least a little, and it can become really fun and dramatic at the end! I think that it might have had a cooler look if they went with a more stylish style like chess and kept away from all the colors and pictures which acutally makes it feel kind of childish.

Good bye now I’m done for today!