alt Hacker NewsI 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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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!
It has such a strong story despite being so simple.
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?
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.
> 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.