Stratego ( strə-TEE-goh) is a chess-like strategy board wargame for two players on a board of 10×10 squares. Each player controls an army of 40 pieces representing individual officer and soldier ranks through a numbering scheme. The pieces have Napoleonic insignia. The objective of the game is to either find and capture the opponent's Flag or to capture all movable enemy pieces so that the opponent cannot make any further moves. Stratego has simple rules but a depth of strategy. The game is a slightly modified copy of an early 20th century French game named L'Attaque ('The Attack'), and has been in production in Europe since World War II and the United States since 1961. There are now two- and four-player versions, versions with 10, 30 or 40 pieces per player, and boards with smaller sizes (number of spaces). There are also variant pieces and different rulesets. The International Stratego Federation, the game's governing body, sponsors an annual Stratego World Championship.
Name and trademark Stratego is from the French or Greek strategos (var. strategus) for leader of an ancient (especially Greek) army: first general. The name Stratego was first registered in 1942 in the Netherlands. The United States trademark was filed in 1958 and registered in 1960 to Jacques Johan Mogendorff and is presently owned by Jumbo Games as successors to Hausemann and Hotte, headquartered in the Netherlands. It has been licensed to manufacturers such as Milton Bradley, Hasbro and others, as well as retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Target stores, etc.
The contents of the game
This description is of the original and classic games; many variant shapes and colors of pieces and boards have been produced in the decades since. The game box contents are a set of 40 gold-embossed red playing pieces, a set of silver-embossed blue playing pieces, and a folding 15+1⁄2 in × 18+1⁄2 in (39 cm × 47 cm) rectangular cardboard playing board imprinted with a 10×10 grid of spaces. The early sets featured painted wood pieces, later sets colored plastic. The pieces are small and roughly rectangular, 1 in (25 mm) tall and 3⁄4 in (19 mm) wide, and unweighted. More modern versions first introduced in Europe have cylindrical castle-shaped pieces. Some versions have a cardboard privacy screen to assist setup. A few versions have wooden boxes or boards.
Setup Typically, color is chosen by lot: one player uses red pieces, and the other uses blue pieces. Before the start of the game, players arrange their 40 pieces in a 4×10 configuration at either end of the board. The ranks are printed on one side only and placed so that the players cannot identify the opponent's pieces. Players may not place pieces in the lakes or the 12 squares in the center of the board. Such pre-play distinguishes the fundamental strategy of particular players and influences the outcome of the game.
Gameplay
Players alternate moving; red moves first. The right to move first does not significantly affect game play (unlike chess). Each player moves one piece per turn. A player must move a piece in their turn; one cannot skip a turn. Two zones in the middle of the board, each 2×2, cannot be entered by either player's pieces at any time. They are shown as lakes on the battlefield and serve as choke points to make frontal assaults less direct. The game can be won by capturing the opponent's Flag or all of their moveable pieces. It is possible to have ranked pieces that are not moveable because they are trapped behind bombs. In unusual cases, it is possible to draw, for example, when both players' flags are protected by bombs and each player has one remaining piece which is not a miner. The average game has 381 moves. The number of legal positions is 10115. The number of possible games is 10535. Stratego has many more moves and possible board states than other familiar games such as chess and backgammon; however, unlike those games where a single bad move at any point may result in loss of the game, most moves in Stratego are inconsequential as players think in "games not moves".
Rules of movement All movable pieces, with the exception of the Scout, may move only one step to any adjacent space vertically or horizontally (but not diagonally). A piece may not move onto a space occupied by a like-color piece. Bomb and Flag pieces are not moveable. The Scout may move any number of spaces in a straight line (such as the rook in chess). In the older versions of Stratego the Scout could not move and strike in the same turn; in newer versions this was allowed. Even before that, sanctioned play usually amended the original Scout movement to allow moving and striking in the same turn because it facilitates gameplay. No piece can move back and forth between the same two spaces for more than three consecutive turns (two square rule). Nor can a piece endlessly chase an opposing piece it has no hope of attacking (more square rule). When a player wants to attack, they "strike" by touching an opposing piece with their piece or by moving it onto the square the opposing piece occupies. Both players then reveal their piece's rank; the weaker piece (see exceptions below) is removed from the board. If the engaging pieces are of equal rank, both are removed. A piece may not move onto a square already occupied unless it attacks. The original rules also contained a provision that following a strike, the winning piece immediately occupies the space vacated by the losing piece. Two pieces have special attack powers. One special piece is the Bomb which only Miners can defuse. It immediately eliminates any other piece striking it without being destroyed itself. Each player also has one Spy, which succeeds only if it attacks the Marshal or the Flag. If the Spy attacks any other piece, or is attacked by any piece (including the Marshal), the Spy is defeated.
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