Talk:Stratego

message: How is stratego pronounced? -Rcsheets
:I use stratego with a hard g --Will2k 17:19, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
It is pronounced: Strah Teh Go
According to this 1970s commercial, it's pronounced "Strah-Tee-Go".  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6tsYmadTAU  Jmgariepy (talk) 05:37, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronounciation

message: I removed the info about the 2007 Antwerp Open. The reason being, that there are over 25 different Stratego tournaments played throughout the World. I think this is the wrong place to list EVERY single tournament with details. A link to this information would be much better than a comprehensive list of every tournament.
I agree that the "Major" tournaments should get a mention. But with so many tournaments taking place each year, it is not practical to list each and every tournament and who won what. TheDungeonMaster 13:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tournaments 

message: The article currently states:
"The exception is the Scout, which may move any number of steps vertically or horizontally in a straight line (such as the rook in chess), however it may only engage an enemy adjacent to it."
However the official rulebook that came with my copy of Travel Stratego (European Release) states:
"A scout can attack from any distance provided the squares between itself and the attacking piece are vacant."
Are the rules in the article flat out wrong? Or does the European Travel Version have a variation on the standard rules? If the latter, it should still probably be mentioned.
--Frank duff 07:19, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: both right, they just said it differently. In your rules they assume you will move and attack on the same turn. So yes you can attack from any distance, but you do this by first moving there and THEN attacking from an adjacent space. --  N i g h t F a l c o n 9  0 9  0 9' T a l k 17:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Incorrect Rules?

message: The infox could use some more useful information. While the age for a game is a nice thing to know, it would also be nice to know what learned skills are needed to play the game (reading, counting, etc.). Also, the "skills required" field confuses me. Skills would come off to me as things like reading, writing, or arithmetic. Perhaps a field that reads "type of game: strategy" would be more appropriate. Sjrsimac 08:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox

message: The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and The Chronicles of Narnia variants should be mentioned in the variants section. I think Internet variants should have a subheading.
Bibliomaniac15 01:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What about the 4-player version of Stratego (Stratego4)? Dylansmrjones 12:44, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  variants 

message: This is a good article.  I'd like to see the introduction contain a bit more context and history, and perhaps significance of the game, and less detailed description.  I'd like to see the history section come before the detailed gameplay section too, as long as the introduction retains a general description.  —Michael Z. 2006-08-07 20:00 Z
:I understand the need for an encyclopedic article, but I think the background of a board game can be put behind it's current rules of play. Although I do agree that the introduction (Wikipedia:Lead_section) should cover less detail concerning game play. Sjrsimac 08:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encyclopedic tone 

message: Most of the information in the variants section is a copyvio of. I'm removing it. Kafziel 15:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Variants

message: I've always loved this game. I recently went to buy it so that I could always have it to enjoy, but I was a bit confused at current versions. The new version is different than the traditional version (in ranking order as well as the game pieces... I hate the stickers!). When I originally purchased this version I was so put off that I returned it and sought out the Nostalgia version instead. I'm much happier. But there is also Ultimate Stratego (which appears to be more or less a different game), several commercially themed variants, and a Library Series edition. 
I created a new section to list currently available editions/versions of the game and their differences. I also would like to see a historic list of previously released editions and their features, changes, and peculiarities. This stuff is important to collectors, and is also interesting. More importantly, it will help prospective consumers decide on which version to buy.
Thelastemperor 16:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This line represents "weasel wordedness". Unless there is a source to link this to it sounds a lot like subjective viewpoint and should not be included here. So I have removed it. Please replace it if a source can be found where it is backed up.--Alecr 16:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Versions 

message: The section on Stratego history is unsourced. I am editing the article on the game of Jungle, called Dou Shou Qi (the Game of Fighting Animals) in Chinese. It's obvious that the games are related. However, this is an encyclopedia. We need secondary sources to prove the relationship. I also note that, as mentioned above, the history of the Stratego needs development. Are there any sources of historical information on the origins and development of Stratego? I doubt that the two games evolved in a kind of convergent evolution. Part of the problem seems to be that they are both seen as sort of trivial (unlike Chess or Go for example). This is especially true of Jungle, which is usually considered a children's game (sad, because it does involve some interesting and unique strategy). If anyone has any historical source material, please share it. - Parsa 22:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see : Stratego...is more directly descended from an old board game called the jungle game. This is from The Playboy winner's guide to board games by Jon Freeman Andreas Kaufmann 19:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jungle (Dou Shou Qi) and Stratego history 

message: In an effort to solve this dispute, please read Wiki guide lines for what to do when you disagree with another user, and restrict your discussion to this comment board.
Rational behind current link wording:
Metaforge is a business and Wikipedia is not an advertising fourm.  The link should be removed, or clarified in its required registration to play.
Gravon is free site, and the qualifer "German" may discourage and mislead people into thinking an English translation does not exist.
Please be civil Anonymous user and use this page in the future to clarify actions rather then attempting to cause a revision war. 
Jellyfish84 07:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You should reread WP:EL. There is absolutely nothing in policy that says links are listed on a first come-first served basis. There is no strict policy on order, and many article provide links in alphabetical order of site name to avoid these types of problems. Natalie 23:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Firstly, I'm not making some kind of final judgment - by all means remove other links you think are inappropriate. I just took out ones that were obviously in violation of the policy. I didn't want to spend hours coming through a site to determine if it was primarily commercial or whatever. Secondly, whatever is on other pages doesn't make policy. Other game pages probably need to be cleaned up to, I just happened to come across this one. By all means, clear out links on the Risk page - Wikiproject Spam would probably thank you for it. Natalie 15:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I wasn't intending to disrupt your dispute resolution but I don't see that I did. Firstly, I think policy trumps the agreement of two editors. Secondly, I haven't been following your dispute but it seems to be about the wording of a description of a specific link. Is that link acceptable within the external links policy? If it is, then I fail to see how your dispute resolution is affected by removing other non-compliant links. If it isn't acceptable, than it shouldn't be linked anyway, so the wording doesn't matter. But I may have assessed the situation incorrectly, please correct me if this is the case. Natalie 17:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link dispute 

message: Is there *any* random chance involved in a game of Stratego? TheUncleBob (talk) 20:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No. That is why I changed "Random chance: low" to "Random chance: none" almost a year ago. Unhelpfully, somebody came along and turned that into "Random chance: minimal", I have undone that edit. Stefán (talk) 21:09, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay... I thought I was going crazy.  The *only* chance I could think of would be the random decision as to which player goes first - but even Chess has that, but it's article includes "None". (although looking now at the Chess talk page, it looks like this discussion came up there as well). TheUncleBob (talk) 01:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That the initial setup may be different each game and hidden could be considered by some to be a random element.  I think that it is a "hidden information" game rather than random. — Val42 (talk) 02:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Random Chance "Minimal"? 

message: I'd be interested to know how popular the game has been in the US and how it fares against games such as Monopoly, Sorry, Battleship, etc.  Anyone know?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.80.11.237 (talk) 19:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That kind of marketing information is not part of an encyclopedic article.  The encyclopedia is not an almanac (source of current or dated information).Sbalfour (talk) 02:35, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sales Rank? 

message: There are world champions and computer champions. How do the computer champions compare to the world champions? Have there been games between the computer champions and the world champions? Mschribr (talk) 00:15, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Not that I doubt you, has there been a human champion versus computer champion tournament? If not, then why not? If yes then it should be added to the article. --Mschribr (talk) 03:07, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  World Champions vs Computers Champions 

message: Why are the piece descriptions linked to US army ranks? 
That seems to present a rather US-biased worldview (per Wikipedia:Systemic_bias where it is not really needed). Either it should be linked to all ranks of all countries where editions of Stratego are being played (Or if you want to keep it to the English speaking world to the ranks of all armies of countries with English as official language - inlcuding Malta, India, Ireland etc etc) or to none. My preferences would be the latter.
Another problem is that there is no reference supporting the specific linkages. While this maybe obvious for most ranks but translating 'miner' to plain specialist is not doing the rank its due as the miner is obviously specialist in the anti-bomb squad of combat engineering; similarly the scout is not a mere 'private' but (due to its long distance scoutting capacity) is at least reconnaissance specialist. With that argument, the current linking appears to be problematic in relation to WP:OR Arnoutf (talk) 16:29, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's "systematic bias", someone turned up a few months ago and added a table in good faith, to make the page look better. I've been a tad busy and didn't think to do anything about it, though I wasn't too keen. I was going to have a look at it sooner or later, but feel free to be bold and make it better! - and if you think taking it out is the best way to make it better, then do that -- WORMMЯOW  18:41, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like I did it after all...-- WORMMЯOW  10:50, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  pieces and linking to US army ranks 

message: Why isn't there any info on the new Stratego(fire and ice with dragons etc.)?!?! It's been around for like a few yeaaaaaaaaaaaarrsssssss...........................................  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.160.184 (talk) 23:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that's a USA only release - I could be wrong, but I only heard of it when a friend brought back a copy from Seattle. It might warrant a comment in the Releases section - feel free to be bold and add it! -- WORMMЯOW  07:51, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why?! 

message: I am Fred Horn from Holland. Since more than twenty years I have done research on the history of the game Stratego. In recent years I have given two lectures about its history during the BoardGameStudies-Colloquia. What is written down here is not the true history. I do not want to say this is complete nonsense but it comes far in that direction. Stratego has nothing to do with the 'JungleGame' but is a derivate of the game 'L'Attague' invented by Hermance Edan of France and copyrighted in 1908. After that the English firm Gibson published it around 1920 without any remarks to Hermance and without holding a copyright as 'Attack'. Then in some way this game did come to Holland during WW II (see for further details my lectures). In 1942 the name STRATEGO was registered in Holland as a trade-mark, and one mr.Mogendorff hold the license for the game which looks much the same as 'Attack' but he said he did invent a new game on the 10x10-board (Attack is on a 9x11-board). There is a lot of doubt about his claim of inventing the game! In any way in the last year of the War (1944) he sold the game to Smeets & Schipper who published the game in a cardboard version. In 1949 mr.Mogendorff got back his rights and in 1956 he signed a contract with Hausemann & Hötte(JUMBO) and the rest is " well known history". If anyone wants more information or a copy of my publications about the research mail to Fred Horn Doornstraat 16 2584AM Den Haag Holland.
:THe similarity between Luzhanqi and Stratego is striking from which the Jungle game comes. There has clearly been either a direct copy or common evolution. If this is a new plagerised copy it would be useful if you could produce a source.Tetron76 (talk) 14:35, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  text added by [[User:Fredhorn]] 

message: The current article says "Modern Stratego variations... In this way the players never know for certain the rank of the piece that wins the attack, only whether the attack wins, fails, or ties"... this statement does not specify, do players know for certain the rank of the piece that loses the attack? and both players would know the rank in a tie. 71.190.76.5 (talk) 15:49, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modern Electronic Version 

message: I was unaware when I recently picked up a copy of Stratego for the first time I wasn't getting the traditional version of the game.  Mine appears to be published by Spinmaster, mentions the "some assembly required" (putting stickers on the shield-like pieces), involves each player using 30 pieces on a 10 x 8 board, and uses the "higher is better" ranking system.  It's also rather sci-fi, with some of the ranks using power armor and others equipped with assault rifles or pistols and "carapace" style armor.  Most notably, the ranks are slightly different - the Spy is moved to a non-ranked piece like the Bomb or Flag (it loses to everything except the rank 10 Marshal, and even then only wins against the Marshal when attacking it, not defending against it), and a new Rank 1 piece is included, the "Spotter".  The Spotter can move and then use its special attack on the square in front of it (only, no other orthogonal direction).  The Spotter's special attack calls down an orbital strike, requiring the player to know what he's targeting - you guess a rank, and the other player must tell you what rank the targeted piece is.  If it is a Spy, Bomb, or Flag, they don't have to tell you which it is, only telling you that it is unranked (and thus can never be destroyed by an orbital strike).  If you correctly guessed the piece's rank, the piece is destroyed as though it had lost a battle, but the Spotter doesn't move into the square.  If you guess wrong, nothing else happens - the Spotter's special attack doesn't take him into battle with the defender.
It was only when I visited this site I discovered there was another way to play, with more pieces and no Spotter.  The Spotter quickly became my family's favorite piece for its ability to defeat any piece without dying on a mistake (although it IS close enough to whatever it targeted that the opponent can spend a turn to kill it with any piece, at least it still costs them a turn), even if it takes some foreknowledge.  I don't see this variant mentioned in the article, and thought I should bring it to the attention of bolder editors than myself.  Gatherer818 (talk) 10:41, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sci-fi / futuristic version? 

message: This article completely fails to explain how the pieces are moved. Like the king in chess, perhaps? —ZeroOne (talk / @) 00:33, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, added the moves to article (based on classic set). Most pieces move 1 square but not diagonally, so more like a rook than a king in chess (but only 1 square) Arnoutf (talk) 07:59, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  How are the pieces moved? 

message: The strategy section is neither authoritative nor scholarly (i.e. ref'ed to a reliable source). It appears to be original research by a player.  I know that published sources are very few; maybe we just have to wait. In other words, I doubt this section will ever be supportable.  I suggest we excise it.  This is an encyclopedia, not an instruction manual.Sbalfour (talk) 02:04, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strategy section lacks scholarship 

message: What about tournaments between 2000-2006? or 2011-2016?  If we added all country/regional (like Cambodian and Dutch, etc) tournaments, the list would grow out of bounds; it's already rather large.  I suggest we boil down the list to serial tournaments (like the World Stratego Championship) and list years they were played, and the winner, maybe in a table, so we have a small number of tables, one for each serial tournament.  I suggest we omit regional and country tournaments.Sbalfour (talk) 19:01, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tournaments section hodge-podge 

message: I've moved this section here out of concern for scholarship.  It must not be replaced until it has been reliably and authoritatively sourced WP:RELIABLESOURCE.  Even if that were possible, I have concerns about the propriety of the content - the encyclopedia is not an instruction manual WP:GAMEGUIDE.Sbalfour (talk) 18:54, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strategy section from article - unsourced 

message: While the History section has citations for descriptions of the named games, and a downloadable link to a patent for one of them, the relevant citations for the section would be to sources that say any of these games are related to or predecessors of Stratego.  The section in that sense is unsourced. We may say that it is patently obvious, but that's not scholarship.  My sources say that the Chinese games are modern (first half 20th century), antedate L'Attaque and are likely derived from it, not the other way around.  Because I don't yet have the sources in hand to personally inspect them, I can't fix the article at once. Sbalfour (talk) 14:54, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section unsourced 

message: I can find no information on any awards, citations or popularity.  The game is not among the current top 100 best selling board games on Amazon.  I found it listed on one website as #15 among the 50 best board games of all time topped by such enduring favorites as go, chess, checkers, backgammon, mahjong, Scrabble, Monopoly, Risk and Clue (and two card games, poker and bridge), but there's nothing suitable to put in the article there.  By some measure of longevity + popularity, I suspect it'd make somebody's list worth mentioning.Sbalfour (talk) 20:09, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Awards, citations? 

message: There are no published books or periodicals devoted to Stratego that I can locate.  There's not even so much as a book chapter on the game.  There are only 9 research papers published, all since 2003: (1, 2, 3, , 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), all on AI programming of Stratego, not on the game or strategy for play.  As with chess, the AI heuristic search algorithms in Stratego give no clue as to a high level description of a proper strategy for play.  The ICGA Journal has published short reports on the 3 Computer Stratego World Championships held to date.  There is one limited publication pamphlet of some note, which I have put under the Further reading section.  Then there is an online privately hosted tutorial/e-book "Stratego Tips" (formerly a printed pamphlet), which is a dubious source though I've not personally reviewed it.  The instructions for play are available at the Hasbro site: Stratego Instructions.  
The following are the recognized authorities on historic games; I've not checked all of the indicated works, but if there's published info to be had, it will in those:
* S. Culin (1895)
* R.C. Bell (1913, 1952)
* D. Parlett (1999)
* J.L. Cazaux (3/2000, 11/2000) French
* T. Depaulis (?) French
If there's anything else, please add a citation below.Sbalfour (talk) 16:48, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: The literature of Stratego

message: My statement that the strategy for stratego has never been published was deleted as 'unverifiable'.  Well, one
can't prove a negative.  But I did extensive searches online, the Stanford and University of California library systems,
the Library of Congress, the interlibrary loan system, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, ebay and other marketing forums.
Nothing was found.  ANY publication would negate the statement, but not just any document or webpage qualifies as
'published'.  Published would as a minimum mean any of the following:
* it has an ISBN book number
* it has a library of congress card catalog number
* it has a registered copyright
* physical copies printed by a commercial publishing house, exist
* it is orderable through Amazon.com
* rights to the publication are owned by a company, not an individual (i.e. a website blogger, etc)
I think my statement stands, so I have reverted the deletion.  No such publication can be found.
Sbalfour (talk) 17:44, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: My statement has again been reversed, citing DeBoer's dissertation as the publication.  I must once more, revert the change.  A computer algorithm for playing Stratego isn't necessarily what humans do; the most important parts of Stratego strategy are bluffing, blitzing, and employing knowledge of your opponent's habits, none of which a computer program does.  It is similar to comparing a computer program for playing chess with what humans do.  But computers do not play chess like humans, and computer program methods cannot be used by humans to effectively play chess.   So it is with Stratego.  An additional consideration, unlike chess programs which demonstratably play a reasonable strategy, Stratego programs are no better than rank beginniers at Stratego,so their concept of "strategy" cannot be validated.  A good stratego player would NOT do what a stratego program does, and no one has published an exposition of what a good stratego player should do. Sbalfour (talk) 21:56, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the removal for two reasons. (1) The reason given by Sbalfour. This could raise some discussion as some of the work Chess computers in relation to Artificial Intelligence considerably influenced the research into human decision making (e.g. the illustrious Herbert Simon studied all 3 using comparable approaches). However, we would need sources that explicitly make the connection between and computer strategy. (2) The thesis of De Boer, while impressive for a Master thesis, is just that: A Master thesis. Per WP:Scholarship a master thesis can only be used as a reliable source if they have had considerable scholarly influence. There seems no indication that has been the case here (or we would have other sources), so the source should be considered unreliable. Arnoutf (talk) 08:16, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  No publication on strategy? 

message: "No exposition of the strategy of Stratego, either set up or game play, has been published."
Searching YouTube returns at least tips and tactics and how to play ... but I'm not sure what is actually covered under "exposition" ... JB. --92.193.141.234 (talk) 11:12, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  21st Century