Nortrom's Stratego (and other topics) blog

An interesting topic was started on the forum by GaryLShelton about the current stage of the game's popularity. In my opinion, Stratego attracts a certain kind of people who don't need flashy graphics in order to enjoy a game. Many players who have tried the game will most likely say they found it to be fun, but they think they aren't good enough, quite frankly improving in this game isn't that easy. The first struggle for a new player starts when making a setup, when new to the game, making a good setup isn't that easy, there are 40 pieces you have to think about and throughout the first games, most likely with a lot of losses, improve the setup to the point where they feel comfortable using it. Then comes the next challenge, you may meet the same player twice, which requires another setup to be created (or boldly playing the same one again), only adding to the problem. Of course you can find some setups online (some good ones, some absolute trash ones), but t

On the 9th of December the EGC Grand Prix final was held in Antwerp (Belgium). For those not familiar with EGC, this is an organization which focuses on developing Stratego in as many countries as possible. The Grand Prix is a series of tournaments where players can qualify themselves for the eventual final, in which the top 16 players will receive an invitation. The top 16 is determined by the results of so called Grand Prix / International tournament results. GP tournaments are worth more points. The goal of the Grand Prix series is to unite Stratego communities from different countries. Due to some last moment changes, some players who initially did not qualify for participation received compensation, as without said change they would have had a bigger chance of qualifying themselves. While rules in general are important, more important is the ensuring a fun and fair competition for all, ultimately, the decision increased the amount of participants in the finals, which is alwa

In one of the previous articles I wrote about about the history of the WCO . In this article I will discuss some of the improvements (especially on the organizational part) based on our experiences, aswell as sharing some personal thoughts. Technical During the first WCO, we used a word document which looked like the red text is variable, per match. This means we had to look up all the data from the Excel file and replace it. Very prone to error and very time consuming. I would say this was the most annoying thing about the WCO #1. In order to make things easier for the WCO team, and generally better for the participants (less errors, country flag, etc) I decided to make a small webapplication which with a database behind it. The database contains the following information of a player: - Accountname - Nationality - Skype Address ( not anymore ) A table with rounds (start date, end date) was created too. With this tool we can generate match PMs with ease. From a drop-down

About a week ago, Google's AlphaZero (henceforth called 'AZ' took on what is generally seen as the strongest chess engine with an ELO of approximately 3400, Stockfish 8 (henceforth called 'SF'). In the head to head match, AZ played 100 games against SF in which both engines had the white pieces 50 times. At the end AZ won 28 games while drawing the other 72 games against SF. Interesting detail is that during the latest chess engine competition, SF did not make it to the superfinals, despite not having lost a single game against any of the other engines ( more info ), showing that by being capable of not losing, you do not automatically win a tournament, an interesting thing to keep in mind when thinking of Stratego AI's. More info about Google's deepmind can be for example found at here . While some people argue that the match wasn't considered fair as AZ had access to better hardware and that SF didn't make use of its so called opening book and e

As we are currently halfway through the 3rd edition of the World Championships Online (henceforth called "WCO") it is worth looking back at the history of the WCO. By history I do not mean looking at the results, shocking moments and so on, but more from an organizational perspective and looking back at the initial (and current) goals of the WCO. As dramatic as it might sound... it all started when KARAISKAKIS (henceforth called "Greg") had the idea of organizing a tournament which would unite the two Stratego communities, online and offline. At first, I was a bit sceptical to say the least about the idea of organizing a tournament which would hold the "World championships" title. The WCO would mainly attract online players, offline not so much, I thought. Looking back at it, I think this mainly is because of the lack of promotion of the WCO back then. When Greg approached me if I'd be interested in organizing such event, as said, I was sceptical

For a while now some players have been streaming or/and recording games and putting those with the purpose of putting them on YouTube  which allows others to be entertained by watching a game of Stratego and possible discussing it on the forums, helping the community to be more active. As I am writing this post, it just so happened that one of the well known content makers / streamers posted an idea . Don't get me wrong, I most definitely don't watch all of the posted video's, in fact probably less than 1 out of 20 as it is a time consuming thing to do, skipping parts usually means you miss out on critical information to fully understand what is going on. Recently some content makers tried adding live voice commentary adding a new dimension to the video's. To those capable (and willing) of putting on the extra weight of multitasking; keep it up! Some tips to the content makers: 1. Don't play the same setup every game, it gets a bit dull watching you play the

Dear audience, Welcome to my blog. On here I will post my views on certain topics, share some thoughts give a view behind the scenes of some Stratego related business and so on. Topics will be discussed whenever something interesting happened or the topic simply crossed my mind and I felt like writing something about it. If you have a suggestion for a topic, mail me . Thanks. As this is new to me, occasionally you may notice changes in layout/theme, it is not really my area of expertise, so very likely this layout will be used for a while. Should you post a comment, please do not be offended if no reply or whatsoever is given by me - hereby you have my thanks in advance. Yours truly, Nortrom