Glad to hear that! I haven’t played much recently either. I’ve only played 2 games in total over the last 2 weeks. Burnout has mostly been my problem though. I’ve gotten tired of playing the same handful of setups and slight variations for the roughly 500 matches since I started playing in mid-November.
That was part of the reason I made this thread. I wanted to experiment with some “less optimal” setups and maybe get some inspiration for a new setup idea or something. “Competitive” setups are pretty much all the same in terms of general principles, so this has been kinda nice to freshen things up a bit (even if some of the choices were quite questionable lol).
I've only played maybe three or four games of Stratego the whole month of January, and none in February so far, primarily due to work schedule. We'll see if the lack of playing helps or makes things worse!
As life would have it, this weekend looks busy already, so no promises. But I'd like to record a couple of games with this setup with commentary included. I plan to discuss my thoughts about the setup before playing too. Some thoughts will probably be obvious (E4 spy?) but I have a few others to share too.
Yes, that appears to be accurate. It should indeed create some interesting games lol. Fortunately, the vast majority of the players still on Stratego.com seem to be low Bronze players, so it shouldn’t be too bad.
Just now noticed the spy on E4. Wow, that is risky. As I recall, there was a crazy award on the desktop version about capturing the Marshal with the spy before anything else was captured. You needed a spy on the front row to get this award. I always regarded this "award" as an unobtainable one. Might it happen now? ?
(02-06-2021 09:51 AM)GaryLShelton Wrote: [ -> ]Just now noticed the spy on E4. Wow, that is risky. As I recall, there was a crazy award on the desktop version about capturing the Marshal with the spy before anything else was captured. You needed a spy on the front row to get this award. I always regarded this "award" as an unobtainable one. Might it happen now? ?
I believe you are referring to "The Gambler" which is when the spy captures the marshal before any piece on the board has been revealed. I think I got mine vs. 12 against one of his marshal charges.
Thanks for recording the match! I’ll go ahead and leave my thoughts in a spoiler tag. I probably should’ve used a spoiler tag sooner, but it’s still pretty soon after my original post, so it should be alright.
Here are my thoughts:
Haha, don’t know what your opponent was thinking near the end there... Terrible blunder on their part indeed. I guess they were thinking they wouldn’t be able to trap your known Captain because of 3-square and maybe they assumed the unknown Captain was just something garbage, but there was still no need for them to lotto. They may have also thought the unknown Captain was a Miner and maybe their flag was in that corner so they were desperate?
I thought you did pretty well considering the limitations of the setup. The flag could’ve been a bit vulnerable early if the opponent had committed to a bit more of an aggressive attack while their Marshal was over there, but I do think they believed that was the weak side with nothing of value over there. The Spy being in the front row surprisingly wasn’t actually a problem.
The main flaw in the setup seemed to be the 2 Colonels stacked in the middle, because that caused you to be a bit more defensive with them then you probably would’ve otherwise liked to be, since you were correctly fearing a General attack. I think the flag tripod, while being not very optimal in terms of wasting a bomb, may have helped in terms of unpredictability and they probably would’ve wasted their last Miner elsewhere because I highly doubt they suspected the flag tripod was in the location that it was in.
Also, if anyone wants to know how to use a spoiler tag, it’s like this:
![[Image: 7-F58209-A-E6-FB-49-AB-95-FB-7-EF14-A4-BF181.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/nckp6gjn/7-F58209-A-E6-FB-49-AB-95-FB-7-EF14-A4-BF181.png)
It’s a little trick that I remembered from other forums that I’ve been on. I noticed this forum doesn’t actually have a button to add spoiler tags.
Yes, this would have been a challenging game against a higher-ranked opponent. It's true that he didn't know that second captain that he could have forked and captured, but pursuing it would have won him a piece regardless, while the lotto ended the game for him. It is possible that his flag was up in that corner, but even then he would have had time to bring something over to block a miner. Plus that was his weaker side, so it didn't feel like a flag (then again, look where my flag was.)
The two colonels was a huge weakness, never mind the spy. As soon as his marshal was revealed (and then mine), I figured that his general was in the middle and that I had to create space for my colonels immediately. He could have taken my middle captain with his general (it had moved, but he must have forgotten). Overall just a lot of mistakes that you would expect from the low-silver level, but he gave it his best and to his credit he played the game rather than just lottoing from the start.
I think this setup will be very challenging against gold or especially platinum opponents. At least the scouts are not buried, so it is possible to create some space and try to maneuver around. However, in a competitive game, you don't want to waste time doing this when your opponent is developing more properly.
The best bets for success are:
-Cover the spy ASAP
-Play the right side as your weak side (no flag around here)
-Take advantage of unexpected piece positions with some key bluffs.
-Try to create some space so that you can rearrange as necessary.
@
01AAAAF can you make a new thread for a new setup?
I am interested in trying this setup again another time or two, just for fun. My work schedule is calming down at last, so keep an eye out for another video hopefully sometime this week!
I had a chance to try this first setup again. It turned out to be an interesting game (in my opinion).
Commentary included!
https://youtu.be/CxF0-qyKh6s
Your opponent didn't live up to his name.
Your spoiler tag will work properly if you remove the period from your second brackets. Probably just a typo, but I agree regardless. Certainly some very interesting games!
![[Image: gCNb6ho]](https://imgur.com/gCNb6ho)