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Stratego. Both opponents have 40 units each at the start of the game. My question is, is it real to destroy/kill/capture all forty enemy units during a single game? By "destroy" I mean also passive or mutual destruction, not necessarily an active kill. For example, if the opponent's spy is attacking our general, it is still counted as we have killed him.

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  • The spy attacking your general will result in the general being killed, not your general. The spy always wins when attacking, and always loses when defending...
    – mmathis
    Dec 7, 2017 at 18:26
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    @mmathis No, the Spy only wins when attacking the Marshal (and the Flag). He loses against anything else.
    – Dennis_E
    Dec 7, 2017 at 20:34
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    @Dennis_E huh, guess I was playing wrong for decades!
    – mmathis
    Dec 7, 2017 at 20:42
  • @Dennis_E Is it possible that an old version of the game did have mmathis's version of the rule? I can't find an official source, but I also played that way decades ago and here's an unofficial source which uses that rule: howdoyouplayit.com/391
    – Benjamin Cosman
    Aug 9, 2019 at 13:11

4 Answers 4

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As Dennis_E mentioned, it is possible, but I would say it is improbable.

To destroy all enemy units, you would have to avoid the flag until the 40th capture. Additionally, one of the enemy's non-stationary pieces must be the 39th piece to be captured, and it must suicide itself on one of your pieces. Otherwise, the game would have ended beforehand as the opponent would have been unable to move any piece during their turn, thus losing before you could destroy all 40 pieces.

What makes this improbable is that without assistance from your opponent, you would have to identify all the non-flag stationary pieces and destroy them before destroying the flag while ensuring the opponent maintains an additional non-stationary piece, which they must voluntarily throw at a piece that would destroy it on a turn preceding one where you are able to capture the flag.

I really cannot see a human opponent not forfeiting at this point unless they were colluding with you.

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  • sorry, but this answer is incorrect under the official game rules, see my answer below.
    – TemplateRex
    Aug 8, 2019 at 15:01
  • @TemplateRex how so? The 39th capture is done by the opponent, on their last turn
    – Caleth
    Aug 8, 2019 at 16:19
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    Technically, TemplateRex is correct. The game is over when your opponent suicides his last movable piece. In some computer games, you can still capture the Flag because the programmer just didn't know. I do it all the time just for fun. Everything else in this answer is still correct, though.
    – Dennis_E
    Aug 8, 2019 at 19:32
  • @Dennis_E: Does the game end if a player has no immediately-movable pieces at the end of their turn, or only if the player still has no movable pieces at the start of their next turn? Obviously if a Red's 39th piece suicides, no move by Blue could cause Red to have a valid move on Red's next turn, but I don't think the game should be considered over until a player in on move with no movable pieces.
    – supercat
    Mar 2, 2021 at 21:16
  • @supercat At the end of their turn. If both players have no more moveable pieces, the game is a draw. The player whose turn it is doesn't lose.
    – Dennis_E
    Mar 2, 2021 at 23:23
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According to the official rules of the International Stratego Federation, it is impossible to capture all 40 pieces of your opponent:

12 The end of the match

12.1 A game ends when:

  • one of the flags is captured.
  • at least one of the players has no movable piece anymore. A movable piece is a piece that still has at least one legal move.

So if your opponent has a flag and one moveable piece, there are two possibilities.

  1. it's your move: capturing either one of those pieces will win you the game.
  2. it's his move: losing his last moveable piece also wins you the game.

In either case, the position is won for you with at least one opponent piece standing.

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  • @anonymous downvoter: please indicate how I can improve this answer.
    – TemplateRex
    Aug 9, 2019 at 11:30
  • Wasn't me, but: "The ISF Game Rules are based on the Jumbo Stratego Original Game Rules".. Might be the wrong kind of official rules.
    – npst
    Aug 9, 2019 at 12:16
  • The Travel Rules i.e. lists under the original rules section "You also win, if your opponent can't move anything" which would be the case one round later nordicgames.is/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/…
    – npst
    Aug 9, 2019 at 12:20
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    Thanks a lot, TemplateRex. I've played a zillion of Stratego games and yes, it seems like it's really impossible to capture all forty enemy units. 39 is the maximum. Thus your newest answer is totally correct.
    – Alexander
    Aug 12, 2019 at 12:33
  • Is the concept of having "any movable pieces" meaningful for a player who isn't on move? If all but one of Red's pieces is blocked in by bombs, and Red's last movable piece dies while attacking one of Blue's pieces, but Blue's next move would attack Red's bomb, would Red lose as soon as the last immediately-movable piece is destroyed, or would the game continue because one of Red's pieces would have become movable before Red's next turn?
    – supercat
    Mar 2, 2021 at 21:14
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I question the "improbable" about this. We've had lots of games where all the miners were eliminated, leaving it to the blood kill. (Yes, we know the importance of keeping a miner for the end--dummy flags are dangerous weapons.) If the weaker side has no scouts left this goes down fairly rapidly. If he does, we've seen drawn games due to the minimum number of pieces required to catch a scout (seven on the open board).

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    I always wondered how to catch a single scout in Stratego. Your answer contains much appreciated information.
    – Alexander
    Dec 17, 2017 at 8:59
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    It is improbable if you want to eliminate all pieces, not just the moving pieces.
    – Toon Krijthe
    Dec 17, 2017 at 10:23
  • @ToonKrijthe: I considered that a higher-order typo as in the rules as I recalled them you lost immediately on losing your last moving piece and therefore loss of all pieces is not possible.
    – Joshua
    Dec 17, 2017 at 19:12
  • You lose if you have to move and you have no movable pieces left. So it can be done.
    – Toon Krijthe
    Dec 17, 2017 at 19:21
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Possible? Of course.
Realistic? That depends on your opponent's level.
Computers for example are really bad at Stratego. Against a computer, you can win almost every time by capturing all pieces. Against a decent human player, you should focus on capturing the flag ASAP.
But if you are so far ahead that you are in a position to utterly destroy your opponent, your opponent can just concede the game before you get the chance, especially when playing in a tournament setting.
I don't think it happens very often.

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    Computers can now beat humans at go and limit poker. I don't think a human stands any chance against a real AI in Stratego
    – Andrey
    Aug 8, 2019 at 18:34
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    @Andrey I would think so, but it seems no one has made a smart enough Stratego A.I. yet. The best one is probably Probe and that one is easily beaten. Also, Go and chess are open games; there is no hidden information. And Poker is a game of statistics.
    – Dennis_E
    Aug 8, 2019 at 19:00

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