Stratego community

Topic title says it all. What kind of features did Stratego.com miss?

My personal top three:
1) Barrage / QA ranking
2) Watching games live or via replay
3) Option to set clock settings

Don't feel limited to a top three

1. No rule against double chasing
2. Ineffective punishment for breaking rules/being abusive
3. They should have enforced only having one account per player somehow

In addition to what Nortrom and 01AAAAF said, I would add:

-An in-game board editor to recreate/illustrate game scenarios for educational and demonstrative purposes (I know that an external one exists but it is visually challenging).
-Some KPIs in your profile such as: your highest all time rating, your win/loss streak, maybe some recent game history, etc.

(01-03-2021 10:49 PM)Nortrom Wrote: [ -> ]Topic title says it all. What kind of features did Stratego.com miss?

My personal top three:
1) Barrage / QA ranking
2) Watching games live or via replay
3) Option to set clock settings

Don't feel limited to a top three

Watching games would be on nr. 1 for me.

1 - Double / multiple chasing pop up similar to the two square rule
2 - To forbid more than one single account per IP address
3 - Watching live games
4 - Games against IA more challenging
5 - Clown rating besides the normal ELO

Set up clock should not have ended if you hit an add and got sent elsewhere so that you would lose the match + points

actual effective clock settings either bronstein 50 or 70 no game should ever take over 50 minutes let alone 70

endless chase/double chase needed to be fixed - clock would help that

Feature to report in game - so admin could see log/or what happened vs screen shot system

Watching/Downloading games - would have got big crowds for the WCO and some other tournaments

Set reporting system for abuse etc not just using a forum

> 5 - Clown rating besides the normal ELO Big Grin


I like this idea

Some of the very dreaded issues have been endless chasing, 15 second in game buffer, 6 minute setup time, and not a proper game clock.

As mentioned by GhostfaceKillah (love the moniker, btw), to have a match with a time limit and effective game clock would solve a number of issues that plagued players on Stratego dot com.

In the case of Draw Refusal, if a player were to request a Draw, and needed to do so three times, that match should automatically be flagged for moderator review–no points given or taken...that match would have to be settled by the moderator's task force.

Something of these types of features might actually diminish the need for moderators to settle abuse cases–certainly, chronic game-side troublemakers would be caught relatively quickly and could be effectively banned from infecting the site with their unwanted poor behavior.

Also, a feature to disable game-side chat. In light of the fact that there are people who are abusive with their game-side chats, there should be a prompt for an immediate reporting of such chat (the entire chat is sent to mods when activated), which also closes the chat with a message such as "This entire chat session has been reported to Moderators and will be reviewed. Any violations recorded herewith may result in a ban or a permanent ban."

I am sure more thoughts will come along from others as this discussion develops.

4 player option, complete with cannons
and joining flags for victory

the only thing that i hated about the site was the 15 second clock. there should have been an option to play speed games! perhaps a 5 second clock with the same 5 minutes of thinking time. it is so obvious that people would abuse this to write down moves. the tell is when they start using about 10 seconds every turn and never forget a piece. once they seemingly have the game won they will then start to insta move. a player who abused this would typically make me forget the board at least a dozen times! anyone who doesn't believe in karma should reconsider! also the 6+ minutes of set up time was ridiculous and it would have been nice if you could reverse your set up with a click! the site was basically heaven for a troll!

#1) Ironclad limitation to one account per person.
#2) Double chasing rules programmed in.
#3) Simple stats free (last ten games w/l). More involved stats available (e.g., record against all opponents, how games were ended, etc.)
#4) free arrangement setting. (Very handy for discussing specific game circumstances quickly.)
#5) reduction in setup time to 3 minutes
#6) an immediate loss for a player using all his setup time.
#7) a feature in the app to allow changing of setups outside of the game (needed to make #5 and #6 fair)
#8) a quick flip feature for setups
#9) the fixing of the Cancel Search (desktop)/Abort (app) buttons to work properly and not ever give a loss when pressed.
#10) a Battlechat Mute button on the desktop game as there is for the app.
#11) a chat transcript button in both versions, where if pressed the entire chat is emailed to one after the game ends.
#12) a variable move timer (could move higher on the list if liked). This would be (one example) that a person would have 100 moves where he could take 15 seconds per move. After that, his move timer would be reduced to 10 seconds.
#13) autodraw to end game (instead of unforgiving game clock), though the details of this have never been satisfactorily worked out that I'm aware of.

Other than maybe implementing #12, I like the current 15 second move timer (not "in game buffer", Gwynplaine) and the 5 minute buffer. For an online community with widely diverse behaviors it isn't a bad combo.

Making changes online to match a tournament-type configuration, say 12/4, would be worse for honest players, while an opponent bent on abusing time would find a 12 minute buffer quite delectable. One person argued recently in the old forum that overall in a normal game the 12/4 settings would always make for a shorter game. While that's mathematically arguable, I would contend that no one uses 15 seconds every move, and also that it would be terrible to win a game in 10 to 15 to 20 minutes and then have to wait 12 minutes when an opponent abandoned his full buffer because he wanted revenge for losing. Limiting the number of 15 second moves could be the answer..

(01-17-2021 01:11 PM)GaryLShelton Wrote: [ -> ]#1) Ironclad limitation to one account per person.
#2) Double chasing rules programmed in.
#3) Simple stats free (last ten games w/l). More involved stats available (e.g., record against all opponents, how games were ended, etc.)
#4) free arrangement setting. (Very handy for discussing specific game circumstances quickly.)
#5) reduction in setup time to 3 minutes
#6) an immediate loss for a player using all his setup time.
#7) a feature in the app to allow changing of setups outside of the game (needed to make #5 and #6 fair)
#8) a quick flip feature for setups
#9) the fixing of the Cancel Search (desktop)/Abort (app) buttons to work properly and not ever give a loss when pressed.
#10) a Battlechat Mute button on the desktop game as there is for the app.
#11) a chat transcript button in both versions, where if pressed the entire chat is emailed to one after the game ends.
#12) a variable move timer (could move higher on the list if liked). This would be (one example) that a person would have 100 moves where he could take 15 seconds per move. After that, his move timer would be reduced to 10 seconds.
#13) autodraw to end game (instead of unforgiving game clock), though the details of this have never been satisfactorily worked out that I'm aware of.

Other than maybe implementing #12, I like the current 15 second move timer (not "in game buffer", Gwynplaine) and the 5 minute buffer. For an online community with widely diverse behaviors it isn't a bad combo.

Making changes online to match a tournament-type configuration, say 12/4, would be worse for honest players, while an opponent bent on abusing time would find a 12 minute buffer quite delectable. One person argued recently in the old forum that overall in a normal game the 12/4 settings would always make for a shorter game. While that's mathematically arguable, I would contend that no one uses 15 seconds every move, and also that it would be terrible to win a game in 10 to 15 to 20 minutes and then have to wait 12 minutes when an opponent abandoned his full buffer because he wanted revenge for losing. Limiting the number of 15 second moves could be the answer.

I actually really like your idea for #12. I am not sure about the math, but it would definitely seem to cut down on the amount of time it’s possible to waste near the end of a match. 10 seconds after 100 moves seems reasonable, since the average game lasts 381 moves.

To clarify a bit: my desire for #12 is to leave the buffer at 5 minutes. After the one hundred 15 second moves are used up, the move timer would only give 10 seconds per move. Then the buffer would start to wind down after 10 seconds instead of 15.

One hundred moves before the variability kicked in is merely an example I offer. Many moves in a normal game will be made in 1-2 seconds.

If we accept our alpha-numeric friend's number that a normal game is 380 moves, then that's 190 per player. 100 15-second moves would be 25 minutes. And the 90 10-second ones would be 15 more minutes. Then with a 5 minute buffer such a normal game would be over in 45 minutes.

If that's a normal game, it approximates the 50 minute game clock Guldin asked for above without being an absolute cutoff should the game be playing in a slower mode.

Admittedly, this idea of a variable move timer still allows a bad person to waste as many 10 second moves as he wants and run the game out longer. The answer the old MT had to that was to limit the time of 15 second moves a player could make.

the 15 second move clock has ruined the game for me unless i am able void games with my list of stallers. it's absolutely pathetic how these people abuse this clock! a thought process every turn to play stratego, are you kidding me? they are drawing out these games so bad it makes me sick to my stomach.

as gary said, there is a lot of other things as well. i don't understand why stratego.com just didn't charge a small fee to play. then they could have added more features and stopped a lot of trolling, multiple accounts, etc. the platform is entirely to troll friendly! it really makes me wonder tbh!

i would have liked the option to play speed games or at least something much more reasonable than the 15 sec clock which has bored me too much from playing. i am gonna start playing speed chess again to ecape from being trolled.

it would have been nice to be able to have more set ups saved and be able to flip them. also, since it's a no brainer that this game would be chosen by people to use for brain activity, the remain visible feature would be more helpful for exercising your diffuse thinking mode in my opinion. i get it that the true nature of the game is to be without that. this is why they have a special olympics tho. just because some people are not able to compete at the highest level, doesn't mean they don't like to compete. i could beat the best player in the world with that feature using skill. otherwise a lucky lotto would be likely my only chance lol.

15 seconds for a move is insane

This isnt even for debate

You could do game search by clock if you wanted

bronstein 50 min / 12 / 4 second per move is more than enough

if you wanted you could have the 70 / 15/ 5 clock most moves should be 2-3 seconds max and when you need to think you can stop and think.. Benefit is given to those who can think quicker in this game as you get to the right move in quicker time.

You could have a third option with no clock- but based on the troublemakers on this site in the past that would be foolish.

You don't need 15 seconds per move for 100 moves thats insane and if you didi at the 50 /12 / 4 youd have 11 seconds x 100 = 1100 seconds / 60 = 19 minutes thatsn uts

I personally have always liked the 15 second clock. It allows for time to play the way I remember the live board game playing.

But I understand there are a lot of people who like a "speed" factor that matches typical European tournament play. 12/4.

I think a 12 minute buffer online allows for a lot of abuse from those who were already thrilled to make an opponent wait 5 minutes for buffer rundown. Giving them 12 minutes, potentially, would definitely make for some bad experiences for a few unlucky players.

But this debate aside, giving the option to choose the clock settings would be all right to me. One suggestion would be to simply have two ranking lists. One for ranked list A games, where the settings are 12/4, and another for ranked list B games, where games play at 5/15. I would argue the 50 minute clock could go.

(02-12-2021 07:49 AM)GaryLShelton Wrote: [ -> ]I personally have always liked the 15 second clock. It allows for time to play the way I remember the live board game playing.

But I understand there are a lot of people who like a "speed" factor that matches typical European tournament play. 12/4.

I think a 12 minute buffer online allows for a lot of abuse from those who were already thrilled to make an opponent wait 5 minutes for buffer rundown. Giving them 12 minutes, potentially, would definitely make for some bad experiences for a few unlucky players.

But this debate aside, giving the option to choose the clock settings would be all right to me. One suggestion would be to simply have two ranking lists. One for ranked list A games, where the settings are 12/4, and another for ranked list B games, where games play at 5/15. I would argue the 50 minute clock could go.

Eventually it comes down to numbers, when the playerbase is big enough, such suggestions become viable. Each additional setting has the potential to split the playerpool resulting in longer wait times etc.

In a game I play, the following options are available for the matchmaker:

Options for unranked (7)


Options for ranked - role queue (3)


Options for ranked - classic (3)


Options for server to reduce latency (18) (you can select more than 1)

Typically players will select a whole region (like US east, US west). I personally don't use EU East because of the increased chance of running into players that don't communicate in English

Note that the matchmaker also is forced to attempt to give all teams consisting of 5 players each a 50% chance of winning based on their matchmaking rating.

Point being, this only is viable due to the huge amount of players.

The player pool must have been low at first at stratego.com so maybe that's why Orange Games, or Keesing, or whoever it was, took the approach of 5/15. I can only assume it was to appeal to a wider, inexperienced crowd of players. I wonder why they did that, though, if there was so much interest in 12/4? Was this situation different back in 2012? I know .com played around with the clocks at least once in early 2013. I can't remember exactly, but I believe they went from 10 seconds to 15 on the move timer. (Don't hold me to that.)

I think no matter what time clock settings are used in the next venue, the first priority has to be trying to close the door on multiple accounts. I don't do gaming on other sites. I'm pretty much a checkers and stratego guy. Does any site have the answer to this problem, I wonder? If so, I hope that approach is looked at. Multiple accounts, like a 12, mock whatever rules of behavior that are applied. The owners hide behind their keyboards and laugh about the annoyances they cause because they are untouchable. There has to be an enforced one account per person rule to have good behavior online in my view. Players have to know there are enforceable penalties, even permanent banning. Given this, my concerns about the 12/4 might be alleviated.