Challenge Your Brain With Strategy Games

Strategy games involve a player's decision making skills, rather than simply relying on chance. In a militaristic sense, a strategic boardgame requires individual planning and tactics. All players begin with the same knowledge of the rules and the game, but certain tricks and tips can be discovered along the way. Games like checkers, chess and backgammon, as well as Axis & Allies, Stratego, Reversi and Mastermind are examples of strategic games.
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Strategy games come in many different varieties. Some are abstract, like Stratego or backgammon, which do not have random elements of luck and do not try to simulate reality. Simulation type games like Abalone or Strat-o-matic Baseball are attempting to simulate a real-world situation. Wargames like Axis & Allies, Warhammer, Advanced Squad Leader, Risk or Civilization simulates military battles or wars, often making use of mini-weapons and maps. There are also strategy board games video like Command & Conquer, Total War or Age of Empires that uses real-time strategy or turn-based strategy, as well as military tactics.
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Some people enjoy party games like Cranium or Guesstures, where they can blurt out answers to questions, act out charades, perform, answer trivia and create drawings. Others may like word games like the Scrabble board game or Boggle, which allows them to flex their knowledge. Some people like games of chance like Yahtzee dice games or Candyland, where their fate depends largely upon "the roll of the dice." Yet one of the most popular categories is strategy games like chess or checkers, which focuses on an individual's decision-making skills and techniques.
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They say strategy games rely wholly on a person's ability to think critically and make decisions. However, anyone who has played a worthy adversary in a checkers or chess board game knows that there are many secret tricks, tips, techniques and tactics that can really help a person get ahead. Sometimes these surreptitious skills are acquired during game play, with practice, while other times a player may visit online message forums or read books to gain the inside scoop. For the strategy lover, there are many of popular and classic board games to choose from.

When it comes to strategy games, the chess board game is the ultimate! This highly competitive game has been around since the late 15th century and involves a board with 64 squares arranged in an 8 x 8 grid and six independently moving pieces, which are 1 king, 1 queen, 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops and 8 pawns. The idea of the game is to gain as many opponent pieces as possible and check-mate/capture the king. World championships have been going on since 1886 and a number of computer scientists have worked toward creating programs that can beat human champions. Chess strategies look toward setting up long-term goals by looking ahead. Chess tactics are aimed at immediate maneuvering. Players look at the pawn structure, the key squares on the board, the king's safety and open pathways. Since there are so many different moves one can make, chess is considered one of the most difficult games to master.

Backgammon is one of the more popular strategy games that has been around since the 19th century. The object of backgammon is for players to remove all of their pieces from the board by rolling dice. In a way, players do rely on a bit of chance since they're rolling dice to advance their game pieces, although there are many important strategies players must choose on their way to the finish. One strategy requires that players avoid being hit, trapped or held in a stand-off, for instance. Another strategy is to build a wall of pieces to obstruct a player from capturing one's pieces or landing on that spot. Players can choose to move one piece the total number of spaces rolled on the two dice or they may move two pieces separately. Like the chess board game, computer scientists have tried to develop software capable of beating world-class champions.
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Checkers is one of the most classic strategy games of all time. To win the game, players must alternate turns, moving 12 pieces along an 8 x 8 black and red checker board. Each piece can only move and capture diagonally in a forward motion until a piece is "kinged" and given the ability to move forwards and backwards. Pieces are captured by jumping over and the goal is, naturally, to capture all the other player's pieces. The number of legal positions is estimated to be from 1021 to 1031, compared to chess's 1043 to 1050. In some cases, with two perfect checkers board game players, the end result can only be a draw. There are a number of strategies employed during game play. Sometimes players can force their opponent to make a jump, thereby putting him or herself in a precarious position. Players can strive to get as many of their pieces "king-ed" as possible for greater mobility, while simultaneously blocking access to their side of the board (where the opponent may be seeking king-worthy spaces).
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Another one of the great strategy games is Mastermind, a two-player code-breaking game. To play, a code-master will create a four-color code hidden behind a shield and the opponent will place four colors down at his end to try and guess the code. The code-master will then place zero to four black or white pegs into the side bar -- the white peg indicating "correct color, wrong position," the black peg indicating "correct color and position." The code-master gets a point for every guess that is made correctly and the winner is the player with the most points after a certain number of games. With four pegs and six colors, there are 1,296 different possible combinations. The strategies of this boardgame very much revolve around algorithms used in probability mathematics.

Axis & Allies is one of the most popular strategy games based around war, with over 2 million copies printed. In addition to the original World War II boardgame, there are also spin-offs based on Europe (Western & Eastern fronts) and Pacific (Pacific & Asian fronts). In all games, up to five players vie for control of the Axis nations (Germany or Japan) and the Allied nations (UK, USSR and US). As of 2008, the 50th Anniversary Edition added Italy as the third Axis nation. The primary objective is to capture the most territory, which is done by rolling dice, purchasing tanks, aircraft, ships and infantry, declaring movement actions and rolling dice against opponents to determine who has won the battle. There are numerous strategies that may be employed, when choosing which areas to make a play for and which equipment to buy. The strategies also change by country. For instance, when playing the Anniversary Edition, some say that when playing Russia, players should build up infantry and attack Belarus and West Russia. When playing Germany, it's best to get heavy bombers and rockets to focus on Egypt, keep control of Belarus and attack Mediterranean battleships. For the UK, build up industry in India and South Africa, attack the Japanese to guard India and attack Japanese subs near Australia. With Japan, players will have more money so they can build up bombers and transports while hitting China and Pearl Harbor. The US players usually try to get heavy bombers and take back Pearl Harbor. Of course, these are just a few suggestions when playing this classic board game. The possibilities are seemingly endless, which is why it's so easy to play for hours and hours on end.
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Reversi, also sometimes called Othello, is another one of the best strategy games. In this abstract strategy game, players aim to turn the majority of the 8 x 8 board their color (either black or white) by flipping over their opponent's pieces. Initially, a beginner's strategy is to look for turns where he or she can simply flip over the largest number of opponent pieces. Yet, as one progresses, corners and edges become strategic strongholds. Players often look to force their opponents into making certain undesirable moves; this can be done by gathering all one's pieces in the center of the board, leaving the opponent the outside. Reversi has a total of 1028 to 1058 legal positions, which can be more than the chess board game and the checkers board game. This game still puzzles many mathematicians who cannot figure out how to predict outcomes where both sides play perfectly.
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Strategy games are fun because they give the players something to strive for over time. While each player begins with the same knowledge of the game rules and the moves they can make, the experienced and logically-thinking players will have the advantage. The ability to look ahead, predict one's opponent's moves and use both strategy and tactics is essential for the mastering of these games. Many books have been penned about the strategies for classic board games like chess and checkers. Computer games can help players learn the different moves and watch the robot's moves to ascertain the winning technique. Once a player has become practiced and polished, he or she may play other opponents online or even enter into tournaments, where they can win cash, prizes and fame.

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Challenge Your Brain With Strategy Games

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