For Stratego Lovers Only

just came up with a great idea for a new version of Stratego -- this would only be played on a computer. The idea arose from thinking about the Spy piece and wondering what would be like if it could actually spy so the first step would be to change the name of the current Spy piece to the Assassin to eliminate confusion.

Here's how spying would work. Whenever one of your pieces moves into a position adjacent to one of the pieces of the enemy---doesn't matter if it's to the right left in front of or in back of -- both you and the enemy would have the opportunity to subvert the other person's piece and turn it into a spy.

However, you would only have the opportunity to do this twice per game. If you make the choice to do this, the enemy piece will then secretly become your spy. However, the enemy will not know about this. Once the piece is your spy, it means that every time that piece becomes adjacent to another of your opponent's pieces, you get to find out the identity of that other opponent's piece. In addition, you get to find out the identity of each piece directly adjacent to the piece you are spying on.

That means in any one move, you can find out about a maximum of four different enemy pieces. In addition, at any point in the game, you could decide to "take over" active control of this piece. At this point, the piece would lose its spy powers and revert to its ordinary powers depending on its rank. It would be just like one of your regular pieces. The enemy would find out when one of his pieces suddenly moved without him moving it, and then changed color.

One of the keys is, if you move next to an enemy piece, you have three seconds to "subvert it" into a spy. After those three seconds, the enemy can, if he chooses, subvert your piece into a spy. However, if you subvert an enemy piece into a spy and he subsequently tries to subvert your same piece into a spy---within the same move---then not only will his piece become your spy, but your piece will become a double agent. What this means is, that you will gain control of the flow of information going to the enemy about what your pieces supposedly are. You can send him any type of misinformation you want to.