Luzhanqi

Luzhanqi, also called Chinese military chess, is a two-player board game played on a sixty-five-space board, with a four-player variant also documented. Each side arranges twenty-five identical-looking pieces representing military ranks on its own half of the board before players alternate moving one piece at a time toward the opponent's headquarters. Because the identity of each piece is hidden from the opponent until it is challenged, Luzhanqi is classed as a non-perfect-information abstract strategy game, sharing this trait with Stratego and the Philippine game Game of the Generals. When a moving piece lands on a space held by an opposing piece, the two ranks are compared: the lower-ranked piece is removed, and equally ranked pieces are both removed. A player wins either by moving a piece into the enemy headquarters containing the flag or by eliminating the opponent's ability to continue. Luzhanqi is mainly played by children in China as an introduction to more complex traditional games such as xiangqi and weiqi, though people of other ages play it recreationally as well.