A computer called AlphaGo is competing against human South Korean Go champion Lee Sedol this week. Here's how strategy games came about thousands of years ago - and where humans are weakest.
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10 strategy games that are good for your brain
From chess to StarCraft, here are 10 classic strategy games that will challenge - and strengthen - your brain.
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Chess: King of games
The word chess is derived from the Persian "shah," which means king. The board was developed between the third and sixth centuries in India and is comprised of 64 small squares. Only two players can play against each other, using 16 pieces each. The aim is to checkmate your opponent by threatening their king in such a way that it cannot escape or be freed by another piece in the next move.
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Go: Made in Asia
Go originated in China, but was largely developed in Korea and Japan. It's played with black and white stones on a board crisscrossed by 19 horizontal and 19 vertical lines. Stones are placed on the intersections of the lines, with the aim being not to eliminate your opponent but to capture a majority of the board.
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Shogi: Japanese chess
This Japanese variation of chess is played on a board divided into nine fields, though smaller or larger boards are also common. There's one important difference between shogi and chess: In the Japanese version, pieces are not assigned to a particular player, but can be used by both. Checkmate, however, is still the aim of the game.
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Checkers: Jump and steal
A checkers board looks like a chessboard, but the rules differ greatly. In this case, players can only move their pieces diagonally across the darker squares, one square at a time, until they are able to capture their opponent's piece by jumping over it. The winner is the first to steal all of the other player's pieces. Checkers is also known as draughts and is called "Dame" ("lady") in German.
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Nine Men's Morris: Mill's the game
The board consists of three squares of gradually smaller size drawn within each other. Two players participate with nine tiles each. The aim is to get three of the tiles in a row, known as a mill, which allows you to remove one of your opponent's tiles. The winner is the first to reduce his opponent to two tiles, thereby hindering a three-tile mill.
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Tic-tac-toe: Circle or square?
It's perhaps the best game for long car trips, because all you need is a pencil and piece of paper. Tic-tac-toe dates back to the 12th century. Two players alternate in drawing an X or an O on a nine-square grid. The first player to create a row - horizontally, vertically or diagonally - wins. Tic-tac-toe was one of the first strategy games played on computers.
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'Connect Four': The vertical board
It's also considered a board game - but it's played vertically. "Connect Four" was introduced in 1974 and is a game for two players. The first to get four tiles of their color in a row - vertically, horizontally or diagonally - wins. It's similar to tic-tac-toe, except there are 42 open squares instead of just nine.
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'Civilization': From the board to the screen
Initially conceived as a board game, "Civilization" was introduced in 1980. The idea was complex: A civilization must survive hardships from antiquity to the Iron Age. Seven players can play simultaneously and one game can last up to 10 hours. In 1991, "Civilization" was launched as a computer game and became an international hit.
Image: 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
'Anno': Playing with people and resources
Another favorite resource-related game is "Anno," introduced in 1998. The idea behind it is to discover and populate fictional islands and then meet the needs of the new island residents. It's also possible for players to compete against each other - simulating attacks and trade.
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'StarCraft': A national pastime
For some it may be a simple diversion, but in South Korea "StarCraft" is a national pastime. The real-time strategy game was introduced in 1998 and has remained one of the most popular computer games on the market. Player build a base, collect resources and acquire soldiers to fight their opponents. Online tournaments are of national importance in South Korea - and even open to spectators.
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Games of strategy are nearly as old as humanity itself. The game Wei-qi, for example, was a favorite among intellectuals 4,000 years ago in ancient China. It later evolved into Go, which has become a popular pastime in Japan and Korea.
For a long time, this complex strategy game involving 361 black and white tiles was restricted to the realm of human minds. Again and again, software developers failed to develop a computer version that could handle the countless combinations possible in the game - and keep up with people.
But in January, Google subsidiary DeepMind had a breakthrough and its artificially intelligent program AlphaGo beat European Go champion, Fan Hui. Now, from March 9-15, AlphaGo is challenging South Korean Go master Lee Sedol in an event being streamed live on YouTube.
Computers better at strategy than humans
Man against machine - when it comes to strategy games, that's nothing new. The chess supercomputer Deep Blue beat the reigning human champion Garry Kasparov 19 years ago. In strategy, artificial intelligence is frequently superior to humans. The reason is fairly simple: Strategy games have nothing to do with chance.
Instead, success is dependent on long-term planning throughout a game, and not individual moves. Math plays a bigger role than intuition or luck.
Nevertheless, strategy games are deeply ingrained in human cultures. Even thousands of years ago, people challenged each other to prove their tactical skills and strategic prowess - all over the world.
Some of the world's oldest games
Chess champ Garry Kasparov famously lost to the computerImage: AP
The oldest known strategy game is mancala, which involves redistributing stones or beans in small indents carved out into a board. Played both in Africa and Asia, the game eventually made its way to Western cultures in the form of kalaha, which was developed in the mid-20th century in the US and is also known in Europe.
Kalaha was marketed as the "oldest board game in the world" - even though its exact origins are unclear. Though makers claimed the game was 5,000 years old, that seems to be a myth.
The first written reference to mancala appeared in an Arabic text in the 10th century. The oldest known game boards, dating back to between the sixth and eighth centuries, have been found in Ethiopia and Sri Lanka, among other places.
Just as old - or perhaps even older - is the best known strategy game in the world: chess. For decades, experts debated the true origin of the game, until in 2002 Munich-based cultural historian Renate Syed brought forth convincing evidence that chess was developed in India around the year 450 BC. The game arose from the military simulations of Indian scholars.
At some point, the scholars put their tactical exercise onto a board with 64 squares, known in India as astapada, which is not far from our modern-day chess board.
Simulated war tactics have not only led to chess, but to many other strategy games as well, particularly in the digital age. "Dawn of War," "Command & Conquer," "Age of Empire" - the titles of some of today's popular computer games ring of armed conflict. Since the 1980s, war has been an integral part of the computer game industry. In the meantime, calmer ancient classics like chess and checkers have also welcomed digital cousins.
Soon even the cleverest strategists won't have a chance against computers - at least not when it comes to pure strategy games. But when luck and chance are involved, humans still have the upper hand.
