10 Ancient and Obscure Strategy Games from Around the World

Strategy games have been part of human culture for thousands of years. Long before modern board games or digital entertainment, people across ancient civilizations invented clever ways to test their wits, train their minds, and challenge their friends. Some of these games, like chess, Go, and backgammon, survived and are still played today. But many others, which were just as brilliant in design, slowly faded into obscurity.

In this list, we will explore ten ancient and obscure strategy games from around the world. Most were once popular and culturally significant but are now largely forgotten outside academic circles or regional traditions. These games reveal how people in different parts of the world thought about strategy, conflict, and competition. Often, the mechanics were surprisingly sophisticated and sometimes entirely unique.

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10 Seega (North Africa)

Seega is a deceptively simple strategy game once played in Egypt and other parts of North Africa. It was popular during the 19th and 20th centuries. Seega is played on a 5×5 or 7×7 grid, with each player controlling an equal number of pieces, usually 12 on a 5×5 board. What makes Seega unique is its two-phase gameplay. First, players take turns placing their pieces on the board, skipping the center square. Then, once all the pieces are placed, the movement phase begins.

The goal is to capture your opponent’s pieces by sandwiching them between two of your own, either horizontally or vertically. Diagonal movement is not allowed, and unlike checkers or chess, there is no jumping. Every move becomes a test of foresight and positioning, especially as the board fills up and options become limited.

Although it was widely played for centuries, Seega never spread beyond its regional roots and has since faded into obscurity. Still, it remains one of the best examples of abstract strategy emerging independently from the Mediterranean world.^[1]

9 Tablut (Scandinavia)

Tablut is a Scandinavian board game from the Tafl family of asymmetric strategy games, once played by the Vikings and other northern European cultures. Unlike most games where both players have identical forces, Tablut features unequal sides: one player controls a king and a small defense force, while the other commands a much larger army of attackers.

The king starts in the center of a 9×9 board, positioned on a special square called the konakis, or throne. His goal is to escape to one of the four corner squares, which represent safety. The attackers must prevent this by surrounding and capturing him. All pieces move like rooks in chess, any number of spaces vertically or horizontally, and captures are made by flanking an opposing piece on two opposite sides. The king, however, must often be surrounded on all four sides to be captured, depending on the variant.

What makes Tablut especially interesting is how it mirrors Viking-era warfare. The defenders must work together, using tactical movement and clever positioning to protect the king, while the attackers rely on overwhelming force and encirclement. Carl Linnaeus, the famous Swedish botanist, recorded the game’s rules during his travels in Lapland in 1732. Thanks to his journal, Iter Lapponicum, Tablut became the best documented surviving variant of the ancient Tafl games.^[2]

8 Tsoro (Zimbabwe)

Tsoro is a traditional African board game from Zimbabwe, closely related to the broader family of mancala games played across the African continent. Like other mancala-style games, Tsoro is played by scooping and sowing small stones or seeds across a series of pits carved into a wooden board or directly into the ground. What distinguishes Tsoro is its unique pit layout and the fast-paced, aggressive strategy required to win.

Players sit across from each other with two rows of pits, usually four or more on each side, and an equal number of seeds in each pit. On a player’s turn, they choose one of their pits, pick up all the seeds it contains, and distribute them one by one into the next pits in a counterclockwise direction. Captures are made by landing the last seed in an empty pit on your own side, provided that the directly opposite pit on your opponent’s side contains one or more seeds. If so, you capture those seeds and remove them from the board. This capture mechanic adds an extra layer of timing and anticipation since every move reshapes the board and opens or closes potential traps.

There are several regional variants of Tsoro, including some that feature four rows of pits instead of two, allowing for even deeper levels of strategy. In some versions, captured seeds are reintroduced into the game after each round, creating cycles of buildup and release that keep the gameplay dynamic and unpredictable.

Though often played casually in rural villages, Tsoro has deep cultural roots and was once a widespread pastime in precolonial Zimbabwe. Elders passed down the rules through demonstration and oral tradition, and children often learned the game at an early age. Today, it is preserved through family gatherings, cultural festivals, and occasional educational programs. It may not be globally known, but Tsoro is a prime example of how strategy and creativity flourished in Indigenous African societies.^[3]

7 Surakarta (Java, Indonesia)

Surakarta is a visually unique and intellectually challenging strategy game from the island of Java in Indonesia. It’s played on a 6×6 grid, but what makes it different are the looping circular tracks at each corner of the board. These loops are both decorative and an essential part of the game’s capture mechanic.

Each player starts with 12 pieces. On a normal turn, a piece can move one step in any direction to an adjacent square. But capturing an opponent’s piece is far more complex. To do so, a player must first travel along one of the corner loops and then land directly on the opponent’s piece. This requirement makes offensive play much harder to execute and forces players to think several steps ahead.

Surakarta demands spatial awareness, strategic patience, and the ability to anticipate your opponent’s moves well in advance. Despite its innovative mechanics, it remains relatively unknown outside Southeast Asia. Its clever use of looping paths and elegant, circular design make it a hidden gem among the world’s traditional board games.^[4]

6 Five Field Kono (Korea)

Five Field Kono is a Korean strategy game that looks simple at first glance but hides surprising depth. It is played on a small, cross-shaped board made up of ten spaces, with five on each side. Each player begins with five pieces, and the objective is to occupy all five of your opponent’s starting spaces.

Players take turns moving one piece at a time. A piece can move one space forward or sideways or jump over an adjacent piece. The jumping mechanic is similar to checkers, but there is no capturing in this game. Positioning is everything, and the lack of elimination makes every piece equally important throughout the match.

The tight layout of the board creates a constant strategic challenge. Space is limited; one wrong move can block your pieces or open the door for your opponent. Success depends on careful planning, anticipation, and the ability to visualize multiple turns ahead.

Although it is rarely played today, Five Field Kono remains a very compelling example of minimalist game design. It never found widespread popularity outside Korea, but it continues to appear in traditional game collections and academic references.^[5]

5 Fidchell (Ireland)

Fidchell, also spelled fidcheall, was an ancient Irish board game played by kings, druids, and warriors. It appears in early Irish legends such as The Táin Bó Cúailnge and The Book of Leinster. The game symbolized wisdom, nobility, and insight.

Tradition holds that Lugh of the Tuatha Dé Danann created the game, which predates chess. Fidchell was played during festivals like Samhain and was used by druids for prophecy. It was reserved for the elite, and mastery of the game showed intellect and status.

The board was typically seven by seven squares, with sixteen attackers, eight defenders, and one king. The king aimed to reach a corner to win. Attackers won by surrounding the king on four sides or three if near the edge or center. All pieces moved like rooks in chess but could not jump. A piece was captured by being trapped between two enemies.

Some versions allowed movement between enemies without capture. Only the king could stand on the throne or corners. In some traditions, players rolled knucklebones to decide how far they could move.

Fidchell blended strategy with myth. It was part of royal education and reflected both power and spirituality. Though the exact rules varied, its place in Irish culture endures.^[6]

4 Mehen (Ancient Egypt)

Mehen was an ancient Egyptian board game named after the serpent deity who protected Ra during his nightly journey through the underworld. The game board was shaped like a coiled snake, divided into rectangular segments with a stylized snake head at one end. Mehen dates back more than 5,000 years and has been found in tombs from the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods.

Each player had four small counters and one lion counter. A counter is a small game piece used to mark movement or progress on the board. To begin, players took turns throwing casting sticks, needing a two or three to place a counter on the first space. Once all four counters were in play, players moved them toward the snake’s head, then turned them over and moved them back toward the tail. When a player returned one counter safely, they could then move their lion.

The lion moved just like the regular counters, but on the return trip, it could eat opposing counters by landing on the same space. Lions could not eat each other. Counters that reached the tail without being eaten were safe and could be removed from the board. The winner was the player whose lion ate the most of their opponent’s pieces.

Mehen seamlessly blended strategy, symbolism, and fun. It was played for centuries, and then it vanished from the archaeological record around 2300 BC. Today, it is remembered for its unique design and spiritual connection to protection, death, and rebirth.^[7]

3 Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum (Rome)

Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum, meaning “Game of Twelve Lines,” was a Roman board game played across the ancient Roman Empire. The board had three rows of twelve squares, giving the game its name. Although no ancient rulebook has survived, modern scholars have reconstructed plausible rules based on archaeological evidence and comparisons with later games such as tabula and backgammon. These reconstructions suggest that it was a race game in which players used dice rolls to move pieces across the board, attempting to reach the end while blocking or capturing their opponent’s pieces.

Roman citizens played it in private homes, noisy taverns, and even in public. Archaeologists have found boards carved directly into stone benches and paving stones in ancient cities. Some of those boards showed signs of heavy wear, suggesting they were used frequently over many years.

Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum was mentioned in Roman writings and depicted in Roman artwork; this demonstrates that it was widely known in Roman society. Over time, it may have evolved into the game of tabula, which in turn influenced backgammon during the Middle Ages. The original game disappeared with the fall of Rome, but the carved stones and scattered references offer a glimpse into how Romans relaxed and competed with each other.^[8]

2 Petteia (Greece)

Petteia was a strategic board game played throughout ancient Greece, with references dating back to the 5th century BC. It was known as a game of war, and it used a simple grid-based board. Each player had an equal number of identical pieces, which were arranged in opposing lines at the start of the game.

The goal was to capture enemy pieces by flanking them on two opposite sides, either horizontally or vertically. This rule of capture made Petteia a purely positional game with no element of chance. There were no dice and no specialized pieces. The outcome depended entirely on logic, foresight, and careful tactical planning. A single mistake could expose multiple pieces to capture and dramatically shift the balance of power.

Greek writers such as Plato and Pollux mentioned the game in their works, and the Romans later adopted its core mechanic into their own game, Latrunculi (also called Ludus Latrunculorum). Although Petteia eventually disappeared from everyday life, its influence survived. It remains one of the earliest known examples of a flanking-based strategy game in the history of Western civilization.^[9]

1 Pachisi (India

Pachisi is a traditional Indian race game that has been played for more than a thousand years. The game is played on a cross-shaped board, which is often stitched into cloth or carved into stone. Players toss six or seven cowrie shells to determine their moves, counting the number of shells that land with the opening facing upward. Each player has four pieces that move around the board along prescribed paths.

Pachisi is an ancient game that is deeply woven into the fabric of Indian culture. It was popular among all classes of society, from villagers to royalty. The Mughal emperor Akbar the Great famously played Pachisi on an enormous courtyard board at his palace in Fatehpur Sikri, where real people served as life-sized game pieces. In this form, the game became both a dramatic public spectacle and a contest of strategy and chance.

In contrast to its modern descendant, Ludo, Pachisi was far more strategic. The movement of each piece involved careful decisions about blocking opponents, protecting one’s own pieces, and choosing the best routes through the board. Certain spaces were safe from capture, while others left pieces vulnerable. A well-timed move could lead to a chain of captures, while a poorly timed decision could undo an entire lead.

Although Pachisi is no longer as widely played as it once was, it continues to be recognized as a symbol of India’s rich gaming history. Its legacy lives on through regional variants and cultural memory, reflecting the spirit of the ancient societies that created it.^[10]