  We discuss strangeness production in heavy-ion collisions in the broad energy
range --- from SIS energies through AGS-SPS-RHIC and upto LHC energies. On
several examples we demonstrate how the strange particle production can reveal
information about the collision dynamics and about possible modifications of
particle properties in medium. In particular the production of hadrons
containing two and more strange quarks, like $\Xi$ and $\Omega$ baryons, or a
$\phi$ meson is of interest. We conduct our discussion in the framework of the
minimal statistical model, in which the total strangeness yield is fixed by the
$K^+$ multiplicity. It is emphasized that in collisions with a small number of
produced strange particles, the exact strangeness conservation in each
collision event must be explicitly preserved.
