David Artman wrote:
<snippage>
My initial (minor, anecdotal, example for a larger issue) points about
the game not working "properly" were mainly a handling issue, which
others have conceded exists. If one must inspect under a stack, the
game is slowed down. Not broken, no. Not unplayable, no. But slowed. Is
it trivial to peek? Sure. Is a game working "perfectly" if you have to
touch pieces to check on the game state? No.
That was our thought as well, I think.
FRANK:
we noticed the problem with opaques and played a simple variant
based on the principle "if you can't see it, it doesn't exist"
in which a nest is considered indistinguishable from a
single pyramid of the outermost size. Seemed to work, anyway.
Hmmm... so one could strategically nest over a small with a large
opaque--making the small not only not count and also "not exist"--then
tree it with another small later--because if the nested small doesn't
exist then it's not a nest and can be treed?
Exactly so. I do not recall if we used the "does not exist" variant
_only_ when covering with an opaque piece; I think I was keeping a black
stash in the car at the time, so the question did not arise.
The variant likely affects game strategy, but I never analyzed it enough
to decide how much (or even if it "breaks" the game).
Definitely a variation worth documenting on the wiki. IF there was a
rule doing either what you and your daughter do OR an advisement
similar to the one in my last post, then TTD could be a SS-trans OR
SS-Tree... hmmm, or even a SS-Rand... "Tic Tac What?" - dump 5 TH
stashes into an opaque bag, and reach into it to choose pieces to play;
so you can choose size but not color/opacity. Play ends when there are
no more legal moves or someone gets 3 of same size in a row.
_That_ sounds amusing!
Frank
David