5 ms·

Can you elaborate on some of the more advanced tactics? When I play, it's mostly about getting a good 2 clue each time. Then if you can opportunistically get a

• mtmickush 2y ago
  Other advanced tactics involve giving a broad clue that matches 3-4 of your own and just one other (either your opponents or a civilian). Your team can pick up all the matches across several turns and the one off doesn't hurt as much as the plus four helps
  • hunter2_ 2y ago
    The S-tier tactic: When that high-number clue is cut short by a turn-ending mistake, the guessers tell their clue giver to inflate the number given during the totally unrelated next clue by however many remained from the truncated turn for which they don't need additional information to locate (and therefore it would be wasteful for a future clue to re-group those) so the stated number of that next clue must allow for its own cards plus the prior cards. Example: The clue is "places 4" and the guessers choose 1 correctly and then 1 wrong answer, but they had achieved consensus about 2 others (and are confused about only the remaining 1). So the turns ends but they inform the clue giver to inflate by 2 next turn. That clue giver (after the other team goes) will then say the clue is "people 5" and the guessers will know that they shall select 2 places and 3 people. This can cascade beyond just a pair of turns.
    • ruds 2y ago
      I don't think this sort of communication from guessers to clue giver is in the spirit of the game (at least in my play group). However, inflating later clues is a reasonable approach! It's just that I don't think you're allowed to communicate the amount of inflation. Guessers must determine whether people 5 has slack to allow additional guesses on previous clues.
      • hunter2_ 2y ago
        You're free to add additional prohibitions on communication as a house rule I guess, but the only prohibition in the rule book I've seen is that the clue giver's speech must consist exclusively of clues (and private consultation with the other clue giver). The clue giver is free to adjust their clue in reaction to anything they hear, and guessers can speak freely. Important: the clue giver cannot acknowledge the instruction during gameplay. That would certainly extend beyond giving a clue! The guessers must know that their clue giver can play this way prior to the game commencing. Edit: I just consulted the rules and this is the most relevant section: > If you are a field operative, you should focus on the table when you are making your guesses. Do not make eye contact with the spymaster while you are guessing. This will help you avoid nonverbal cues. > When your information is strictly limited to what can be conveyed with one word and one number, you are playing in the spirit of the game. The author's use of the pronoun "you/your" switches from field ops in that first paragraph to spymasters in that second paragraph, confusingly. With that in mind, it boils down to this: field ops cannot seek non-clue information from spymasters, and spymasters cannot convey non-clue information. The strategy I'm suggesting involves neither!
        • ALittleLight 2y ago
          If you take this idea of communication restrictions to the limit, you could imagine the guessers identifying N sets of cards by a single word each as they discuss their guess. The clue giver listens, then uses the clue that identifies the correct set of N cards. You really just need an algorithm to generate unique sets of 8 or 9 from the whole board, and identifies those sets by a word.
          • groggo 2y ago
            Yeah it's interesting to take these ideas to the extreme... even at the lower end I don't like it, I think zero communication outside of clues is the best way to follow the spirit of the game. But a little bit of banter and "kibitzing" is what makes it fun too.
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    • n4r9 2y ago
      Yeah, in fact we tend to play without a limit on the number of guesses, just to avoid this sort of loophole. In variants like Codenames Duet I think there's also no limit on the number of guesses. Another thing the guessers can do if unsure about one of the tiles from the last round, is to tell the clue giver which tile they think it was. The clue giver then tries to give a clue that either tenuously links to it or clearly excludes it. That can give the clue more scope for linking to several other words. It risks giving information to the other team though so is more of an final turn play.
  • lostlogin 2y ago
    > the one off doesn't hurt as much as the plus four helps Doesn’t the turn end if you hit the opponents word?
    • topaz0 2y ago
      Yes, but they can go back for those words in future rounds
• jncfhnb 2y ago
  If you really want to get good, your goal is not so much to get as many tiles as possible, but rather to get the tiles that are semantically distinct from your opponent’s. A single mistake that triggers your opponent’s tile is generally enough to lose the game. And even if they don’t do it, having them uncover the tiles from their side that are semantically similar to your own team is also useful. If you want to get nasty, you learn to abuse the fact that the tile layouts follow rules and that you can rule out certain tiles without considering the words.
  • groggo 2y ago
    Memorizing the tile layouts is too much for me haha (imo against the spirit of the game). I usually play online now anyway so I hope they don't follow those same patterns as the physical version.
    • joshvm 2y ago
      Online specifically avoids this by randomising the grids, except in some modes like mirrors where you can't do much to preserve symmetry.
  • bentcorner 2y ago
    > you learn to abuse the fact that the tile layouts follow rules and that you can rule out certain tiles without considering the words. Can you clarify? Isn't the card placement random?
    • jncfhnb 2y ago
      It’s randomish. There are facts about the possible layouts you can memorize. I don’t know most of these rules but there’s never 5 in a row; or even 4 in a row if you’re the team with one fewer (second team to play). Edit: because the game layout is determined by choosing one of a few dozen possible layout cards and randomly rotating it
    • tveita 2y ago
      There are 40 setup cards with 4 possible rotations that specify agent placements, so it's theoretically possible to do some kind of memorization. Personally I'd find that kind of play style very unfun, and would rather switch to fully randomized boards if I played enough that it became a problem. https://danluu.com/codenames/ https://danluu.com/codenames/
• harrall 2y ago
  I find the game more about reading the people on your team (and the other team) to understand how they think. You have to give entirely different clues depending on the people you play with. Sometimes you can also play adversarial and introduce doubt into the opposing team by giving topic-adjacent clues that cause them to avoid one of their own cards. It works better if someone on the other team tends to be a big doubter. It also can work when the other team constantly goes back and tries to pick n+1 cards that they think they missed from the last round, which gives you a lot of room to psychologically mess with them. Sometimes you have a clue that only really matches 2, but because only 1 of the wrong matches is a neutral card and you could match 2 more by a massive stretch, you say “4.” Worse case, they get 2 right but then they pick the neutral card but in the best case, you stand to gain 4 for a clue that should only match 2. I like Codenames because they are many meta ways to play the game. What makes Codenames unique is that, unlike a lot of other games (Catan, Secret Hitler, CAH, etc.), it’s an adversarial team game where the team dynamics and discussions are not secret so you can use them to your advantage.
• blix 2y ago
  experienced players who know their teammates well can reliably get 3-4s. if you only go for safe 2s against these opponents you will lose every time.