> They are a bit complex but they aren't as hard to learn as you're claiming!

You're trying to have it both ways here! :)

One moment the rules are so simple to learn and apply such that people will master them within minutes, the next moment the game is about players exploiting their opponents weaker grasp of the rules. Which one is it?

I assume you're not trying to optimize for the UX of an experienced player bullying a newbie.

> I'm sorry again, but it just really strikes me as being the same basic thing as a chess client saying "if you move your queen here you're going to be susceptible to a knight fork, confirm move?". And that would be lame.

Again: this game is not chess with hundreds of years of history of being played in a very particular way. It's a digital-only game with no cultural cachet. It doesn't get evaluated by the same criteria as chess. It's unfair, but it is also the reality. A digital game has different affordances and capabilities than a physical one.

Your specific example is bad, because it's talking about potential, not certainty. If you make a move, that's the state the board ends up in. (Unless the move was invalid, and then no chess program will let you do it at all). Now, that move might have left you exposed in one way or another. But there's no guarantee that the opponent notices it, or chooses to exploit it.

By contrast, in this game the battle resolution is completely deterministic. Their blunder is automatically exploited. All you're doing by showing a preview of the results is to either signal to the player that they have completely misunderstood the rules or the dictionary.

That's a huge difference. I pointed that difference out already a few posts back, and you are just offering up exactly the same example again. Do you not see the distinction? Do you disagree with it?

Digital games in general have different capabilities than physical ones and require different affordances. I have implemented a digital version of a popular board game, with tens of thousands of players, and put a lot of effort into highlighting information that the player really needed without ever playing the game for them. E.g. the game has multiple component limits ("can't hold more than X of this resource type", "can't build more than Y of this building type"), and I'd always highlight the components where the limit was about to be hit in the UI.

Did it remove a skill in the game of always double-checking each component type before committing a move? Sure. Did it lead to players actually being able to concentrate on actual strategy rather than doing trivial checks? Almost certainly. Did anyone ever complain about those UI affordances? No, literally never. Actually the opposite, adding new QoL features was the thing that players were most likely to send thank you emails about.

> I really just don't relate to this battle resolution thing being such a big issue, after even a small amount of play.

Sure. I genuinely believe that, and it's great for you. Could you also grant others the same courtesy, and believe what they post about their experience with the game is true?

The thing I really can't relate to here is you arguing against simple QoL changes. They're not taking anything away from you. You'll still easily be able to defeat worse players, because they'll have built a worse board. But at least those worse players will be around to be defeated, because the game didn't just immediately push them away.

> And I honestly have no clue what you're talking about with "making the game be about rote dictionary checks".

Well, you did originally claim that the fun in the game was in avoiding blunders...

The only way I see of avoiding blunders is to check every potential word against the dictionary, just like the way for beginner chess players to avoid trivial blunders is to basically follow a checklist. But since you find this idea so absurd, I'm guessing you have a better way of doing this?

> and would find it less of a fun challenge if it did.

What challenge is being removed from you? You've already mastered the rules and internalized the dictionary so well you rarely need to check it, so you should never make a mistake where this excessive handholding would impact you.