[eru]

At the core, Frozen Synapse is a sophisticated version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Yes, once both players made their choices the game plays out deterministically, but basic game theory tells you that randomising your strategy is the way to win.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_(game_theory)#Pure_an... for randomised strategies

Since you don't know exactly what your opponents are planning, you can't solve your turn like a deterministic puzzle.

I do admit there are some puzzle like aspects. Eg I often picked two or three plans that I thought my opponents are likely to choose, and tried to work out a plan of my own that would counter all three of them.