[jncfhnb]

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]

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]

Online specifically avoids this by randomising the grids, except in some modes like mirrors where you can't do much to preserve symmetry.

[bentcorner]

> 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?

[tveita]

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/

[jncfhnb]

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