[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