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White Lotus Gambit?
Question: Does anyone know what the White Lotus gambit could be? How would it be tempting the other player to do something?
Answer: I have been working on a set of rules that is different from the one on this page in which harmonies can be created by pieces any number of spaces away from each other as long as they are in a straight line. In order to win, a player must make a complete ring of harmonies around the center point. In my version, if a player has captured fewer pieces for The Pot, they may use their White Lotus tiles to form harmonies with any other flowers on the board, even if they belong to the opponent. This allows a strategy in which a player could purposely sacrifice tiles to gain the White Lotus advantage and use the harmonies set up by his or her opponent to form a complete circle, thus winning the game due to the other player's aggressive style.
Also, I haven't played the game, but, just from reading the rules, I see a big problem. If you immediately score a point after forming a harmony, it would be very easy to just move one of the pieces away from the other and back again each turn. This would allow a player to score one point a turn until the other player stopped them. By then, the player doing the "back-and-forth" move could have built up enough points for an insurmountable lead. The game as it is written now just seems like it is built to be stagnate. That's why I prefer the rules described above. I could write the rest of my rules down on this site if anyone is interested.