Reducing Randomness

What you have there is all correct. Everyone plays on an imagined grid on the table. You take turns playing cards, and at the end of the game the player with the most wind going into their mills wins. it might help to know that each player gets 9 wind cards, 4 directionals, and 3 windmills (1 of which is on the board at the beginning of the game).

If you also got the part about the hierarchy of card types (being able to play windmills on top of directionals or wind cards, etc, as explained in original post), then you should have it all down.

That is actually helpful too, because I still need to write down the rules, so the more I explain it in writing, the better. Thanks for the practice!

No worries, like I said, I seriously appreciate you trying to get a vision of it. You do get all your cards at once and can play them in any order. Originally I had it set at a shuffled deck with 3 card hands, but changed that to make it more strategic.. which is what I am still trying to do.

The wind cards do sum in the same direction, and subtract if opposing each other. There are, as is, no rules about which cards can be next to each other. Indeed, one of the interesting parts is if you put them together or not. Putting windmills next to each other allows for an efficient, though 'eggs in 1 basket' approach.

The initial layout is flexible. With 2 players they are diagonal from each other (the game only works in the 4 cardinal directions). With 4 players I've done a square with a space between each card. 3 players is tough, but I've had success with each windmill not sharing a line with any other. It's hard to describe in words.. basically the 2 player set up, but a third windmill diagonal to the space adjacent to the 2 others.

OK, hopefully that is filling it out for you. Thanks again for the questions!
Gideon

In terms of turn order, I have just played clockwise. This definitely gives an edge to the player who goes last because of the ability to place cards on top of other ones. I added the restriction that you must play all your windmills before the final 2 turns in order to dampen this advantage, and it has been seemingly effective.

I think your other suggestion about a target windspeed as opposed to just highest possible is VERY interesting. It makes the game more unique, and allows players to choose what type of game they want to play: you could go for a clever aim-for-weakness game, or a more classic get-the-most style. I am definitely going to try it out.

Also, I could definitely use some playtesting. I made my protoype deck in about 20 minutes, just taping paper squares over cheap playing cards and drawing quick designs with a sharpie. So if you want to test it out, I could give more specific directions (mostly for how the directionals work) for making the cards yourself. Or, probably better is I could create a print and play version (which I want to have anyway).

Thanks again for the help!
Gideon