The Decktet Wiki

I must be doing it wrong. I'm 3 for 4 because I got greedy on my resource piles one game and worked myself into a lock.

I've played the way the rules are written: only veiwing the top card of your hand, not changing the tower except to add to it, and, as you stated, looking at whatever hand you have at the end of the deck before flipping the discard pile and drawing a new hand of 3. And I found the rules presented to be easier and cleaner than adding the discard pile to the last hand if the hand is not at least 3 cards.

Also, adding the pawns and the courts seems to make the game (well, managing the resource piles) much harder.

So far, though, this is definitely my favorite solitaire game. Thanks Mr. Magnus.

So far, though, this is definitely my favorite solitaire game. Thanks Mr. Magnus.

Goes to show how different expectations are. The game fell completely flat for me. Apart from Aces and Crowns, there are only 24 ways to stack a card on another in the resource piles. This cuts decisions a bit too much to my taste.

I tried a variant where Pawns and Crowns count as wild cards wrt rank (but not suit), while the tower still ranges from Ace to 9, then Crown. This seems to make for a bit more decisions. Seemed to easy to win at first glance.

Goes to show how different expectations are. The game fell completely flat for me. Apart from Aces and Crowns, there are only 24 ways to stack a card on another in the resource piles. This cuts decisions a bit too much to my taste.

I agree it has problems.

The rules are are here in the wiki because the wiki aims to be comprehensive. And the idea of Ivory Tower is simple enough. If it weren't here, someone would end up reinventing it.

There's a a thread from a few years ago at BGG with several proposed variants.