Question: Do I have to declare all my available preferences at the beginning of the game?
Answer: No, a player may choose to declare none, some, or all of their available preferences. However, preferences must be declared before the first general play turn of the game. If a player chooses not to declare all available preferences before general play begins they cannot do so later in the game and therefore lose access to those preferences. A player may choose to do this in order to increase the available pool of neutral seats used in forming an absolute majority. Bluffing the presence of preferences may assist in this endeavour, but this is acknowledged as a somewhat risky strategy.
Questions: What does a complete game of Majority mean? How do you finish a game with only one board?
Answer: A complete game employs both the Upper and Lower boards, which presents 226 seats as well as seven preferences per player. However, shorter versions of the game may be played using only one of the two boards and the number of preferences for that board. To win these versions you only require an absolute majority on the board you are using to play.
Question: If the surrounding seats change around an already owned seat, does it change ownership?
Answer: Yes, the local majority and ownership of a seat is reassessed every time the composition of the surrounding seats change.
Question: If a preferences seat is surrounded by other seats is it revealed?
Answer: Yes. A preference is revealed whenever it would otherwise change ownership or when its local majority is completed.
Question: Is there a first player advantage for Red?
Answer: It hasn’t been established if there is an inherent advantage to claiming the first seat in a game. However, there is some preliminary statistical evidence that the win rate for the Red player in completely random play is approximately 50%, approximately 48% for Blue, and 2% of games end in a hung (drawn) game. However, this may not represent a strategic advantage during deliberate, non-random, play.