Once you know what all the cards do, you don’t really end up reading them anymore. So, it’s a lie that there are no rules, but learning the rules is spread across multiple game sessions. The way we play other games, that’s roughly what happens with those games too. Games don’t “count” until we’ve all got a grasp of the rules.

You can plan strategy. Whether it’s more or less likely to be thwarted I can’t really say. I try to be flexible with a few plans. The main difference is you are more likely to be accidentally thwarted than in other games.