In practice when people use ||, they do mean ?? (whatever its spelling). It just so happens that most of the time, it does what you want, because you happen to not be dealing with Booleans. But the semantics you mean to express is not about "truthness", but about "nilness". And occasionally you get bitten because false does exist, and behaves differently.

If you have studied the historical campaign, you may wonder if the same operational plan can be duplicated in the game—with the same results.  The answer is yes.  The unit capabilities and game mechanics allow for a repeat of history, but there is always the other player to consider.  As with history, the two sides have nearly the same number of infantry divisions, tanks, mobile units and artillery.  The German advantage is most evident in airpower—the Luftwaffe dramatically outclassed the Allied air forces in the campaign (and so it is with the game).  Only the German player who knows exactly how to employ their units with careful attention to the movement and combat sequences, event card use, the hidden unit dynamic, and especially the air rules—will be able to duplicate the historic success of the 1940 Wehrmacht.  And even then, the historic result was only possible because the Allied response played almost perfectly into Germany’s hand.  But there is more than one path to a decisive result, and the game allows for multiple campaign plans for both sides.  The rules are set up to mirror the operational, command, and doctrinal differences between the two opposing sides, but the contest is designed simply to re-create the same historic “canvas” upon which both players may then paint—the issue will be decided by a combination of player decisions and the fortunes and fog of war.

If it passed before I would think it was just lucky timings.

There is no place for luck in this game. This is all about strategy.

Keeping track of research materials used to require an excellent memory, exceptional bookkeeping skills or blind luck; now we have databases.

I dislike the metaphor of luck. None of this is luck.

No luck involved

Requires you to play multiple rounds (i.e. short games) to balance the scores

Luck over-rides strategy

You can't avoid the comparisons to Carcassonne even though the scoring mechanic is very different. It just looks the same, and the tile placement phase feels close enough to be familiar. However, this familiarity starts to nag at you, only adding to the frustration when tile placement is clumsy and luck-driven unlike Carcassonne. The comparison is not favourable for Fjords.

There is a tendency in short luck-heavy games to require you to play multiple rounds in one sitting, to balance the scores. This is one such game. This multiple-rounds "mechanic" feels like an artificial fix for the problem of luck. Saboteur 1 and 2 advise the same thing because the different roles in the game are not balanced. ("Oh, well. I had the bad luck to draw the Profiteer character this time. Maybe I'll I'll draw a more useful character in round 2.") This doesn't change the fact that you are really playing a series of short unbalanced games. Scores will probably even out... statistically speaking. The Lost Cities card game tries to deal with the luck-problem in the same way.

You can strategise to a degree by trying to block off a potential peninsula (cut off between two mountains for example). This can start a little race to claim this area. e.g. I cut off an area with one of my houses.

Luck is a major factor. As discussed above, sometimes the map seems to build itself and you draw tiles which you HAVE to place even though they are aiding your opponent.

f you cannot place it, it is set aside for use later in the game if an opportunity arises. (Tiles are set aside a lot.)

My wife's first description of playing Fjords was that it felt a bit like playing Othello, in that you had to think too far ahead. I don't see it that way. I think that the luck of the draw & the fact that a tile must be played if it can, means that you can't always plan too far ahead. Often you have to try to work out how to make use of what you've got.

Sometimes it requires more luck than strategy to complete the levels because of the building queue system.

As a web designer, I hate that "log in" creates a visual space between the words. If you line up "Log In Register" - is that three links or two? This creates a Gestalt problem, meaning you have to really fiddle with spacing to get the word groupings right, without using pipe characters.

Many people luck out like me, accidentally. We recognize what particular path to mastery we’re on, long after we actually get on it.

extension

all your brothers are ugly, but you are handsome yourself; or when you find a treasure that everybody else has overlooked;

"Good luck" means the acquisition or possession of all or most, or the most important, of those good things which are due to luck.