Slightly off topic but am I the only one that approaches strategy games by making a "zeroth order approximation". Eg find the shortest path to victory under the (obviously faulty) assumption that my opponent does nothing and the board is unchanging except for my moves. Now find my opponents shortest path to victory under the same assumption. Then evaluate, if we both just ignore each other and try to bum rush the victory condition, who gets there first?
For most games, if you can see a way to an end state within 3-5 steps under these idealized conditions, there's only so much that an actual opponent can do to make the board deviate from the initial static board state that you used in your assumption. The optimal strategy will always be just a few minor corrections of edit distance from this dumb no-theory-of-mind strategy. You can always be sure that whoever has the longer path to victory has to do something to interfere with the shorter path of their opponent, and there's only ever so many pieces which can interact with that shorter path. Meaning whatever path to victory is currently shortest short circuits the search for potential moves.
For most games, if you can see a way to an end state within 3-5 steps under these idealized conditions, there's only so much that an actual opponent can do to make the board deviate from the initial static board state that you used in your assumption. The optimal strategy will always be just a few minor corrections of edit distance from this dumb no-theory-of-mind strategy. You can always be sure that whoever has the longer path to victory has to do something to interfere with the shorter path of their opponent, and there's only ever so many pieces which can interact with that shorter path. Meaning whatever path to victory is currently shortest short circuits the search for potential moves.