Thanks so much! Welcome to the Hive community (or abstract games world if you are into other games too). You should check out the discord for Hive if you want to have more interaction with other players :) discord.com/invite/U5zCSNHANQ Have fun!

this happens simply because you and your friends have played each other too many times and have not been exposed to other strategies out there by playing with other people. I recommend to try to play Hive on BGA or Hivegame.com and you'll discover soon that it's much more fun than you think! The draw rate nowadays is much lower than the one of chess for the top players for instance, and similar to the one in chess for amateurs level, so there is no draw problem :) (there was back then when the Queen Bee was allowed as first move more than 10 years ago, but that opening is forbidden in tournaments nowadays).

It's hard to say when a game is 'better' than another one, a lot of it is subjective. There are some criteria of course, but even considering those (you mention in the comment below), why not to write a more propositional sentence like 'have you ever tried mosaic?' Because it seems to me your comment is out of context in the comment section of this video. This being said, can i find the rules of Mosaic somewhere?

@@FrascoAdAbstra Only in the game.