How does Armed // Dangerous interact with trample?

Unfortunately your understanding is incorrect.

Your 5/5 Ghor-Clan Rampager with trample and double strike will be declared as an attacker, then all creatures able to block it must do so. Your opponent will declare their 2 creatures as blockers, and you will subsequently choose the order in which your ghor-clan rampager will deal its damage to those blocking creatures.

Then the first strike damage phase will occur. Your Ghor-Clan Rampager will assign it's 5 damage to the blockers in the order you chose earlier. First it must assign lethal damage to the first creature. In this case they are both 2 toughness, so 2 damage is "lethal" damage. Once lethal damage has been assigned to the first creature in the damage assignment order, you move onto the next creature with your remaining damage (3). Again assigning 2 lethal damage. At this point your creature has 1 damage left to assign, having assigned lethal damage to all its blockers. This is where trample occurs, and in the first strike step the creature deals 1 damage to your opponent.

Subsequently, these creatures die and things move on to the regular combat damage step, at this point you have 5 damage to assign, a creature without trample at this point (having killed one or more blockers in the first strike damage phase) would have nothing to assign damage to, as creatures without trample can only assign damage to the creatures that are blocking them. As your Ghor-Clan Rampager has trample, the full 5 damage from this damage phase tramples over the now dead blockers onto your opponent. This gives you a total of 6 damage trampled onto your opponent.


Can Parallax Wave track a card moved by with Void Attendant?

As you know, the general rule is that an object that changes zones becomes an entirely new object (400.7). Then there are a bunch of exceptions to that rule which each allow an object to be tracked across one zone change - these exceptions are 400.7a-i as well as e.g. 406.6, which is the rule that allows linked abilities like Parallax Wave's to work. However, none of these exceptions will track an object across a second zone change, so Void Attendant will break Parallax Wave's tracking.

Intuitively, nothing is supposed to track an object across an unexpected zone change, but many effects legitimately need to track something across one expected zone change - e.g. it would be silly if a flicker effect wasn't allowed to find the creature it just temporarily exiled. Thus, the exceptions mostly boil down to "If an effect expects an object's zone to change, then it can track the object across the expected zone change." The public zone exception you mention (400.7h) is indeed somewhat anomalous because it can occasionally cause an effect that was trying to track one expected zone change to instead track one unexpected change. For example, in this scenario, Banishing Light attempted to move a commander to exile and instead the commander moved to the command zone. However according to the accepted answer, Banishing Light is trying to track the commander and did ultimately move it to some public zone, so 400.7h allows it to still find the commander even though the one zone change to a public zone wasn't the expected zone change. Note however that even in this unusual edge case, all tracking is still limited to one zone change.


Do Dragon Spirits like Kokusho trigger Lathliss's ability?

Yes, Lathliss's ability will trigger from any creature with "Dragon" in the type line, including Dragon Spirits like Kokusho.

Each word of the type line is a separate type that is treated independently. So when you look at a card with "Dragon Spirit" in the subtype, you do not threat that as a single unit, it means that it is both a Dragon and a Spirit. This is stated in rule 205.3b:

  Subtypes of each card type except plane are always single words and are listed after a long dash. Each word after the dash is a separate subtype; such objects may have multiple types. [...]


It can counter almost anything. Notable exceptions are lands (they are played, not cast) and abilities (you'll need something else, like Stifle, to counter those).

112.1. A spell is a card on the stack. As the first step of being cast (see rule 601, “Casting Spells”), the card becomes a spell and is moved to the top of the stack from the zone it was in, which is usually its owner’s hand. (See rule 405, “Stack.”) A spell remains on the stack as a spell until it resolves (see rule 608, “Resolving Spells and Abilities”), is countered (see rule 701.5), or otherwise leaves the stack. For more information, see section 6, “Spells, Abilities, and Effects.”
305.1. A player who has priority may play a land card from their hand during a main phase of their turn when the stack is empty. Playing a land is a special action; it doesn’t use the stack (see rule 116). Rather, the player simply puts the land onto the battlefield. Since the land doesn’t go on the stack, it is never a spell, and players can’t respond to it with instants or activated abilities.

Some spells can't be countered because they say so on their card (like Akroma, Angel of Fury). Sometimes, the rules make it very difficult to do so (like Krosan Grip – its Split Second ability ensures you can't cast Counterspell or similar spells, but triggered abilities like the ones found on Counterbalance or Kira, Great Glass-Spinner can, under certain circumstances, still counter them).
There are many other counterspells out there; you can find most of them via a Gatherer search.


In One Night Ultimate Alien, can neutral roles win if the Synthetic Alien dies?

As best I can find, this is what the rulebook says for the Synthetic Alien (copied from a BGG thread):

  The Synthetic Alien wakes up with the Aliens. Even though he is an Alien, he has a different winning condition. Due to the self-awareness he is programmed with, he realizes that his advanced technology is too powerful for the aliens to wield, and too dangerous for the villagers to have, so he only wins if he dies. If the Synthetic dies, everyone on the alien and villager teams lose.

Since only the villager and alien teams are named, I would say that the roles not associated with either can still win regardless of what happens with the SA.


Game of Thrones: Declaring a March to various adjacent territories at the same time

Answer 1 "Before resolving combat, all other non-combat movement from
the area assigned the March Order must be completed." GoT second edition rule book, page 15, 7th bullet point.

Answer 2 It is not the case.   "If a playerleaves an area vacant before initiating combat , he must decide whether or not to establish control of the area before combat begins" GoT second edition rule book, page 24, 4th paragrqph of "establishing control of an area"


What should I be trying to do strategically in Through the Ages?

First, it sounds like the leader you are describing is Hammurabi, but he only applies for Age A and 1 (he will die at the end of age 1), so there's no way he should have been impeding bids for Historic Territory 2 (an Age 2 event card that by definition couldn't have come out by then).  Are you sure you're playing everything right?

Also, you don't mention if you're playing the Advanced Game or the Full Game, but it's important, because there are significant differences between them in what works and what doesn't.  I'll try to highlight some of the important differences.  But here are some things to think about:

Science is probably the most important thing in the game, barring your final culture score (of course).  Not resources, food, CAs or anything else, but science.  You can work around most other things, but science is the wellspring from which all the advances you can make are.  Also, unlike almost everything else in the game, you can't really have too much of it.  The first strategic question you have to answer is "where am I going to get more science income".  It can be from Alchemy, it could be from Printing Press (which is only so-so but is sometimes necessary), it could be from the Universitas - whatever it is, figure it out.  Alchemy is probably the card I reach deep for early most often in the game, and if it's the last one, it's almost a must grab.  I can't emphasize this enough:  when in doubt, do something to increase your science.
Next, of course, comes CAs.  Civil Actions give you a lot more options and control over your fate.  Science is what allows you to gain CAs (mostly), so that's one of the reasons for science's supremacy, but if you don't increase your CAs, you can't troubleshoot effectively.  And that's what TtA is, in the full game:  you're troubleshooting problems from turn to turn, keeping your civilization as efficient as possible.  Try and plan out what you're going to do here.  Early Monarchy?  Were you lucky enough to draw Pyramids?  Are you going to reach for the first age 2 government that slides out and revolt to it?  Whatever you do, try and keep your science balance at a point that will allow you to make your governmental switches efficient.  And don't worry about losing some resources to corruption!  A couple rocks is a small price to pay to switch to something like ConMon.
Probably the next thing I look at is military.  Trying to win with military is a crapshoot.  You just might not draw the cards you need to make it work, and if you overinvested, somebody else is going to clobber you on points.  But while you can't be sure about winning with military, you sure as heck can lose the game with it.  I always check, every turn, what my relative position is, how many D/C cards I am back of the leaders, how many cards they've been drawing and how many I'm about to draw and everything else.  If I am vulnerable, I have to fix this problem.  If there's only one person that's in a position to whack you, maybe you can get away with it - especially if there's a juicier target out there!  But you have to be aware of your position with everybody else and then take steps to fix things.
Now, you get to make progress on other stuff.  Try and increase your resource production first, because that enables you do do most other stuff (although you can use a high CA civ with yellow cards to cover for a lack of rocks pretty well).  Food, you just want to keep at a reasonable level, you can over-invest in it pretty easily.  Try and see how many cards people are seeding in the event deck and guesstimate if you need to keep some troops available for colonization.  But if you've fixed those other problems, you can start applying your discretion here.
A word about events:  don't just seed them with no good reason.  Don't put something in you think you might benefit from.  Just put it in if you're reasonably confident.  And if you're behind on military, particularly early in the game, don't seed anything!  You're just helping your opponents get gnarly stuff like Border Conflict, Uncertain Borders, Raiders, Foray and all that other stuff out faster.  Don't help them out, make them do all the work.  Then, maybe when you get back on top on military, there will be some of that junk still left in the deck to take advantage of.

Note that nowhere in there did I mention culture.  That's because, by and large, culture is an accident not a goal up until mid-to-late age 2.  That's not true if more than one person sprints early, then you might have to invest some just to not fall too far behind, but if there's only one clear culture leader, I don't worry about it.  Don't build Dramas or the Taj Mahal - those rocks are better spent on Bread & Circuses and the Universitas.  Invest in infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure and then when you hit age 3, you'll be able to crank out a ton of culture (and slaughter them on impacts).

Hope this helps.


In what situation is Last Word really relevant?

Player A casts a spell that essentially reads "You win the game". Player B casts Last word to counter it. Player A has 20 counterspells ready, but they won't save his game-winning spell.

Last Word's uncounterability is less useful if it counters another counterspell because, as you say, the opponent can just target the original spell. But if the opponent is the one starting with the valuable spell, Last Word all but guarantees that the valuable spell gets countered.

Also, there can be many different variations of counterspells with various restrictions and benefits. If Player A casts any creature spell, and player B has Counterspell and Negate, player B has to use Counterspell. If player A protects their creature spell with Last Word, player B's Negate is useless because it can't target the creature spell.


Are there any simulators for Monopoly that meet my specifications below?

Using the calculator linked in the question, you can do your own rough simulators. The calculator already calculates the theoretical value of each roll in your making money from each configuration. The condition that "other properties are evenly divided" equates to "outside of the properties in question, the net gain or loss between the players equals zero.
The thing that is missing from the calculator is the cash levels. To make matters simple, you could invest $900 of cash in three houses each on the maroons (which is what I did), as still have $300 left for emergencies. Your opponent probably needed to retain all of his $200 cash for "emergencies." He could not buy as much as one house each for his greens (unless he mortgaged some properties, and he didn't do that in the actual game).
Let's examine the states, $300 for you, three houses on each of the maroons; $200 for him, no houses. According to the calculator, each of his rolls is worth $35 to you. It takes about 5.85 rolls (averaging seven on a 40 square board) each time around, which is about $205 dollars. That is (slightly) greater than his $200 salary, which means he is on the verge of defeat. Add more houses or build hotels, and he should be sunk.
With the money reversed, the story is different. You opponent could build two houses on each of the greens, deplete his cash, and rely on mortgaging property for his turn to turn needs. You could build one house each on the maroons only by mortgaging for $100 above your cash. Each of your rolls is worth $32 each to him (average expectation for the two houses on each of the greens) and each of his rolls is worth $4 to you (one house on each of the maroons). With a net difference of $28, each time around the board, you are on the verge of defeat, and will be sunk when he adds third houses to each green.


What is the Fling interaction with Removal?

It sounds like you're confused or have misconceptions about how spells are cast and resolved. That's fundamental to this issue so I suggest you read this answer about how casting and the stack works. Go check it out now, then come back here. The following will make more sense once you've done that.

Let's first go through how this scenario plays out before we add Fling or removal:

You cast your creature. In doing so, you put it on the stack. It's now a spell in the stack zone.
One of the triggered abilities of Sarkhan's Unsealing triggers. We put that triggered ability on the stack. If it's the first ability you choose its target whilst doing this. The stack now looks like this:

Sarkhan's Unsealing triggered ability (top)
Your creature (bottom)

Sarkhan's Unsealing's triggered ability resolves, dealing its damage.
Your creature resolves, and then enters the battlefield.

OK, so, let's add to this:

Effects that reference a "creature" (not "creature card" or "creature spell") exclusively reference a creature permanent (card or token) on the battlefield.
Effects that reference a "creature spell" exclusively reference a creature card on the stack.

This means Fling, Murder, and Ixalan's Binding can only target your creature after step 4, once it's on the battlefield. Essence Scatter can only target your creature whilst it's a creature spell on the stack, i.e. after step 1 and before step 4.
So what happens when we add those in?

Essence Scatter: Your opponent can cast this spell after you finish casting your creature. They cannot cast it before step 2, because they do not receive priority yet. They can counter your creature, but they cannot counter Sarkhan's Unsealing nor stop it resolving. You'll deal your damage. You cannot Fling your creature in this scenario because it is not on the battlefield, it's on the stack.
Murder: They can cast this only after step 4. You will already have your creature on the battlefield and the damage will have been dealt. You can cast Fling in response, and sacrifice it to deal damage.
Ixalan's Binding is similar to Murder: they cast the spell, it enters the battlefield, its ability triggers targeting your creature, and  then you can Fling your creature in response. Note they can't do this in response while it's your turn: Ixalan's Binding isn't an instant and doesn't have flash.


Do "play immediately" cards in the zombie turn affect the number of cards a zombie player will have in his hand?

When playing as the zombie, you first fill your hand of cards (4 cards if there is 1 zombie player, 2 cards if there are 2 zombie players). After drawing all cards, you then decide in which order you would like to resolve all of the "play immediately" cards just drawn. After resolving these cards, they are not replaced.


Simic Manipulator and polymorphist's jest combo

The only interaction between Polymorphic Jest and Simic Manipulator is that Polymorphic Jest can reduce a creature’s power, which reduces the number of counters you must remove from Simic in order to take control of it. So after Polymorphic Jest resolves; all the opponent’s creatures will be a 1/1 until end of turn, meaning that Simic can take control of one of them by removing just 1 counter.


The rules state (under "Becoming King of Tokyo"):

  If you are attacked while in Tokyo and you don't want to be there anymore ... you can yield to the Monster that attacked.

There's no mention of actually taking damage. You merely need to be attacked. According to the rules, if you are attacked, may cede Tokyo even if you avoid the damage using the Wings.


Simply because it is a name brand that focuses on quality. Looking at the official site they put an emphasis on quality and combine that with a very big and popular name brand you get a higher price.

Having to license the David Blaine name and brand is most likely very expensive and is why you see a higher price on many name brand products.


Can Zombies wound when a Hero rolls doubles?

The Hero gets wounded. In your example, the Zombie rolled a '6', and Zombies win on ties. The Hero must have a higher die for the Zombie to not win. If the Hero has a higher die, but no doubles then the Zombie is Fended Off. The Zombie is only wounded if the hero has a higher roll and has rolled doubles on any of their Fight Dice. From the rule book (page 15).

Resolving the Fight - A Fight is only resolved after all players have decided not to use any more cards or abilities. Once both players have chosen their highest Fight Dice roll and are done using cards and abilities, the fight is resolved as follows:
If the Zombie wins (has a higher die or is tied for highest), the Hero takes one Wound.
If the Hero has a higher roll, the Zombie is Fended Off. The fight ends and both the Hero and Zombie remain in the space, unaffected.
If the Hero has a higher roll and has rolled doubles on ANY of the Fight Dice (two 5's for instance), the Zombie takes one Wound (removing it from the board).


Can Ghired, Conclave Exile and Helm of the Host go infinite?

No. Ghired does not go infinite with Helm of the Host. Whenever ~ attacks abilities trigger when those creatures are declared as attackers - You will be able to attack with the original Ghired and the token created by Helm of the Host, both of which will trigger populate, but the tokens that those populate abilities create will not have their abilities trigger.
Each turn you can more than double the number of Ghired creatures you have, and gain 4/4s from his enters the battlefield, but the populate abilities on those new tokens will not trigger. This is covered by rule 508.2a and 508.3a of the comprehensive rules (emphasis mine):

508.2a Abilities that trigger on a creature attacking trigger only at the point the creature is declared as an attacker. They will not trigger if a creature attacks and then that creature’s characteristics change to match the ability’s trigger condition.

508.3a An ability that reads “Whenever [a creature] attacks, . . .” triggers if that creature is declared as an attacker. Similarly, “Whenever [a creature] attacks [a player or planeswalker], . . .” triggers if that creature is declared as an attacker attacking that player or planeswalker. Such abilities won’t trigger if a creature is put onto the battlefield attacking.

It is also in the rulings for Ghired on gatherer (emphasis mine):

Although the token is an attacking creature, it was never declared as an attacking creature. This means that abilities that trigger whenever a creature attacks won’t trigger when it enters the battlefield attacking.

Since the tokens were not declared as an attacker, but forced in attacking, the populate does not trigger.


In Monopoly, how do people determine who is the owner of a property?

When I've played Monopoly, the owner of property always kept the property card ("title deed") on the table in front of them, visible to all players.

The bank should also keep the unsold property cards visible to everyone; that way, you won't need to call attention to yourself if you land on an owned property.  That is, you shouldn't keep track of who owns property in order to pay rent; it's up to the owner to keep track of what property they own and ask for the rent.  "The owner may not collect the rent if he/she fails to ask for it before the second player following throws the dice."

An example of how each player can organize their properties, as well as their money, can be seen in the image below:


Can Breaker Bay Grid be used to reduce cost of other Regions?

You cannot because upgrades are always installed un-rezzed from your hand.

In order to put SanSan City Grid onto a server you first have to discard Breaker Bay Grid. Therefore by the time you can rez SanSan City Grid you no longer have the effect of Breaker Bay Grid.

Also note the reason is because you aren't allowed to have two regions installed and the time to discard the other one is before the new one is played per the rules.


Do I lose if I have an empty library and cast Brainstorm?

You will still lose, even though your library will not be empty when you lose.
You will fully resolve Brainstorm, including drawing as many as you can from your library (none in this case), and then putting 2 cards onto your library. After Brainstorm resolves, state-based actions will be checked, including this one:

704.5b If a player attempted to draw a card from a library with no cards in it since the last time state-based actions were checked, he or she loses the game.

So because you had made an attempt to draw a card from a library with no cards in it, you will lose, even though your library now has cards in it.


Can I rez PAD Campaign before my turn starts?

If you look at the revised timing diagram from the Netrunner FAQ, it shows a chance to rez cards just before the corp's "Start of turn effects trigger". So yes, you can rez these assets just before the start of your turn and take advantage of the benefit immediately.

You can rez the PAD Campaign after the runner's last action, just before they discard cards, or just before you draw a card, and still gain the credit. It seems best to rez on your turn so if they have to discard they do so not knowing that your asset was a PAD Campaign.


Can I use Hannibal Necromancer's effect to destroy a trap card my opponent just activated?

I'd say it's an ignitiion effect, but the rule book isn't too specific, what a quick effect has to look like. (http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDwQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yugioh-card.com%2Fuk%2Frulebook%2FRulebook_v9_en.pdf&ei=3I7PVJGeGouuU_PSgKgC&usg=AFQjCNGA0UwHs5645XFrSUxvPPOOj30lxA)

So you're not able to activate it during your op. turn.


Does Humility prevent Manifested creatures from being turned face-up?

You can still turn a Manifested card face up even if it would lose all abilities from a card like Humility.

This is actually called out explicitly in a ruling on Manifest cards:

  Unlike a face-down creature that was cast using the morph ability, a manifested creature may still be turned face up after it loses its abilities if it’s a creature card. (2014-11-24)

This is because the thing that lets you turn a Manifested card face-up is not an ability on the card itself that it would lose. Instead, the thing that lets you turn a Manifested card face-up is the Manifest rules themselves, which just say you can turn it face-up for its mana cost any time you have priority.


Finding the CIN of MTG Cards for collection on recent (2017-ish) MTG cards

"CIN" probably stands for "Card Identification Number" or something similar, just based on context. This does not appear to be a commonly used term online when discussing Magic: the Gathering.

The abbreviation for each set is officially decided by Wizards. You can find these abbreviations at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_sets or http://mtg.wikia.com/wiki/Set.


Surveyor's Map in Agricola Farmers of the Moor

As far as I know there is no official ruling on this. However, most people seem to agree that the field should still obey the general rule for placing fields, i.e. it needs to be placed orthogonal to an existing field. This is for example the ruling for Surveyor's Map on page 28 of the unofficial Agricola compendium:

  Surveyor's Map M018

  Place a field tile on the space for round 11, a moor tile on round 12, and a forest tile > on round 13. At the start of the rounds, you must either place the tile on an empty space in your farm or return it to the supply.

  => Placing the field tile does not count as a ploughing action.

  => If you already have fields, you must place the field tile adjacent to an existing field.


Canceling King Arthurs boosted attack on cards with no effects

From Jenn S. at Restoration Games

Essentially, Arthur's special ability is an effect that can get
canceled, so the Boost would be discarded.
There is some further discussion on it in this BoardGameGeek thread:
Feint vs boosted Excalibur.

TL;DR even with Excalibur, the boost would be discarded if an opponent's card discards effects.


It's just the next printing of the game.
See https://www.rebelgames.eu/games/nemesis-1003.html

Next print of Nemesis is expected q3 2020.


Marauding Raptor and Polyraptor - what happens when a loop has no exit?

The game will end in a draw

If the loop cannot be ended by either player, instead the game ends in a draw.

  721.4. If a loop contains only mandatory actions, the game is a draw. (See rules 104.4b and 104.4f.)


Under what circumstances can Carrion Grub trigger Garruk's Uprising?

Your guess is correct; in the first case Garruk's Uprising will not trigger; in the second case it will.
Because Carrion Grub's mill ability is a triggered enters-the-battlefield ability, it doesn't do anything until it is too late for it to help with Garruk's Uprising. First a creature with power 0 enters the battlefield, and then later that creature grows into a 4-power creature. It never happened that a 4-power creature entered the battlefield. It is similar to a land that is on the battlefield later becoming a creature; you don't get "when a creature enters the battlefield" effects.
In the second case, Garruk's Uprising will trigger because Carrion Grub's first ability is a static ability, it is always true while Carrion Grub is on the battlefield. The moment it enters the battlefield, the game checks to see what happened, and it will see that there is a creature on the battlefield with 4 power that wasn't on the battlefield before.

603.6b Continuous effects that modify characteristics of a permanent do so the moment the permanent is on the battlefield (and not before then). The permanent is never on the battlefield with its unmodified characteristics. Continuous effects don’t apply before the permanent is on the battlefield, however (see rule 603.6d).

603.6d Some permanents have text that reads “[This permanent] enters the battlefield with . . . ,” “As [this permanent] enters the battlefield . . . ,” “[This permanent] enters the battlefield as . . . ,” or “[This permanent] enters the battlefield tapped.” Such text is a static ability—not a triggered ability—whose effect occurs as part of the event that puts the permanent onto the battlefield.


How is 6-player Diplomacy (no Italy) different from 7-player?

The biggest beneficiaries of Italy's absence from the game are its two immediate neighbors, France and Austria Hungary. All other countries lose by comparison, but especially Germany.

In a seven player game, I would rank France behind England, Turkey and Russia, because of France's vulnerability. Without the threat (and check) of Italy in the south, France becomes the strongest country.

Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy are neck-and-neck for the three weakest countries in a seven player game. Without the threat of Italy, Austria-Hungary is now equivalant in power to Turkey, Russia, and an England weakened by the new French power. Meaning that Germany is left alone at the bottom. It is a case of "misery loves company.

I once played Austria-Hungary in such a game. Did well on the eastern front, balancing Russia and Turkey, but France walked away with things in the west. After the game, "England" (a very gifted first-time player) pointed out that he, Germany and I should have combined against France; and that when my fleet was ejected from Tunis, I should have "retreated" it to North Africa instead of the Ionian sea, to support his entry into the MidAtlantic Ocean.


If a player goes to "combat", and then activates an ability, what is the game state?

As of the release of Amonkhet, the "Go to combat" tournament shortcut changed, and it now unambiguously supports Anthony's interpretation of the sequence of events. The game is in the beginning of combat step and Mutavault's ability is on the stack. Noah has priority.
The current wording of that shortcut is

If the active player passes priority with an empty stack during their first main phase, the non-active player is assumed to be acting in beginning of combat unless they are affecting whether a beginning
of combat ability triggers. However, if the non-active player takes no action, the active player has priority at the beginning of combat. Beginning of combat triggered abilities (even ones that target)
may be announced after any non-active player action has resolved.

The Amonkhet policy changes announcement describes the practical impact of the change to this shortcut:

What this does, in a bunch of words, is set the default case so that the active player moving to combat (usually) means that the non-active player is acting in beginning of combat, but the active player’s role there only happens after that. They haven’t missed triggers, and they can still crew. But, by offering to pass priority into combat, they can no longer claim to be in main phase for non-instant spells afterwards unless the non-active player took an action to prevent the trigger.

In the situation in question, activating Mutavault serves the same purpose as the ability to crew that they mention: it turns a non-creature object into a creature in preparation for attacking with it.
In addition, that same blog has a post that takes a more detailed look at the change, and it discusses a scenario that involves actions like those described in the question:

The Cryptic Command Problem
It’s not a problem with the shortcut, per se, but it’s a protection for the non-active player that’s been removed. There are various permutations of the “Phantom Priority Pass”, but here’s a simple one:
The active player has a two Bears and a Mutavault. The non-active player is at 5 life, but active player is worried about a Cryptic Command.
The active player wants to try to get a read on if the coast is clear. So, they say “Combat” in an attempt to imply that they’re ready to declare attackers. If the non-active plays the Cryptic, you activate the Mutavault and get in for 2. If they don’t, unless they’re a very precise player, it’s a strong sign that they may not have it and you should activate the Mutavault and go for it. The old shortcut precluded that baiting.
Of course, the correct time to play the Command if you have it is after the second priority pass (or interrupting the declaration). But now you need to be more careful if you’re the non-active player to not accidentally tip your hand.

The "if they don't [play a Cryptic Command]" scenario plays out exactly like the one in the question: the active player announces that they are moving to Combat, the non-active player takes no action, then the active player activates Mutavault and attacks with it.


Can you activate an activated ability more than once per turn?

Yes, there is no restriction in the rules that prevents a player from paying the costs of an activated ability twice, to get the effect twice.
An Activated Ability is the only ability that can be activated. You may activate it whenever, and as many times as you like, as long as you have priority by paying the cost.

602.1. Activated abilities have a cost and an effect. They are written as "[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]"
602.1a The activation cost is everything before the colon (:). An ability's activation cost must be paid by the player who is activating it.

Unless the ability itself restricts its usage.

602.5b If an activated ability has a restriction on its use (for example, "Activate this ability only once each turn"), the restriction continues to apply to that object even if its controller changes.


Can Mewto and Mew Tag Team GX's Perfection ability be prevented from using by using Golduck's amnesia attack?

Perfection is an ability. Abiliteas are different and distinct from attacks.
So Golducks Amnesia Attack cannot prevent the use of the perfection ability since it instructs to choose an attack to prevent.

From the game rules:

  ABILITY: An Ability is an effect on a Pokémon that is not an attack. Some will be active all of the time, while some you will need to choose to use. Read each Ability to make sure you understand exactly how and when it works.

The Amnesia attack also says to choose one of the defending pokemons attacks, the only choice here is Miracuolous Duo GX, since the attacks that MewTwo & Mew GX gets from perfection are not it's attacks but the attacks of the other benched pokemon.


In Diplomacy, Is the "Three Emperor's Alliance" a Good Strategy For Russia?

An ARG alliance would seem to heavily favor Russia, so you might offend Austria and Germany even asking for it.  The main reason is that such an alliance requires both Germany and Austria to turn their backs on Russia and move their forces away from him.  On the other hand, Russia's forces and builds remain in positions that could quite easily be turned against his allies when the time is right.

There are also limited opportunities for the three to apply joint pressure.  Italy is unlikely to work with Austria and Russia knowing that he is probably next, and Turkey can be a tough nut to crack without Italy's help.  Similarly, Germany can't provide much help to Russia in breaking into England.

The best way to pull it off is probably to try to keep the alliance hidden.  Have Germany focus on working with France against England, and portray a neutral stance against Russia.  Similarly, have Austria focus on the good old Juggernaut threat and get Italy to commit against Turkey while making a show of aggression against Russia.  Don't let the alliance become obvious until you've been able to weaken the corners.  Even then, it would seem much harder for Germany to now turn on France rather than just continuing with his "false" ally and moving against Russia instead.


Using an existing Canasta to pick up the discard pile

Yes, you can add to a Canasta just like you can add to any other meld.

Source:

  Additional cards may be added to a canasta to score their point values, but these do not affect the bonus - except that a wild card added to a natural canasta reduces it to a mixed canasta.

Other rules sources aren't as straight-forwardly clear on that point, but they say you can add to a meld on the table, and a Canasta is defined as a meld of 7 or more cards.


A partial answer: since Damath is a two-player game of complete information and no randomness, Zermelo's Theorem says that one of the following is true:

There is a dominant strategy for 1st player.
There is a dominant strategy for 2nd player.
There are strategies for both players that guarantee they don't lose, i.e. perfect play results in a draw (like Tic-Tac-Toe).

As far as I can tell, no one has yet determined which of these three is true. Checkers (aka Draughts or Dama, the game Damath is based on) was 'solved' in 2007 with the aid of computers: two perfect players will always draw. Thus I would assume that modern computers are powerful enough to 'solve' Damath as well, but I don't know what the result would be.


Unexploded Cows placing into another player's herd

The rules I found here state:

  On your turn, you may rearrange your field as much as you want.
  However, you can not rearrange someone else’s field, so when you
  play a cow on someone, it must go at either end of the line (your
  choice).

So, whoever plays a cow on someone else's herd, they decide on which end it goes.


Three fives create a single fifteen.

Four fives create four fifteens: you have four choices of which card not to use.

Five fives create ten fifteens: you have five choices of the first card and four choices of the second card, but half of those are equivalent to the other half, so there are ten pairs of cards to not use.


How does having multiple permanents with the same name affect those permanents' abilities?

No to all.

When an ability uses the name of the card it is printed on, it actually just means "this object", not "an object that has this name".

  201.4. Text that refers to the object it's on by name means just that particular object and not any other objects with that name, regardless of any name changes caused by game effects.

So Vector Asp's text really means "{B}: This object gains infect until end of turn."

In order to get the sort of effect you are thinking of, the ability would use the language "a card named [card name]". For example, Daru Cavalier. It says "you may search your library for a card named Daru Cavalier", which allows you to find any card with that name.


Pandemic Legacy 2 - definition of "adjacent"

In the rules, page 6, it indicates (emphasis mine):

  SUPPLY LINES
  Although there are no supply lines at the beginning
  of the game, cities will be connected to each other
  across land by supply lines. Cities directly connected by
  a supply line are adjacent.

  SEA LANES & SEA ROUTES
  Locations are connected to each other in the ocean by
  sea lanes. Locations directly connected by a sea lane
  are adjacent. A series of connected sea lanes is called
  a sea route.

So cities connected by a (single) sea lane are adjacent, and the plague would spread to them as well.


Obviously, AlphaGo is the top AI now. Besides it, a simple way to find information about Computer Go Ranking would be to search for :

  Computer go tournament

Here is a list of Go AI from wikipedia

There's a special website called Computer GO that registers past and future tournaments.

There's also a website for KGS Computer Tournaments

According to the KGS tournament, the actual ranking is :

Zen
DolBaram
abakus
Darkforest
Hira
Aya

As for commercial AIs, I don't think their level match the ones quoted here. It would require much hardware resources to run on a smartphone or a personnal computer.


Is it okay to draw from the middle of the deck?

Mathematically the probabilities are unaffected. Let's consider a simplified example with just 4 cards.

Let's say we draw one card from the 4 aces from a standard deck of playing cards. The probability of drawing the Ace of Spades is 1/4.

Now let's split the deck evenly and pick the first card from the first split to compare the probability of drawing the Ace of Spades. Using the Law of Total Probability, there is half a chance the Ace of Spades is in the first split of 2 cards. There is also half a chance that in the first split, the first card is the Ace of Spades.

Multiplying these out gives the probability of drawing the Ace of Spades as being (1/2)*(1/2) = 1/4, just as in the case of drawing normally.


Building a mana base for WGB Tokens in Standard

This is functionally a mono-color deck with some "color splash".

You don't need any color but white early on, so you can forgo playing Scars-block "fast duals" in favor of the appropriate "buddy duals", which are Isolated Chapel and Sunpetal Grove. If almost all your other lands are Plains, it's going to be pretty easy to get them to always come into play untapped.

However, if the green is mostly an afterthought, I would play Swamps before I run Woodland Cemetery. This is because you need more black than green, and it's nice to have lands that come into play untapped. Also, a couple of Swamps in your deck ensure that an opponent can't use Ghost Quarter to color-screw you out of casting Sorin.

Your mana base could easily support green splash, but I think Gavony Township might be too much of a "win more" card in this deck, since you've got so many other pumping effects going already. Township doesn't really start doing its thing until the late game, and my suspicion is that getting there in the first place means your opponent is likely using lots of removal to keep your creatures off the field. Initially, I was thinking that I'd prefer to have access to Moorland Haunt (to generate more Spirits) rather than Gavony Township (which is useless if I have no guys to pump up), and sideboarding in blue countermagic against Day of Judgment and Ratchet Bomb. However, with the full Dark Ascension set spoiled, I'm not thinking you're better off with green to support:

Ray of Relevation to answer Curse of Death's Hold and your opponent's anthems in the mirror.
Garruk Relentless as another token-maker and an Overrun effect.


Identify Strategy Game with Chariots and Elephants

The game you are looking for is Conquest:


Although the cards using coin tokens are already listed in the answer by RM Bee (including the comments), Coin tokens appear in currently four expansions (Seaside, Prosperity, Guilds, and Renaissance) and are used slightly differently in each set.

Please note that all the named cards have additional abilities besides generating or converting Coin tokens, but as the question is about Coin tokens this answer also focuses on them.

Seaside

The first expansion set to feature Coin tokens is Seaside. Using its card Pirate Ship, Coin tokens can be collected by individual players on their own Pirate Ship mats. Alternatively the collected tokens can be converted to +$ using the same action card, but the Coin tokens are not used up, so they remain on the Pirate Ship mat.

In later turns, this basically makes Pirate Ship kind of a Treasure which is possibly huge, but needs to be played as an action to generate money.

Prosperity

Prosperity also features Coin tokens with its Trade Route card, but this time the Coin tokens are placed on top of the victory card piles in the supply (one each) during setup. Once a card is gained from such a pile, the token is moved onto the Trade Route mat.

Amongst other effects, playing Trade Route then generates money according to the number of tokens on the mat. Again, the Coin tokens remain on the mat when used. In contrast to Pirate Ship, however, the Coin tokens on the Trade Route mat do not belong to a single player, but can be used by anyone.

Guilds

Using Candlestick Maker, Baker, Plaza, Merchant Guild, or Butcher from the Guilds expansion, players can get Coin tokens individually. The Second Edition printing of Guilds uses the name "Coffers" for these tokens; when a card says "+1 Coffers", you add a coin token to your Coffers mat. The details or conditions on how to get them are different for each card.

The Coin tokens from these cards can be used like other Treasures during the Buy Phase to pay the costs of the cards. Each coin generates $1 and is returned to the coin supply after using it. So basically, you can use these action cards to save some money and use it in later turns, which you cannot do with regular Treasures, obviously.

Renaissance

The newest expansion, Renaissance, brings back the same coin tokens from Guilds. It includes a "Villagers/Coffers" mat, which can replace the Coffers mat from Guilds. Certain cards give you either Villagers or Coffers, which you track by placing coin tokens on the correct half of the mat.

Coffers work exactly the same as they did in Guilds. Villagers can be spent at any time during your action phase to add +1 Action.

Cards that provide Coffers include Ducat, Silk Merchant, Swashbuckler, Patron, Spices, Villain, Exploration, Pageant, and Guildhall

Card that provide Villagers include Acting Troupe, Recruiter, Sculptor, Lackeys, Patron, Silk Merchant, Academy, and Exploration.


Does the Diplowinn variant play similarly to the original Diplomacy?

Hello @tttppp from 5+ years later!,

I actually called my buddies up to try this variant after seeing your question as the variant looked intersting. Our game lasted about 3 hours (around a table) and was very satisfying as we often stop games around 1910 due to stalemates. It is necessary to note that Italy and Turkey (countries that usually turtle until their neighbors get invaded) were easily overran when they ended up trapped with 4 Supply Centers. It was relatively easy for England to solo the game in 1906 as he did not require too many troops to defend. And those that did, were fleets in the Atlantic which doubled as offensive fleets. Stabbing was very common in our game as you run out of nearby SCs to pick up. Based on the game we played, I would say it would be less likely to see a draw when powers such as the conservative 2-4 SC players get eliminated slowly.

I know this answer comes 5 years after your question but I hope it helps!


Catan: Can I move my boat in the first round of the game?

You can move a ship in the first round of the game.
The setup step is something that happens before the first turn of the game begins; it doesn't happen "during a turn". There's no difference between the first turn and any later turn in terms of moving boats or anything else.


Can a creature with protection from all colors be targetted with a damage spell when it is still on the stack?

NO, you cannot.
From the comprehensive rules:

302. Creatures
302.1. A player who has priority may cast a creature card from his or her hand during a main phase of his or her turn when the stack is empty. Casting a creature as a spell uses the stack. (See rule 601, "Casting Spells.")
302.2. When a creature spell resolves, its controller puts it onto the battlefield under his or her control.

Only when the spell resolves is the creature actually on the battlefield. You can counter it, because while on the stack that creature isn't actually a "creature" but a "creature spell".

114.2. Only permanents are legal targets for spells and abilities, unless a spell or ability (a) specifies that it can target an object in another zone or a player, (b) targets an object that can't exist on the battlefield, such as a spell or ability, or (c) targets a zone.

You can only damage a creature when it is already on the battlefield. Because that creature has protection from all colors, you cannot target it or deal damage to it with colored spells.


Settlers of Catan trade dynamics question

It's not a rules violation, but there are still consequences

I don't think that there are any rules against it (Catan doesn't have much to say about when trade agreements become binding), but I would consider it poor sportsmanship lie about your trading plans in order to gain information and mislead your opponents.  If you repeatedly act like this there's a reasonable chance your game group will sour on playing Catan with you.


MTG: Fiend Binder and wider implications of Rule 508.1d

You're getting combat requirements mixed up with triggered abilities.
Triggered abilities:

603.1. Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[When/Whenever/At] [trigger condition or event], [effect]. [Instructions (if any).]”

Now, you know that if there isn't any targets, there's a problem, but that's handled by:

603.3d The remainder of the process for putting a triggered ability on the stack is identical to the process for casting a spell listed in rules 601.2c–d. If a choice is required when the triggered ability goes on the stack but no legal choices can be made for it, or if a rule or a continuous effect otherwise makes the ability illegal, the ability is simply removed from the stack.

So, if your opponent has no creatures, the ability triggers, but since there are no legal targets, it's immediately removed from the stack.


In Killer Bunnies can you play a Terrible Misfortune on a bunny that needs to be fed?

Yes, you may since your turn isn't over until you replace your Bottom Run card in Step (4), which occurs after you draw back up to five cards. Under the rules for Feed Your Bunny it says:

When using a Feed The Bunny card, a player places it on any opponent’s bunny in The Bunny Circle. The opponent will need the Cabbage Units and Water Units to Feed The Bunny by the end of his next turn. [...] If the bunny is not fed by the end of the opponent’s turn, then it dies and is removed from The Bunny Circle (discarded).

and for Play Immediately cards:

If a player draws a PLAY IMMEDIATELY (Terrible Misfortune) card during play, then he must stop the game, announce that he has the card, and kill one of his own bunnies in The Bunny Circle.

So, when you play a Feed Your Bunny card on an opponents bunny, they only have until the end of their turn to feed and save it. So, when is the end of your turn? The Blue Starter Deck rules breaks down the steps of your turn as:

(1) Flip over the TOP RUN card.
(2) Slide the BOTTOM RUN card up to the TOP RUN card position.
(3) Draw a replacement card from the Draw Pile.
(4) Replace the BOTTOM RUN card with a card from your hand.

(Note: the yellow/blue bunny bits rules were very confusing since they didn't breakdown the turn into steps, "A player’s turn is over when he has flipped his TOP RUN card (or played a SPECIAL card directly from his five-card hand), and has replaced the card so that he once again has five cards in his hand and two cards down on the table.")


If you discard a card at the start of your turn, you can pick it back up at the end of your turn.

There's nothing that would prevent this from happening. As the last part of your turn, you are allowed to exchange one card from your hand, and you may pay to look through a draw stack and pick any card you want. The game doesn't place any restrictions on what card you can take, nor does it have any "memory" about where the card has been in the past. You can even do this to pick up the card that the other player discarded. Note that this can't happen "immediately" as you suggest, since you don't exchange cards until the end of the turn, so Riots will take your unit out of commission for at least one round. But it's perfectly legal to discard a unit due to Riots at the start of the turn, pick it back up at the end of the turn, and then play it again on the following turn.

Also note that with expansions, there are non-unique units, so it'd be pretty impractical to disallow a player from picking up the same unit they just discarded - after the fact, it would be impossible to prove if you exchanged for the Chief Cannoneer on the bottom that you just discarded, or the one that's second from the bottom that you didn't discard.


Can I put more than one Master Builder in the King's Court?

After taking another pass through the rules, I see no reason this would be forbidden.  That being said, I see no case where this would be a good play.  You gain nothing by placing a second builder here, and at best you are causing one player to pay taxes.  I suppose in the very narrow situation where 1) this is the last space (and therefore you know which player will have to pay), 2) you know the player who will have to pay will not be able to afford it and therefore lose victory points, 3) that player is in first place, and 4) you are in second place that this play could be worthwhile.  However, even in this case it seems likely that the player targeted could make up the one or two points they would lose (two to five divided by two, rounded down) with the action they choose instead.  I think it is always going to be preferable to take another action instead.


What chance do I have of my foil being a rare or mythic?

In a standard full‐sized, Magic: The Gathering set, you have 15 Mythic Rares, 53 Rares, 80 Uncommons, 101 Commons and often 20 basic lands. A booster pack is 10 Commons, 3 Uncommons, 1 Rare, 1 Land, plus 1 Token or Advertisement card. When there is a foil in a pack, the Common is removed, having 9 Commons instead.

Everything is based off of sheets. That’s the way cards come off the printers. Sets are printed on sheets of 11 × 11. Rares are printed 2:1 to Mythic Rares on exactly 1 rare sheet (which can be evidenced in many images of uncut Magic rare sheets online, and more importantly, corroborated by Mark Rosewater himself in his article. These printed sheets form the boosters that customers purchase in retail stores.

Here’s what a sample print run looks like, using all the cards to build boosters:

 1 Rare sheet (121; 106 Rares + 15 Mythic Rares)
 3 Uncommon sheets (363; or 4.5 × 80 Uncommons spread across 3 sheets)
11 Common sheets (1331; or 11 × 121; 101 Commons + 20 Basic Lands)

   (Plus, extra regular sheets for tokens and ads)

We know foils have sheets just like regular cards do. There’s an image of a foil sheet posted as a different answer to this question, confirming they are print the same as Rares for regular cards: 2 Rare for every 1 Mythic Rare, filling up an entire sheet of 121.

So how often are foils from the foil Rare sheet pulled from booster packs? My experience matches many others, which is just over 1 every box or so. Most of the time I have gotten 1, but just a few times I have gotten 2 foil Rares. Boxes have 36 booster packs each. This fits nicely in the ratio of 4 foils from the foil rare sheet on a batch of 121 boosters (121:4, which is close to 30:1).

My experience also matches that of Hogan’s and many, many others, which is somewhere around 4:1 for packs per foil. In a sealed deck tournament, you get 6 boosters packs, and usually open one, but sometimes two. This forum post does a very decent job breaking the statistics down. The 15/63 mentioned, the best I can tell, is just a guess. If this was extrapolated, that’s about 30/121, which would be pulling 30 foils for our 121 packs (which, no surprise, is 4.033:1).

So, of the 30 foils you would see in 121 packs, you would get 4 Rares, meaning there’s a 4/30 chance of your foil card being a Rare or a Mythic Rare. (This is just a guess.)

The ratio of foil rarities is not the same as non‐foils. Maro actually says this in his article. It’s better than the standard ratio, and it has to be. We have about 1 foil in 4 packs, and 1 foil Rare/Mythic Rare in 30 packs — there just wouldn’t be enough foils to fill to have 10:1 Common to Rare foils! So, what is the correct foil ratio then?

If we have a single Rare foil sheet, we’ll have some number of foil Uncommon and Common sheets too. But why 30 choices? At this point, we probably should be basing this off of the total number of foil Rares rather than non-foil Rares. (At the very least, we can account for using every single foil card possible.) In other words, instead of 121 packs, we should look at expending an entire Rare foil sheet. Instead of pulling 4 Rares in 30 foils, why not pull all 121 Rare foils — for thirty times as many packs.

So let’s simulate a print run. Here’s how it will break down:

  1 Foil Rare sheet
  2 Foil Uncommon sheets?
  4 Foil Common sheets?
 30 Rare sheets
 90 Uncommon sheets (3× Rare)
330 Common sheets (11× Rare)

There should exist somewhere around 780 foil Uncommon and Common cards (26 of 30 foils in 121 packs is 780 in 3630 packs).

As far as Uncommons go, originally, Wizards printed 60 in a large set (which fits nicely, twice, on a sheet of 121 cards). It wasn’t until the last few years they increased this to 80, citing the need for more variation during draft without the prevalence of the cards from a third set. But that’s okay, because three runs of 80 happens to also fit nicely onto 2 sheets of 121 cards (80 × 3 = 240, or 2 sheets).

If we had 2 foil Uncommon sheets, this would give us a perfect distribution. Along with 4 foil Common sheets, that’s 845 total foils, distributing amongst 3630 packs, which gets us 23% chance of pulling a foil, which is close enough. This also matches my own experience with cracking open booster boxes.

I could certainly be wrong with the total number of cards. Wizards might actually use 4000 Common sheets and distribute the foils among them. But that’s fine, we’re not concerned about the chance of pulling a foil, we just want the ratio of the foil rarities, and 1:2:4 seems likely on how to do it on a print run.

Thus, we end up with the following:

14.28% or a 1/7 chance of your foil being a Rare or Mythic Rare
12.51% or 106/121 of a 1/7 chance of being a Rare
1.77% or 15/121 of a 1/7 chance of being a Mythic Rare


Does the tea card in sushi go apply to other tea cards if it's the largest set, including itself?

TL;DR = Tea cards are a set.  You scored 9 points.

From the Rules here

  End of the round: Count the number of cards in your largest (or tied
  largest) set of cards with the same background color. Tea is worth
  1 point per card in that set.

  Example: Chris has 1 wasabi, 1 squid nigiri and 2 salmon nigiri. These
  4 yellow cards are his largest set. His tea is therefore worth 4 points.

There is nothing in those rules that excludes tea from being the largest set.  If tea was prohibited from counting then it should be stated here.  It doesn't say that tea is not counted.

The key to your debate however is defined in the set up rules and the definition of 'set'

  Take all the other chosen sets of
  cards and shuffle them together to
  form a face-down deck which is also
  placed near the board.

All the group of cards in the game are defined as being in 'sets'.  This therefore this must include Tea.  As Tea cards are collected in a 'set' then it's entirely possible that your largest set is Tea. So if you have 3 Tea and your largest set is Tea then you scored 9 points.


Shadow Hunters: Holy Robe versus black card weapon

I think the best way of considering this is to imagine that Holy Robe reads "the amount of damage to receive from successful attacks is reduced by 1 point".  If so, it's clear that an attack with a black card weapon would deal 1 + 1 - 1 = 1 point of damage.

Otherwise you have to ponder the question of whether a Holy Robe could make an attack "unsuccessful" after damage is dealt.  I think it's easier just to go with the implication of the rulebook, which states in the Attack section "If both dice rolled have the same number, your attack fails and no damage is inflicted"; I take this to mean that an attack fails if it would do less than 1 damage based solely on the die roll, and succeeds otherwise.

Once we have determined that the attack is successful and would all else being equal deal damage, we apply all modifiers, which in the case of your question above cancel each other out.


Are the number and colours of cards in player's hands private information?

From the rules link here it says on page 2.

  All information on a
  player’s vineyard mat as well
  as available workers, amount
  of lira, and number of cards
  is public information and
  cannot be concealed.

This specifically says 'All information'  That would certainly include the colour on the back of the card.  If a player has to clearly display how many cards they have when asked then the colours will be visible.

The game didn't come with screens and cards are also taken from stacks publicly so I see no reason why it would be then secret.  It strikes me that your opponent refusing to tell you is incredibly unsporting and just that player trying to gain what every spurious advantage they can!


Does Saving Grace redirect damage from cards that destroy a target creature?

No, that will never work.

An effect that outright "destroys" a creature does not deal damage, so there is no damage to redirect for Saving Grace.


Do I need mana to play an instant that lets me block my opponents attack?

Yes, you need mana in order to cast spells that require mana. You can't just cast Spidery Grasp for nothing; it costs {2}{G}. If you have no mana available, and all your mana sources aren't available to be used (e.g. all your lands are tapped out already), you will have no mana to cast it with.

Lands and cards like Llanowar Elves can be tapped to give you mana, but won't give you mana merely by existing.

I suggest you give the game's Quick Start Booklet (PDF link) a read. It might clarify things for you.


In 7 wonders when you buy resources from neighbor do you take the card?

No, you do not take the card. The neighbor retains the card; you are simply allowed to use your neighbor's cards, for a fee of course.

You can also buy the resource from the top corner of the civilization cards as well.  It doesn't need to be a "card".


Suburbia - what is the rule of Reputation?

Reputation = number of people that added to the total, at the end of the turn.
The relevant part in the rules:

ADJUST POPULATION (BASED ON REPUTATION)
Increase or decrease your Population on the Population Board by the amount where your Reputation Cube is located. If Population gets to 0, any additional movements backwards cost $1 per Population. If the player cannot pay this fee, nothing happens to the player...he just stays on the 0 spot.
As your borough grows, it will cost more to maintain and its “small town” quality will decrease --
this is represented by Red Lines on the population track. When a player’s Population crosses a Red
Line, then that player’s Income ◯ and Reputation █ are both reduced by 1 (moved to the left one
space) for every Red Line the player moves past. If a player’s Population dips below a Red Line (this
can happen if he has a negative Reputation) he moves both his Income Cylinder and his Reputation
Cube forward (moved to the right one space).


What happens to the House card in Monopoly Deal if I lose my complete set?

This question is probably too old to be answered again, but the accepted answer sounds incorrect according to several sources.

http://monopoly.wikia.com/wiki/Monopoly_Deal

  If a property set has a House/Hotel on
  it and the property set is broken up,
  the House/Hotel is moved to the
  owner's bank, per Hasbro.

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/375594/rules-clarification

  Hasbro wrote:
  If you break up a full
  set that has houses and hotels, those
  houses and hotels have to go into your
  bank.

And you probably had stop playing. But might be useful for new players like me :)


According to the official rules, the Slide and Jump Slide icons allow

  ...a Troop Tile to move any number of squares in the direction shown

It seems that the icons are place on the outside edges as emphasis that their movement is not limited in that direction.


In Mice and mystics, Should party items be place in paw to use them?

Those cards aren't counted against your pack limit at all.  You simply place the corresponding token in the party items area (the middle of the clock).  Page 18 states

  Party items are items that can be used freely by any mouse in the
  party. When a mouse receives a party item, place the card near the
  story control board and place any marker or token that might be
  associated with that item in the party stash area of the story control
  board.


Edits: corrected my miscount of Black area, possible White gain
If my calculations are right, you seem to have lost or won depending on the rules in force, but you had a chance in any case!

Your score

In your position, using area scoring, I count your central group as 40 points as follows:
Counting in vertical pairs left to right two horizontal lines at a time (numbers in diagrams can only go up to 10; f, s, e stand for 4, 6 8; the 40th point is the marked ◯ at J1).

$$Wcm1 Counting
$$ +---------+
$$ |...XXXO..|
$$ |24680OOO.|
$$ |OOXX.XXO.|
$$ |O2fs80OO.|
$$ |O2X4X6O.O|
$$ |OOOOMXOOM|
$$ |XOXO802OX|
$$ |.X.OX..4s|
$$ |...OOXeXP|
$$ +---------+

Note that the SE corner is yours as far as J3, which White cannot capture, but White should get J4.

Your problem

Since you needed 41 points to win (unless the next paragraph applies), you were there, if you took one of the two neutral points (marked with crosses), namely E4, making it ⬤41:◯40½.

However, some rule sets award White a point for each handicap stone1, meaning you would need 5 or 6 more points than White to win for a 4- or 5-stone handicap respectively, i.e. 43:38 or 44:37.

1 See the section on Handicap go at [https://senseis.xmp.net/?TerritoryAndAreaScoring#toc6]

Your chance

But you had a chance to

   win anyway, by making a seki2 in the SW, if White blundered by answering ⬤E4 immediately at ◯J4: you could then play ⬤A2, forcing ◯C2 (otherwise you play there and capture), then ⬤B1 gives you an eye in the stomach, and neither group can capture the other. In this case you get another 5 area points and White does not get a point for C1. However, this comes at a cost: White can now capture at J2, and when Black captures at J3 White can recapture a stone at J2 and when Black plays J1 White can connect at J3, forcing Black to connect at G2! This reduces your area in the SE by 2, making the area score 44:1:36, so you win in spite of komi even if you had a 5-stone handicap.

 Unfortunately, if White correctly answers ⬤E4 with ◯C2, they capture the SW and still get ◯J4, yielding the same result as above (they win if compensated for the handicap)! Moreover, if you play 58 in the corner before filling J4, the only hope I see is ⬤B1, ◯A2 ⬤A1, ◯C2 ⬤A3, ◯A2 (which White wins) or ⬤A3 (double ko, which White is bound to win) or ⬤A1, ◯C2 (which White also wins).

2 seki: A stand-off where neither side can capture the other

With territory scoring

If you use territory scoring (Japanese style), we want to know how many captives there were. Since the last move was White 57, you must have had a handicap, and there must have been 29 white and 28 black stones played. I count 32 black stones and White can have taken at most 1 captive (at H5), so you had a 4-stone handicap and White has no captive or a 5-stone and White has one; both seem consistent with the position. I count 26 white stones, so you must have taken 3 captives (at F2, G2, G1 or C6, D6, E7).

At the end of the game you can expect to capture at J2, giving you a score of 10 territory + 4 captives = ⬤14; while White has 14 territory + 3 or 4 captives + ½ komi + perhaps 4 or 5 handicap compensation = ◯17½ to ◯23½. Again, you lose (by 3½ to 9½ points), unless

   White blunders as previously described. In that case, your score is unchanged3 at 14, but White loses 11 points in the SW, which is enough for you to win.
3 I am assuming your rules count no points in a seki; otherwise you both get one more point in the SW, which cancel out and make no difference.


How Does The "Franz" L-Deck Occupation Work?

The last sentence on the German card is a bit clearer:

Wenn du Franz ausgespielt hast und bei Spielende nicht mehr hast, kannst du "Ich bin nicht Franz!" sagen und erhaelst 1 Sonderpunkt.

That is: "If you played Franz and don't have it any more at the game's end...".

Which says that you only receive the bonus point at the end of the game. The condition here is slightly different from the one on the English card. If you play the card, pass it, get it back, and play it again, you do not receive the bonus point. The German card is not clear about what happens if you play it, pass it, get it back, and keep it in your hand.

As for your other questions: I think you're right. The card has to be played first before it has any effect, just like any other occupation. In combination with the Simplifier, Franz has no effect: it cannot be passed to another player, and gives no bonus point.


Why is it important that the digits be all different?

As per your linked wikipedia article, a later game based on the same concept is Mastermind. And from that game's Wikipedia article:

  Duplicates and blanks are allowed depending on player choice, so the player could even choose four code pegs of the same color or four blanks.

So no, it's not crucial. It makes the game harder in that there are more possible solutions.


What is a good resource to discover new games?

Online, I think BoardGameGeek is a great resource. It's kind of to board games what IMDb is to movies - tremendous repository with lots of rulebooks, user reviews, and more. It can be a bit hard to know where to start, but they also have a dedicated recommendations forum, and most people are happy to help.

If you live in an area with a hobby game store or a Meetup group, they're also a great resource for information, and more importantly, the ability to try things out before you buy them (as @shujaa points out).


Star Trek: Deck Building - Upgrade Rules

Yes, you remove an upgraded card from your deck. No, you are not allowed to play a card immediately when you gain it. Normally, when gain a card it goes to your discard unless the card specifically tells you otherwise. No, if you upgrade a card from your bridge, the gained cards normally go to your discard area, unless the card says specifically otherwise.
From the Rulebook2.0 on Bandai's website, (page 24-25 Glossary):

Gain - Move a card from Starbase to your discard area (Some effects may move it to another area).
Upgrade - This is short for “Trash the designated card and gain a card from Starbase costing up to the designated amount more than the trashed card”. So you can trash a card of cost X and gain a card with a cost less then X.
Trash - Move a card to one of the following areas depending on where the card originated from:

If it is a starter card, remove it from the game.
If it is a Basic Character card, move it to its pile on Starbase.
If it is a card that started in the Starbase Deck, move it to the Starbase Discard Area.
If it is a Borg Card, move it to the Borg Card Pile


Should I avoid getting any pot in Poison or try to pick a color and get as much as possible?

I certainly favor taking a color. With good players it's impossible to get nothing, and if you pick a single color you'll have some control.

Once you start specializing in a color other players are unlikely to take any of that color if they can help it, ensuring you'll get the majority.

Once you have that solid majority, towards the last half or third of the game, you can foist pots of that color onto other players, knowing they'll be stuck with points. This gives you power that you don't have if you take nothing.

Of course, everyone else is trying to do the same thing. :)


In Race for the Galaxy on 6-cost development cards, does a player receive VPs for all of the categories they have satisfied, or just one?

You would get all of them that you satisfy.

While the rules don't actually clarify this (that I could see), the entire point of playing them is to earn extra victory points for how you've setup your tableux, like focusing on alien tech in the case you pointed out.


No, Portal dice can yield either Quiddity or an immediate effect, but it has no "spell" sides (spells are kept and used later rather than when rolled; see phase 3 in the rules), so there's nothing to indicate that it's a spell die. Portals are just basic resource dice; neither creature nor spell.


Identify game: Intergalactic United Nations

I just did an advanced search for party games + science fiction (weight < 2) and Cosmocracy was 10th on the list.


First of all, yes. This is something that I have noticed happens sometimes in the game. I don't think it happens all that much, but it is definitely noticeable when by round 3 there has not been any supply yet.

I don't think this is a problem. Think about if no Clash of Kings would ever happen? Or if no Wildlings ever attacked? There are many such opportunities for the game to be "lacking" in something. I think it is part of the dynamic nature of the game. It does not require any of those things to happen, but if they do then it makes it interesting, but it also makes it interesting if it doesn't happen.

Saying that the game "stagnates" implies to me that you may not be playing the game entirely correct. Most of the times when I play the game, I barely have any armies with more than 1 soldier until mid-game. Since I rely on support and taking larger territories and having more actions.

It really depends also on what optional rules you are using. The tides of battle cards make supply less relevant, since the size of the army is not the most important factor. If you are using the rule where the seasonal cards are set out such that you can see the next 3 cards coming up that will also impact the game, you will know when a supply is coming, or if one is not coming and be able to play accordingly.

I would not say that this is a problem with the game, maybe only a problem with expectations. I do not think any house rule needs to be made for this. There are enough ways to "solve" this problem. Most of them come from your own strategy.


Can I avoid an opponent preventing my Desecration Demon attacking?

You can do that. The combat phase is divided into several steps, and this is how the first step goes:

  507.Beginning of Combat Step

    507.1. First, if the game being played is a multiplayer game in which the active player's opponent's don't all automatically become
    defending players, the active player chooses one of his or her
    opponents. That player becomes the defending player. This turn-based
    action doesn't use the stack. (See rule 506.2.)

    507.2. Second, any abilities that trigger at the beginning of combat go on the stack. (See rule 603, "Handling Triggered Abilities.")

    507.3. Third, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

So, during the 3rd part listed there, you can cast Desecration Demon (if you have something that allows you to do so as though it had flash, such as Leyline of Anticipation). At this time, "At the beginning of each combat" have already been triggered, and it wasn't on the battlefield at that time, so it didn't trigger. By the time you cast it, it's too late for that trigger.

After that comes the declare attackers step, during which you can attack with your Demon if you have a card such as Fervor that will give him haste.


Buyback and Rebound depend on the card resolving in order for their effects to occur.

Anoint

  Buyback 3 (You may pay an additional 3 as you cast this spell. If you do, put this card into your hand as it resolves.)

Artful Maneuver

  Rebound (If you cast this spell from your hand, exile it as it resolves. At the beginning of your next upkeep, you may cast this card from exile without paying its mana cost.)

Feather, the Redeemed has a trigger that fires when you cast a spell, and then checks to see if the spell resolved.

  Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell that targets a creature you control, exile that card instead of putting it into your graveyard as it resolves. If you do, return it to your hand at the beginning of the next end step.

There is also a very similar phrasing to what you're describing used on some cards.  These are ETB triggers that fire only if the permanent entered the battlefield as a result of being cast.  It is, functionally, no different than the spell resolving.

  (...)When (X) enters the battlefield, if you cast if from your hand, (Y).

This is a list of cards that have that phrasing on it.  As a specific example, Angel of the Dire Hour.

  When Angel of the Dire Hour enters the battlefield, if you cast it from your hand, exile all attacking creatures.


Good rules for combining the various expansions start tiles

The details depend on which expansions you're playing with, as some have starting pieces that are mutually exclusive or have slightly different rules depending on the combination. For example, the following cover all expansions through the catapult:

Collect tiles:

Collect the following special tiles, in addition to those for the base game and any other expansions being played:

Any combination of river expansion tiles (from "The River", "The River II", or the "Mini Expansion") that includes exactly one spring, exactly one lake/end tile and, optionally a single branch and a second lake/end tile.

The count piece and all 12 Carcassonne City tiles.

Prepare tiles:

Discard the starting tile; place the assembled City in the middle of the table, with the count in the castle district of the City; place the spring next to the City with the river leading away from the City, set one lake/end tile (with a volcano, if in use) and the branch tile aside, face up, and shuffle the remaining river expansion tiles and place them face down; shuffle all other tiles in use and place them in a concealed supply (in a bag, tower dispenser, or face down piles or stacks).

Drawing tiles:

Draw tiles, beginning with the branch tile, then face down river expansion tiles, then the face up lake/end tile, then from tiles in the supply.

For a step-by-step setup and turn structure tailored to whatever specific expansions you have in mind, see http://www.sciencegames.com/carcassonne/.


Can I exile my opponent's Progenitus/True-Name Nemesis with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria's emblem?

You cannot exile Progenitus or True-Name Nemesis.

"Protection from everything" has a specific meaning in the rules:

  702.16j “Protection from everything” is a variant of the protection ability. A permanent with protection from everything has protection from each object regardless of that object’s characteristic values. Such a permanent can’t be targeted by spells or abilities, enchanted by Auras, equipped by Equipment, fortified by Fortifications, or blocked by creatures, and all damage that would be dealt to it is prevented.

So nothing at all can target Progenitus.

"Protection from [a player] also is specifically defined:

  702.16k “Protection from [a player]” is a variant of the protection ability. A permanent with protection from a specific player has protection from each object the player controls and protection from each object the player owns not controlled by another player, regardless of that object’s characteristic values. Such a permanent can’t be targeted by spells or abilities the player controls, enchanted by Auras the player controls, equipped by Equipment the player controls, fortified by Fortifications the player controls, or blocked by creatures the player controls, and all damage that would be dealt to it by sources controlled by the player or owned by the player but not controlled by another player is prevented.

Whether created by an emblem or not; the controller of the emblem is the controller of the triggered ability; so it cannot target True-Name Nemesis if that player was chosen.


If I Find the "Objective Clue" with Gloria's Psychic Sensitivity, Does That Reveal the Objective

No Gloria only looks at the cards, they are not revealed. Additionally, clue 1 is always the final clue to be discovered.
The wording on Gloria's Psychic Sensitivity Ability is:

"Action: Once per game, look at all Exploration cards in the room of your choice (you must then return them in the same order)."

The rulebook states (page 9):

Explore Action - The most common action that investigators perform on their turn is Exploring a Room. During setup, the keeper places face-down exploration cards in every room on the game board. Investigators may reveal these cards by performing an explore action in the room.
Clues: These are the cards the investigators a ultimately attempting to discover. These cards have no artwork and are clearly labeled with a large number and a letter in the upper left corner. The number represents the level of the clue (clue 1 is always the final clue to be discovered), while the letter only matters during setup.


How did the Greek campaign affect Afrika Korps?

Your base assumption concerning the relationship of the Commonwealth Expeditionary Force to Greece is incorrect. That force comprised three fully (or nearly so) re-equipped units:

6th Australian Division - Fought in Syria after being evacuated from Crete, and then was transferred to the Pacific Theatre in January 1942. Given the supply priority of units sent to Greece, it was probably three 2-2-6 brigade units.
New Zealand DIvision (only later re-designated as 2nd New Zealand Division) - after evacuation from Crete was integrated into Eight Army proper, but returns to the game in November 1941 as part of the Crusader reinforcements. This may be un-historical, as I could find no record of a rebuilding of the division required before it returned to combat duties. In game terms this division comprises three 1-1-6 brigade units.
1st British Armoured Brigade This unit returns to the game in November 1941 as a 2-2-7 armoured unit, but in April 1941 was similarly equipped to other British armoured brigades, so likely a 4-4-7 armoured brigade and 1-1-12 reconnaissance battalion. If not sent to Greece it would likely have been available at El Alamein I April 1941, having just been re-equipped with new tanks to replace those lost during, or unserviceable after, Beda Fomm.

From all research I could find the order of Battle of the June and July replacements listed in the game would be unchanged. It is possible that they would have been better equipped however, so perhaps a couple or three of the 1-1-6 units would have appeared as 2-2-6 units instead.

It is worth noting that the game designation of British infantry brigades as 1-1-6 or 2-2-6 units clearly is not intended to represent an accurate reflection of some such units being either twice as effective as others, but rather as a means of expressing an average combat value of about 1.5, while still providing the British with the ability to allocate weaker or stronger forces to specific locations. Certainly some units arrived in the theatre better trained or better equipped, or achieved greater renown while there, but the difference was never so great as 2 to 1.

Thus making these troops available almost doubles starting British forces, though they would have been scattered from Alexandria to perhaps Tobruk rather than being available in Western Cyrenaica. The British were well aware of Rommel's reinforcements of earlier that spring, but badly under estimated the speed with which he was able to prepare and assemble them for an offensive out of El Agheila - they estimated that such an offensive would not be possible until May or June.

As the game is finely tuned match and readily balanced in tournaments by the simple expedient of adjusting Supply rolls (see Side Determination and Bidding for Supplies), any change in the starting British forces would require a severe adjustment to the victory criteria. In essence, you are building a new game based on an unhistorical assumption.

Churchill in The Grand Alliance notes that the deciding factors in sending an expeditionary force to Greece were:

The belief that Rommel could not launch an offensive in Cyrenaica until May or June; and more importantly
That not doing so, after having granted public assurances to Greece and being seen to have available forces in Egypt, would have had possibly dire effects on the neutrality of both Spain and Turkey.

Summary of Bidding with supplies:

German player gets ability to nullify a number of Sunk results on Supply Table (after the die roll), and/or start with additional Supply units, a number of times equal to the British player's winning bid.
British player gets ability to nullify a number of Arrived results on Supply Table (after the die roll) equal to German player's winning bid.
If both players bid for separate sides no auction occurs.


In Bohnanza: Gangsters, does the Mafia act in phase 4?

You have the answer already.  You're just stumbling over the definition of "player".

The mafia are not players.

Players may not harvest during phase 4.

The mafia must harvest when they reach the specified amount of coin value, regardless of what phase it is.


Can a thief steal if he can't equip the item?

From the rules:

All Items you have in play are considered "carried." Items that are actually giving you a bonus are "equipped."
Anyone can carry any Item (except for extra Big items), but you may equip only one Headgear, [etc.] ... If you are carrying two Headgear cards, for instance,
you can equip only one of them at a time.

This means that even if an item can't be equipped (because you already have an item equipped in that slot, or any other reason), it can still be carried, so a thief can still steal it and just carry it.


Tools to test surface control mechanics by computer

I doubt this exists. The best board game implementation tools you can get currently are tabletop simulator and tabletopia and both shy far away from implementing the actual rules.

I'm currently designing a board game myself and am in multiple communities regarding board game design and no one has ever brought anything like that up. I've seen a lot of tools being mentioned, from the directly usefull like card generators or the aforementioned TTS/tabletopia to more meta things like anydice, but I've never seen someone mention a board game AI simulation tool.

The closest thing you might get is VASSAL which is a free open source game engine, but that has ZERO AI support as of now (but being open source, that could be changed by you).


What factors should be considered before doubling pawns?

Jeremy Silman, author of many books on chess strategy (as well as my favorite endgame book) always pushes not thinking in terms of static strengths - having a bishop over a knight - vs. weaknesses - having doubled pawns - but rather in terms of imbalances.  After all, in a closed position, a knight will do better than a bishop, and you mentioned yourself one way doubled pawns can actually be an advantage.

So, the questions you should really be asking yourself are, What are the imbalances in the position?  What new imbalances will this capture create?

For doubled-pawns, the common imbalances are:

Material.  Since you must capture to get doubled pawns, you'll be gaining (or recapturing) material.
Space.  As you mentioned, moving the pawn out of the way opens a file/diagonal for your pieces.
Central (key square) control.  When capturing towards the center, you'll now have an extra pawn to attack the center - or, when capturing away from the center, you lose some of that control.  Note that if the capturing pawn is a central pawn, you may gain more central control, due to the open file/diagonal.
Also, later in the game other squares may become important to control.  You should take these into consideration as well.
Pawn Structure.  Doubling your pawns tends to weaken your pawn structure, especially if they are isolated.  Doubled-isolated pawns are easy targets for your opponents, so expect to lose at least one of those pawns later.

Lastly, and most importantly, it's rarely a matter of a single move, meaning other imbalances will come into play as well.

If I move here, there's a possibility he'll move here, leading to a series of moves in which my pawns will be doubled and he'll gain the double-bishops, but I'll have the initiative.

In every line of play, existing and potential, you will always need to compare the imbalances that favor you to the imbalances that favor your opponent, and ask yourself:  "Do the imbalances in the position favor me over my opponent?  How do I make the existing imbalances favor me even more?  Can I create even more favorable imbalances for myself in this position?"  Learning how to answer these questions is one of the most important skills in getting better at chess.


An outbreak only occurs due to cubes of a single color:

  If the city already has 3 cubes of this color, do not place a 4th cube. Instead, an outbreak of this disease occurs in the city (see Outbreaks below).

And therefore a city can have up to three cubes of each color, not just three cubes overall:

  As a result of outbreaks, a city may have disease cubes of multiple colors on it; up to 3 cubes of each color. This does not affect infections.


It is fun but the rules are quite vague.

What have you been reading?

MTG has the most precise rules of any complex game. These are found in the Comprehensive Rules.

The Comprehensive Rules are far more detailed than what you need, though. You should start with the Basic Rules. These are still far from vague.

  It is not clear whether a player can attack more than once (with different cards) in a turn.

You only have one combat phase per turn, but you can declare any number of attackers.

Declare attackers step: You decide which, if any, of your untapped creatures will attack
and which player or planeswalker they will attack. Then they do
so. This taps the attacking creatures. Players can then cast instants
and activate abilities.

  It isn't clear how tap abilities of cards related to attacking (if one attacks does one also get the tap ability - if so can it be used without attacking, and can it be used if not ones own turn).

Attacking taps the creature.

Activating some abilities requires tapping the creature.

Unless there's an ability that says "Whenever [something] is tapped", tapping doesn't cause anything to happen.

An applicable metaphor is: You can't pay for two things using the same dollar.

  It isn't clear when a card says "for each creature under your control" whether that count includes creature tokens (which are "creatures" but are often treated separately in the text of cards).

Creature tokens are creatures.

"Creature" not followed by "spell" or "card" means "creature permanent". A permanent is a card or token on the battlefield. So a creature is a creature card or token on the battlefield.

An applicable metaphor is: A square building is square. A square building is a building.

  Does life link only count damage to the other player or all damage to any creature?

It doesn't matter to what the damage is dealt.

Lifelink: A keyword ability seen on permanents. Damage dealt by a
permanent with lifelink causes that permanent’s controller to
gain that much life, in addition to behaving like normal damage.


This is Sata (released in some countries as Tactigo).


The computer game Lux is Risk, but with a huge number of custom maps and themes.  You can also create your own maps using their map editor.

Many of the maps include additional rules, such as time-based continent values or starting positions.

If you're interested in Risk played on arbitrary graphs (nb. including directed graphs!) then I think this would be a great place to start investigating.


Each Outpost Siege will trigger at the beginning of each upkeep. Example:

You play Outpost Siege, naming Khans.
You play Outpost Siege, naming Dragons.
At the beginning of your upkeep, both Outpost Sieges trigger.
You stack the triggers in whatever order you choose.
You resolve the triggers in the opposite order.

As each trigger resolves, follow the instructions written on the card.

If you control three Outpost Sieges, then all three will trigger. If you control ten, then all ten will trigger. There's no rule that says, "Only one enchantment with the same name can trigger at the same time."


Can Unity play a golem after playing Inspired Repair

It is still her play phase so she can't play a mechanical golem no matter how many extra cards she is allowed to play.  During any other phase or other players turn she may play a mechanical golem if she gets to play a card.


How do you evaluate a building or plot quest?

Yes. In fact, it's a great way to learn the financial concept of return on investment (ROI).

First you must understand the game's currency:

4 coins = 2 oranges or blacks = 1 white or purple

The most obvious way to understand where this conversion comes from is by observing that on the first turn of the game, an agent can be placed to obtain 4 coins, 2 oranges or 2 blacks, or 1 purple or white. You can then plug in any of these conversions to realize that most intrigue cards and same-costed buildings are roughly equal when you convert them to coin-equivalents.

Completing a quest is the main way to gather victory points, and if you look carefully at quests (except plot quests), you will notice that there is a simple formula that calculates victory points for most of them:

coins + 2 x (oranges or blacks) + 4 x (whites or purples) + 2

To simplify the analysis, I assume that all cubes are consumed by quests, because any cubes left over are not worth as much.

Some of the higher value quests are slightly better. For example all the 25 point ones give you +5 instead of +2.

However, given that they are so similar, and given that there is a cost of essentially 2 VPs to get a quest, I will assume for the rest of this post that:

4 VPs = 4 coins = 2 oranges or blacks = 1 white or purple

In other words, if you gather 2 oranges from 1 action, that is a 4VP move. If you go on a building that converts 2 blacks into 3 whites, you just changed 4 VPs into 12 VPs, so that was an 8 VP move.

If you understand everything so far, then you can easily figure out values for buildings. Examples:

House of Wonder: This building costs 4 coins (4VP), but yields 2 coins every time someone places an agent there. It is a very good building to place an agent on, so it is safe to assume that at least one agent will be placed there each turn. If you take the building on turn 1, you spend 4VPs but get the one 1VP that was sitting on the building, so you've spent a net of 3VPs. In return you get 2 VPs per turn times 8 turns, so 2 x 8 = 16 VPs. So that is a 13 VP move. That is a very good move on turn one - an investment of 3VP gets 16 VP.

However, you get a lower return on investment if you play it later in the game. Let's say you play the building on turn 7 and it has 3 VPs sitting on it. You only have to pay a net of 1 VP, but you will get only 4 VP back, so it is a 3VP move which means is generally below average (unless you hold the lord that gets a 6VP bonus for every building).

It turns out that most buildings costing 4 follow that same formula. Buildings costing 8 generally yield 4 VPs per turn, so they are actually a higher VP move on turn 1 than a 4 cost building, if you can afford to get them.

One building stands above the rest:  Yawning Portal. For an investment of 3 VP (you won't get it for less as competent players won't let this go untaken), you get 4 VP per turn at the minimum. However, this is so good to put an agent on (one of the best) that you will typically get the income from it more than once on many turns, due to various intrigue cards, ongoing quests, or buildings that allow extra agent placements on the same space. If you manage to get it on turn 1, then a normal game might get 12 agents landing there for 48 VPs. In other words, this is a 45 VP move.

You can do similar types of analysis for the plot quests. One of the best plot quests is Bloster Griffon Calvary. If you can generate 2 bonus orange cubes each turn, that is the equivalent of 4VP per turn.

Obviously, the earlier you get a plot quest or building, the better the return on investment. To quantify, use the above math. You do have to make an estimate about how much the card or building will be used.

One last comment: The above math is oversimplified to at least enable comparing competing buildings. It's more complex however when you consider that introducing a building to the game also helps the players who place agents on it. Yawning Portal expands the economy for everyone. While the owner benefits most, other players also benefit with a similar total number of VPs introduced into the game, but divided among the players. I say this because the normal move is a 4VP move, but placing an agent on Yawning Portal is an 8 VP move. Therefore, while a player taking Yawning Portal may net out 45 VP over the course of the game, in a 3 player game the other players may benefit by 24VP each, so the relative benefit is 21VP. Still very good, but not as astoundingly good as indicated by the simplified analysis above indicated.