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Is it possible to win in MTG when you don't have enough cards in your library to complete your draw phase?
I am confused about the following MTG rule:

104.3c. If a player is required to draw more cards than are left in his or her library, he or she draws the remaining cards, and then loses the game the next time a player would receive priority. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.)

The following scenario came up in a Magic game I played recently.
My opponent had 3 untapped Howling Mines at the start of his turn. Each Howling Mine makes him draw an additional card during his draw phase, which means he needed to draw 4 cards. However, his library only had 1 card left in it.
Is it possible for my opponent to win the game here? It seems like priority passes basically when my opponent does anything at all, so why does the rule not just say they lose the game immediately? What is the point of allowing them to draw the one card and then move on from the draw step to their first main phase?  I'm assuming there is some scenario in which they can still win, but I don't know what that could be.
Me and my opponent are both new to Magic, so we actually assumed "priority" meant the next time it was my turn he would lose. We ended up letting him play out his whole turn and he actually beat me on that turn by playing a couple spells I couldn't stop. But after looking up what priority actually is I think I probably won?
Thanks!

It's possible to win with [mtg:Laboratory Maniac], but I doubt that's what you had in mind.

Re "Why does the rule not just say they lose the game immediately?" Because there's a number of checks that need to be performed regularly, and having them done continually would cause problems because too much stuff would happen simultaneously. Instead, they are postponed until nothing else is happening in the game, but before any player even has a chance of doing something other than what they were doing when the event happened.

Barring any card that explicitly change this, the start phase of any turn has three steps:

Untap. Nothing can be played here. Tapped permanents controlled by the active player are untapped, and that's it.
Upkeep. "At the beginning of [your / each player's] upkeep" triggered abilities trigger and are put on the stack. Players gain priority and may play instants, activated abilities and cards with flash. Things on the stack resolve as normally as players pass priority.
Draw. The active player draws a card, and "At the beginning of [your / each player's] draw step" triggered abilities trigger and are put on the stack. Players gain priority and may play instants, activated abilities and cards with flash. Things on the stack resolve as normally as players pass priority.

At any point before the triggered ability of any of the Howling Mines resolve at the last stage in the above list, if your opponent can play a spell or ability that kills you, they win.

Also, to clarify, "Priority" means "Now it's your turn to play cards and activate abilities. Say pass if you don't have anything to play." Passing priority is the basic mechanism that drives the game forwards: it is what allowed the next player to play their stuff, and if all players have passed priority in succession without playing anything, that is what makes the next thing on the stack resolve, or if the stack is empty makes the turn go on to the next step or phase.
This actually means that if the game (rather than someone passing) gave you priority (which means that the last thing that happened was that you played something, or it is your turn and either something had just finished resolving or a turn step has just begun), you don't get to say "Well, if you're not going to do anything right now, I will cast this card / activate this ability." If you have given your opponent a chance to cast things, and they have declined, the game moves a step forwards.
So you don't get a chance to "see if they have anything to cast" before you decide whether you want to cast anything. On the other hand, your opponent doesn't get a chance to cast anything before you have decided that you're done casting.

The reason why the rule 104.3c is worded this way is because some effects instruct the player to do something after they have drawn the cards which might change the outcome of the game. It is a pretty rare scenario, but consider these:
You cast Blast of Genius with less than 3 cards in your library. You still draw as many cards as you can, then discard a card and deal damage equal to the discarded card's CMC. If your chosen target was your opponent and the damage was enough to bring them to 0 or less life, the next time state based actions are checked (immediately after Blast of Genius finishes resolving), the game will find that both players have lost the game, ending the game in a draw.
You have less than 7 cards in your library and activate Jace, Wielder of Mysteries -8 abiity while he has exactly 8 loyalty, which means that he will be put into the graveyard before the ability resolves, so his static ability will not apply. You will draw as many cards as you can, and then, as part of the ability, win the game. If for some reason, you do not win the game (e.g. the opponent cast Angel's Grace in response), you will lose the game immediately after the ability finishes resolving because you attempted to draw from an empty library.

The first half of rule 104.3c is mostly relevant when a player attempts to draw multiple cards at once. Howling Mine places separate "draw 1" triggers on the stack. This means that the opponent will get an opportunity to respond to each Mine separately. For example, if they had 3 mines out and 3 cards in the library, all Lightning Bolt, they will be able to cast all the bolts before losing to the third mine trigger. Or if one of the cards was a Twiddle, they will get an opportunity to tap the last mine, negating the draw and continuing to their main phase.

Rule 104.3c is not "only relevant when a player attempts to draw multiple cards at once". If you're instructed to draw one card, and there are zero cards in your library, you are required to draw more cards than there are left in your library, so 104.3c still applies.

@murgatroid99 Thanks for pointing that out. I thought for some reason that game loss by decking was defined as part of the state based actions, but it seems that it is defined in 104.3c, so it's still relevant when drawing only one card.

It is a state-based action. 104.3c says as much. It's just also described in that rule, in the "Ending the Game" section, because it is one way that the game can end.

One way it matters is in multiplayer games. If Alice has one card in her library and has to draw four cards, and Bob has something that triggers based on how many cards are drawn, then it's important that Alice draw the card before she leaves the game.

No, players can't use the cards drawn in the draw step to win the game if the draw would make them lose.
Priority does not pass when a player does "anything at all". The points when players get priority are well defined:

117.3. Which player has priority is determined by the following rules:
117.3a The active player receives priority at the beginning of most steps and phases, after any turn-based actions (such as drawing a card during the draw step; see rule 703) have been dealt with and abilities that trigger at the beginning of that phase or step have been put on the stack. No player receives priority during the untap step. Players usually don’t get priority during the cleanup step (see rule 514.3).
117.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.
117.3c If a player has priority when they cast a spell, activate an ability, or take a special action, that player receives priority afterward.
117.3d If a player has priority and chooses not to take any actions, that player passes. If any mana is in that player’s mana pool, they announce what mana is there. Then the next player in turn order receives priority.

We care especially about 117.3a. In the draw step, players do indeed get priority after they've drawn their card. However, Howling Mine's card draw is not a separate event, it modifies the special card draw in the draw step, so that you draw 1+x instead of just 1 card. Only when all 1+x draws have been completed (or failed, as in your case) does the active player get priority:

Draw Step

504.1. First, the active player draws a card. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack. [Your opponent would draw 4 here instead of just 1 because of the Howling Mines]
504.2. Second, the active player gets priority. (See rule 117, “Timing and Priority.”)

It should be noted that getting priority doesn't kill you, it's the state-based actions such as the one mentioned in 104.3c that do. They are checked first whenever a player would get priority. So it might look like getting priority kills you, but in fact, players lose the game just before they would get their next priority.

704.3. Whenever a player would get priority (see rule 117, “Timing and Priority”), the game checks for any of the listed conditions for state-based actions, then performs all applicable state-based actions simultaneously as a single event.[..]

Howling Mine's effect does not modify the turn-based draw action. It is a triggered ability that triggers in the draw step, because it begins with "At". A ruling on Howling Mine says "The additional draw is separate from any other draw during your draw step. It happens when the triggered ability resolves."


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How should my strategy change in an MTG Draft based on the number of players?
I am curious as to how the number of players in a draft should affect my strategy and deck-building tactics. With fewer people, there will obviously be fewer card choices, so building a good mono-colored deck will be more difficult with four people as compared to with eight. How do you change your thinking to accommodate differences in the number of players? What number of people tends to make for the best draft play? Are drafts ever done with extreme numbers, like 4 or 9 players?

The traditional number is, of course, 8 players. This is the only pod size used in high-level tournaments as far as I know, but for something more casual like FNM, it's not uncommon to hold drafts with 6 to 10 players. Personally I've participated in (non-sanctioned) drafts with 4 players and with 9 players.
Perhaps surprisingly, the difference in the size of the card pool isn't that significant. Keep in mind that even though you'll have fewer (or more) cards to choose from, there are also fewer (or more) people to choose them. As long as you draft with 3 packs (42 or 45 cards) per person, those two effects balance each other out. It is an imperfect balance, though. Your decks tend to be a bit looser in a smaller pod, in the sense that if you're drafting a very specific archetype (perhaps one that relies on a specific card), you probably won't see enough of the cards that archetype needs to build the deck as focused as you would in an 8-player draft. You'll have to branch out and incorporate some cards that are less relevant to the deck you're trying to build, or perhaps combine two or more specific archetypes. Taking Innistrad draft as an example, instead of drafting a self-mill recursion deck as you might in an 8-player pod, if you're in a 4-player pod you might have to draft blue fatties, only some of which will be relevant to the recursion theme. Inexperienced drafters tend to just draft broad color-based strategies anyway, so they will likely not be affected much by the change in the pod size.
A much more noticeable difference, in my opinion, is that as the pod size shrinks, there are fewer people intervening between your first and second picks from a given pack, and so your chances of tabling your second or third choice card from the pack goes way up. As long as your archetype of choice is sufficiently broad, it's actually easier to make a consistent deck in a small draft pod. If you think about it, with 5 colors and 4 or 5 players, there's a decent chance that the colors will sort themselves out 1 per player.
Conversely, as the pod size grows, your chances of tabling any given card in a pack goes down. In fact, if you go up to 9 drafters, there will be 3 whole packs which you only see once. With 10 drafters, there will be 5 packs you only see once, and so on. This phenomenon reduces your ability to communicate with the rest of the table through your picks, and so you're less likely to get cards that fit into your strategy late in the draft. You should still be able to make a fairly focused deck because of the large card pool, but be prepared to have to fit in some "stragglers," cards that you wouldn't ordinarily want in your deck.
I've heard a lot of people say that pods with an odd number of drafters (like 7 or 9) are undesirable. I'm not sure why that is, though. The effects I've discussed above are minimal for a 7-person or 9-person pod, so the only disadvantage I can think of is that one person has to sit out each round during the games.

Tournaments will alter the pod size slightly to accommodate players that aren't divisible by 8. (Say, a 60-man draft) You're right, though. 8 is the magic number that should be strived for in each pod.

The most obvious difference between large and small pods is in how often you will see the same pack returned to you. In a four-player draft, for instance, it's not that difficult to memorize a couple of "strong" cards you see in your first pack, which will give you a lot of feedback about which colors/archetypes are likely to be open fairly quickly (just look out for the situation changing later). In a ten-player pod, those same packs will be so picked over by the time you see it again that it's unlikely to yield much useful information -- you'll still be able to get a general feel for what's under- or over- drafted at the table, but it's much harder to figure out what to expect from the player who will be feeding you in round 2.
That said, it's much more likely that 2 out of 4 players will spontaneously try to draft the same deck than that 5 out of 10 players will do so. So, while the signals in large pods are harder to read, the penalty for misreading them is usually lower.
My own (anecdotal) experience in FNM draft is that smaller pods make "forcing" easier and more rewarding. If you lean hard on an archetype from the get-go and other players take the hint and stay away (it helps to bait them with goodies for some other strategy, of course, so they go off pursuit that one instead of blocking yours), you get massive rewards for being the only person drafting it by the time round 3 rolls around. In larger groups I've done better by laying low and looking for what's underdrafted.
Drafting Innistrad and Dark Ascension is a little bit different because of double-faced cards. If one of your left-hand neighbors drafts a DFC, you suddenly have much more information about what to expect in round 2, regardless of pod size. That said, a smaller pod still gives you an information advantage because it's much easier to notice everyone's DFC choices.

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When to make suggestions that include cards in my own hand in clue?
One strategy I've heard of in clue is to name a card or two in your own hand when making a suggestion. I presume this is primarily so you can gain information about the other two factors that need to be determined (the three being murderer, location, and weapon), because if you name a place from your own hand, the player who disproves you must reveal either a weapon or a murderer.
When should I make a suggestion that includes a card from my hand? Would it potentially be advisable to make a suggestion that includes 2 or even 3 cards from my hand? Do I reveal extra undesired information to other players when I do so?

You should almost always make suggestions that include one or two cards in your hand, especially after you know one or two of the real murder components. (Though this might change with the number of players. I'm used to playing with 3 or 4 people.)
The end goal isn't to know who holds which cards, it's to know which cards are not held. The most efficient way to gather information isn't when someone shows you a card, it's when they pass; especially when all other players pass. This does give information to other players, but more to you.
Illustrative Example
Let's say the real solution is Prof. Plum with the Rope in the Conservatory. It's Player A's turn and he's in the Conservatory. If Player A makes a random guess of cards he doesn't hold, maybe Player A gets lucky and accuses Prof. Plum (correct) with the Revolver, and of course the Conservatory. What Player A learns is who holds the Revolver. If he's extra lucky, the person holding the Revolver isn't  the person on his left, so maybe A will see a pass or two before being shown the Revolver, learning a more. However, if A suggests Ms. White (in hand) with the Knife (in hand) in the Conservatory, everyone will pass, and Player A learns that the Conservatory is the room! The other players will know that Player A made a big discovery---they desperately need to check out Ms. White and the Knife and the Conservatory, because at least one of those is part of the solution. But they don't know which one. (Ignoring the unlikely possibility of a wasted turn gamble where Player A deliberately made an accusation while holding all three cards.)
Now, let's step into another player's shoes. Player B knows that Player A learned something big, so she runs to the nearby Billiard Room and suggests Ms. White with the Knife. If anyone shows her a card, Player A knows that it's the Billiard Room, because he holds Ms. White and the Knife. Great! Player A learned as much as Player B did on Player B's turn. If people pass until Player A, he shows her, say, the Knife, and Player A knows that either Player B or someone sitting to his left before B holds the Billiard Room. Player A will now preferentially show the Knife rather than Ms. White to anyone. Meanwhile Player C can guess that Player A has one of the Knife or Ms. White, but Player C still has to make their own suggestion to find out which.
Contrast this with Player B being a little more conniving: she decides to test Player A's knowledge more gradually. She accuses Col. Mustard (in her hand) with the Knife in the Billiard Room. Now if someone before Player A shows her a card, Player A can't be sure if it's the Billiard room or if it's Col. Mustard. If it gets around to Player A, he doesn't have a choice of what to show Player B, he must show the Knife, which is also better for B than if A gets to choose. So it's in Player B's best interest to make suggestions including cards from her hand too.
Other considerations
Suggesting 3 cards from your hand is a devious way to throw people off track, but you lose a turn of information gathering to do it. In my experience, the opportunity cost is too high for this to be worthwhile.
Your card distribution (especially what rooms you hold) can affect your ability to make suggestions involving cards from your hand. I try to make one of the first 3 rooms I visit a room I hold. It's especially nice if you hold two secret passage rooms to hop back and forth between the two (though pretty soon everyone will know what you're doing). It can be tough if you hold only one card (or worse, none!) of a category. I'll focus on that category first so that I can at least alternately suggest 2 items when I get to the other categories.
It does make sense to not be too consistent. If you always make suggestions that include 2 cards from your hand, your opponents will learn this habit. Then the player who shows you a a card can be reasonably certain you hold the other two. Vary your play to keep your opponents from being too sure.
In the beginning of the game, it's fine to make suggestions with only one card you hold, or the occasional 0-held-card suggestion. You'll stil learn something--maybe you'll get lucky and learn a lot. But as soon as you know one category there's no point in making a suggestion involving a card in that category that someone else holds. You already know somebody holds the card, but you shouldn't care who.
tl;dr: You learn more from people passing than showing your cards. People pass more often if you make suggestions that use some cards from your hand.

In general, you should probably only do so before everyone else could deduce that you have it. For example, lets say that previously you disproved Col. Mustard, Candlestick, and Study. At some later point, you could not disprove Col. Mustard, Revolver, and Study. Your opponents should know at this point you have Candlestick in your hand.
If you choose to use Candlestick in your future suspicions, you are giving your opponents extra information. If no one disproves you, they will now know the correct Suspect and Room or you have either the Suspect and/or the Room (see all 3 cards below) card(s) from you suspicion. If someone disproves you they know what that person gave you the Suspect or the Room, since they know you have the Candlestick.
It is also sometimes useful to choose a Suspect that happens to be in your hand (or even in the envelope), even if other players know that you have it (or it is in the envelope), just to move that player pawn away from a room that you would prefer they didn't make a suspicion from. This is especially true near the end of the game, when usually it is only the Room that people don't know since there are 9 of those and only 6 of the other card types.
When should I make suspicions that include 1 card from my hand?
Usually, the reason for doing this is so that you can eliminate one or more possible cards that a player used to disprove another players suspicion. If at some point, a player 2-3 seats to the left disproved Col. Mustard, Candlestick, and Study. You have the Candlestick in hand, and you want to know exactly which card the Study/Col. Mustard they used to disprove the other players suspicion (perhaps, because this will let you know that persons final card. If you know their final card, you know that they don't have all other cards.) That will be useful later on when you want to make suspicions that get past that player.
When should I make suspicions that include 2 cards from my hand?
I usually do this less often (if ever). I could see using 2 cards from your hand if you needed to find out the final card that you where unsure of.
When should I make suspicions that include 3 cards from my hand?
Never. The point of a suspicion is to eliminate possible murderers, weapons, or rooms and deduce the correct cards within the envelope. If you make a suspicion that includes all the cards in your hand, you gain no new information (you know everyone else cannot disprove you). You have given everyone else extra information, because they all now know that no one else except for possibly you has those cards. The only possible time that you would do this, is if you already know who the correct answer, and in that case there would be no point since you can accuse immediately. If you are just messing around and have no intention of winning, it is easy enough for at least one opponents to verify if you have the Room and/or Weapon cards.

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Choosing between Shanty Town and Village when both are in the Kingdom set?

Shanty Town: +2 Actions, Reveal your hand. If you have no Action cards
  in hand, +2 Cards
Village: +1 Card, +2 Actions

Occasionally I've had games where both of these are in the kingdom set and I don't really know which one to choose. Village is a sure thing, but Shanty Town offers the potential of getting 2 cards with the downside of sometimes getting none. I tend to prefer Village because you usually only want +2 Action cards in a deck running a fair amount of actions, and if you have a fair amount of actions you'll probably draw one with the Shanty Town and lose the +2 card bonus. In an action-thin deck Shanty Town could be more useful as you'd get the +2 cards more often, but often it would just degrade into a Moat because you don't have many actions to draw with those +2 cards to use the actions it gives you.
When should I take Shanty Town instead of Village? Is my analysis mostly correct? When should I chose to buy/gain a Shanty Town in general if its 2 effects (one being good in action decks, the other other being very bad) seem to have no synergy at all?

First, you have a mistake in your question: Shanty can give +2 cards, but sometimes it will only give zero (not the 1 that say in your second sentence).
1) In a standard village+draw engine, the vanilla Village is more useful because you will expect to have other actions in your hand, and so Shanty Town's bonus won't trigger.
2) If there are lots of non-terminals or an easy way to spam +Actions, then Shanty Town becomes more powerful because you have the ability to play the remaining actions in your hand and then use Shanty to trigger the draw.
3) Shanty is useful in early turns for increasing cycling. Shanty Town + Potion is a great opening for Apothecary or University games (less so for Scrying Pool because you'll eventually have lots of actions and not necessarily +Action cards).
4) Finally, Shanty is solid in plain Big Money games. If you have only one or two Shanty Towns in your deck, it is almost guaranteed to be a Lab (which is a $5 card).

@Johno - rather than debate in comments, please feel free to enter your own answer.  I'm deleting the back and forth comments here.

@shujaa - see above :)

@PatLudwig I don't remember what the comments were! :P

I look at it this way:

In the early game, I'm unlikely to have many actions in my hand. Shanty is good early.
In the late game, the hands will start to fill up with victory cards, so your odds of triggering the draw increase.

Remember: if you have Village and Shanty in your hand, you can play the village and other actions first, then draw two cards with Shanty.
So, I don't really think one is strictly better than the other, but there is some synergy if you have both!

That synergy depends on a fair bit of luck, too. You need to have the Village in the initial hand, and have no other actions drawn by the Smithy.

@shujaa I don't understand your comment. Did you mean Village not Smithy? If you draw an action with Village, you can just play it before Shanty (Village gives +2 actions). In a 12 card deck with one of each, your odds of drawing both are about 15%; and drawing into both slightly more than 22%. Naturally that increases the more you have so I don't think those are particularly bad odds or a weak synergy.

Sorry, I should have said "and have no actions other than a Shanty Town drawn by the Smithy." And even that isn't all that clear. I think for there to be a better-than-50% chance of synergy, you'll want a few more Villages than Shanty Towns to make sure that you can play all your non-Shanties and still have an action leftover. But if I have enough extra actions, I'd probably prefer another Smithy...


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Correct/Recommended use of Masquerade in Dominion: Intrigue
According to the rulebook, when using Masquerade, the cards passed between players must remain invisible until each player chooses the card to pass and places it down. I've always assumed it means that the passing itself is also done when the cards are face-down, which makes it the only card in the game that adds uncertainty to the number of VPs each player has. It was strange, but interesting to play nonetheless.
Lately, however, I've begun playing "Androminion", and noticed that when passing cards using Masquerade in this version, the cards are passed face-up. I've checked the rulebook again, and it DOES seem like this is a gray area: the cards to pass should be selected when all the cards are face-down, but what happens later is not specified.
So - which is the 'correct' use of Masquerade? Passing cards face-up, so all the players can fully see the implications of this turn, or passing them face-down, adding a bit of uncertainty to the game?

Androminion is pretty new, and thus probably has bugs/errors.  Isotropic is really good about adhering to the rules, and they do not reveal the cards.

From the Intrigue rulebook:

First you draw 2 cards. Next, each player (all at the same time) chooses a card from his hand and places it face down on the table between him and the player to his left. The player to the left then puts that card into his hand. Cards are passed simultaneously, so you may not look at the card you are receiving until you have chosen a card to pass. ...

I agree this is ambiguous, but I think your original interpretation is correct: the cards are not public and people only know what they passed and what they received. There are three things that support my claim:

The rules do state that the card is placed face down. The very next sentence says the card is put into the hand. I believe that if the intent was for the cards to be revealed that the rules would have explicitly told the players to turn the cards over, or to reveal them.
The simplified description on the card (see picture above), is "Each player passes a card from his hand to the left at once." The phrase "at once" implies that the passing should be done by all players simultaneously and that the only action they should be performing is the passing. That is, no looking at what you're being handed, no turning over what you're handing off so everyone else can see it--period. Pass the card at once.
The card is called Masquerade, which is a party where the guests wear masks to disguise their identities. I think leaving the true identities of what is passed a mystery to the party at large is exactly the spirit of the card's name. The fact that Masquerade is the only way that to disguise how many victory points people actually have I find quite charming and not at all a reason to think the passed cards should be public knowledge (lots of Dominion cards of one-of-a-kind).

Do not reveal the cards. Every time you are supposed to reveal cards, the card will explicitly direct you to do so. There are lots of cards that use the term "reveal" (e.g., Ambassador, Scout, Thief). The reason these cards specify to reveal other cards is that the default is not to reveal cards. Thus, since Masquerade does not direct otherwise, you should follow the default procedure of not revealing.

This is an old question, but I'm going to leave the answer here in case anyone else comes here looking for it.
"Pass" has a specific meaning, defined in the Intrigue rulebook like this:
“Pass” – when a player passes a card to another player, he places that card face down
on the table between himself and the other player. The receiving player then takes the
card from the table and puts it in his hand. A passed card is not revealed to the other
players. A passed card is not considered to be trashed or discarded by the player
passing it and it is not considered to be gained by the player receiving it.
Also, I logged the Androminion bug, so that should be fixed pretty soon.

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Clarification of a Pandemic rule involving the Medic
The rules of the French edition of Pandemic are a little unclear about the following game situation. Once a cure for a disease (let's say blue) has been found, at any point the Medic is in an infected city, what happens?

(a) the city is instantaneously cleaned, or
(b) the whole disease is wiped from the board?

The literal wording of the French rules may be construed to mean (b), but after only one game like this, it seemed to make the game so easy to win that we felt it was obvious it had to be (a) instead.

I hadn't thought about it before, but the English rules could probably have been written a bit more precisely as well. However, your final interpretation is correct, i.e. cubes are only removed from the city the Medic is in.
From page 5 of the rules:

if the Medic at any time ﬁnds herself in a city that contains cubes of a disease that has been cured, she may immediately remove all of those cubes.

"Those cubes" would refer only to the cubes in the city she is in.

OK, so it occurred to me just to go check the English rules on the internet:

Also, if the Medic at any time finds herself in a city that contains cubes of a disease that has been cured, she may immediately remove all of those cubes.

This is clearer than the French translation, and corresponds to my option (a).


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Which Settlers of Catan expansions are recommended?
I was introduced to Settlers of Catan just a few weeks ago here.  I plan on buying it and I would like recommendations as to which expansions I should get.

The two biggest expansions for Catan are Seafarers of Catan and Catan: Cities and Knights.  I previously asked the question, "How is gameplay improved in the Cities & Knights Expansion?" recently before buying it myself.  I would check out the answers there for some other opinions on that expansion.  There is also a third expansion, Catan: Traders & Barbarians, but that isn't as popular.
Seafarers of Catan
This was the first expansion for Catan.  The expansion expands the size of the board and gives you the ability to have islands separate from Catan.  The game comes with a number of different scenarios and the ability to create maps with random landmasses.  (Random maps on Seafarers is a favorite of one of the people I play with, and how we usually play.)  Besides adding boats which are roads going across the water, and a pirate to act as a robber, Seafarers doesn't significantly increase the game.
Catan: Cities & Knights
Cities & Knights was the second expansion for Catan and take the base game and builds up on it.  Three commodities are introduced to the game: Coin, Paper, and Cloth.  Cities, now instead of producing two resources, produce a resource and a commodity for ore, wood, and sheep.  The development cards are not used and progress cards in three colors are now used.  Progress cards are gained by developing your cities, and can't be bought.  You use the commodities to upgrade your cities through different levels to increase the speed of you earning progress cards.
Knights also move from being cards to being tokens on the board.  In addition, every so many turns, the barbarians come and attack Catan.  All active knights defend, and if Catan wins, the person who helped to defend the most gets a victory point.  If Catan looses, the person who helped the least, looses a city.  A third event dice determines when the barbarian moves or when progress cards can be generated.
All of this increases the length of the game and makes Cities & Knights plays slower.  It's a much more strategic game with Cities & Knights.  The progress cards also give you a lot of different options.  A number of cards directly harm other players, while benefiting you.
Catan: Traders & Barbarians
This is the one I haven't played, but I do know it adds a lot of different scenarios and variants to Catan you can play with.  It includes the Catan Event Cards, and Settlers of Catan: The Great River.  (As a side note, I know my local game store carries The Great River as a separate expansion.)  The wikipedia article on this expansion has a lot of information available about it.
5-6 player Extensions
The main game and each expansion, has a 5-6 player extension for it that lets you play 5-6 players.  I have extensions so I can play the main game or Seafarers but have never actually had 5-6 people to play it.  Friends of mine speak very highly of playing Catan with more people though.  Adding more people does slow the game down though and if you play Cities & Knights with 6 people, your looking at a very, very long game.
Recommendation
I love variety when playing games, and I find Seafarers adds a lot of variety that makes each game different.  You get this with playing random maps with the core game, but random landforms really diversifies what's going on.  We've had games with large landmasses or narrow landmasses.  If you want to break out of the standard Catan island, this is the expansion for you.  I can also speak highly of Cities & Knights.  It's a different type of game, but adds a lot of depth and if your looking for that, get it.  No one has recommended Traders & Barbarians to me yet, so I would say the jury is out on that one for me.  I would suggest both the other two expansions first, and get Traders & Barbarians if your still looking for more Catan.
Finally, I would get the  5-6 player extensions on as need basis.  If you at least get the core game extension, you can at least play Catan if you have more people then usual.

Traders and Barbarians is interesting. It features a number of smaller expansions that used to be shipped (The Great River, Fishermen) which I wasn't that impressed with. It does however introduce a completely different game style for the last scenario (where you travel down roads with wagons) which I really love.

My favorite expansion is Seafarers of Catan (sometimes also called Catan: Seafarers or simply Seafarers if the context is clear).
Seafarers adds ships to the game, which you can use to explore separate islands; they are like roads, but go over the sea. The addition of ships adds some balance that was missing in the original game; since ships cost wool and lumber (or sheep and wood, depending on the terminology you use), they increase the value of wool, which in the original game is frequently less useful. Apparently, ships were originally supposed to be part of the base game, but were removed to simplify it; but I find that adding them back in adds balance back to the game.
Seafarers also increases the sense of exploration in the game. In the original game, you're just settling one island that you can see all of to start with. In Seafarers, you are exploring and settling new islands; in some cases, you don't even see what's there until you get to them. Seafarers comes with several different scenarios with slightly different rules and different map layouts; in some you have many small islands, while in others you have one large island like the original, with a few small satellite islands.
I find the other expansions I've tried less essential. Cities and Knights can be fun, but it focuses on city development and knights which protect you from barbarian attack, instead of adding more to explore and balancing the basic game. I've never tried Traders and Barbarians; I believe that it is a collection of several small expansions, that you can mix and match, or mix and match with Cities and Knights or Seafarers. The 5 & 6 player expansions can be good if you wind up with more players than basic Settlers can support, but I find that they make the game take longer without making it much more interesting, so I think that 4 player Settlers or Seafarers works better.

The way I usually tell it to people is this: what do you like about Catan, and what would like to improve on?  Because each expansion generally tweaks one broad area.
Seafarers is ideal if you think Catan is fine, but wish it was bigger.  More space to place things, more exploration, and generally just more Catan.  Same basic rules, new maps.
Cities and Knights is best if you think Catan is too simple, or too easy, or something like that.  It makes the game deeper instead of broader, and adds more strategy options.
Traders and Barbarians is actually my recommended expansion in general, because it is very diverse.  It's good if you just want to tweak the game a little (I never play without Harbourmaster now, and I often bring in Fishers).  It's also great if you want something different: from a minigame that's like Cities and Knights light to a modification that basically turns Catan into an entirely different game.
I think, for the money, T&B really just gives you the most stuff.  Seafarers I recommend second, unless as I said, you just want bigger Catan.  C&K I recommend last, unless the group just really wants a more complex game, and even then T&B probably covers that.
The 5-6 Player expansions I consider obvious: if you often have 5 or 6 people who want in on Catan, you need the expansions.  You could also get the 5-6 basic game expansions as a kind of mini-seafarers, if you just wanted to play with four people a little less aggressively with a bigger island.

Interesting way of breaking down the recommendations depending on what part of the gameplay that you are looking to accentuate. I like the idea of using the Basic expansion as a form of mini-seafarers with 4 people.

The Fishermen of Catan
This is a small expansion that I got in the now-defunct Games Quarterly magazine (according to BGG, it was in Issue 12 of Spring 2007).
Basically, there are fishing segments on the shoreline, and if you have a settlement touching one of these fishing areas when the number is rolled, you get a random fish tile.  You can trade in fish for various favors, such as moving the robber back to the desert, getting a free resource, a development card, etc.
It was apparently included in the Traders & Barbarians boxed set, although if you only want this expansion, you'll most likely have to look on eBay to get it.

I think Cities & Knights is my preferred expansion out of that and Seafarers. I'm hoping to get Traders and Barbarians soon.
Seafarers I feel didn't add much to the game, it's easy to pick up, but honestly most games are won by simply staying putt and not using ships/visiting islands which is what seafarers is all about.
Cities & Knights adds a whole new dynamic to the game, and you have to completely re-shift your strategies. The problem with it however, is once you pull into the lead it can be quite difficult for those dropping behind to make much impact in the game.

It should be mentioned that the base game and Seafarers feel more like Monopoly (a family-friendly game of building and trading), while Cities and Knights feels more like Risk (even deeper strategy, and very cut-throat).
I would not call Cities and Knights family-friendly at all - you get a lot of cards, and every other card (it feels like) is a "screw-someone-else-over" card.

For someone who has just started playing Catan, I would recommend Traders and Barbarians since the rule extensions are fairly minimal.  Cities & Knights rules greatly complicate the game so I would recommend that once one is more familiar with basic game play.  In both cases and with Seafarers, the rule extensions are enough to make strategy different.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


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City card and predicting when Supply piles will run low
This card kind of has me stumped.  In my experience, the vast majority of games deplete the Province or Colony pile before any other, ending the game.  Which means in most circumstances, this card is basically an overpriced Village, which isn't a very strong card to begin with.
It seems to me the key is knowing when Supply piles are likely to run low.  Are there any things to look for in the setup of 10 Kingdom cards to help predict when this might happen?  Or are you better off waiting until it actually does happen before investing in this card?

I don't have the Prosperity set, so it's probably clarified in the rules - but the effects are cumulative, right?

@idan315: "If there are two or more empty piles, you both draw another card, and get (1 coin icon) to spend and an extra Buy to use in the Buy phase." So... according to the rulebook, yes.

Doesn't the game end once a 3rd supply pile is emptied? If so... the full uses of this card may not be realized very often... I'm guessing.

@Liggy - yep, that's one of the big drawbacks to this card. It's quite powerful, but only for a short time, if at all. Though it takes 4 piles to end the game in a 5 or 6 player game.

Don't forget that you don't need two exhausted piles for City to be good: with just one exhausted pile, it's better than Laboratory.

I've only played 5 times, and everytime I've seen it played it's won the game, so long as you can trash or burn through the supply, eventually with enough city's in your hand you draw all of them and can pick what you want to play form your deck.

More supply piles tend to go in 5 or 6 player games.
Cards that synergize with themselves tend to get bought out quickly - like Caravan, Treasure Map, and Laboratory. Extra buys also seem to increase the rate at which Kingdom cards get bought out.
Terminal actions (ones that do not give you +1 Action) tend to get bought less frequently, as each player would only consider 1-2 copies anyway. It seems lower cost cards (2 and 3) aren't bought out very much.  4-5 costs appear to go fastest.
I have noticed City itself is frequently the first one to get bought out if any will, and that immediately boosts all of them. Generally I tend to wait on City until I notice people are grabbing Kingdom cards, but I also generally lose to the guy who bought 5 of them.

If you try hard enough in a 2-player game you can buy them all yourself, even.  But it's risky.

My group has only played with City twice.  One game it was pretty much ignored, the other game no one wanted to finish off a second pile to give the extra coin and buy.

Or are you better off waiting until it actually does happen before
  investing in this card?

No, you're not better off. If you're going to invest in Cities, waiting for a pile to empty first is too slow.
Timing
If you can load up on Cities and run two piles out, you'll dominate. I generally do go for cities. The most important rule for cities is: if you're not the only one buying cities, don't buy the last one. In a 4-player game, I wouldn't buy either of the last two. Don't empty any piles unless you're confident of your lead and of ending the game soon. When a player empties the city pile, it greatly helps the next player with cities, and you don't want to give anyone else head start. Conversely, if you can manage to gain the last card in a pil on your turn which some actions left (perhaps with a Remodel-variant, though there are plenty of other options too), you get the head start if you can follow it up with a deck's worth of cities.
Whether or not to buy
Since they start as villages, Cities work really well with +cards. If there's no other good card draw, you can probably safely skip them. If there is good card draw, you definitely need to consider them. They'll be most valuable in a game where you think there will be a fair amount of time between a pile emptying and the end of the game, e.g. often when Platinum/Colony are in play. As others have pointed out, if there's another card in the set that's very popular in your play group, then you can expect it to sell out quickly, in which case Cities will activate quickly. An activated City is an excellent card for its cost, so you may want to largely ignore the other popular card and just focus on Cities.
Countermeasures
Aside from the obvious curse/discard attacks to slow down a City strategy, use the piles. The City-player wants to kill 2 piles, and then have a few ridiculous turns before the game ends. A conter-city player wants to wear down piles evenly, so that as soon as one is killed, 2 others can be quickly killed depriving the City player of the chance to go off. This often isn't very hard. Pick a couple decent, non-terminal, cheap cards, which you should be able to buy more frequently than a City player can buy cities. Work in some points (a Duchy here and there goes a long way, or a Province if you get 8), so that when the game ends all of a sudden you're on top. Extra buy or gain cards help immensely with this (e.g. Ironworks, Bridge, Goons).

The general rule is to buy Cities early if you see cards or card sets that may cause piles to empty early.
Some such sets are:
Single cards:

Curse-giving cards - Causes Curse pile to empty
Village (Base) / Fishing Village (Seaside)
Swindler (Intrigue) - Has a tendency to cause Duchy pile to empty.
Lighthouse (Seaside)
Treasure Map (Seaside)
Pirate Ship (Seaside)
Forge (Prosperity) - Has a tendency to cause mid-cost card piles to empty as fodder for forging Colonies. Duchy in particular.
Trader (Hinterlands) - causes Silver pile to empty... may depend on the player group, though.

Two cards:

Island (Seaside) and Saboteur (Intrigue).  Causes Island pile to empty (to protect Victory cards).
Mine (Base) and Platinum (Prosperity).  Causes Platinum pile to empty, although this is slower due to needing to go through Golds first.
Defense cards and destructive attack cards.  Causes defense card pile to empty.
Tunnel (Hinterlands) and any card that lets you discard cards (Hamlet, Horse Traders, Inn, Oracle, Oasis). Causes Tunnel pile to empty, the other card pile to empty, and Golds to empty more quickly than usual.

Three cards:

Peddler (Prosperity) and +Actions/+Cards cards (or Duration cards) and +Buy cards.  Causes Peddler pile to empty (Peddlers go down $2 for each action in play).  Province / Colony (Prosperity) cards will also empty more quickly if Expand (Prosperity) or Forge (Prosperity) are also in play.

There may be others, but they likely depend on the players you're playing against.

Maybe it's just the people I play with, but Cities are quite useful if there are cursing cards sitting around (e.g. Witch or Sea Hag). In my experience, especially with four players, Curse piles can empty pretty quickly, even if Provinces are going at a decent rate and no other pile is close to emptying. Of course, the best defence is a good offence, so considering the cost it may be more worth grabbing a Witch than a City, but nevertheless they can be worth a punt in a Curse-heavy game.

Keep in mind that the number of Curse cards is directly proportional to the number of players (10 Curses for 2 players, 20 for 3, 30 for 4, 40 for 5, or 50 for 6.)

Ah yes, noted, though more players also means more people potentially cursing, so the piles can still go down a little faster. Again, this may just show what kind of people I play with...

I can see some synergy with Treasure Map, which tends to disappear fast.

I don't think I've ever seen Treasure Map disappear fast enough to make Cities viable.

@lilserf: My group buys up Treasure Maps rather quickly. I've seen them gone by the end of the third round in a 5+ player game.

Agree with @Powerlord.  I, myself, am a sucker for the treasure maps.


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If I search for a Miracle and put it in my hand, can I cast it for its Miracle cost?
Lets say I use Mystical Teachings to grab Thunderous Wrath out of my library during my upkeep and put it in my hand.  Can I then cast Thunderous Wrath for its Miracle cost?

No. The card changes zones but is never drawn by you.

120.5. If an effect moves cards from a player’s library to that player’s hand without using the word
  “draw,” the player has not drawn those cards. This makes a difference for abilities that trigger on
  drawing cards and effects that replace card draws, as well as if the player’s library is empty.

This means you can't cast the cards you tutor directly into your hand by paying their miracle cost.
It does, however, mean that any cards you tutor up with Mystical Teachings won't count towards your "first card drawn this turn" -- so you could use Teachings on your upkeep and still cast a miracle card you drew naturally, for example.
If you want to cast miracle cards with tutors, use ones that put cards on top of your library, like Mystical Tutor and Liliana Vess.

I have a subsidiary question, seeing as you're "in the zone" right now - suppose I draw multiple cards in my upkeep, say by, I don't know, turning a Fathom Seer face up.  I put them in my hand and then try to cast one for its Miracle cost.  Presumably only one of them was "the first card drawn this turn" - have I broken the rules by not showing my opponent that the first card I drew was a Miracle, as I drew it?

@thesunneversets I think that's a separate question. The short answer is your draw them one at a time. "120.2. Cards may only be drawn one at a time. If a player is instructed to draw multiple cards, that player performs that many individual card draws." I haven't seen the newest MTR, but my assumption in tournament play is that judges won't let you miracle-cast a card if you've already let it touch your other hand cards.

Mm, it is a different question.  Bad news for people like me, whose instinct I suspect when told to "draw 3 cards" is to grab 3 off the top of the deck, add them to my hand and then look at them... I guess it's only the first card you ever have to be careful about though, and then only if there are Miracles in the deck!


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How to begin learning Go?
I've been playing a bit with Go and after a few games I do get pretty well the different rules.
The game indeed has a very deep strategy and I've read that to get a grip at that strategy, a player should starts on small boards (5x5, 9x9).
I'm playing with an application on my iPad that lets me choose for handicap to help me improve slowly. The problem is, when playing with a lot of handicap I do win pretty easily but when I get less than 6 stones at the start of the game I quickly feel like I'm losing territory at each one of the IA moves.
Is there tutorial on basic strategy? What to avoid? What to look for? I've also practiced with some Go problems and I do understand them quite well... I have the feeling that I'm improving. In a game context, I'm really overwhelmed with possibilities when I need to put my stones on the board and I really don't have the feeling that I'm improving...

I’m surprised at the 5x5 suggestion: I would expect somewhat ‘pathological’ situations to arise often enough that it would be untypical.

There are lots of tutorials. Playing games making mistakes, and learning from them is the way to improve. However, when you're just starting, you make so many mistakes that it can be overwhelming. This is where having a human teacher or a book can help, because they can give you specific things to work on.
Keep your app, but playing just against a computer is not a good way to get strong at Go.
Books for beginners:
Janice Kim has a series of books for beginners that I found very helpful when starting out.
Find local players:
Advanced players are usually happy to play a teaching game or give a short lesson. You will, of course, find that some are better teachers than others. I'd recommend searching for " go baduk" (baduk is the Korean name for Go, and is a much more helpful term for search engines).
Play against people online:
KGS is a popular Go server, and in the Beginners Room and such you can find people willing to play teaching games. Sometimes the best teacher is someone who is only a little better than you, because they have a similar perspective as you do. (There's lots of other Go servers if you don't like KGS, see here.)
Online resources:
Sensei's Library is a popular Go wiki, and they have a nice set of pages for beginners.

Great answer! Thank you very much for your time and precious advices! I'll try and stick with them!

If playing live games (online or face-to-face), try correspondence servers like http://www.dragongoserver.net or http://online-go.com/.

Read books (including every book in Janice Kim's series)
Play games with others (try GoPanda)
Play Go puzzles (GoProblems is great, although it costs $10 per year to save your progress.)
Review other players' games. (Janice Kim's second book includes 3 great game reviews. Though it's also helpful to just go to GoPanda and watch high ranking games that are in progress.)


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Prosperity - Cornucopia card set
Normally the game rule book provides balanced setup to play with different extensions. We just bought Cornucopia, but the French rule book did not provided a setup to play with Prosperity.
We would like to know if there is any idea on an interesting setup to use with these two extensions.
We use the Dominion Intrigue as our base.

There are no "official" kingdom sets for Prosperity and Cornucopia. Personally, I like it when both Tournament (from Cornucopia) and Colonies (from Prosperity) are out, because it tempts people to try to buy some Provinces and end the game on piles. Even more interesting if Bishop is out, so you could potentially trash the Provinces for decent points.
I'd recommend just playing random sets until you find interactions you like. For generating random sets, I like http://www.hiwiller.com/dominion/, but there's lots of other tools out there.


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How to use Chapel card to its fullest potential?
I've seen mentioned over and over that Chapel is a phenomenal card. But I have not seen detailed instructions as to how best to use it. As a relatively new Dominion player (<30 games, ~5 with Chapel card), I've experimented with it by trashing estates at earliest opportunity and after acquiring 2 or more silvers/golds, trashing coppers. However, I haven't managed to decisively win games with it yet against opponents who aren't using it.
Chapel is a terminal action so if it shows up with another action card that can get me a silver or gold (like Militia, Smithy, Council Room, etc.) I'm more inclined to get the silver or gold, and use the Chapel later. So Chapel can actually be dead weight in the beginning which slows getting the silver or gold I need to make it useful.
There seems to be near unanimity among highly skilled Dominion players that when this card is in the game, you use it early and use it often if you want to maximize your chance of winning.
So, in detail, how does one use the Chapel card to its fullest potential?
A good answer would discuss the decision-making process when Chapel and a silver-gathering action card come up in the same 5 card hand early in the game.

Keep in mind also that it's somewhat of a different story when playing with only the Base set cards. Chapel is best when playing with the types of decks that the Base set doesn't allow. That's not to say it's not still a good card in Base set only; but it's not nearly as good as it is when you start playing with other sets.

To fully understand how to use Chapel, you have to examine its use with many different Kingdom setups. I will only detail some scenarios from the base game.
Standard Big Money Strategy
The standard Big Money Canonical strategy is to buy a Provence, else buy a Gold, else buy a Silver. To get a better understanding on how Chapel works effectively, it might be best to remove all the other complications from the deck, and examine how Chapel works to enhance the basic Big Money strategy. The first two turns will be Chapel and Silver. What are the possible 3rd/4th turns, that contain a Chapel? The table below shows the probability of getting a Chapel (Row) with different distributions of Copper (C), Silver (S), or Estate (E). Your other hand (Column), and its dollar worth are also displayed. (There is a 1/6th chance that you don't get Chapel until your 5th turn). These figures agree with my calculations, so I hope that means I didn't make any mistake.
                   |4C,S | 5C  |3C,S,1E|4C,1E|2C,2E,S|3C,2E|1C,3E,S|2C,3E|
                   +-$6--+------$5-----+-------$4----+------$3-----+--$2-+
  ( 8.84%) 4C      | -   | -   | 1.26% |  -  | 3.79% |1.26%| 1.26% |1.26%|(Trash4)
  ( 8.84%) 3C,S    | -   | -   |  -    |1.26%| -     |5.05%| -     |2.53%|(Trash3)
  (26.52%) 3C,1E   |1.26%| -   | 10.1% |2.53%| 7.58% |5.05%| -     | -   |(Trash4)
  (15.91%) 2C,2E   |3.79%|0.78%| 7.58% |3.79%| -     | -   | -     | -   |(Trash4)
  (15.91%) 2C,S,1E | -   |0.78%| -     |7.58%| -     |7.58%| -     | -   |(Trash3)
  ( 5.30%) 1C,S,2E | -   |3.79%| -     |1.52%| -     | -   | -     | -   |(Trash3)
  ( 1.77%) 1C,3E   |0.51%|1.26%| -     | -   | -     | -   | -     | -   |(Trash4)
  ( 0.25%) S,3E    | -   |0.25%| -     | -   | -     | -   | -     | -   |(Trash3)
                   +-----+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+ Chapel|
                   |5.5% |     25.7%   |    28%      |     20%     | 3.8%| 16.7% |
                                                                         | Turn 5|

If you compare the results of the Chapel Canonical is a deck of usually 10-9 cards, with a small 16.7% chance of not having drawn Chapel until Turn 5 (To mitigate this, it might be worth it to buy a Chapel during Turn 3 when you only have a $2 hand. I haven't worked out the exact math, but it looks like there is a ~0.8% chance that you draw Chapel 5th turn and only had a $2 Turn 3 hand, compared to a ~2% chance of having a $2 Turn 3 and drawing Chapel Turn 4. I think it is worth the risk of buying Chapel Turn 3 on a $2 hand to mitigate a slow Turn 5 Chapel Start. It is unlikely that you draw 2 Chapels Turn 5, so you should be able to shrink your deck by Turn 7-8 with the extra Chapel).
On Turn 5, the deck will usually consist of 2 Silver, 2 Estates (23% chance of Trashing 2),  4-5 Copper, and your Chapel. A Big Money Canonical deck will usually have 14 cards. It will consist of 4 Silvers (~28% chance of 1 Gold in place), 3 Estates, and 7 Copper. The most important goal for both of these decks is to hit that magical $6 hand. Starting with Turn 5/6, the Chapel deck should be able to pull this off more often. The Chapel deck should be able to buy a Gold during Turn 5/6, and should be able to remove another 4-2 cards. This will setup their Turn 7/8 with a 8-7 card deck that consists of 1 Gold, 2 Silver, 1-0 Estate, 4-3 Copper. From that point onward, the Chapel deck should consistently be able to buy Gold, if not a Provence. Big Money on the other hand keeps increasing the size of their deck. They draw their own Gold less often, and have a much higher chance of drawing the Gold with Estates (making it difficult to hit $6 or $8). It is important to note that by Chapeling away your Estates, you are 3 Points down from your opponent. It is vitally important to modify this canonical simplistic strategy to take into account the number of Provinces left, the current VP deficit, and which other Kingdom cards are available.
Thief (Treasure Stealers)
A Chapel strategy is very risky with Thief available in the Kingdom cards. Removing the chaff from your deck increases the likelihood that your opponent hits your Gold/Silver. This is especially true in mulitplayer where you will be subject to multiple attacks.
Workshop and Gardens (Quick Piles)
Ignore your Chapel strategy, it is too slow. Your opponents will increase the size of their decks making their Gardens worth 2-3VP, and will end the game on piles before you get your money building Province buying engine online.
Militia (Hand Destruction)
Chapel works because of its ability to remove chaff from a hand with Chapel in it. Any card that shrinks your hand size reduces the effectiveness of Chapel, reducing the trashing from a maximum of 4 to 2. A Chapel strategy gets considerably weaker in multiplayer, with multiple opponents able to attack you.

In general, it is preferable to not Chapel if you have another action card in your hand that would gain you a Gold/Province if you played it. Your first two turns will likely be Chapel/Silver, unless a really good $4/$3 card is available (Militia in a 2-Player game is very good, and shouldn't hurt a Chapel strategy game too badly). Good examples of this are Chancellor/Bureaucrat, or any other card that gains you $2. Even a card like Remodel can supplement a Chapel strategy, and turn that Chapel into a Remodel mid-game, and eventually into Golds/Duchies. The sixth of a time that you get a $5/$2 split, you should probably by a $5-card instead of a Silver. No $5 is worse than a Silver.
Mid-game, when your deck has dwindled, you should almost always play the action card. This is especially true if you are unable to trash 2-3 Coppers/Estates.

@ColinD, thanks. I think I still need the possible deck contents of Big Money on Turn 5-6, so that I can show how much more efficient Chapel is at hitting $6/$8. I also found a small calculation error that I will correct when the BMC numbers are finalized.

Chapel can be effectively used mid and late game, but that requires card draw or action branching or both.
The trick to chapel is to trash lots of cards with it early and not rely on it late game (turn 10 bad mid-late game cards into 1 dead card early). This means trashing your entire starting deck as soon as possible. Do not wait until you have plenty of silver + gold to trash coppers. You should consider trashing coppers immediately and buy 2 silvers (or something to get you to at least $3) when not trashing 4 cards.
Ideally using the above strategy you will end up with a deck <= 5 cards that contains 1 chapel and 2 silvers (or 2 cards that will make your hand >=$3 each turn). From here you have slim deck that can be quickly transformed to use whatever actions you want from the supply. The next couple of buys you make will see use almost immediately, while your opponents will each have a couple of hands before new cards get to see use.
If you hold off on trashing until later in the game, you are going to have to deal with the following situations:
1. drawing chapel when you do not draw anything you want to trash.
2. drawing chapel when you have a different action in your hand you want to play.

Agreed - chapel is a game winner if you can get rid of your starting deck by turn 5 or 6.

As a point of clarification, are you suggesting that you buy a Chapel and no other action cards until you have 2 silvers? You sort of implied that but I wasn't sure.

@JoeGolton - YES! Your first two turns should be chapel/silver. Then on your third or fourth turn, you will chapel away anything that isn't a silver. On the turn where you don't draw your chapel, you are buying another silver. Fifth turn (or at worst, 6th turn) you are using chapel again. On the turn when you aren't using chapel there, you start buying what makes the most sense based on what is on the board.

@JoeGolton - Unless the other action card also gives you $2 when played, and there is only one.  More or less.  You do not want to run the risk that you trash most your coins but then have difficulty buying even silver.  So silvers are the safest bet initially.

@JoeGolton You want your first couple of trashes/buys to put you in a position where you will never have a bad hand afterwards. having 2 silvers will guarantee you a 3rd which in turn guarantees you a gold. terminal actions will collide often in a small deck, so they are not worth picking up until you want to play them instead of playing chapel.

"This means trashing your entire starting deck as soon as possible.". Exactly this, +1.

One important thing to keep in mind with Chapel is that it only really shines when it can be used to play important Actions frequently. A naive Chapel into Silver+Gold strategy is surprisingly weak to many players who have lost to powerful Chapel decks; you spend too long trashing cards instead of buying money and end up with a deck that quickly chokes on Victory cards.
Simulations of Chapel decks indicate that a basic Chapel + money-buying strategy loses 2/3 of the time to a money-buying strategy without Chapel. (The "BMU" the linked page refers to is Big Money Ultimate, a money strategy that uses a well-tuned heuristic to buy Duchy and Estate as appropriate near the end of the game.) Making Lab available improves the Chapel deck's win ratio to only about 1/2; Lab benefits from a powerful, thin deck, but not enough to make the strategy dominant.

It is important to compare like to like. Chapel Canonial is most similar to BMC (Big Money Canonical) and Chapel scores 49% vs. it. Both strategies are "dumb" not taking into account Provinces left, etc. Single Chapel 1 more closely resembles BMU (Big Money Ultimate), and wins 55%. Both of these strategies modify their buys based upon Proviences left and other factors.


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Clarification about Tools in Stone Age
I just got Stone Age as a gift and I've played it one time so far. But I have a question about how the tools work.
They way we played from how I understood the rules:

A player places two people and decides to use 1 value-1 tool to gather
  wood in the forest. Thus the player rolls 3 dice (2 for people, one
  for tool). He rolls 3+4+5 = 12. Divides that by 3 and takes 4 wood.

This quickly resulted in not having enough dice to handle a single job. Considering you could place 5 people and use 8-value tools which means you'd need 13 dice.
I read online that other people play this way:

A player places two people on wood. Rolls two dice, gets 2+3=5. Then
  decides to use 1 value-1 tool to up his sum to 6 which lets him get 2
  wood instead of 1.

Which way is correct?

I am unaware of the official rules, but if you need to roll more dice at once than you have available, why not roll them multiple times and add up the results?

That is what we ended up doing, but one player thought it shouldn't be allowed.

The last one is correct: you decide how many guys you send to the forest. You roll the dice and then decide to add one or more tools to this.
Tools can't be "broken" (a tool with value of 3 can't be used for 2 in the woods and 1 in the mountain), but you can choose any of your tools for a given place.

Note: the "wrong" method could be interresting as home rules.

That would make tools more powerful than people: they let you roll a die somewhere, but don't need to be fed.  The scores would definitely be higher than in the regular game.  Compare: improving farming gives you a net of two "placed pips" per turn (in food only), cave-man-breeding gives you a net of 1.5 placed pips per turn (3.5, minus two for feeding), and a tool normally gives 1 pip (with a "real" value slightly higher because you can decide whether to use it after the dice fall), but would now give 3.5 pips!

Yes… but no. Tools may be more efficient, but only for food/resources gathering, which is not the goal of the game. Try building a house or buying a card with a tool and you'll realize people are not that useless.


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Trashing Estates in Dominion
How vital is it to trash Estates in the early rounds of a Dominion game, given that there is an action card available to trash Estates?

Out of curiosity, why are we limiting the discussion to estates (and not coppers)?

No specific reason.  Copper was a good idea to add.

Multi-card trashing, when available, is usually the best way to open the game. Indeed, as The Chaz says, you want to get rid of your coppers as well your estates.
Theory's writeup on the chapel gives a thorough coverage of the quality of dense decks.  You can also see how many of the best openings from the 6 million games played online involve the chapel.
Trashing with single card trashers like Remodel and Develop are less pressing and often not the best opening.

The only other trash multiple that I can think of is Cornucopia's Remake, which trashes 2 cards.

Councilroom makes searching by (some) card attributes easy.  http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=Trash%3E%3D2%2CRemake

Why doesn't Remake show up in Trash >= 2?

Actually I suppose I can guess; must be the language; since it says "do this twice" it never says "Trash up to 2 cards", etc.

It should show up in trash 2, I just screwed up the card info data file ;P.

As with all games of Dominion, it depends upon the Kingdom Cards available. Estates are no help to you in the early game (barring a Baron or similar card). Trashing them will increase your average Coins per Hand, and make it easier to by more expensive cards, especially those in the 5+ range that tend to be better.
If you have a card that can trash an Estate in your deck during the early game, you will most likely be better off trashing it. The choice of buying a card that Trashes an Estate rather than a Silver or other card will depend on the Kingdom cards available.

There are three main things you need to consider when trashing your starting cards:

What will trashing do for me? If there's a great engine on the board, then trashing is a great way to help the engine components line up. On the other hand, if you're playing a money-based strategy, trashing is usually bad because your starting Coppers still contribute to your economy and there's a huge opportunity cost to trashing just your Estates (buying a trasher instead of a Silver, which slows your economy every time you draw the trasher, plus the decreased buying power on the turns you trash cards).
How will the game end? If the game is going to end on piles, that means it's probably too fast to overcome a deficit from trashing your starting Estates. Plus, in alternate VP scenarios, Copper is a great card because it moves your average hand value closer to $5, so trashing your starting Coppers is an even worse idea than trashing your Estates. Conversely, if the game is going to end on Colonies, you have a lot more time to make up your initial VP deficit. The tempo of the game can also be affected by attacks, actions like Masquerade (you want to be able to pass your Estates to your opponent, which means not trashing them on your own), etc.
How good is the trashing? Chapel and Remake are elite early game trashers. Trading Post is awesome if you open 5/2, but it drops to almost useless if you don't hit $5 until turn 5 or later. Upgrade is an awful card for just thinning your deck, but trashing your starting cards is an ok consolation prize while you're trying to set up Upgrade->Grand Market or something similar.

A couple of years ago at Prezcon, I won 4 (out of 4) games using a straight Bureaucrat - Mine strategy.  I don't specifically remember if there was or wasn't a trashing action card available, but if there was, I didn't use it.
For what it's worth, there was a trashing action in the final, and I didn't use it, and I got trounced.
So "vital"?  Not at all.  "Valuable strategy"?  Typically.


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Can routed ships retreat to port in the same sea area?
Playing the Game of Thrones board game and using the Clash of Kings Port rules expansion, I was Stark and my ships in the Narrow Sea were attacked by Baratheon and lost. Baratheon didn't have any swords, so my two ships were still alive, but routed. However, there were no rules describing whether routed ships could enter the port of the same sea, in which I had just lost the battle, or whether I was required to retreat to another sea area.
It's difficult because the port in the Narrow Sea is controlled by the land area of White Harbor, which I owned, so there's an argument that the routed ships could limp into port. But I could also see Baratheon's view that he won the sea battle and it was a little unfair that I could limp into port in the sea area he has just taken, only for me to recover and attack in the next few rounds, especially after he just defeated me. In fact this is exactly what happened next turn, because there was a mustering and I reclaimed the sea. Baratheon wanted me to retreat into the Shivering Sea, as the ships would have fled the battle after losing.
As the decision would affect the whole game and the deciding player didn't want to decide, we flicked a coin.
Any suggestions? Can routed ships limp into a port of the same sea area, or do they have to retreat to another sea area?

The port is never considered "part" of the sea area; control of a port depends on whoever controls the land area, and the sea area is merely adjacent.  The ability to use a port despite the adjacent sea area being occupied is probably the most important aspect of ports.
From the FAQ:

Q: Can a fleet that is defeated in a sea area retreat to a friendly Port touching that sea area?
A: Yes.

Thanks this really clarifies things. I never saw this FAQ page before - really useful thanks.

With the proviso that I'm not an expert at this game: I don't see any problem with routed ships retreating into a port of the same sea.
From the base rules, routed troops must retreat into a legal adjacent area.  The Clash of Kings port rules describe Ports as new "special areas between the Land and Sea area".  From the way your question is stated it seems like your friend has a problem with you retreating into a port "in the sea area he has just taken" - but the port is not technically in that area, rather between that area and the land.
So my initial interpretation would be that the retreat into port is perfectly fair.  Where else would ships attacked just outside their home port retreat to?


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Is Ace high? Or low? Or both?
When playing the cards, Ace is worth 1.  When counting runs, A 2 3 is worth 3.  I've often played with Q K A also being worth 3.  I've even played with K A 2 being worth 3!  Definitely good ways to get more points in the game (you know, if you need that kind of thing), but it seems (from looking through the rules) that Ace should always be low and never anything else.  This is, however, merely insinuated by "Ace is 1" and the examples of A 2 3 and J Q K.
Finally, the question: Is there any definitive discourse on Ace always being low and why that is?  Perhaps "Ace is high" is a common variant?

Aces are low in cribbage. Their point value is one in pegging and in adding up to 15 during pegging, in the hand, or in the crib. The American Cribbage Congress' Rules of Cribbage define a straight as "a sequence of three or more consecutive cards", and the card order is shown with King as the highest descending normally through Ace as the lowest.
I've never heard of Ace being played high in cribbage, so from my personal experience I don't think it's a common variant, but you could definitely play it that way as an uncommon variant! I don't think it would change the game a great deal.
As far as reasons for Ace being only low, I would use the consistency argument as in your answer. There's no inherent inconsistency in scoring if you think of the order of cards being circular rather than linear, but it does introduce a discontinuity in value.  To be consistent, you could play with Aces as in blackjack, taking either 1 or 11, but that would probably make them overpowered, especially in the pegging. And that would introduce more complications, such as would a A 10 4 be counted as one 15 or two? All-in-all, it's more straightforward to stick with the traditional: Ace's value is 1, and it is low.

Definitely, Ace is always 1 and never 11, never considered it being worth 11.  Allowing it to be part of a run with Q K A seems to put a couple more points into the game, that's an effect I've seen.  It shows up significantly in a Q K A 4 hand being worth 7 points instead of just 4 points.  Slightly higher average point values in hands.

The best reason I can see for making Ace low and only low is that if you don't then you create the possibility of a hand like this: Q K A 2 3 being worth 6 because it's two runs of 3 and not a single run of 5 like all other runs without doubles.  Consistency!

If you were to play "around the corner" in cribbage (allowing a straight as you describe) there's no reason it would be different from any other 5-card straight.

Yeah, if Ace was both high and low then it would be a 5 card straight, with K A 2 being a valid 3 card straight.  If Ace was high or low (but not both) then K A 2 is not a valid straight but Q K A is one straight and A 2 3 is another.  If you follow me.

Ah, I see what you mean.


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System for secretly choosing between two options?
I have a graphics project for school and the task is to design a board game. I need to work out a system by which two players can simultaneously make a secret choice between two options and then present their choice at the same time. I have thought about making a little arrow that can be spun around and then moved by the player to the choice they want to pick, hidden behind a screen, but it just feels a bit messy. And using cards that can be placed down seems to be a flawed system because as soon as one card becomes scratched and identifiable the whole game becomes unplayable.
I would really appreciate any suggestions you may have as to how to do this.

I think about 90% of my boardgames collection would "become unplayable" if the cards/tokens got marked, but in practice this doesn't actually happen.  As long as the materials you use are moderately durable?

I don't think the system of using cards should be dismissed so quickly. Race for the Galaxy uses this method and it works well. Remember, these cards won't need to be shuffled or handled much, so they're not as easily marked. Even if they are, on could be easily chosen discretely, under the table or with back turned, and then covered with a hand before the reveal.

Another point, if it's only two choices you could use multiple cards. Heck, just use a standard deck of 52 cards and have black suits signify one choice and red suits the other.

Thanks for all the suggestions, they all seem great. I will work out some tests with these ideas when I am in school tomorrow and have the required equipment. Until I have tested them I will not choose an answer, but thanks to everyone and +1s all around.

The "scratched and identifiable" issue of using cards can easily be mitigated by using card sleeves with opaque backs.

If you do an advanced search on boardgamegeek for simultaneous action selection you can see a bunch of games that have a mechanic kind of like this. As has been said, cards are indeed used for this, and it works fine!

Each player puts a coin on the table under their hand.  This will work perfectly if it's always the same two options, or if you can easily determine a sensible mapping from head/tails to the available two options.

My thoughts as well. As a bonus, if you create your own coin object, like from cardboard, you can not only make it thick and durable, it also does not matter at all if it gets scratched/marked, because a player's hand can cover it completely until it is revealed.

Also remember this can be easily extended to multiple options by having multiple coins. A player under the table or with his back turned chooses a coin, hides the rest in a bag or box or whatnot and holds the chosen option hidden in hand.

When trying to make something new, it is not a bad idea to see what award winning games have already done.
You may wish to see the game Dixit (Spiel Des Jahres 2010) which has a simple system to let 2 to 4 players simultaneously choose between 3 and 5 options.  The 2 option variant is Oltarus's method.  Dixit also has wonderful artwork.
The expansion Dixit Odyssey solves the similar problem for 3-12 players. Its method is fairly similar to xorsyst's method.  The choice is indicated by placing a peg in a hole. The peg is too stiff to be altered while under the hand, and so one is sure the commitment has been made while the player is covering the pegs with his hand.  I would not suggest using the coin method with magicians.
Similarly, Apples to Apples requires players to simultaneously commit to an adjective.  This is done by playing cards face down.
All of these games avoid the temptation of marked cards by having several reasonable quality cards.  For instance, you can have 5 different "1st option" and 5 different "2nd option" cards, each with unique artwork.  This allows more expressive play while also meaning a player can avoid a marked card if he actually suspects the other player is looking for such things.
In online games (irrelevant to your project, but possibly relevant to other readers), this problem is called a commitment scheme and is a very important cryptographic problem (that has been solved in several ways, some easy and some amazingly secure).  The Yes/No variant is called bit-commitment or "virtual coin flipping".

+1 for the commitment scheme. Essentially you can do something similar in the physical world: both players have a red card, a green card, an envelope that will hold one card, and a card that is red on one side and green on the other side. They secretly put either the green or the red card in the envelope, close it so that you can't see what's in it, and put it on the table for both players to see. Then, again openly, they put the two-coloured card on the table; if the colour that is face up is the same as in the envelope, it signifies True / 1 / Penguin, otherwise False / 0 / Zebra.

Re online games see this question: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/11821/abstract-move-holding-service-for-simultaneous-move-board-games

If the choices are always the same (Always YES/NO, for example), the simpliest ways to do that are the following:

Each players has two cards, one saying YES, the other one saying NO (Or whatever choice you have). They make choices by playing a card face down and revealing them all at once.
Each player has a coin of some sort that can be placed in one's hand. YES is on one side and NO on the other (…). They make choices by puting it in their hand and opening them at once, the face up being their choice.

If the choices are always different (YES/NO sometimes, RED/BLUE or PINGUIN/ZEBRA sometimes), the best way is to have on your board a place for cards with numbers next to each place. (Fig 1.)
------
|    |
|    | 1
|    |
------

------
|    |
|    | 2
|    |
------

Fig 1.

You must then have a deck of cards with propositions on them (YES, NO, BLUE, RED, …) and put one on each place.
The players each have two cards or a coin, one card/face saying 1, the other one saying 2. Use the same technique as above.
NOTE: using cards, you can raise the number of possible choices.

The standard methods:
Cards - don't worry about scratches - many serious players sleeve cards these days. It's the most familiar choice. And if the cards are business card sized, they can be hidden in hand or under a hand on the table.
Spinners - not used all that often, however, the mold marks on the back of the spinner may be visible if using the commercial arrows; using a double disk the result can be inferred by watching the pre-choice state and counting the rotations.
I've "read" people's choices in both Dune (double disk) and in El Grande.
dice - also not used all that often, a die with the choices marked as symbols is quite viable; if the choice is reduced to numbers, it's also cheap. It's a bit fiddly, tho.
dreidle - since dreidles are essentially dice, the same issues apply, except that, having only one axis along which choices are made, it's easier to use.
Mat and screen - a mat with the choices marked, and a small marker to be placed upon that mat, with a movable screen - it's got the advantage of being easy to work, and very clear. It also provides a place for faction/side identification and/or cool art, as well as gameflow information.
Marker choice - player takes set of markers in hand, picks correct one
I've used this in SFB for fire declarations. Cumbersome for many, due to half-inch square 1mm thick counters being the mode. Similar issues to cards, but since the counters could be hidden under the hand...

I'd recommend using a coin or a single card. They would both work the same - the player chooses a side and lays it on the table, facing up. Since there is only one card, you don't have to worry about them being recognizable by scratches. (Which, at its essence, is a mostly negligible problem.)
A similar system for multiple choices would be using a die. The player can place it on the table, his choice facing up. The advantage here is that with 4, 6, 10, ... options are readily available.
Edit: Oh, ok, I should have said how to keep them secret. I just assumed it could be done like the original question suggests - using some sort of a screen. Either one screen that separates the players, or even better, using an individual screen for each player. (Kind of like Revolution does it, see below.)
Image and commentary I wrote before I found out I'm not allowed to post an image: The Revolution! board game, showing screens for the red and yellow player.
If a die or a coin is used, covering it with one's hand may be enough, though.

Hi ver, welcome to the site.  Could you expand a bit to explain how the choices are kept secret in your idea?

I'd say that, by and large, the card method is what I'd choose, since I wouldn't be concerned about wear and tear on them.  However, assuming that that remains a concern, you can expand beyond hiding a coin for a binary choice into using a bunch of color tokens (cubes, beads, what have you).  Give each player a screen, with the choices explained on the back, and have them conceal the token in their hand to be revealed simultaneously.  Note that this is basically equivalent to the card case, but the physical reproduction should be immune to concerns of wear and team - both due to the toughness of the materials and also due to the fact that they're completely concealed.

You can use a single card without a screen by having two orientations for it, like the "A" and "B" starting-city cards in 7 Wonders or the dual cards in American Megafauna.  You play the card face down and then turn it over (being consistent about direction of turn!); whichever choice is "up" (toward the other player) is the one you chose.


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Different game modes for Thunderstone
While plenty entertaining in the original version, the game Thunderstone looks like it could be played in many more ways.
Besides the most obvious modifications like playing with more (or less) monster, item or hero classes, what are the most popular/best modes? I'm interested in single- as well as multi-player ones.

There are a number of variants listed in the rulebooks (Wrath of the Elements, in particular, has solo play and epic variants printed in it among others).  Having tried most of them out, I have to say that I still greatly prefer just the basic scenario.  In particular, the small size of the Village stacks means that any longer variants tend to turn into just grinding towards the end, as there is little purchasing one can do once the premium Village stacks are exhausted.


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Does trample damage hurt players even if the creature dies?
I'm playing myself with two Avacyn Restored decks from a 6-booster sealed prerelease tournament, and wonder whether a 6/4 creature with trample blocked by a 4/1 creature would still allow damage through.

A more common example of this situation is when a small creature (such as a 1/1) with deathtouch blocks a big creature (such as an 8/8) with trample.

Short Answer
Yes, that's what trample does - any damage beyond lethal can be assigned to the player or planeswalker the trampling creature is attacking.

Long Answer
Combat damage is all dealt simultaneously (in two steps, the first of which is exclusive to creatures which have First Strike or Double Strike) - assuming the attacker and blocker both do not have First strike or Double strike, the four damage from the blocking 4/1 is dealt to the 6/4 trampler at the same time that the 6/4 with Trample deals one to the blocker and five to that creature's controller (assuming there are no other blocking creatures).
Thus, if you are at five or less life, and have a 4/1 without First Strike or Double Strike blocking a 6/4 with Trample, lethal damage will be assigned to you (and dealt, unless it is prevented somehow).
If your 4/1 blocker does have First Strike or Double Strike (and the 6/4 Trample does not), your blocker's combat damage will be dealt in a combat damage step earlier than the 6/4, and if the 6/4 is dealt lethal damage (which it would be, assuming no combat tricks), the 6/4 would be destroyed and would not be present for the second combat damage step, so you would avoid damage altogether.
See the following from the 5/1 comprehensive rules:

703.4k Immediately after combat damage has been assigned during the combat damage step, all combat damage is dealt simultaneously. See rule 510.2.
510.2. Second, all combat damage that's been assigned is dealt simultaneously. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack. No player has the chance to cast spells or activate abilities between the time combat damage is assigned and the time it's dealt. This is a change from previous rules.
510.5. If at least one attacking or blocking creature has first strike (see rule 702.7) or double strike (see rule 702.4) as the combat damage step begins, the only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are those with first strike or double strike. After that step, instead of proceeding to the end of combat step, the phase gets a second combat damage step. The only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are the remaining attackers and blockers that had neither first strike nor double strike as the first combat damage step began, as well as the remaining attackers and blockers that currently have double strike. After that step, the phase proceeds to the end of combat step.

Note that you can choose to assign more than lethal damage to a blocker and less damage to the defending player. There are probably very few instances where this is what you want, but maybe you need your opponent at an even life total for Heartless Hidetsugu + Furnace of Rath or you're playing around Captain's Maneuver for 4, or something.