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How can I tell how replayable a cooperative game is?
I've been reading reviews on various cooperative games trying to find some more to add to my collection. (I currently have Pandemic, Forbidden Island, and Shadows over Camelot). In reviews, I've seen people give games low ratings for a few reasons, complexity, playing time, and various other very predictable things that you can easily use to judge if you want to buy a game or not.
The other issue that tends to come up is replayability. This is really important to me, because if its not replayable there's no way I'm getting it. But how can I really judge this? It can't be easily reduced to an objective number. Are there any tips for telling how replayable a game is before buying, particularly cooperatives?

Recently I've taken my cooperatives and added a ton of new stuff to them to make them more interesting. I added 9 new roles to pandemic and 13 new special events, some taken from other places I'd read. I did something similar with Forbidden Island and might add some new knights to Shadows over Camelot. I'm confident I can overcome any lack of replayability with my own creativity, but I thought I'd ask this anyway to tell if I'm going to NEED to add my own extensions to a game in order to keep it interesting past 10 plays.

Why would cooperative games be less replayable than competitive games?  I'd suggest that they are often more replayable, in the sense that once you know what you're doing, you can take charge of your actions a lot more, rather than doing what the person who knows what's going on tells you...

@sun; EDIT: Actually, Kempeth's answer says what my comment was saying. Shows me to comment before reading the current answers.

@thesunnever the issues of replayability are pretty much the same in most games... but without the PVP variabilities, the games' inherent variabilities take over the dominance for replay factor.

It's tricky to evaluate a game's replayability before buying it, as the primary question I ask to assess this is:
"Does the game support multiple viable paths to victory?"
My thinking is this: If a game has one optimal path to victory, repeated plays will likely become boring (since you're just doing the same thing over and over again).  To figure this out, I typically need to play a game at least once, carefully assessing the opportunities and tools that the game presents during play.
If I couldn't play the game, I'd try to read the rules and look over any primary game components (like card decks, character roles, etc.).  I'd also check out reviews, of course.
The second question I ask is:
"Does this game use one or more modular/randomizing components as a core component?"
Do you lay out tiles to form a different board each game?  Is the game driven by one or more decks of cards with critical goals or events shuffled in at semi-random spots?  Is there a character creation system, or are the characters the same from game to game? -- All of these things contribute to replayability.
Again, it's nice to play the game to see all the components interact with each other.  However, this is a bit easier to assess from just looking at the box or reading the list of parts.  It's also easy to assess from reading the "set up" portion of the rules.

I find several key elements in replayability in any game...

Multiple routes to victory
Multiple starting conditions
Variable in-game activities
Variable in-game events
Variable action results
Imperfect information
Optional Rules

Multiple Routes To Victory
Multiple routes to victory is a key element in all games, not just cooperatives, and it can be assessed by reading the rulebooks for the victory conditions.
Multiple Starting Conditions
Multiple starting conditions means you don't always start the same.
Parchisi and Chess are classic examples of one start condition, as is Axis and Allies.
Risk, Shadows Over Camelot and Civilization are three different modes of variable starting conditions. In Risk, you have random allocation of starting countries. In Civilization, each picks their starting country, and then their starting space. In Shadows, you have a random assortment of starting white cards and one of 7 (or 8 or 16) characters with differential powers. In Flash Point, you have the option of fixed start for Family difficulty, or random start with any difficulty.
The more non-random variability in starting condition, the more likely people are to find one optimal, and the more control they feel, but likewise, that also reduces replayability.
The more random variability in starting condition, the more replayability, but also the more likely one is to be hampered by the random factors and be "losing from the start."
Again, this can usually be assessed by the combination of the component list and the rulebook.
In Flash Point, it's possible to lose the game in the first round from bad luck; if you lose 4 or more of the victims on the map during the first two players' turns, it's game over before player 3 gets to play. I've nearly had this happen - in a 3 player game, we lost two victims on the first player's turn; they straddled a starting fire marker, and that marker was hit. Roughly a 1 in 100,000 chance, but it was in my 4th play. That this could happen was evident in the rulebook.
In Game Activities
The more different things that can be done, the more potential replayability... If you have but two options per turn, that tends to reduce replayability somewhat over a game with 4-5. (Too many eventually results in unplayability, tho'.)
So, for example, in Shadows, one is either playing cards on a quest, playing cards on a siege engine, playing cards on a character, or moving between quests. Essentially, 4 options. Which, generally, hits my sweet spot for a board game.
In Wizards (Avalon Hill), each turn is spend AP on movement and/or casting... but the movement options are many, and the spell options quite a few.
In Flash Point, one is fighting fire or rescuing victims, with movement being required to do both. Only rescuing victims counts towards victory, but preventing collapse makes fighting fire a necessity. But there are several more actions listed; these are options relating to how to minimize travel time.
This is readily determined by reading the rules.
In-Game Events
Things which happen to the player's position other than by choice.
Well done events can be a bonus to the replayability. Poorly done ones are a hinderance.
This is a hard one to judge without play; the quality and effect of the randomization (or lack thereof) can make or break a game; this is doubly true in cooperative games, where the competition is usually versus the events instead of the other players.
This has to be determined by a study of the components and/or multiple plays. For cooperative games, this is where the meat of reviews really becomes important.
Wizards has dozens of events, and uses a number of different random tables for them.
Dragonriders of Pern has at least one event every turn: the threadfall card. It also has players draw special cards, some of which are events. These provide most of the randomness needed for the replayability of this game.
Shadows over Camelot has the entire black deck...
Flash Point has only two randomizations, but they happen a lot: where the fire spreads, and where the next "point of interest" (POI) appears. Spread is every turn. POI appearance is whenever a victim has been rescued, or a victim is killed, or a POI is revealed to be blank.
Variable action results
The more potential results of a given action, the more replayability.
Generally, this is the result of randomizations in action resolution.
In Shadows Over Camelot, this is the random strength on the quest black cards, and the die-roll of the siege engine.
In Wizards, it's almost entirely die-rolls on tables.
In Dragonriders of Pern, it's random die-rolls on both thread fighting and diplomacy.
Flash Point has no variable results of decisions. All the random input is in where fire spreads, what's under the POI, and where POI's appear.
Imperfect Information
In a game with either variable setup or variable events, a lack of full knowledge tends to improve replayability. If taken too far, however, it impairs playability over all.
The amount of information is usually readily determined from a rulebook; its effect on play, however, isn't.
In Wizards, there's lots of imperfect information, but anything in play is perfect information. You don't know what's coming, but you know all that's on the board so far.
In SoC, the imperfect information is extensive; what events are forthcoming, what cards your fellows have, who the traitor is. In fact, the major victory issue is reducing the uncertainties. If a group can readily reduce the uncertainties by consistent use of language without breaking the "no game mechanics discussion rule," then the game is almost solved from the get go... reducing it to traitor hunt and race to complete quests in time.
In the competetive coop Dragonriders of Pern, the imperfect information about thread fall next turn makes the game much more tense; one option that reduces that is having a visibile queue of thread cards. It strongly changes the way experienced players play it in both the coop thread fighting and competitive diplomacy phase. The lack of information by the dice also inhibits long term planning.
In Flash Point, the information of the current state is almost perfect - the only thing you don't know is what a POI contains - it's either a victim or a blank. Future information is absent, since it's dependent upon random rolls and random draws.
In the end...
These factors combine to determine the most important singular qualifier:
Interesting choices that have multiple non-loss directions.
If you have an interesting choice, but one direction leads to loss, and the other to victory, once you learn the difference, the choice is no longer interesting.
If the choice points are always the same and always have the same results, once you've explored them all, they become uninteresting.
Of the four cooperative games I've mentioned (Shadows, Wizards, Dragonriders, Flash Point), I've found replayability a non-issue with any of them for infrequent plays.
Shadows, the choices are too similar in any two plays to play twice in a row, but separated by some time, the game remains interesting, especially if one doesn't replay with the exact same group every time.
Dragonriders, the game is a bit long, but the randomizations make the outcome in doubt right until the end, and despite very low starting variability, the high in-game variability makes the choices interesting and not a fixed-tree state. (It's also one of the few games that scales well 1-6 players)
Wizards is even more wildly open. highly variable board, massive randomness in in game events and outcomes. It's also bloody hard, and competitive cooperative. Everyone has to cooperate against the board, or everyone loses; only one will in fact win, however, so there is some PVP action. Many of the choices are less than interesting, and there are up to a dozen trivial choices per turn; interesting choices are range from one per 10 turns (while on certain long tasks) to several in a turn.
*Flash Point can be replayed in rapid succession, due to the high level of randomness coupled to near-perfect current state information. While there is only one victory condition, the challenge remains high.
Optional Rules
The inclusion of playtested optional rules also gives some games more replayability. Because they change some aspects of the rules, they also change the experience somewhat.
Optional rules fall broadly into a few key areas: difficulty changes, thematic changes, and alternate conditions. An optional rule for difficulty change makes the game either harder or easier, while not changing much of the mechanics. A thematic change changes the thematic nature of the pieces, but often involves little to no change in game play. An alternate conditions option is a change in either how you start, or what constitutes a victory or a loss.
Optional rules need to be looked at carefully - sometimes, they are added because the game isn't long-term replayable without them; in others, they're there because they enable the game to be attractive to a wider audience, but don't really affect replayability.
Shadows has an alternate setup option called the "Squires" option that changes the beginning setup slightly. Likewise, it has an option for a pure co-op play, by not using the loyalty cards, and an option for a harder game by including two traitor cards plus a loyal card per player, and thus not knowing whether there are zero, one, or two traitors.
Dragonriders has a solitaire variant with similar but not identical rules. It also has the 7 player variant with the Harper Hall as a player, whose victory condition is by kingmaking.
Wizards has the option of changing the duration between evil advancing. Longer makes it easier to thwart evil, and shorter makes it harder. Further, how many tasks must be completed to thwart evil may be changed, also affecting difficulty.
Flash Point has a "Family Game" and an "Experienced Game" both in the basic rules. The family game is a fixed setup, and is simplified rules. The experienced game adds a number of additional mechanical complexities, including three difficulty levels, and is presented as a second section of the rulebook. A third section includes optional rules, including piecemeal adoption of the advanced game mechanics into the Family Game, and explicit permission to house-rule one's own additions to the game. The only option I've used is mixing in some of the expanded game into the basic game.

A nice answer. (I felt that just +1 wasn't enough. :)

I believe the question is not as much how replayable a cooperative game is but more if you are the type for cooperative games.
A lot of any new game's allure comes from being unknown - from exploring strategies and content. The biggest downside of a cooperative is that unlike humans it cannot adapt to your strategy. Once you figured out how to beat it then it is largely a matter of how favorable / unfavorable the cards are stacked.
So the questions is: Can you enjoy such a game once the novelty has worn off. Take one of the most common examples: Solitaire. After enough plays everyone know what to look for, which card to pick if you've got two options, etc. If you are fine with playing a puzzle that you know inside and outside and poses little challenge beyond randomized cards then you should be able to enjoy coops for a long time. Otherwise you'll probably have to spice it up every now and then...
I don't have any proof or evidence for this theory, though.

I agree completely. To add some more thoughts: A lot of coop games include a traitor or some way for at least one player to break from the rest of the team. This allows for the adaptive strategies that tend to be lacking in coop games.


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Does Dixit need any modifications to play with 7, 8, 9, and 10 players?
I've enjoyed Dixit greatly with groups of 5 and 6, and I'm curious if it needs any rule variations to extend it further. I was thinking perhaps requiring at least 2 players to guess the correct card instead of just 1 when playing with 8 or more people, because otherwise the storyteller can tell a rather unspecific story and still rely on 1 person getting it by guessing.
Does Dixit need any adjustments to play with more than 6 players? If so, which rules would you recommend adding and at what number of players? How would the overall game change when more people were added?
Do not worry about running out of cards to use and having to reshuffle to keep the game going. If you're curious, I actually use Magic: The Gathering cards to play the game, so we have a deck of around 250 cards, which is more than enough.

Dixit Odyssey has rules for 7+ players.  The suggested scoring system for 7+ players:

Each player has two vote tokens, not just one.  They can split their guess between two cards if they want.
If all players correctly identify the storyteller's card, or none do, everyone except the storyteller receives two points each.
Otherwise, the storyteller receives three points and so does anyone else who correctly identifies the storyteller's card.  If they only used one of their two votes, they receive a bonus point.
For each other card, the person who played it gets a bonus point (to a maximum of three) for each player who voted for it.

The game ends when the first player reaches 30 points.  Calculate the rest of the scoring for the round (in case someone overtakes), and then the winner of the game is the person with the highest number of points.

Re: the 'bogus clues' thing, in my ten-player game yesterday this didn't seem to be an issue; we had at least one or two rounds where no player correctly selected the storyteller's card.  Not sure if this was a representative sample though.

It appears that this will take care of part of the problem that I identified with the average points for Storytellers approaching 2, and the Non-Storytellers approaching 1 as the number of players approaches infinity. With giving out a +1 point certainty (if that player chooses to), you fix the bogus clue problem (when it is obvious that nothing matches the clue), and you give the players and interesting decision between getting a sure +1 point, or splitting there vote between two possible answers for a better chance at 3 points.

@user1873 To make it clear, the bonus point is only awarded if their one vote was selecting the correct one (i.e. if you only vote for one, and it happens to be correct, you receive four points instead of three - I don't think the rules made it explicit if you got the bonus when everyone picked correctly, so we played it as "No").  I'm sure that's logical, but your comment made it a bit unclear whether you understood that...

You were correct, I misunderstood. This scoring system likely fixes the problem with bogus clues anyway. With 2 votes, the non-storytellers are giving out an additional +X points, where X is the number of players. This should result in the non-storytellers average score approaching 2 (like the storyteller), and should handle a bogus clue strategy (or at least make random guessing as effective as bogus clues).

Does Dixit need any modifications for more players?
You need some way for each of those players to secretly bid on what card they think is correct (numbered playing cards could work). As for the number of players affecting how likely it is for a random guess to give them points, let's do some math and find out.
Let's assume in all these examples that the storyteller's card is card #1. Player2 plays card 2, Player3 plays card 3, etc.. Let's ignore 3-player alternate rules variant for playing 2 cards. Player's also cannot vote for their own cards (from the rules).
3-Player
1) 25% Player2 guesses #1 Player3 guesses #1, Storyteller gets 0 points, other players get 2.
2) 25% Player2 guesses #1 Player3 guesses #2, Storyteller gets 3 points, Player2 gets 4 (+1 from Player3's wrong guess).
3) 25% Player2 guesses #3 Player3 guesses #2, Storyteller gets 0 points, other players get 3.
4) 25% Player2 guesses #3 Player3 guesses #1, Storyteller gets 3 points, Player3 gets 4 (+1 from Player2's wrong guess).
This works out to an average score of the following:
3-Player Storyteller 1.50 points, Non-Storyteller 2.25 points.
Not to bother you with the math for the calculations, did this in a spreadsheet. (x points/y outcomes).
4-Player Storyteller 2.000 points (54/27), Non-Storyteller 1.630 points (44/27).
5-Player Storyteller 2.039 points (522/256), Non-Storyteller 1.496 points (383/256).
6-Player Storyteller 2.016 points (6300/3125), Non-Storyteller 1.400 points (4374/3125).
My guess as to the average results for 7, 8, 9, and 10 players is that the Storyteller's average points will approach 2 as the number of players reaches infinity, and the Non-Storyteller's average points will approach 1 as the number of players reaches infinity.
A way to curb the Storyteller from just giving bogus clues, would be to give out bonus points depending upon the number of players. In a 6-player game, approximately 40% (1280/3125) of the time only a single player will get the answer right. If you give out 5 (number of guessers) or 6 (number of players) bonus points to the single guesser that got the answer right, this will add an additional 2.05 or 2.46 point on average to the Non-Storyteller players. This should discourage giving bad clues, since employing a bad clue strategy will on average put you 2 to 2 1/2 points behind. This should scale well, because as the number of players increase, the number of bonus points increases. If you do need to extend this further (not sure you need to, but I haven't worked out the odds of only exactly one person getting it right for 7, 8, ... players), you could give out bonus points rounded down for the total number of players that got it right. (example, 10-Player game: if one person gets it right +10 points, if two people get it right +5 points each, if 3 people get it right +3 points each, ...)

I use these house rules when playing with more than 6 and they have worked out for me really well.
If only 1 person guesses the right card, it is counted as if no one guessed the right card.
If only 1 person guesses the wrong card, it is counted like everyone guessed the right card.
This seems to take a lot of chaos of the game. One person not paying attention can't throw the round on an obvious clue. One person guessing randomly, and i think the odds of guessing go up, can't throw the game either.
After that we often play with simplified scoring. 3 points for all hits. 3 points for all misses. No one can earn more than 5 points in a round.

As I explained in my answer to a question about balancing Dixit, the formula is to use r × n² + n × 5 cards for n players playing r rounds. That way, every player gets the same number of turns of being the story tellers.
So for 7 players, you need 35 cards + 49 for each round, for 8 players 40 + 64 for each round, for 9 players 45 + 81 for each round, and for 10 players 50 + 100 for each round.

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Does the "housing shortage" rule suggest that you should often refrain from buying hotels in monopoly?
There are 32 houses in Monopoly. That's only enough to cover eight properties with four houses each, or two full (three property) monopolies, plus one two property monopoly, either Boardwalk-Park Place, or Mediterranean-Baltic.
So if I own two full monopolies, and cover them with four houses each, there are only eight houses left, meaning that except for either Boardwalk-Park Place, or Mediterranean-Baltic, no third monopoly can go up to the crtical three house level on all three properties.
Does this mean that I should keep four houses each on my two monopolies and NOT upgrade them to hotels? Or if someone wants houses, maybe I should at least force them to give me another Monopoly (or railroads or cash) in order to agree to free up houses by upgrading to a hotel? (This might come into play if another opponent and I both had four houses each on our respective monopolies.)
I remember playing years ago with two house rules:

if someone could cover all their properties with hotels outright they were allowed to do so without buying houses (if they could afford to do so)
if someone had four houses on a property, you could force them to free up houses by paying for their upgrade to a hotel

What I find puzzling is that  there are 12 hotels, enough to cover all the properties from four full (three-property) monopolies. And taken together, the hotels and houses can cover six full monopolies, plus a seventh, either Boardwalk-Park Place, or Mediterranean-Baltic, with either a hotel or four houses.
So was it the intent of the game designers that the board be covered this way? Or is a housing shortage just another "monopoly" that creates a further shortage over and above the physical building limits?

http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/8049/housing-shortage-in-monopoly

@ColinD: This wasn't a "What are the rules?" question. This was a "what should I do? question. Unless we're talking about house rules, in which case the issue is, "What should the rules be?"

my link was simply to a related question. The answer contains information about strategic use of the housing shortage to force opponents to sell hotels outright when no mouse houses are available.

Note that if demand for houses exceeds supply at a moment in time, they go up for auction according to the standard rules. This makes it advantageous to own the pricier monopoly, as one will get a better return on the inflated acquisition price. Many play in error, allowing the phasing player to pick up houses at their standard price in such situations. This impacts the ability to bargain with house availability.

@PieterGeerkens do you have a rules citation for that? I know different versions/editions of the game vary on this rule.

@ColinD: See my answer below for direct quotes from two rules sources.

From the Official Rules of Monopoly (my emphasis):

The bank has a fixed supply of 32 houses and 12 hotels. If more players decide to build more houses at the same time than there are houses in the bank, the houses are auctioned off one at a time to the highest bidder. This rule favors the owners of expensive properties, for which the houses cost more in the first place, because the auction price of a house is not tied to the value of the property on which it will be placed. It is not possible to buy more houses than there is available in the bank. This could stop people buying hotels in the future!

and here:

When the Bank has no houses to sell, players wishing to build must wait for some player to return or sell their houses to the Bank before building. If there are a limited number of houses and hotels available and two or more players wish to buy more than the Bank has, the houses or hotels must be sold at auction to the highest bidder.

Update: - Interpretation and application
I see the purchase of hotels in Monopoly as an endgame tactic, not a mid-game tactic. Similar to a running-game double in backgammon by the leader, which is meant not to increase the stakes but to eliminate the opportunity for the opponent to get lucky and squeak out a win. The purchase of hotels is properly done when one is already firmly in the lead, and thus that the housing shortage period of the game (a possible definition of the mid-game period actually) is already past.
One then buys hotels because opponents do not actually have enough money to purchase the released assets. By further increasing one's rents one can increase the pain of each landing on your property, and reduce the opponents' opportunity to rebuild a cash stock.

Please clarify that quoted rule's precondition. If a player does not have the current turn, but desires more houses when it will be their turn, does that count as them "deciding to build"? If so, how does the Bank learn of that desire? On the other hand, if the current player and another would each like 3 houses, and the Bank has only 3, may the current player buy those last 3 at market rate with no auction?

@RosieF: New questions should be asked in a New Question, not in a comment.

I am asking for clarification of part of this very answer.

In the original version of the game hotels weren't even a thing. That was added later by other people. The main tactic in that version of the game was to deliberately create a housing shortage, because that's how capitalism works irl. In fact, this game was created by a socialist woman for the sole purpose of showing how unjust unrestrained capitalism can be.

Welcome to the site. An upvote for a good answer, although I did edit your comment to take out the "slang."

I've never been a fan of Monopoly, but I've realized in the last few years that my displeasure with the game was caused by all the house rules my family and friends have added to the game in the past. House rules, like putting all money in "Free Parking" instead of the bank, causes the game to be so much longer and painful. So now I'm curious to play the game RAW, and your comment makes me want to go further. Can you play this original version that you describe with a base set of Monopoly? If so, where can I find the rules?

Are you referring to The Landlord's Game?

Yes. It's a deliberate choice, and the rules are such that if there are no houses available you cannot upgrade to hotels - so that it is a perfectly valid tactic to buy 3-4 houses for all your properties and thus prevent opponents from getting hotels. In fact, if I remember correctly, 3 houses is about the point where you get maximum returns relative to money spent for most properties.

'starvation strategy'

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Can smoke be placed on a POI?
We played for the first time last night, and we tried the family version to start to understand the game. The situation arose where a smoke marker came up on top of a POI marker.
The POI marker was still unknown. We searched the manual and couldn't find any reference to it, so is it ok to put the smoke marker underneath a POI marker?

Placing Smoke on a POI
Yes, you put the smoke on the same space as the POI, and the POI is unaffected.  If the smoke later turns into fire, the POI will then be removed.
Placing a POI on Smoke
In the family version (page 6 of the rules), yes.  They even eliminate the smoke for you!

If the Target space has a Fire or Smoke marker, remove that Fire/Smoke
  marker before placing the POI marker.

However in the experienced game (page 10 of the rules), you adjust their position instead.

In the Experienced game a POI may only be placed in a space without a
  Threat marker (Fire or Smoke), Firefighter or another POI. If the POI
  Replenishment Target space is invalid, then use this diagram to
  redirect the POI. Begin in the Target space and follow the path
  created by the arrows as shown until you reach a valid space. The
  arrows are also placed on the board for easy reference during the
  game. If there are no valid spaces on the path, reroll.

Smoke on top of a POI can definitely happen, no special rules.  The POI is not affected until the smoke turns into fire, at which point they are removed.


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Does the Lab Challenge make Pandemic easier or harder?
We've tried out the Lab Challenge (from the new In The Lab expansion), and I can't quite tell if it makes the game harder or not.
All other things equal (#players, roles, # epidemics), is a game with Lab Challenge easier or harder than one without?

That is something that depends on your group, from what I have seen from playing it the game can be easier or harder depending on luck but I generally think it will be easier.

I've only played ITL once, but it is clear that neither the present comment nor answer actually answer this question. In the base game, it takes a certain amount of actions to cure a disease. Assuming some sort of distribution of the (say) red cards, you need to get 5 of them in one place, etc...

When doing the Lab Challenge, the number of actions needed to cure a disease (potentially) changes. For example, you have to spend an action testing the cure. But that action also removes a cube, so it's sort of a break-even action. More in-depth analysis would be good to see; I just don't know the game well enough.

As with the original game, the more you play the In the Lab expansion, the better you get at it. When I started playing the original version with my friends, it was hard to win with 4 regular epidemics but, by the time we got the expansion pack, we were beating the game easily with 6 epidemics (or 5 virulent strain epidemics with the added mutation disease if you have the On the Brink expansion).  With the In the Lab expansion, we have almost never been able to win with 5 virulent strain epidemics and the mutation disease.  It seems like the more you add (such as virulent strain and mutation) In the Lab is harder than the regular game, but it will all depend as time goes by.

It won't make the game easier or harder per se, but it gives more freedom for the players to move since while on the original you have to get 5 cards of the same color (what keeps leading players to meet with each other constantly in order to pass cards) when you add the In the Lab mechanics instead of meeting the player the card you otherwise would pass can now be used on the lab spots.
While this is a bit more complicated than the original mechanic it is way more thematic and let the players move more freely. I don't think it makes the game easier or harder but it does make the game better and more enjoyable, specially for experienced players due to the added complexity.

From what I've seen, it makes the game harder. With on the brink expansion, we were sometimes winning with 6 virulent epidemics and the mutation challenge but now we can't even manage to win with 6 normal epidemics w/o any other challenge.
Takes more actions to find a cure for sure imo considering you have to collect a certain amount of cubes and then move them throughout the lab and sequence and characterize. Anyway, it makes the game evenmore complicated and enjoyable still.
Peace and love


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Does software for optimizing the train route in 18xx systems exist?
While playing the 18xx games (create routes for trains and try to get the most money with your trains), it sometimes takes a lot of time to find the optimal route for the trains.
Does anybody know if there is any software available to help with this problem?

The 1830 computer game will select (the best) routes for you, but it's a single-player game, alas.

@Paul_Marshall: Actually it does not always select the best routes, I have seen results that could be improved upon but so far only with $20. The algorithm seems to give up after a while and not do an exhaustive search.

I wonder if this question is similar to the traveling salesman, NP complete section of mathematics. I think i need to look closer at the rules.

@ user1873, i think it is similar to the traveling salesman, however the number of cities is a small constant, thus it can be solved fast.

Not to my knowledge.
One thing I've done to assist with this problem is to use a pile of D6's of a couple different colors.
Place a D6 on each city of one color to represent your smallest train and work your way up to your largest.
When you are finished, pick up the D6's generating your total run profit as you go.
Towards the end of the game, we usually help each other, as the diesel runs can become quite dramatic as I'm sure you're aware!  It just speeds the game along as we don't want one person obsessing over his run for twenty minutes to gain an extra $10.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/18XX/comments/9t32gw/1846_route_finder/
The decision problem "Given this particular network, can a diesel (unbounded) train run for at least $X?" is NP-complete.
It's in NP, since the length of a route is bounded by the size of the board and its validity and payoff is easily verifiable.
It's NP-hard by a reduction from Hamiltonian path on square grids. Embed the square grid on a hex board by skewing one axis 60°. Use X-cities for vertices in the input graph and use lots of straights to connect the vertices. Place a station in an arbitrary vertex/city. There's a route worth k×n where k is the per-city dividend and n is the number of cities if and only if there's a Hamiltonian path in the input graph (with the obvious correspondence).
I don't know about hardness for bounded trains, but for practical purposes the train limit is O(1) and the train lengths are also O(1), and most notably the numbers tend to be small(ish).
For example, with 10 cities and a single 6, there are 10 choose 6 = 210 different city sets to try out. You can sort them by dividends and the answer is the first feasible route.
With 10 cities and a 5, there are 252 possibilities. With both a 5 and a 6 that's 210*252 = 52920. Once again, sorting by total dividends and finding the first feasible match should be tolerably fast.
Or maybe you find the highest-paying routes with each train unconstrained by the other, then search through two lists for a compatible match. Say you look through the 6-routes in descending order; then you have to look past the first compatible match, until you get to a 6-route which pays so little that even the best paying 5-route doesn't put you above the best match so far. Then that best match cannot be surpassed, and must be the answer.

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text:
Hokusai and Bernice Mai timing
What is the jack-out and rez timing of upgrade traps that need to be rezzed.
For instance, let's say the runner has passed the last piece of ice.  Does the corp rez Hokusai Grid after the runner has committed to succeeding at the run, or when they say they will access?
The gist of it is: when should you rez Hokusai Grid or Bernice Mai to force the user to take the net damage or trace without the opportunity to jack out?
Is it when the runner states that they wish to "continue" or "access"?  What is the official step name that I can use to make sure they have committed to whatever it is that they need to commit to so that they cannot jack out and I have time to rez?

The timing structure for accessing the server is:

4 The Runner APPROACHES the attacked server.

4.1 [Paid abilities]
4.2 The Runner decides whether to continue the run.
        ...Either the Runner JACKS OUT: [end the run unsuccessfully]
        ...Or the Runner continues the run: go to 4.3.
4.3 [Paid abilities and non-ice can be rezzed]
4.4 The run is considered to be successful. (‘When successful’ conditionals meet their trigger conditions)
4.5 Access cards, then [end the run].

Effects triggered by a successful run fire in 4.4. There is an opportunity to rez upgrades (4.3) before this step and after the Runner has committed to accessing (4.2).
To answer your final question directly, when I play, I normally say: "Would you like to access?", then, if they confirm, I say "Before you do, I rez...". (I actually ask if the Runner would like to access regardless of what's in the server.)

After passing the last ice protecting a server, the next step (4) is to approach the server. The runner then has the choose if they wish to continue or jack out. If they choose to continue, both players have a chance to use paid abilities and rez cards before moving onto the "successful run" trigger which is where Hokusai Grid and Bernice Mai trigger if rezzed. Then the runner accesses the server.
1. Runner starts, names server.
If there's ICE, goto 2.
If no ice, goto 4.
2. Approach outermost ICE.
2.1. Paid ability can be used
2.2. Jack out (Goto 6, cannot jack out if first piece of ICE encountered this run) or continue to 2.3.
2.3. Approached ICE can be rezzed
Paid ability can be used
cards can be rezzed.
2.4. Check if ICE is rezzed.
If rezzed, goto 3.
If unrezzed, and there's another piece of ICE, goto 2.
If unrezzed, and there's no more ICE, go to 4.
3. Runner Encounters Ice if rezzed.
3.1. Icebreakers can interact, Paid abilities can be used
3.2. Resolve all unbroken subroutines
...Either the run ends, goto 6
Or it continues, and there's another piece of ICE, goto 2.
Or it continues, and there's no more ICE, go to 4.
4. Runner approaches attacked server
4.1. Paid abilities can be used.
4.2. Runner decides:
To jack out, go to 6
or to continue, go to 4.3
4.3. Paid abilities may be used, cards may be rezzed.
4.4. Run is successful. Trigger abilities if any.
4.5. Access cards. Trigger abilities if any.
Agenda : Stolen (Unless additional cost)
Trash cost present : may be paid to trash
Everything not trashed or stolen is returned to server.
5. Run ends. Trigger abilities if any.
6. Run is unsuccessful. Trigger abilities if any.


text:
Replacing modifier cards where the new card has a prerequisite for it to be played
A situation arose where an event was played that allowed the top modifier card on a character to be replaced with one from their hand, but the modifier they tried to play had a prerequisite that the character must have the Romance story icon, which they did not have.
The second edition rules directly mention that Continuous and Persistent effects will remain active on the new character for as long as the text is visible when they are moved. By extrapolation this means that Immediate effects will never trigger more than once since they only happen when the card is initially played. I would expect "moved" to also cover occasions where a card is replaced. However a prerequisite is an effect that has no type so doesn't have a direct mention in the rules.
So would the prerequisite be treated as a Continuous effect and thus must be adhered to when moving the card, or would the prerequisite be treated as a condition of the card being played and thus have no further effect when it is moved because it is essentially not being played now?

The card in question has the text "This card can only be played on a Character with the (Romance) icon." This is a condition of the card being played. The situation you describe would not be a legal move. They would need to choose a different Modifier card from their hand.

But the card was not played - it was swapped on to a character - which is where the rules fall down in respect to this.

That is considered a play for the purposes of the prerequisite.

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text:
Treasure from monsters killed by reactive damage such as Fire Shield
Do you gain treasure by killing a monster through reactive damage on another player's turn?
The rulebook only says that you may draw a maximum of one treasure per turn when killing a monster, but is not decisive about whether that limit is per player or for the whole group.
During another player's turn a monster was killed and thus he drew a treasure card. Then during his villain phase a monster attacked and hit me, so I chose to use Fire Shield to deal 1 damage in return, which killed the monster.
Would I draw a treasure card because it is the first time I have killed a monster this turn, or would I not gain a treasure because one treasure card has already been drawn this turn?

Since this has been open for too long, I'll throw in my interpretation of the rules.
I think the first step is to be clear about the turns. It seems you would be drawing a treasure on someone else's turn.
The rules talk about a Player Turn (sometimes Hero's turn) on page 6. It even singles out how each player's turn is defined by the Hero-Exploration-Villain phases (page 4, under "Taking turns").
This is important because the other player's turn is totally independent from your turn, so we don't have to take into account your previous actions.
On to the the ToA rulebook (emphasis mine):

When your Hero defeats a Monster, draw a Treasure card (see
  page 13). You can only draw one Treasure card per turn, no
  matter how many Monsters you defeat during that turn.

First, I'd rule that your hero has indeed defeated a monster. So we're clear on the first sentence.
As for the second sentence, I'd rule that you haven't yet drawn a treasure on that other player's turn.
So... use that treasure wisely! ;)


text:
Legendary Encounters - Alien: Freeing captives in the "Who's laying the eggs?" objective (spoilers)
When can you start freeing captives in the "Who's laying the eggs?" Objective ?

As soon as this objective becomes the current one
When this objective is the current one, but only after an Event card has been drawn
As soon as there are captives (no need to wait for this to be the current objective)
Other

You can begin to free the captives as soon as Who's Laying the Eggs? becomes the current objective.
From the rulebook (page 11):

The players can only be on one “current objective” at a time. Whenever an Objective is completed, immediately put it on the bottom of the three Objective cards. Players can then work toward completing the next Objective.

This means that you cannot be working on future objectives, so could not use the text relating to buying captives before this objective becomes current.
As soon as the objective is the current one, you can use the text on it to buy the captives. While there is no explicit rules explaining this, the text for resolving events and for purchasing captives are separated, which indicates they are different abilities, so the second ability would not require the event trigger of the first.

thanks for the answer!
Regarding the tag change you made, I thought that Legendary and Legendary Encounters were two different animals ( that's why i created a new tag in the first place)
Sorry if that's not the case...

No worries, regarding the tag, others may think differently, I was just following suit with the existing [legendary-marvel] and [legendary-firefly] tag format.


text:
If an after-effect cannot be fulfilled, can the action leading to that after-effect be performed?
In the Carnevale of Horrors expansion, there are locations that contain consequences for leaving the locations, such as

Forced - After you leave Rialto Bridge: Lose 1 action.

or

Forced - After you leave Academia Bridge: Lose 2 resources.

If I do not have the named lost items available, can I still leave the location?  I presumed that if the designers intended for investigators to pay the cost in order to leave, it would be clearly worded as "when leaving" or simply "Spend 2 resources to leave" etc, so have played it accordingly for example using up all but one of my actions before leaving a location that will make me lose an action 'after' leaving.

I believe that you are correct in your interpretation. Since I can't find anything in the rules to support that, I will leave my answer in this comment.

I thought there was something in the rules relating to when some effect couldn’t be executed, but I’m not sure now whether I’m misremembering and it was from an Eldritch Horror faq.

You have played it correctly.
Abilities using the After keyword initiaite once you have finished resolving the trigger, not before, and when resolving a Forced ability, if it cannot change the state of the game, it just does not trigger at all.
From the rules reference (page 2 under Forced Abilities):

If a forced ability does not have the potential to
  change the game state, the ability does not initiate.

and on page 3:

A forced ability with a timing point beginning with the
  word “after...” automatically initiates immediately after that
  timing point’s impact upon the game state has resolved.

This means that as soon as the investigator has finished moving out of the location, they would then lose the listed actions/resources - it is an aftereffect of leaving, not a price you need to pay to leave.


text:
Selling properties while owing another player
Can I sell properties to a player while I have to pay another player?
I was wondering if I land on a player's building and I have to pay him or her but I don't have money, however I have a property that another player would like to buy. Can I sell it to this player?

this answer as well as this one are related.

You can sell houses and hotels to the bank (at 50% value).
You can sell empty property to another player even if it is mortgaged.

SELLING PROPERTY... Unimproved properties, railroads and utilities
(but not buildings) may be sold to any player as a private transaction
for any amount the owner can get; however, no property can be sold to
another player if buildings are standing on any properties of that
color-group. Any buildings so located must be sold back to the Bank
before the owner can sell any property of that color-group.
Houses and
hotels may be sold back to the Bank at any time for one-half  the
price paid for them. All houses on one color-group must be sold one by
one, evenly, in reverse of the manner in which they were erected. All
hotels on one color-group may be sold at once, or they may be sold one
house  at a time (one hotel equals five houses), evenly, in reverse of
the manner in which they were erected.
MORTGAGES... Unimproved
properties can be mortgaged through the Bank at any time. Before an
improved property can be mortgaged, all the buildings on all the
properties of its color-group must be sold back to the Bank at half
price. The mortgage value is printed on each Title Deed card. No rent
can be collected on mortgaged properties or utilities, but rent can be
collected on unmortgaged properties in the same group.
In order to
lift the mortgage, the owner must pay the Bank the amount of the
mortgage  plus  10% interest. When all the properties of a color-group
are no longer mortgaged, the owner may begin to buy back houses at
full price. The player who mortgages property retains possession of it
and no other player may secure it by lifting the mortgage from the
Bank. However, the owner may sell this mortgaged property to another
player at any agreed price. If you are the new owner, you may lift the
mortgage at once if you wish by paying off the mortgage plus 10%
interest to the Bank. If the mortgage is not lifted at once, you must
pay the Bank 10% interest when you buy the property and if you lift
the mortgage later you must pay the Bank an  additional  10% interest
as well as the amount of the mortgage.
BANKRUPTCY... You are dec

This post answers a question entirely different from the one asked by OP..


text:
Are "ties" considering "successful" checks in Firefly Adventures?
So, for example in combat, ties mean that both targets take damage.
However, the Martial Artist says

Reroll successful Brawling against Martial Artist.

Does this mean, that since both targets, including the Martial Artist, takes a wound, is that a success, and therefore must be re-rolled?

Yes, you will need to reroll.
On page 4 of the rulebook:

To make a Skill Test, roll the number of dice pictured and add all your available Skill Points of the appropriate type to your dice’s total. If your dice roll plus your Skill is equal to or higher than the Skill Test’s Target, it’s a Success. If it’s lower, it’s a Failure.

The rulebook clearly defines rolls as having a binary outcome, success or failure, and groups ties as a success for the player. In the case of a tie with the Martial Artist (i.e.: a success), you would need to reroll.

Note that that's for skill tests, not for Brawling, as I noted in the comments to my answer.

@L.ScottJohnson Brawling is a skill test. Page 4: "Whether a bare knuckle Brawl or open gunplay, enough Fight Skill will get you through." Page 8: "In a Brawl, both the combatants roll a die and add the Fight Skill on their Character Card."

While I agree with the conclusion, I'll note that the text leaves room for the opposing viewpoint, IMO, by not coming out and labelling it "skill test" -- it could just be a contested roll that uses one's Fight Skill as the base number.

Yes. Equality counts as success (hence the wounding of the opponent; success = inflict wound), just like in regular skill tests, shooting, etc.
Note in the rulebook v1.1 on BGG, the image of the Martial Artist shows his text as "Heroes must reroll Hits against Martial Artist.", further substantiating this reading of "success.
Every other reference to "success" in the rulebook includes equality as a success; the brawling section of the rules never uses the word success, only talking about wounding (or not) as the possible outcome. There is no other available interpretation that fits with the body of rules text.
I've put in an email query to GF9 on May 23 for an official word (as well as posting in the BGG forums -- with predictable responses there so far).

Could you add something to potentially confirm this clarification? Outside of personal opinion? Our group came to the same reasoning, because logically, it makes some sense, but there was nothing in the rules to clarify what clarifies as a "success".

In the absence of official ruling/errata to the contrary, the text of the rulebook is all I can offer: and it is clear. Every other reference to "success" includes equality as a success; the brawling section of the rules never uses the word success, only talking about wounding (or not) as the possible outcome. There is no other available interpretation that fits with the body of rules text. The question only comes up based on emergent behavior: the fact that re-rolling a tie might result in a worse outcome for the Martial Artist makes one question the rules. But the rules are clear.

I've added the rulebook's apparently earlier version of the Martial Artist text as additional evidence.


text:
Playing Nope on a Double Slap after it has been played
If a person plays Double Slap on me, can I use the triple card combo to steal someone else's Nope card, then play that Nope card on the Double Slap to avoid drawing?

Nope. You can't do that.
The rules (under the section on Nope) specifically state that:

You can play a Nope Card at any time before an action has begun, even if it’s not your turn.

As soon as you begin your first turn as a result of the Double Slap then you are accepting that the Double Slap card is in effect.
The only way the Double Slap could be negated is if you, or another player, played a Nope card directly on it before you start your first turn that results from the Double Slap.


text:
Adding units to an existing front
Can you have more than one unit on a front?
Say A plays a new front with an Archer 3. Then B attacks with an Archer 2. This resolves to B dying, and A surviving with attacking strength 3 and defending strength 1 (3 - 2 wounds).
Is there any way A can now add another Archer 2 to the same front as his wounded Archer 3/1, or MUST he start a new front/attack another unit?
If he can add to the existing front, how would he do this?

When playing units in battle the only choices available are to start a new front, or attack an existing enemy front if there are any - you cannot add more units to an existing front.
From the rulebook (page 24 under the section Starting A New Front):

There can never be more than one unit in a front.


text:
Arkham Horror LCG Talent Timing
Do you have to spend resources on boosting your skill through talents before you draw the chaos token, or can you see what the token is and then spend resources to boost your skill?

It has to be done before drawing the chaos token. From the rules:

Before drawing a chaos token for a skill test, the investigator may boost his or her skill value.

The rules then say there are two ways to do this; you can commit cards, and/or

...the investigator may activate (free trigger) abilities to modify his or her skill for a test.

It would make the game significantly easier if you could selectively boost your skills only when you know you would fail otherwise.


text:
Scenario 55, can you attack medusa without the mirror?
Played this scenario with a group today and got into a debate on whether or not you needed the mirror to attack Medusa. I know that the killing blow had to be made by someone with the mirror though.

Could you post some of the instructions from that haunt so that others don't have to look up all the rules.

Also remember that you can add a spoiler-safe area to your question/answer with the >! syntax.

Page 5 of the rule book incidentally describes what "cannot die" implies, albeit in the context of Explorers before the haunt starts. It's worded in a way that implies a definition of the term, however.

Before the haunt starts, no one can die - that is, no trait can go below its lowest number in the line (it stays at the lowest number instead).

The Secrets of Survival book indicates the following special rule for the survivors:

Medusa can be killed only by an explorer who deals enough physical damage to kill the traitor while possessing an Image in the Mirror card.

While the game does not explain what "cannot die" means in the context of the traitor, it is reasonable to expect that they follow the same rules as the Explorers do pre-haunt. When you inflict physical damage to Medusa, if you do not have an Image in the Mirror card, Medusa does not reduce her stats to the Skull if the damage otherwise would.


text:
Betrayal at House on the Hill, Haunt 52 question
This question is about Haunt 52, and you really can't ask it without spoiling the haunt.

The players have to walk through the house figuring out that the rooms without traps follow a number pattern. However, even if you find the room that is supposed to be the exit, the instructions say nothing to the betrayer that he/she must inform the other players. As the number in the sequence was chosen randomly by the betrayer, it is pure luck if you just happen to be in the correct room at the end, even if you figure out the sequence. Does the betrayer have to tell the players when they find the exit room? Even if everyone is standing in a safe room when the game ends, the exit room was random. There seems to be no way to figure out which room it is... or am I missing something?

The haunt you're inquiring about seems to be particularily bad in design, and having certain problems that, while not necessarily making it unplayable, seem to make it unenjoyable.

You're correct in that the rules don't state that the traitor has to tell the heroes that they've found the exit room, so you really don't have to. Instead, it appears that the haunt intends the heroes to realize that only one room is not shifted around, which is the exit room. The sequence, while largely irrelevant, at least makes the heroes traverse through those rooms though, possibly coming to that conclusion in the end. However, with the traitor in the driver's seat, it's both easy (depending on the house's layout) to obscure this fact by cleverly choosing rooms to move, or block the heroes from reaching that room altogether.

This seems to be an issue unlikely to be resolved other than house-ruling on the spot, and has been brought up in other places as well, largely supporting the impression I've had of this.


text:
Two Rooms and a Boom with few players
I've had groups of 8, 10, and even 20+ to play Two Rooms and a Boom, and it was always a fantastic time. There was enough unknown information and things were hectic enough that things kept being interesting.
However, I've also tried it with just 6 players, and the game felt really weak. There were few enough people that by the end everyone had correctly determined everyone else's role, so the game always ended up as essentially a Rock-Paper-Scissors match at the last second between the two team leaders, each trying to guess what the other would do for the last switch. With essentially no other unknowns, most players felt powerless and uninvested in the outcome.
There are lots of ways to play Two Rooms and a Boom, what with many character types and card burying, but I haven't spent the time trying them out. What extra rules, if any, help the game stay strong with less than 8 players?

2R1B is designed to work well with larger groups, so it's difficult to make it work well in the 6-8 player space. I assume you're already following the rules that for 10 or fewer players you only have 3 rounds and cannot colour share.
Beyond that, the main considerations are to make card sharing risky while still being necessary, and encouraging deals, so I would suggest that with 6 players you might want to have President, Bomber and 4 Grey roles. As to which Greys, potentially something like Ahab+Moby, or Sniper+Target+Decoy, where it's highly beneficial to know who the other Greys are without giving away your own role, which might involve trying to find the President or Bomber and making a deal with them. Romeo+Juliet is also good, although they're actively trying to find each other so they're probably more open to publically revealing.
Burying a card can also make things interesting, although with only 6 players if you're burying a card then you either need to ensure that President and Bomber aren't buried, or you play with President's Daughter and Martyr plus 3 Grey cards, and try to make sure that those three don't cause issues with burying (either by only burying one of the four Red/Blue cards, or picking Greys that don't depend on each other). There's still an issue there, though, that you'll wind up with one team who has 2 players against one who may have only 1, which gets a bit unfair. You could make one of the Greys the Amnesiac/Drunk instead, who gains the role of the buried card in the last round, but that just means that you're really playing with the normal 6 cards but someone doesn't know how to play until round 3 (unless they can somehow divine their card earlier), which may wind up being even less fun.
The print-and-play rules include a number of suggested sets that go down to 6 players - the first group are more tutorial ones, but from page 21 (of the v4.0 rules) onwards there are several that are more designed to make for interesting decisions around card sharing and hostage trading. For example:
2 Rooms, 1 Boom and a Gunshot

President/Bomber
Sniper/Target/Decoy
Hot Potato

This one has a lot of potential for crazy shenanigans - the Hot Potato always loses, but anyone who card shares with it trades roles, so even if the President has worked out who the Bomber is, or the Sniper their Target, things can still go awry if they don't keep an eye on them.
6 Player Instant Death

President/Bomber
Doctor/Engineer
Tuesday Knight/Dr Boom

In this one, the President and the Bomber both know they need to card share with the Doctor and Engineer respectively, or risk their team losing. At the same time, if they share with Dr Boom or Tuesday Knight, it's an instant loss for them and a win for their opponents. So Dr Boom and Tuesday Knight will probably be claiming to be the Doctor and the Engineer. But then if that role is in the same room, they can counter-claim. Or maybe knowing that that's expected they'll try an even trickier tactic. Maybe the Engineer can claim Bomber to lure out Tuesday Knight - or claim President to try to find a teammate in Dr Boom (or find the Doctor).

I agree with everything ConMan wrote. I played a game with 6p and one with 8p last weekend and they were two (out of about 20) of my favorite plays of this game.
The 6p was the Pres/Bomb with 4 greys: Ahab/Moby and Wife/Mistress.  It felt like the end of Reservior Dogs. We got a good shuffle.  Everyone had one person they wanted to kick out of the room, and none of them lined up. It was very intense. We called it Hardcore 2R1B.
The 8p setup was similar, but we added a r/b acting role, the Clown.  The Clown is supposed to smile the whole game.  We paired that with a different 4-pack of greys: Rival/Intern and Survivor/Victim.  We were geared up for an equally intense game, but we get in the room and suddenly there's a smiling standoff. All four of us are smiling our biggest fake smiles.  We start color sharing and quickly learn that 3 of the 4 are grey, at most only one of us is a clown. The Clown is the last one to learn this and the smiling standoff has turned into three laughing fits and one confused clown. I fell over a chair and lay on the floor laughing my ass off for the majority of the round.
That day I learned the difference between being forced to fake a smile and choosing to fake a smile.
There's also a third 4-pack of greys: Romeo/Juliet and Butler/Maid. I haven't played that setup yet, but i'm intrigued by the idea of a game where 5/6 of the players could win. Because of that, though, those cards might work better with a bigger group.


text:
How many of each type of path cards are there in Saboteur?
I lost 4 Saboteur path cards, and want to print my own versions as substitutes. However, I don't know which 4 cards I lost. How many of each type of path card are there in the game?
Edit
I managed to find a Saboteur card breakdown image with a count of each type of card (see link).
Here is my count based on that image.
Here is how to interpret the ASCII art: each card is represented by a 3x3 square, with x denoting that part of the card is filled with rocks.
x x         x x         x x         xxx         xxx
x x = 4     x   = 5         = 5     x   = 4       x = 5
x x         x x         x x         x x         x x

xxx         x x         x x         xxx         xxx
x x = 1      xx = 1      x  = 1     xx  = 1      xx = 1
x x         x x         x x         x x         x x

xxx         x x         xxx
  x = 1         = 5         = 3
xxx         xxx         xxx

x x         x x         xxx
xxx = 1         = 1      x  = 1
x x         xxx         xxx

This gives a total of 40 path cards. However, my manual indicates that there are 44 path cards, 27 action cards, 28 gold nugget cards, 7 miner cards and 4 saboteur cards. I only counted 40 path cards (excluding the start card with the ladder, and the 3 destination cards). Am I indeed missing 4 cards, or is the count given in the manual wrong?

My count of cards matches the count in the breakdown image. Perhaps I am not really missing any cards after all?

You are not missing any.
As you can see, the treasure card ("la carte Arrivée avec le trésor") and the rock cards ("les cartes Arrivée avec des pierres") and the starting card ("carte de départ") are not listed in the contents. There are 40 "normal" path cards, or 44 when you include those four.

That's great to know that I'm not missing anything. I didn't realize that the 44 cards include the treasure card, the two rock cards and the starting card. Thanks!


text:
Power Grid China/Korea strategy - is it any different from the base game?
I just got Power Grid China/Korea and was wondering if there was anything (besides for the two markets on the Korea side of the board) I should look for strategy-wise that is different from the base game.

Anything??? The restriction to, for a given player, one market (north or south) in a round is pretty glaring.

I know that, I was just asking if there were any tips as to when to use the resource market for the north or south, and anything else like that, sorry if it seemed like a dumb question :/

I think it's less a question of when to use which market, and more a question of given the split markets and what power plants the players currently own (including me!), which plant should I bid on?

Ok that makes sense. Are there any other tips you have for me going into the China side of the board, and any other tips for the Korea side, then?

Sorry - it's been so long, and I've only played each side once!

At a high level the strategy is the same.  Obviously the difference in connection costs between cities and the different resource refresh rates will create strategic differences, but this is fairly complex and nuanced and so beyond the scope of an answer.
As far as the rules differences, the changes to what you want to do are more tactical (what you do this move) than strategic (how you plan the game).  The more strategic changes are as follows:
For Korea, you don't want to combine coal and nuclear as the North has no nukes (ironic) but has the cheaper coal.  Garbage plants are also more competitive on Korea, so take that into account when planning your power plant build.
For China, since the power plants come out in order, there aren't going to be windfall opportunities (a plant that powers 5 cities won't be available until you get to that part of the deck).  Here, you pretty much want to upgrade your plants only when you need to get more capacity rather than opportunistically (when there is a plant that looks good), as there is always going to be a better plant coming up next.


text:
How to encourage rolling two dice in Machi Koro?
I've played Machi Koro a number of times, most often with in a group of 3 players, sometimes 4.  So far the prevailing strategy usually ends up being to roll only one die and to:

Buy as many Convenience Stores as you can.
Occasionally buy some Cafes and Bakeries, but primarily:
Save up for a Shopping Mall.
Construct the Radio Tower, then the Amusement Park, and then the Train Station.

So basically the Shopping Mall makes Convenience Stores powerful.  Even though Convenience Stores activate only on your turn, you have a 1/6 chance of hitting them, and there's a sizable payoff if you do.  Meanwhile buy other 1-6 cards so that even if the Convenience Stores don't hit, you can have a 100% chance of hitting something on your own turn. (You might not get income if other players have sufficient Cafes, but that's significantly mitigated once you get the Radio Tower.)
My group has tried this where 1 of 3 players sticks with only one die and where 2 of 3 players stick with only one die.  So far the players who stick with one die usually end up with more money.  Going for two-dice cards requires a greater investment, and since it's harder to get coverage for all possible dice rolls, provides more opportunities to not hit anything on your turn.  It seems hard to justify rolling two dice and giving up nearly guaranteed income.  And if most of the players aren't rolling 2 dice, then buying Mines and Family Restaurants is a lot less attractive.  If nobody has any interest in buying cards >6, then the game seems broken.
Are these experiences atypical?  If not, are there any good house rules to combat this?

Update #1: From the comment discussion in one of the answers, it also occurred to me that if I started rolling two dice, other players could just buy Family Restaurants.  Assuming that they also have Cafes, if I roll 2 dice instead of 1, I now have a 1/4 chance of paying other people instead of 1/6.  The threat of Family Restaurants thus seems like another disincentive to ever bother with 2 dice.  Is my analysis incorrect? (If I take expected values into account, Family Restaurants get even more weight, although I'm notably not calculating the expected values for a Cheese or Furniture Factory strategy.)
I suppose I should try to write some Machi Koro bots and run a few thousand simulations...

Update #2: I've had a few ideas about how to address this (which I've posted as separate answers to this question), but I don't actually play Machi Koro enough with the same set of people to have been able to play-test them.

I think focusing on the 7-8 value buildings and their dependents could be a viable strategy to encourage others to develop the upper half of the board. But I never played against someone who kept playing with 1 dice for the entire duration of the game so it's hard for me to tell if this would be effective.

Maybe the solution is to play with 4 players more often (or to decrease the number of cards in the supply with 3 players).  Having 2 or more Convenience Stores (especially with Shopping Mall) has a high expected value, but if everyone (or almost everyone) has only 1, then it's less viable.

1) If all but you gets cards that provide $ from 1 or 2 valued rolls, then it kind of does devolve into that.  Early on, get a few of those cards, but then shoot for 2 dice, and some cards that trigger on the 4 - 10 range.  You'll be able to leech off of the single-die players, but can still do your own thing.
2) play with the variant where not all cards are available at all times.
3) The expansions add even more cards to the mix that allow #2 to be even more feasible

Welcome, and thanks for the answer! I would add that buying cafés can further stimulate people to get off their 1d6.

@freekvd See my other comment and the update to my original post.  I think cafes + family restaurants discourage 2d6 rolls.

The probleme you mention in your question is that all the player use a fast strategy to win the game :

Buy as many Convenience Stores as you can.
Occasionally buy some Cafes and Bakeries, but primarily:
Save up for a Shopping Mall.
Construct the Radio Tower, then the Amusement Park, and then the Train Station.

One solution I found is to apply the rule introduced in the first expansion set : "The Harbor"
This rule is really simple, to sum it up :
Instead of playing with all the establishments available on the board at the beginning of the game, limit the number of establishments available by :

At the beginning of the game shuffle all the establishments in one stack face down.
Draw cards, put them on the board (face up) until you have 10 diferents stacks. (same cards are grouped)

Now players have a limited choice of establishments to buy, they can only buy establishments available on the 10 stacks.
When one of the 10 stacks is empty :

Draw a card from the stack created in 1.
Put it on the board as a new stack, or group-it if it's already on the board. If you grouped the card repeat the process until you recreate the missing stack.

I found the game very interesting but very unbalance in its 'vanilla' version due to these 'fast strategies', the new rule introduced by the Harbor tends to improve the balance, even if you don't have the expansion. By the way the Harbor expansion introduces/adds new establishments that make the game way more balanced.

Isn’t this alternative rule (with 10 stacks) part of the base game? I think it’s described on the last page of the rules.

In my french version of the game, this rule is not part of the rule book, it was introduced by the first expansion.

Interesting, thanks. In the German version, it’s part of the base game rules (page 8, "Komme, was wolle").

So I tried this variant, and while it changed how people prioritized which cards to buy, it still ended up not encouraging rolling both dice.  People in my group ended up just buying the 1-6 cards when they entered the supply, and the 7-12 cards piled up unbought.

I understand what you mean, you could try to remove some of the cheapest cards of the original set. Alternatively what I could suggest you is buying the Harbor expansion as it includes card that balanced the game. Take a look a the setlist displayed in this article : http://geekdad.com/2015/04/machi-koro-harbor/. The red cards and the harbor related card (boats) are really interesting and not necessarily cheap. Moreover as there's less "cheap" card included by this set you have way less opportunity to buy cheap cards.

yes, getting an expansion is the simplest fix and it's made by professional game designer

In 2 -3 player games I found it best to remove a couple of each of the lower value cards making them run out quicker and thus having to buy 7-12 value cards sooner.

An older thread, so I hope somebody is still reading!  I've wondered exactly the same thing.  Again, we haven't played it a huge amount, and in fact only once using the harbour expansion (using the 5-5-2 variant that seems popular).
Whilst the expansion made the game better, rolling two dice seems counter-productive.  You just can't cover the range of rolls needed to make it worthwhile.  Especially when people start getting to re-roll from the radio tower.
I love the idea of the game, it's right up my street, but it's surely flawed big time.
My thoughts on a solution:

Radio tower can only be used on two dice, and on either or both dice.
Tweak the harbour to allow more use with two dice rolls.  That way you won't need to cover all rolls.
Purple cards only work on rolls of two dice.

All of these, done without care, would overpower some cards, but the right combination would probably be about right, I hope.

A short disclaimer: I really am not an experienced gamer and have only just begun my collection of modern table top games. Also, while I do own this game, I have only played it a handful of times. Nevertheless I do enjoy Machi Koro. I do not own the expansions (yet). I have only played with one other player.
I've wondered this exact same thing! The first time playing I went for the second die early. This was really wasteful. I suspect most other players feel similarly and want to focus on getting money as fast as possible.
The most recent time I played both me and my opponent really focused on rolling a single die, but there came a moment in the game where I had enough money to take advantage of a second die in such away that I would reap the benefits while my opponent wouldn't. Even with her use of restaurants, my other properties were paying me better far more often. And as the paid better, I kept buying them. This put me way ahead.
Again, still a novice, but I am going to watch for this opportunity going forward.

To counter-act this exact issue... my game group decided to limit cards.   we now have it to where there is only the number of cards equal to the number of players.  (we often play somewhere between 3-6 players). so one person might load up on several of the same types of cards, but there is a very limited number of each.  This ended up adding a lot more strategy (we feel) to the overall game, since you know there is such a limited supply of types of buildings, you are much more cautious as to what you buy, because those builds may all be gone by the time it comes back to your turn.  It makes setup and cleanup take a bit longer.  but I just sleeved the cards color coordinated for the number of players.
Hope this might work as a solution for you.

I haven't tried this yet either, but another idea I've had is that once someone builds the Train Station, everyone must thereafter roll two dice.
One potential problem is that players who are unprepared for rolls >6 will be significantly worse off, but maybe players will just prepare for it in advance.
Alternatively, make it a house rule that landmarks must be built in order, and once someone builds the Train Station, that player must thereafter always roll two dice.

That does increase the degree to which falling behind early means you have no chance of winning the game.

Perhaps it's simplest to approach this like an economist: if there isn't a sufficient natural incentive to roll two dice, create an artificial one: just pay people to roll two dice.  For example, if a player rolls two dice, after resolving establishment effects, they automatically earn 2 coins, guaranteed.
One nice thing is that this would be tunable (I don't know offhand if +2 coins is too much or too little).

Here's an idea I've considered (but haven't yet play-tested):
When invoking the Train Station power, instead of actually rolling two dice, roll one die and have the option to add 6 to your roll.

This would mean that using the Train Station would not make your ability to gain income any worse.
This should encourage buying roll 7-12 cards since it gives players more options.

Problems:

No one would voluntarily add 6 to their roll to activate Family Restaurants, so that card would need to be changed.  I'm not sure what to do about this.
No one would voluntarily add 6 to their roll to activate the roll-12 card.  Maybe the roll-6 and roll-12 cards should be swapped?
The Amusement Park (extra turn if rolling doubles) would need to be tweaked.  Since there's a 1/6 chance of rolling doubles with two dice, it should be equivalent to make the Amusement Park grant an extra turn if rolling, say, 6. (Or for more variance, when invoking the Amusement Park power, roll a second die and get an extra turn if that roll matches the first roll.)

A variant of the above:
When invoking the Train Station power, instead of rolling two dice, roll one die. After you see its value, you have the option to roll a second die to add to it.

Unlike the add-6 proposal above, this could hurt your ability to gain income since it's more of a gamble.
If someone rolls a 6 with the first die, there is likely little incentive for them to roll a second.

Convenience Store only triggers on your turn, so your 3rd bullet point doesn't make sense. This also vastly changes the probabilities of rolling 8-12, which significantly unbalances the game.

@bwarner Oops, yes, I somehow had conflated Convenience Stores with Cafes (I haven't played in a while).  Yeah, this obviously would affect the roll distribution, but since I think nobody ever buys roll 7-12 cards anyway, I think the game is already unbalanced.

If your suggestion is that your game group may have stumbled upon an optimal play, my general feeling is that Amusement Park is far overpriced for its value, granting another turn every 1 in 6 times (which, remember, only works if you already have train station and is quite a gamble given the small sample of rolls you get any given game). I would usually target the purple cards with the coins you might otherwise use for Amusement Park and double up the dice, making it harder for 1-4 rolls to trigger and more likely (relatively anyway) to see some of these fantastic offensive purple cards start to herd opponents coins or their cards in (while getting the occasional nice 7-9). I haven't played enough to see this broken situation you described possibly because I, and others, end up actively pursuing the 2 dice realm especially when others don't.

I don't quite understand what you're suggesting.  The people in my group already don't target Amusement Park. (The reason we usually construct it before the Train Station is because it's more expensive, and once someone has only the Train Station left, it's very hard to stop them from winning.  None of us care about the Amusement Park's ability though.)

Also, rolling 2 dice actually slightly decreases the probability of triggering the purple (roll 6) cards (5/36 vs. 1/6).

I see what you mean. I hadn't realized those comprised all the landmarks because I usually play with Harbor as well. Yes, what I meant was the 6 occurs more often relatively to the numbers 1-4 which presumably your opponents would be hoping for. So while you would not get probabilistic benefit until you added more 7-9 cards, you could stave off some of the benefits your opponents would receive from leeching your rolls.

I'm not convinced that rolling two dice staves off leeches.  Suppose Player A has a Cafe, and Player B decides to start rolling two dice.  Player A then can buy a Family Restaurant.  Now Player B could roll 1 die (1/6 chance of paying Player A) or roll 2 dice (1/4 chance of paying Player A).

Difference is that you get a lot more from a properly developed cheese factory, than from any 1-6 number. I've more than occasionally gotten 18-24 gold in one roll.


text:
Elder Sign Terror Effect Timing
Terror effects are applied after a roll when you cannot complete a task and at least one of the dice shows a terror icon.
Is it possible to avoid the terror effect by 'securing' the terror die on a spell (assuming no other dice show a terror icon), effectively just failing the task and having to discard a die?
Or does the terror effect apply immediately?
EDIT: After reading the following in the errata, I'm leaning more towards my understanding that they are no longer in the pool and hence do not play a part unless I chose to use them.

Spells that hold dice are cast after a player’s roll, not before. The
  player looks at the roll, then, if he wishes to save a particular die,
  casts the spell and places the die on the spell. The ‘held’ die
  remains on the spell card until used to complete a task or until
  removed (as described below).

Page 9 of the rules here says

Terror Effects
If the player fails to complete a task and at least one of the rolled dice shows a terror result, he resolves all terror effects on the Adventure card, as well as any terror effects on the current Mythos card (see “Mythos Cards” on page 15). Terror effects occur before discarding a die due to failing a roll.

As mentioned in a comment to a previous answer, Elder Signs: Omens, the iOS game, does not remove the impending terror effect if you secure a die by using spells.  The above rules text, if you take it strictly, states that if the rolled dice shows a terror symbol and you fail to complete a task, the effect occurs.  Strictly speaking, if you secure a die, that die still shows a terror symbol.
I would say this literal reading combined with the behavior of Omens strongly suggests that the ruling should be in favor of having the terror effect occur even if you were to secure the die.

Per the rulebook as written, the terror effect directly results from the failed task roll with the terror result showing.  It takes effect before a die is discarded due to the failed roll.
I would presume by that wording that they are trying to prevent exactly what you are describing - avoiding the terror by discarding the die.  I can't find any errata to clarify the situation.  There is clearly a gap in the timing, otherwise adding dice previously saved couldn't work and once a roll succeeds by that method the terror doesn't apply. Still, once a roll is clearly failed, the terror has to be done before you proceed.
The rules on focusing and assistance are clearer.  Although they save a result and remove a die from the pool, they do so only after a failed roll has already been dealt with.  Since spells can be played anytime on your own turn, this introduces a grey area.  Still, there is nothing in the rules that states a failure can be avoided by removing dice from it, and a terror is part of the failure.
Putting it a better way since I ran a few searches - you generated a terror on a failed roll.  Why would you not suffer an effect simply because you're saving the dice for later?  That just confirms you rolled it.
So my answer would be, unless you can by action change a failed roll into a successful roll, you would have to go through with the terror effect.

I'm talking about using a spell to secure the die.  That's different to the discarding due to failure

Just to add more backup to this answer: According to the official Android/iOS app "Elder Sign: Omens" published by FFG, any time you roll a terror symbol on a task with a terror effect, and do not change it to something else and fail the task, you are hit with the terror effect, even if you store the die elsewhere. It's because the die (even though it's not part of the pool anymore) is part of the roll that failed to complete a task.


text:
Committing units with a warlord
In some situations, you may have units at your HQ with your warlord.
I know when you commit your warlord to a planet,  all the units at HQ come across with the warlord exhausted.
What I want to know is what happens to these units once you win a battle at the planet that is not the first planet? Do they go back to HQ with the warlord,  or do they remain committed to that planet?

After rereading the 'Learn to Play rulebook closely, I found the answer on page 11 (emphasis mine):

When a player wins a battle at any other planet, his warlord (if it
  was committed to that planet) returns to his headquarters, maintaining
  the state (ready or exhausted) it was in at the end of the battle. The
  planet remains in play, and other surviving units remain at that
  planet, also maintaining their state.

In short, any non warlord units at a planet that is not the first, will remain there after the battle is completed.


text:
Do investigators who start with blessing need to check for discard in their first turn?
For investigators that start with a Blessing or a retainer, do they need to roll to check if they discard the blessing or retainer during their first upkeep?
Also, do investigators that gain one of these cards during the game roll to check if they discard after holding that card for one turn or do they check on their first upkeep as well?

From the Arkham Horror rulebook (page 6: Upkeep: Perform Upkeep Actions)

Bless, Curse, Bank Loan, and Retainer cards do not require an upkeep roll during the first Upkeep Phase after an investigator acquires them.

Regardless of when and how you acquire the card (including during setup), you always have one Upkeep for which you do not roll to lose the card.


text:
Seeker of Slaanesh Threat Card Clarification
In Relic, this threat card says something along the lines of 'If you win, you may discard 1 corruption card. If you do not, gain 1 corruption card".
I interpreted this as if you win the battle, you have to discard one corruption card. If you choose not to (or if you have no corruption to discard), you must gain 1 corruption card.
Another one of the players claimed that it meant if you lose the battle, you draw 1 corruption card (in addition to losing 1 life).
Which interpretation is correct?

I know this was a while ago, but you might not have noticed the may keyword. if you MAY do something, its optional. that is, if you win then you dont have to discard a card, but you can if you wish to. may is a keyword explained in the rules

The card is not intended to include any extra "loss" effect. In other words, if you lose the battle you still just lose 1 Life like normal without taking any additional effect.
In addition, the statement of "If you do not…" in the "win" effect is in reference to whether or not you discarded a Corruption card from the first effect. If you have no Corruption cards to discard or choose not to discard one, you draw 1 Corruption card.

I originally posted this question on the FFG forums a while ago and this was the answer that came out after a number of posts


text:
Can a trauma card meet the requirements for victory
There is a winning condition for the keeper that states that a Mi Go monster must kill an investigator.
If the Mi Go monster did damage to an investigator and then I trigger a Trauma card that kills the investigator based on the damage dealt by the Mi Go, is that still considered as meeting the winning condition?

I don't think it's ever explicitly mentioned, but I'd say no. Thematically it probably makes sense, but from a rules point of view, it seems logical that it would need to be damaged received directly from the Mi Go.


text:
What does "cannot be countered" mean in MTG?
Mistcutter Hydra says it "cannot be countered." What does that mean? Is it like saying that it cannot be blocked? Or it can not be stopped from being summoned this turn or what? I have no idea what this means.

Related: how to counter uncounterable spells https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/q/24133/9999

Cannot be countered means that your opponent(s) will not be able to counter this spell. In other words: this spell will hit the battlefield no matter what(except for a very few very rare cases described in the edit).
If a card doesn't have Cannot be countered text, then a simple Counterspell can counter this spell, so that it will end up in graveyard instead of the battlefield
EDIT
As diego mentioned in the comment, there are some very rare cases when Cannot be countered can still get "countered"(even though it will not be countered as per definition(rule 701.5a), it can be returned back to the hand/exiled before it resolves). A couple examples would be Mindbreak Trap and Venser, Shaper Savant.
Mindbreak Trap can exile a spell before it resolves and Venser, Shaper Savant can return a spell back to its owner's hand before it resolves. Ruling of these 2 cards say:
Mindbreak Trap:

If a spell is exiled, it's removed from the stack and thus will not resolve. The spell isn't countered; it just no longer exists. This works on spells that can't be countered, such as Terra Stomper.

Venser, Shaper Savant:

If a spell is returned to its owner's hand, it's removed from the stack and thus will not resolve. The spell isn't countered; it just no longer exists.

So with these 2 cards your opponent may actually "counter"(read: prevent spell from resolving) your cannot be countered spells.
Rule 701.5a says:

To counter a spell or ability means to cancel it, removing it from the stack. It doesn’t resolve and none of its effects occur. A countered spell is put into its owner’s graveyard.

You'll find that creatures say "Can't be countered" but instants and sorceries say "Can't be countered by spells or abilities" because of course a spell is countered if all its targets are ineligible.

"In other words: this spell will hit the battlefield no matter what" isn't this misleading? Maybe there is some other non-counter effect which can prevent that.

@Lohoris could be, but I've never seen any non-counter effect that would counter a spell

@novarg There are Mindbreak Trap, and Venser, Shaper Savant but those are very rare corner cases

@Novarg I was thinking along the lines of "When it would enver the battlefiled, do X instead". Can't think of any example, but definitely possible. No reason not to edit it anyway.

@Lohoris there isn't anything that would do that, the closest one is Containment Priest and that doesn't work on cast creatures

Time Stop looks like another corner case : http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Time+Stop

@corsiKa There's a recent rule change such that the rules no longer use the term counter for not resolving a spell with no legal targets, so now everything can use "can't be countered"

It means you can't counter it using a card like Cancel or Nullify:

It can still be blocked and everything else. For an explanation of how Countering works, I suggest you read here: How does "Counter target spell" work?

"Counter" is a keyword action, which is to say a verb with a specific meaning to the game. To counter a spell, one moves it from the stack to the graveyard. Cancel is one example of its use.
"Mistcutter Hydra can't be countered" means that instructions to counter Mistcutter Hydra are prevented, which means they have no effect. If Cancel is cast targeting Mistcutter Hydra, nothing will happen when Cancel resolves.
It doesn't prevent blocking or any other action. It doesn't prevent Mistcutter Hydra from moving from the stack to the graveyard for any other reasons than as a result of an instruction to counter.

To counter a spell or ability means to cancel it. When a spell is countered, it doesn't resolve; it is removed from the stack with no effect, and the card is put into its owner's graveyard. Note that "counter" does not apply to permanents, and therefore doesn't remove anything from the battlefield or prevent creatures from attacking or blocking. Only spells and abilities on the stack can be countered.
Note that a spell with "this spell can't be countered" is technically a legal target for "counter target spell". It only means that effects that would counter the spell will do nothing instead. This means that you can still cast a spell with "counter target spell" even if the target can't be countered, and any additional effects not contingent on that spell being countered, e.g. "you gain 3 life" (Absorb) will still apply. Effects that are contingent upon that spell being countered will say so, typically with "If that spell is countered this way...".
Likewise, if you cast a spell A with "counter target spell" targeting another spell B while it could still be countered, but spell B can no longer be countered by the time spell A would resolve (e.g. as a result of Vexing Shusher's ability), spell A will still resolve even if it has no other targets. The fact that spell B can't be countered doesn't make it an illegal target for spell A, and any additional effects from spell A that don't depend on spell B being countered will still occur.


text:
Is there an action window to trigger abilities once the point limit has been reached?
If the runner access an agenda which gives them enough points to win the game, but the corporation is Jinteki and deals 1 net damage as a result which is enough to kill the player and win the game, which side wins?
I think that the general rules on triggered abilities and simultaneous actions state that the player who's turn it is can resolve the order, but it isn't clear if this applies to win conditions as well. This would mean the runner wins in this situation, is that correct?

It's not actually completely simultaneous; the Runner wins the game.
From the Android: Netrunner FAQ:

If the Runner steals an agenda from Jinteki using the core set identity, but has no cards in hand, who wins?
  The Runner wins the
  game. Whenever a player has 7 or more  agenda points in his score
  area, the game immediately ends. The  game ending takes precedence
  over any conditional ability that  triggers when an agenda is stolen.

Ah, including that FAQ with the boxed set would have been helpful!

There is one simultaneous win condition that can happen.
Corp Score Area:

Vanity Project  4pts
Merger 2pts (worth one more in Runner score area)

Runner Score Area:

Global Food Initiative  2pts (3pt agenda worth one less in runner score area)
Vanity Project 4pts

So both corp and runner are at 6pts, the runner just stole Global Food Initiative and triggers the swap effect from Turntable and swaps GFI with Merger.  I used Vanity project as a filler to shorten the post.  Those could easily be other 2pt agendas.
Simultaneous win achieved.

Hi, welcome to Boardgames StackExchange! Whilst this is an interesting piece of information, I don't think it directly addresses the question!

It answers the title question.  :)
Simultaneous win conditions in Android: Netrunner?


text:
When does the 'Your turn begins' phase end?
Does a "when your turn begins" action trigger if the card is not in play during the "turn begins" phase but comes into play during the phase?
For example "the supplier" hosting a "drug dealer".

The "turn begins" trigger happens only once (at step 1.2 of the corp/runners turn according to the timing structure chart). So a card installed when the triggers resolve would not itself trigger.
This is also separately clarified for The Supplier in the official FAQ (https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/android-netrunner/support/FAQ/Android-Netrunner%20FAQ.pdf) in the card clarification section.

56 The Supplier
The Runner cannot use any “when your turn begins”
abilities on cards that are installed by The Supplier until his next
turn


text:
Exciting skirmish: a family versus a shovel. Who wins?
When playing with 2 players the amount of tribe members is irrelevant. Suppose that one player takes a family to the skirmish, and the other a shovel. With that, both players have fight 0. Is this a draw or the player showing the family wins?

Only tribe members ("people") may fight in a skirmish, so the only player that is actually involved in the skirmish is the player that had the tribe member card.
However, since you need to win a skirmish by 2 (when playing with only two players), and the tribe members have 0 attack,  the outcome of the above example skirmish would be considered a draw and the contested card would go to the junk pile.

This means that there is no requirements for you to have a fight score, right?

Oh, I see what you mean.  One player had a person in the skirmish, the other player only had a tool card.

Updated my answer to reflect my better understanding of the question.