text:
What are the order of actions in Monopoly?
Another question arose from my previous question: What is the order of actions in Monopoly?
There are a number of actions that may take place:

Roll dice
Move token
Purchase property
Pay rent
Improve properties
Trade with players
Go to jail

I'm sure there are others too.
I checked the rules and didn't notice any specified order for your turn.
Also, what actions can I take when it's not my turn? For example, can I trade with another player, or improve my properties?

Most of the actions you listed have an order that's obvious from common sense, and implicit from the rules: roll dice, move, collect money if you passed go, do the action for the space you landed on (pay rent or purchase/auction property or go to jail or draw a chance/community chest card). It seems like your actual question is really just "when can I trade/improve properties"... and that seems to be dealt with in the accepted answer on your other question.

Frankly, it's a very old game, and timing is not laid out particularly well.  it's clear that you can't buy houses between the die roll and assessing rent owed, but the rest is pretty up for grabs.  Controlling the housing supply is a HUGE part of the strategy of the game, but the rules who can buy what when are not at all clear.

If there is a housing shortage the next available house or hotel goes to the highest bidder.

Given the way the rules are themselves ordered...

Throw the dice
move the indicated distance or to jail (if 3rd double in a turn)

collect $200 if land on or pass Go

resolve space

ownable properties

pay rent if owned and not mortgaged
buy it if unowned (optional)
aution property if still unowned (not optional)

non-ownable properties

resolve as indicated.
collect $200 if resolving puts you passing Go.

Pass the dice or roll again, as appropriate.

The only action which is doable outside one's turn (according to the instructions I've got off-line, in my deluxe box) are buying auctioned properties, buying or trading properties with other players, and using cards that say "use at any time."
All other actions (buying houses/hotels, selling houses/hotels, mortgaging properties, unmortgaging properties) can be done at any point in your own turn.

RE: buying/trading properties off your own turn, are you allowed to trade with anyone? Or just the person who's turn it is?

It doesn't specify. So I'd presume anyone. But that pretty much means only empty properties.

You have missed a critical rule: under BUILDING SHORTAGES in the official rules it states "If there are a limited number of houses and hotels available and two or more more players wish to buy more than the bank has, the houses and hotels must be sold at auction to the highest bidder." The effect of this rule is that (1) houses and hotels are effectively always sold at auction, though there may be only one participant; (2) clearly houses and hotels can be purchased when it is not your turn; and (3) the stated price for houses & hotels on a property group is a minimum, not a set value.

Not in the edition I have.

This is wrong.  Players can definitely develop and mortgage properties on anyone's turn

@Zags Some editions specify that developing properties can only happen on your turn, before you roll.

@BJMyers see my answer (https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/a/44525/9999).  All current monopoly editions specify that building houses can happen at any time.

The turn structure looks like the following:
1. Trade/build.  All players may trade properties, mortgage/unmortgage properties, and buy/sell houses/hotels.  If the current player is in Jail, they may pay $50 or a get out of jail free card during this step.
2. Movement
A. Roll and move token.  If you land on or pass go, collect $200.  If this was your third doubles, instead go to Jail and and the turn.  If you are in jail and your roll does not get you out of jail, end the turn.  If you are in jail and it is your third roll, pay $50 and move your token as normal.
B. Resolve the space you landed on.  If it's unowned, purchase/auction property.  If it's owned by someone else, pay rent.  If it's chance/community chest, draw and resolve a card.  If it's go to jail/luxury tax/income tax, follow the instructions on the space.  While resolving the space you landed on, players may trade/build as in step 1, but only after the effect of the space has been determined.
3. Handle doubles.  If you rolled doubles, go to step 1.

The support for this comes from both the Monopoly Millennium Edition rules and the current standard Monopoly rules.
Building and mortgaging can be done at any time:

You may buy and erect at any time as many houses as your judgement and financial standing will allow.
Houses and hotels may be sold back to the Bank at any time
Unimproved properties can be mortgaged through the Bank at any time.

Trading properties is not mentioned as something that can be done at any time, but it is also not listed with a timing restriction.
"At any time" means that you can do it on anyone's turn, while paying rent, etc.  However, rolling, moving, and the determining the consequences of the space you land on are atomic:

[on your turn] throw the two dice and move your token
When you land on a property owned by another player, the owner collects rent from you

Consequently, another player may not build properties after seeing what you have rolled but before determining what rent is owed.

The three main actions are:
1) Roll dice
2) Move token
3) Pay the "piper" (rent, purchase price, fine, or go to jail) as the case may be. In the case of some chance or community chest cards, you may receive money.
The two "stickier" issues are trades and property improvements.
Most interpretations of the rules say that you can trade properties or other consideration (get out of jail free cards) at any time. That's because it takes two players to make a trade. The one caveat is that if you have landed on something and owe rent or a fine, you cannot trade property until it is clear that you can pay the rent/fine from other sources.
The main question mark is regard to improvements. Here, the official rules are not clear. In many games, there are "house rules" that say a player may buy and sell improvements (including mortgage and unmortgage) only during his/her own turn. Another set of "house rules" say that a player may buy/sell/mortgage property only at the BEGINNING of a turn (before the dice have been rolled). Basically, these rules are meant to prevent players from buying houses and jacking up the rent AFTER someone has landed on a property. In "real life" you couldn't just move a house onto property where people are "staying;" the house would have to have been built beforehand.


text:
Where can I play Carcassonne or Colonists of Catan online?

Possible Duplicate:
Boardgaming Online

I want to play Carcassonne or Colonists (Settlers) of Catan online, either against other people, or against a computer opponent.
I want to improve my skills so that I won't finish last when I play with my friends.
Where can I do that?

Brettspielwelt hosts Carcassonne and Settlers (as well as a number of other games) which you can play against other people, and Catan.com hosts Settlers, again against other people.
For playing against the computer, or other people, JCloisterZone is a great, free, downloadable clone of Carcassonne.

If you have an iPhone/iPad there are "official" Carcassonne and Catan clients there. Carcassonne allows for Internet play through using your Game Center account. It will also match you up with random opponents or allow for local wi-fi play. Catan does not have internet play but does have fairly decent computer opponents. Both versions have upgrades for expansions, tile sets, etc. The Catan client is supposed to be getting the Cities and Knights expansion soon.
Just do a search in the App Store for each one to find out more.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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text:
Is it possible to get a stalemate in Checkers?

Possible Duplicate:
What is the term for a stalemate in Checkers?

I was going to post this in StackOverflow, when I realized it really has nothing to do with programming. If it has a better home, please say so, so I can move it there.
I am making a basic Checkers game, and was setting up the game manager when I got to the method that gracefully ends the game. It would have taken in a boolean value, true signifying that player 1 has won, false signifying that player 2 has won. However, I realized that, in most games, there is the possibility of a stalemate, so I changed it to a byte, where x < 0 is player 1, x == 0 is a stalemate, and x > 0 is player 2. After that, i started contemplating whether Checkers can even have a stalemate. It seems like it's possible, but for the life of me, I can't come up with a scenario where the game ends and neither player wins. Is there any scenario, in the game of English Draughts (North American Checkers), where neither player wins the game, yet the game ends? Note that a forfeit on one player's part means that the other player wins.

I believe the question I've linked to here answers your questions.  If not, please let me know - and welcome to B&CG!

If you do not force capture then it's very possible, trivial even, to have a stalemate.
Even without though:
From wikipedia:
English draughts (American 8×8 checkers) has been the arena for several notable advances in game artificial intelligence. In the 1950s, Arthur Samuel created one of the first board game-playing programs of any kind. More recently, in 2007 scientists at the University of Alberta[13] evolved their "Chinook" program up to the point where it is unbeatable. A brute force approach that took hundreds of computers working nearly 2 decades was used to solve the game,[14] showing that a game of draughts will always end in a stalemate if neither player makes a mistake.[15][16] The solution is for the draughts variation called go-as-you-please (GAYP) checkers and not for the variation called three-move restriction checkers. As of December 2007, this makes English draughts the most complex game ever solved.

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Where are the MTG Lexicon pages?
I fail to find more recent than 2005 MTG Lexicon pages in the Archives
Those are the ones I already have:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/lexicon-archive-2002-01-15
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/lexicon-2003-09-04
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/arcana/lexicon-throwback-edition-2004-11-30
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/arcana/lexicon-ravnica-edition-2005-10-05

Are there more recent pages published?

First, collect the Google results of site:magic.wizards.com inurl:lexicon.
Then, check the longer results of site:magic.wizards.com lexicon.

If you add date restricts to those queries you can see that there haven't been any published at all recently. The dates Google has aren't all exactly right, though, probably because Wizards has redone the site and republished things on later dates. At the very least, it was long since retired by 2012.

Strange that there are no new lexicon articles since 7 Feb 2013. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/arcana/gatecrash-lexicon-2013-02-07

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text:
Is it possible to build a wide variety of decks at low cost? If so, how?
I was pretty reluctant to get into magic because I knew that:

Our game-centric family would want to build a wide variety of decks
We are not interested in spending hundreds of dollars on a single game

So, though I know it is possible to get started at low cost, I want to know how to participate in the richness of deck building without going over $100.
Is there a way to do this?

Yes. The key is to get common and uncommon cards, avoiding rare and mythic rare cards (Note: A year after answering this question, I wrote a lengthy comprehensive guide on how to keep cost low while still having fun with MtG. I still stand behind the following answer, but I did find out other ways to keep costs low).
Here's how:
If you don't already know the game, your buying will be much more efficient and effective if you learn it first. You can learn the rules and play some sample games on an iOS or Android device with the official app (at the time of this writing, it's Duels of the Planeswalkers). You don't have to spend any money to play a few sample duels but if you want to play all of the different duels you'll have to pay to unlock additional duels ($15 on iOS). You should begin to get a feel for different possible deck strategies.
Alternatively, if you have a friend with several (or more) decks, have your friend teach you the game using his or her decks. Be sure to try out several different styles of decks.
Read about deck types.
Armed with knowledge of the basic deck types, you're ready to go to a local store that processes a lot of cards. A good resource for finding a store near you is the official store locator.
Stores will vary in their policies so you'll have to find one that sells bulk common cards at very low cost. The store I go to lets me sift through many thousands of unsorted common and uncommon cards and pile them into a box that fits about 500 cards, at a cost of $5. It's time consuming, but I get to choose the cards.
This low card cost is possible because some stores generate so many common and uncommon cards as byproducts of events or buying collections that they can't possibly sell them all. They pick out the rares and unusually valuable uncommons/commons. The remaining commons/uncommons will eventually get recycled, so some store owners are happy to sell them for something.
The first time you do this, you will make mistakes, and you'll quickly realize that you don't have enough of certain kinds of cards and too many junky cards. That's okay. You've only spent $5. So you go back to the store a few more times. By your 4th trip you should be a lot better at knowing which cards are interesting and which to avoid. It helps to bring a list of what kinds of cards you want, including specific cards.
By the time you've accumulated around 2500-3000 cards (at least a few hundred of these will be lands and dual lands), you'll find that it's possible to construct a wide variety of decks and pursue a wide range of deck strategies. You have the potential to create hundreds or maybe even thousands of different, effective decks. However, you'll only be able to have 12-15 decks going at one time due to limited number of lands, and different decks competing for certain cards that tend to get used in many decks.
All this can be done for around $25-$30.
It is also possible to buy "fat packs" on sale for $30 or so, and then you can sell off the rares and mythic rares for $15-$45, depending on the market value of what you were lucky (or unlucky) enough to get. But doing it this way subjects you to a lot of randomness and you may get stuck with lots of commons you don't want.
If you decide to participate in tournaments (which you can do with the pauper format or the peasant format), you will likely want to supplement with a few commons you lack. So you may end up spending another $5 or $10 to supplement your several thousand card collection.
All told, it is possible to get quite a variety for less than $50, which will provide plenty of fun and variety in casual play. For a few more dollars, you can fine tune some of your decks to compete well in pauper or peasant formats.
EDIT: About half a year after writing this, I started to get serious about competing with Pauper. While still much less expensive than other formats, there is little chance of staying under $50 if you want many competitive pauper decks. Depending on how many competitive decks you want, your total cost could range from $300 to $1200 to have a wide variety of top pauper decks all built and ready to play.
Expenses for competitive pauper are higher than casual play because there is high demand for many "staple" commons that cost $2 or more, such as Lightning Bolt, Rancor, Gitaxian Probe, etc. that you are very unlikely to find in a penny commons bin. If you want to stay under $500 total you'll have to avoid cards costing well over $5 such as Sinkhole, Three Visits, Chain Lightning, and Oubliette. Most competitive Pauper decks do not need individual cards costing over $5.

One: where are you going that sells any Magic cards at 1 cent each? If you want to build a lot of decks out of this collection, you may not want to have only 1 in 10 cards be lands, since for most decks, lands are 1/3 to 1/2 of the deck. Also, if you're buying giant piles of unsorted cards, playing some games beforehand with an app doesn't really seem relevant.

Comic Cards Etc. in Pinole, CA sells commons/uncommons in the way I described. Our family of 3 tends to have 10-12 decks going at any one time - we frequently test and discard deck concepts so we don't need more than a few hundred lands. If you want to get substantially more than 12 decks out of a 2500 card collection then yes you'll need more lands.

Playing games beforehand with an app was very relevant. I was able to pick out the cards I wanted from the mass of unsorted cards. Without knowing the rules of the game or any sense of strategy, I wouldn't have had any sense of which cards to pick. Our family of 3 did this together and it was somewhat fun, if a little chaotic. Aside: we also did buy a few booster packs and found that experience disappointing in comparison, as there's no control over what you get. I don't feel the need buy more booster packs. We're having plenty of fun without them.

One thing I'd add to this is the "Deck Builder's Toolkit"

@deworde rather than add to my answer I'll leave yours as a separate answer. Note: We did get a Deck Builders Toolkit for 2015 - it was one of our few sealed purchases and probably the best as beginners. It was good for lands and for exposing us to game mechanics and a variety of cards that worked reasonably together but I found it frustrating for building decks as none of the cards had 4 copies. Getting good focus in a deck typically requires 4 copies of some cards, especially if you're building a combo deck. Some cards seem nearly worthless unless you have 4 copies and build around it.

@JoeGolton, Why not look up the cards online instead of going to the store just to look them up?

@Pacerier looking up cards online is way to research specific cards. To buy cards in bulk at 1 penny each requires a local game store that has commons bins. You have to sift through the u sorted cards youself so real cost is time. You won't be able to get 1 penny cards if someone else sorted.

@JoeGolton, I mean it doesn't necessary need to be 1 penny to be cheap. E.g. couldn't you browse online limiting yourself to commons only, then when you've decided on a set, go purchase it online / offline? Since there're commons, that's still going to at most a few bucks isn't it?

@Pacerier I have over 5000 commons and uncommons I purchased for $50. We have around 30 decks and 4 EDH decks in our house. That would be over $500 if purchased as individual cards. That's more than a few bucks. It all depends on whether you want to make many decks or are satisfied with 2 or 3.

@JoeGolton, 30 decks is quite hardcore for casual play. I'd actually suggest you play Standard.

@Pacerier The thing I enjoy most about magic is wide deck variety. To play with such variety and keep up with standard would cost over a $1000/year. At first I didn't want to do mtg at all because of that. What also helps variety is staying away from competitions, which greatly constrain the metagame. I have some very fun casual decks that can't possibly win for the first dozen turns yet they sometimes win in spectacular fashion (i.e. my tough dudes deck with cards like Kin-Tree Invokation and Fruit of the First Tree). I like to take 4 copies of one card and build a deck around it.

@Pacerier Another way to say it: It would be reasonable to say I am a hard core gamer. I also have no interest in spending hundreds of dollars (or more) for any given game. We have over 75 games in our games collection. For that reason I did not want to get into mtg at all. But we found a way to do it inexpensively and still experience some of the richness of the game.

@JoeGolton, Hmm, so you're playing mtg not to win. Which means you're only playing mtg within your own house because getting outside of that circle (e.g. grabbing a random guy on the street or game conventions) wouldn't make sense as you'd be defeated in 4th turn etc. Doesn't sound like fun at all.....

@Pacerier Not sure what you mean by "not to win." Yes I have some "for fun" decks but if any deck always loses it gets disbanded. I have one pauper deck that I am trying to be competitive with but I have only had time to go to one tournament since starting with mtg. So I'll have to be exposed to more games to refine my competitive pauper deck to do well against veteran pauper players. Anyway - the point I was trying to make is that I think of magic being much more fun with a very diverse metagame. From what I read, standard isn't all that diverse at any given point in time.

In addition to the good ideas in Joe's answer, another thing you can do is find budget deck lists that you like and only buy the specific cards you need for those decks.
To find a deck list you can find a fourm online that has deck lists like MTG Salvation, there they have different forums for each format, and most of them include Budget sub-forums. They also have forums for the Pauper (all commons) and Peasant (a few uncommons, but mostly commons) formats which due to their nature tend to be fairly budget friendly.
Once you have a deck list, either taken from a list online or created yourself, the next thing to do, before you go out and buy the cards, is test the deck and make sure that you like it and it plays well. There are a couple different ways that you can test your deck without buying the cards, the first is by creating proxies of the cards to use only while testing. The simplest way of doing that is to just write everything about a card on a piece of paper and put it in a sleeve with another card behind it for support.
The other way of testing a deck without buying the cards is with a system like TappedOut, this site lets you input a deck list and then lets you play test it against a 'goldfish' (an opponent that has 20 life, but never plays cards or responds to what you do in any way).
This testing phase is important because it allows to try a deck out to make sure you like it, and it allows you to make sure things like the mana curve is right and the color balance between lands and spells is right and other things like that.
Once you are done testing you can finally go and but your cards, if you have a local gaming store that sells bulk commons/uncommons and you can get everything you want that would be the best place to get your cards because with getting mostly inexpensive cards shipping online will probably end up being fairly expensive.

Your question focuses more on casual play than tournament play.  But for a long time, there was a nice column that dedicated itself to creating tournament level decks on the cheap.  That column is no longer being maintained, but was called "Magic on a Budget" and I've found the thinking there extremely helpful.
Link

I check out this link with great interest but was mildly disappointed with the cost of cards in the first couple articles I read. Key cards in some decks (Range of Eos, Bloodghast, etc.) are rares that cost $10 per card. $10 for a single card is not what I think of as budget. Perhaps they weren't so expensive when first posted. Still good for learning deck construction, though.

At the time of printing of the articles, the cards he called out were very cheap.  They got attention in part due to the articles, and their prices subsequently jumped....  The bottom line, if you're willing to think outside of the box a bit, you can make some extremely effective decks that are an order of magnitude cheaper than the "decks of the day."

I double "think outside of the box" thing. I made my first deck for 20$, and it is really strong one. And it have rares too, just not the rares people see in tournament decklists. Every tournament card end up cost really much, because many people just buy "good cards", forgetting about things like synergy, mana curve, strategy etc.

In case your local store doesn't have a bargain bin for commons, Wizards specifically releases a product that can help with this, the "Deck Builder's Toolkit"
It contains over 150 cards, which allows for roughly 5 decks at a time, but obviously those decks can be broken apart and re-configured. Critically it also contains a suite of Basic Lands, which can actually be a pain to get a hold of, as stores need to keep hold of some of their opened land stock for Limited events.
The cards will also be only from one Standard environment, so you won't get into a situation where you're playing cards with wildly different themes or over-powered combinations. Everything will "fit together" nicely.
Finally, this is a giftable product, where you can give someone the box as a whole product and it has the necessary instructions for them to get started. And don't underestimate the value of having a box to hold Magic cards in.


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Promised future trades as part of legal trades? (Solution described, alternatives/comments requested)
When making a trade in Settlers of Catan, there is no official rule encouraging or prohibiting making a promise (to make a certain type of trade or perform some kind of action in the future) during a current trade. Assuming the group you play with decides to allow such promises, what mechanisms can be used to ensure "future trades" occurs smoothly?
I provide one such answer below that we've used in many games, but I'm totally open to suggestions for improvements on my answer, and/or alternative play-tested systems developed by other Catan enthusiasts.
Note: A similar question was asked that could be considered a duplicate:
What are common contracts in Catan?
See my comment below which advocates keeping this new question open and possibly closing the old question.

The wording of the prior question similar to this one did not spell out the details of the rule variant or request such details, did not make clear whether Catan rules should be obeyed or broken, and had a title question which was unclear. The result was a highest voted answer which argued for why answering the question at all is a bad idea, while subsequent answers that attempt to answer the question were nearly ignored. I believe this question stands a better chance of leading to a clear Q&A on something of interest to many Settlers players.

Also note that I am a relatively new user. So I checked on Board Games meta to see if posting this as a new question made sense and received some support for doing this. However, feel free to suggest procedural improvements if warranted.

+1 for the question, because it concerns not only Settlers of Catan, but also any game that involves trading.

We have a simple way of doing "future trades which we have successfully used in well over 100 games:

All Catan rules must be obeyed (trades only on your own turn, at
least 1 card offered by both parties)
When a legal trade is made, a future trade can be included as part of
the deal. So you can offer a brick and a "future trade" in return for
a wheat (you would only do this if you desperately needed that wheat)
The terms of the "future trade" must be made clear (i.e. The player
granting the future trade agrees to trade a single resource of the
type to be specified at the time the future trade is made in return
for any resource that the recipient wants to give. This particular
trade is the standard contract that is used for over 80% of future
trades in our games)
The recipient of the future trade can cash it in at any time it is
legal for the 2 players who entered the agreement to make a trade

Note that Catan rules do not have a mechanism for enforcing future trades to occur as promised. However, we always point out to people considering reneging on the deal that if they do so, they are unlikely to be a party in future trades in any future game, as nobody would be able to trust them. For this reason, every future trade I've ever been a part of has been honored.
Note also that for experienced Catan players, future trades are very powerful and can be used for both offensive and defensive purposes. After seeing future trades employed just 2 or 3 times, most players learn to greatly fear and respect granting a future trade to one of the better Catan players at the table.

While I used to play with futures trading, I now explicitly prohibit it for the following reasons:

Problematic/ambiguous mechanics
Consider this case: I trade you a brick and a future wood for your wheat.
Later, you attempt to cash in the future trade, but I claim to have no wood.  Unless it's obvious that I'm lying, there's no great way to determine whether that's true or not.  Good sportsmanship will solve this problem, but it's easier if the rules avoid situations that breed mistrust.
Alternately, I have no wood, but do have four sheep that I could trade in.  Can you force me to trade those in for wood to settle the debt I owe you?  (Exacerbated by situations such as, I have ten sheep and a sheep port.)  If I trade the sheep for wood in the process of building something, do you have to be ready to jump in and call in the trade mid-building?
Can I trade away debts, a sort've negative commodity, as I would any other amount of resources?
Are you allowed to try and call in the debt after every card I steal from someone with the robber?  I might have the desired resource, but this can also give you an otherwise unavailable insight into what card I stole.
Onerous bookkeeping
Tracking outstanding debts can be an unpleasant process with no natural mechanism outside of keeping a ledger.  This problem is doubled because for every debt both parties will want to track it to have an accurate assessment of their resources.
Damage to gameplay
The most serious problem with future trades in my experience is that it makes trading too open-ended.  In regular Settlers, there are times when you simply don't have the resources to build everything you want, no matter how much you want to.  You accept it, and continue playing.  With future trades, suddenly there's no limit to what you can offer.  Players go on and on proposing ever more intricate trades so that they can get that great coup this turn.
Veteran players are less susceptible to this than novices, but even they will occasionally fall into gameplay-halting spirals of ever-higher futures offers.

Most gaming groups would implicitly dissallow the use of ledgers or other cognitive aid, as most games are about intellectual competition and many games are completely ruined by such a device (such as Memory). Our gaming group allows for any promises during a trade, with the caveat that no promise is binding. In a regular group, reneging on promises in order to outright win the game is not really frowned upon, as the ultimate goal is to win of course, but reneging in trivial or in mid game circumstances is nearly always going to prevent people from making deals with you in the future.

Since this is too long for a comment, here's the way that I have played...
You can promise almost anything in a trade: future cards (not necessarily meeting a minimum one card per transaction rule...I.e. they could just be forked over), future trades, future protection from robber, future placement choice of robber, etc.
We have also introduced goods/services outside of the game on rare occasion (and this is why I don't okay with my married friends anymore!)...
The method of enforcement is peer pressure. Usually the creditor must remember/remind the debtor of the debt, at least as soon as it could be repaid.
This is also how we enforce other house rules (e.g. Reroll all 7's on each player's first turn, reroll every third consecutive instance of a number, etc.).
The only other mechanic would be to make the rules de jure, informing each player that you are playing with amended rules, and having a written copy of your house rules available.

The main form of "future trades" we had tended to employ in the past is based on harbours, where if I have, say, a sheep harbour where I can trade 2:1, then somebody with a large supply of excess sheep may trade them to me in pairs on the condition that I use my harbour to swap them at a better rate for some other resource that I will then trade back to them on the next turn.
I've gone cold on this tactic since it tends to get used excessively and dominate trading too much for my tastes.

The version that my wife likes to play (with other folks, I don't let her do this to me is), "Look, you've got a sheep port. How about I give you seven sheep, you turn three in to the bank, and you give me two ore and a wheat back? That way, you earn an extra sheep". This does not abuse the letter of the rules, but once we get into this who's-got-the-best-port tactic, it becomes a yelling-at-each-other rather than trading-with-each-other game :(.

With everyone I've played with, future trades are looked down on as being slightly against the spirit of the rules, and certainly not expected to be actually paid back, although sometimes they are.
We certainly would dislike meta-gaming, and carrying trust of players across different games of Catan.

When futures trading with resources we invoke a rule that the moment the player receives the resource in question they must immediately give that resource to the player they traded with.
This eliminates most of the potential problems people have had with this form of trading.

I've played with future trading before (don't usually), but when I did, we always phrased it for "I'll give you a sheep for the next wood you get", which basically creates the rule that you describe here.

This violates Catan rules though, the person picking up the wood and passing it directly to another player earns an advantage for something like the robber, marriage card, monopoly etc by not having to hold onto the card and being able to trade out of turn.

I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to demand collateral loans while the future trade wouldn't take place. In this case the risk would remain for the contact proposer as if the future trade wouldn't take place the collateral could be used by the player who would not have received the future traded value as promised.


text:
What are the differences between the 3 versions of Carcassonne?
I see this question was partially answered on B&CG for scoring differences between the 3 versions of Carcassonne. Are there any other differences?

Besides the scoring differences listed, there is also the "youngest player" goes first rule in 1st. Edition. For a list of all differences between editions, see this excellent annotated rules list and FAQ that covers the Basic Game and 11 expansions.


text:
How is game feel and strategy different between the 1st and 3rd edition scoring rules?
I've used the RGG 1st edition scoring rules because I was unaware until recently that there are 3 different scoring systems for Carcassonne. Without having tried the (now most common) 3rd edition scoring rules, it is obvious that there is a decreased emphasis on gearing the whole game towards winning a mega farm at the end. But I'm guessing there are other less obvious ramifications I haven't thought of.
I'd like to hear a more detailed answer to this question from those who have used both 1st and 3rd edition, both with respect to the basic set and with respect to any expansions that have been heavily impacted:
How is game feel and strategy different between the 1st and 3rd edition scoring rules?

I think if you look over the annotated rules, you will find that Rio Grand Games had to modify some of the rules in expansions to not clash with their 1st edition rules when releasing Big Box sets. As for "feel", I would drop that from the OP. Feelings are not objective, and really this question would be covered by strategic differences.

@user1873 Upon first reading your comment I thought - your're right, I'll drop game feel. But then I read the first answer and it mentioned how farmer's are so much simpler to score, thus reducing a "feeling" of tedium (headache). Objectively one could say this reduces the amount of time (and possibility for mistakes) when scoring farmers. But honestly I think "it makes the game feel less tedious" communicates the same thing more directly. By asking about "game feel" I am explicitly soliciting this kind of comment without having to list every possible objective game impact.

I prefer the new rules for the simple reason that farmer scoring always used to be a huge headache.  Doing it pasture by pasture, with the ability to simply empty the pasture of farmers once it's been scored, seems like a great timesaver.  It also feels good that pasture rules have fallen pretty much exactly in line with city-scoring rules.
When I found about the rule change, I was a bit miffed about the new city scoring.  It seemed excessively cheap to be able to make a size-2 city and score 4 for it without any meeple investment.  The added consistency is welcome, though.  It's annoying when teaching any game to new players to have to say "the rule is this... except in this situation, when it's this".  So this change is probably a score draw at worst.
How do the changes alter things strategically?  Well, now that small cities are twice as attractive an option, you're going to get a lot more of them.  More cities equals more opportunities for farmers to make big scores.  That being the case, it's probably good that the farmer rules have been simplified; no one wants a game that makes their head hurt.  Well, most people don't.  (A lot of my friends love Ricochet Robots.)
Simplified-rules Carcassonne retains the excellent central dynamic of the game - between scoring points on the board throughout the game, or building up a farmer presence that will allow for a big score at the end.  Novice players generally don't really get farmers, and I've often found them disappointed when they get crushed in the final tallying-up of a game they thought they were holding their own in.  By keeping farmer rules simple enough that they have a chance of understanding them during their first game, everyone is more likely to be happy.  Farmers may still be the weapon of choice for the Carcassonne expert, but explaining how exactly you won with them no longer feels so dirty!

Great answer! I find that the changes also makes the game a bit more aggressive with people vying to capture farms throughout. Newbies especially fall into this tactic and end up over extending themselves and running out of meeples at the end. Lessons hard learned!


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How does Rat-a-tat-cat strategy change as the number of players increases?
As already discussed in Do the vast majority of Rat-a-tat Cat rounds end very quickly?, optimal play leads to rounds ending quickly with a small number of players. Is this true when playing with 5-6 players? I just played my first 5 player game yesterday and did not enjoy a similar level of success when employing that strategy. Consider:
For one thing, the chance that an opponent will draw a power card is no longer very small, which matters a little for a draw 2 and matters a lot for a swap. But more importantly, if someone else is likely to call for the round to end, why not just wait and get your extra turn? Of course, if you were thinking to call for the round to end, you may not have visible cards that can be improved all that much anyway . . .

Why not wait for someone else to call for the end of the round? - every turn you don't call for the end of the round, you give your opponents another turn to improve their score (reduce). You should call for the end of the round when you believe that your opponents are reducing their score on average more than you are reducing your score on average. The problem with determining when this is, is quite difficult with so much hidden information. Even after going through the entire deck once, with 5 players you will still have between 18-15 cards that you have no one has any idea who has them

@user1873 Agree that the large number of hidden cards (combined with 4 other people taking turns after you call for an end) makes the determination difficult. Which is why I asked the question. It's surprising how much this is to this seemingly simple game aimed at kids less than 10 years old. Significantly more complex than most other little kid card games I've seen.

This isn't my answer yet, just some observations. I might take a stab at creating a computer simulation that can be easily customized with different numbers of players, different player strategies, and possibly different rule sets (children's variant where the outermost cards are public information, and perhaps a reverse of the normal rules where the outermost cards are only known to player whose hand they are in, but the innermost cards are known to every other player).

When the entire draw deck has been gone through once:

In a 2-player game, the highest known card for each player will be a '1'. This will occur if both players have '0's in their hidden cards. All 54 cards (minus 8) will be drawn when the draw pile is exhausted, and players will always discard either a known higher card for a lower card, or a random unknown card for a (0-4). This isn't counting the 3 peek cards being drawn either, but it is likely that players will discard unknown random cards at least when a drawn card is higher than their known cards but 4 or less, since an unknown card is worth '5' on average. This unknown random card is discarded face up for their opponent to take, so eventually all low cards will be claimed by the end of the draw deck.
In a 5-player game, the highest know card for each player will be a '4'. With 5 players, you can use the same reasoning as in the 2-player game. By the end of the draw deck, all the low cards will have been taken into players hands (4 zeros, 4 ones, 4 twos, 4 threes, and 4 fours).
From the reasoning above, we can see that Power Cards in hand are actually worth more than '5' on average as then number of cards are drawn. In a 5 player game, if the discard pile gets reshuffled into a new draw pile a hidden Power Card is worth 7.4 on average.
From the reasoning above, I believe it is also true that at least one player will knockout after the draw pile has been exhausted (or slightly before). At that point, a player should know exactly which cards are in the draw pile, so they will know if they can reduce their score further (they will also know how many swap cards are in the draw deck).

When a player discards a known card, we know that the card that the face up card they discarded was greater in value than the card they kept. This might be helpful in determining how many points we think an opponent has. (i.e. If an opponent discards a '9' card, we only know that the card that they kept is less than or equal to 9 and their total known score could be as high as 9+9=18. If they discard a '5' though we know that the card that they kept was less than or equal to 5 and their 5 was most likely their highest value card (discarding the highest known card, or an unknown card if the difference between the known card and kept is less than the AVG difference between an unknown card and kept card is optimal play. We cannot rely on this information since a player may not be playing optimally, but it should be the best move in most games.). Their total known score is no higher than 5+5=10). If we track exactly which cards are being discarded, and each card that is kept we can gain extra information about our opponents.
The game can end in several different ways, depending upon the End Game condition.

Play for a certain number of rounds. - Hopefully, the number of rounds is divisible by the number of players. The first player has the greatest incentive of knocking out, since if they knock out each other player has only taken as many turns as they have. The last player has the least incentive of knocking out, since if they do, each other player will have taken one more turn than they have. Strategy for this end condition will vary slightly as the number of rounds until the last round gets nearer.
Play for a specific length of time. - This is a poor choice of ending condition. Players in the lead can effectively stall the game to keep their lead.
Play to stay in the game and not reach 100 points. When a player
reaches 100 points, he is out of the game. The last player in the game is
the winner. - The Strategy for this end condition will vary slightly as a players point total nears 100 points. A player will probably not knockout when they are more likely than not to be out of the game. It would also depend upon what happens when all remaining players lose at the same time (all players have 100+ points). Do all players draw? Does the player with the fewest points win? Do the players play a final hand? The strategy will differ according to the rules.

I appreciate the start and in a spirit of cooperation I offer some refinement to your observations. First: your assumption on discarding a known card. This is a poker-like game of facial expressions. There is a swap card. So there can be good reason to replace a 9 with a 9. I pulled it once against my son, with an expression of delight. As luck would have it, he did draw a swap card, and because he had two good outer cards, he swapped an unknown inner card to me which turned out to be a 1, and he got my 9 in return. Then he called for an end.

My son called it "cheating" but the rules do not prohibit this sort of false-carding combined with faked facial expressions. In fact, over the course of large numbers of games, it can be good strategy to sometimes even worsen the card a little so that it makes people think twice about swapping. However, if you decide to set up a simulation, you'll need to make assumptions so perhaps your assumption is worth making just to keep the simulation simple enough that it won't take hundreds of hours of your time.

Swap cards also mess up your conclusions for what happens if 2 players go through an entire deck, rationally. Because swaps will insure that some higher cards get slotted into peoples' hands.

We never come close to exhausting the draw pile. But you reasoning made me realize that hidden information begins to be revealed as the draw pile gets close to exhausted, for those who precisely track all cards played. Not very many people can do this, and kids are even less likely to. But theoretically if there are only 3 cards left in the draw pile in a 2 player game, it means that you have seen nearly all the cards already, and can make some good guesses about the opponents hidden cards whose values you don't already know (especially if the remaining 3 undrawn cards are all high cards).


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Which games qualify as Gateway Games?
I previously asked What are Gateway Games and got a fairly good answer:

A gateway game is a game that you can use to introduce non-gamers to
  the world of 'real', i.e. complex games.
A gateway game

has good replay value
has nice game components
is good for mixed age groups

I think it would further clarify the definition and my understanding of the concept to see a list of Gateway games (one per answer), and for each the reason that it meets the definition. I think all would agree that Settlers of Catan, Carcossone, and Ticket to Ride make the list. But what about Monopoly, Poker, Uno, Rat-a-tat-cat, Cosmic Encounter, Labyrinth, Race for the Galaxy?
I think there will be informational value not only in the games that make the list (those with answers that receive many upvotes), but also those which don't make the list (answers that have zero upvotes).
Please list one game per answer, and provide a little reasoning for why it should make the list. Please do not cast negative votes for an answer that is already at zero - I would like it to be okay for someone to post a controversial name like Monopoly so that valuable comments can clarify why this game should not be included on the list (without penalizing the person for suggesting this game be included).
Update: A comment below and further research suggests that perhaps the above definition of Gateway Games above is incomplete. Two other criteria for possible inclusion in the definition:

Rules are easy and quick to learn and apply (even if the strategy is
difficult)
The game takes less than 2 hours to play (note that this would eliminate Monopoly which usually takes more than 2 hours)

I'd like to see a few more examples and comments before officially changing the definition above. The way I see this working is that the definition will change to accommodate what the group wisdom has expressed by the games that are included/excluded from what is commonly thought of us gateway games. The comments on Monopoly may be particularly interesting for this purpose given how much it has in common with Settlers [I intend to delete this entire update section at a later date, when the definition of Gateway Games becomes clearer and I incorporate it above].

This question is experimenting with a new type of question. It is not exactly a recommendation question, but rather a question whose answer is (close to) an objective list, because each item must adhere to the definition of what goes on the list. I expect (and encourage) debate as to whether this question is suited to the stack exchange system, and even if it is, whether we want it for Board and Card Games. I'm also very open to suggestions for how to improve the question to make it more suitable.

Should there also be criteria related to learning curve or time commitment? That seems to be the biggest hurdle for people to get into gaming; committing to a 10-hour game that will take you at least half that time again to begin to understand is a bit daunting.

Dup: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/3368/games-to-introduce-non-gamers-to-board-gaming-gateway-games , but the proposed structure here is better.

Note that I posted 3 answers to give a feel for the length and style of answer that I think could work for this. Would love to see more answers, and (if warranted) debate around each answer in the comments, where the debate is hopefully aimed at making the definition for Gateway games more precise.

I don't see how this is substantively different from a recommendation question to be honest.  Even when people were asking for recommendations, they were still looking for games that objectively met their criteria, right?

http://meta.boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/807/is-this-a-game-recommendation-question

This is a recommendation question and is prohibited by our [FAQ].  You've also set it up as a polling question.  I don't believe this question to be salvageable.

@Pat Please see the meta discussion Jefromi started on this question. I made a case there for why it might make sense to allow what I call "well defined list" questions on Board and Card Games, which is more restricted and well defined (and therefore more objective) then most recommendation questions.

@JoeGolton - the early answers and voting seem pretty conclusive.  This question isn't a good use of the StackExchange system.  That doesn't mean this is a bad question, its just not a good fit here and would be better on a regular forum, perhaps with a poll.

Settlers of Catan. It has replay value, nice game components, and is good for mixed aged groups. It has some properties which lead to rich player interaction and complexity, including trading/negotiation, using resources to build, random/probabilistic factors, hoarding early in order to win later (development cards).

Ticket to Ride. It has replay value, nice game components, and is good for mixed aged groups - and especially appealing for kids who often love trains. The rules are very easy to learn and apply yet there is also some complexity, from: random/probabilistic factors, using resources to build, long-range planning (of routes), blocking tactics, and hoarding in order to win later. The game typically takes less than 90 minutes to play, and is often cited as the quintessential Gateway Game (it won a poll for that at BGG).

Monopoly. It has replay value, nice game components, and is good for mixed aged groups. It has some properties in common with Settlers of Catan: Trading/negotiation, using resources to build, random/probabilistic factors, an ever growing pie of resources, and hoarding in order to win later (properties and/or cash).
Monopoly is not a trendy German game like other quintessential Gateway games, but I don't think trendy and German is necessary to be a Gateway game. As a child, this is the first game I played a lot that was more difficult than games intended for little kids. Not sure if this game acted as a "Gateway" for me, but I did become an avid gamer.


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What pauper cards are legal in paper but not MTGO
Note: This is exactly the opposite question of:
What pauper cards are legal in MTGO but not paper?
I am trying to collect most cards relevant to pauper. Because MTGO pauper is more popular than paper pauper, and because it is so easily available electronically, it is easy to find data and analysis on the most frequently used cards in pauper. I did this.
The problem is that there are some cards (most notably Hymn to Tourach and High Tide) not available on MTGO but available as paper commons. Other popular pauper cards include Goblin Grenade, Desert, Pyrotechnics, and Sinkhole. They are easy to miss when starting a paper pauper collection, though I suppose you'd eventually come across them in pauper tournaments.
The pauper format continues to grow in popularity so perhaps Wizards of the Coast will eventually develop official rulings on this. Some people feel that any common card in either MTGO or paper should be legal. However, for now, many local stores only allow paper commons.
The question:
Is there a list maintained of cards printed at common for paper, but not MTGO? If so, please provide link. If there is no such list but it turns out to be very few cards, then the answer should contain the list of cards.

Why not just ask "What are the differences in cards legal in paper pauper vs MTGO pauper?" instead of keeping them as two seperate questions?

@waterseas I think the answers would be less clear and too long.

-1. The question in its current form is not very useful, because the answers to it will quickly go out of date. A more useful question would be "How can I find what pauper cards are legal in paper but not MTGO?"

@rainbolt As Jefromi stated in a comment to the sister question, this question asks for a maintained list elsewhere if possible. If that doesn't exist and you ask how to find out, the answer is going to be "here are the online-only sets; check every common in them" which is in the end even less useful than an out of date answer. Regardless, the question will likely be obsolete at some point when Wizards of the Coast takes an official stand on paper pauper, which is gradually becoming more popular. Until then, a list, even moderately out of date, is useful when building a collection.

@JoeGolton At worst, it'll be two seperated lists as an answer. At best, the answer will be the same for the two, or just a minor tweak, if it's a link or something.

You can find a comprehensive breakdown of the differences between paper pauper and MTGO pauper here:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/other-formats/paper-pauper-and-peasant/662888-differences-between-mtgo-and-paper
There are 129 cards that are common online but have never been phsyically printed at that rarity.

According to Wikipedia, all sets since (and including) "Invasion" have been released on MTGO. This means the Masques, Urza, Tempest, Mirage, (most of) Ice Age, and Homelands blocks are not included in MTGO. In addition, core sets up until 6th edition and the Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Revised, Legends, The Dark, and Fallen Empires expansions are also excluded from MTGO.
Rather than searching gatherer for these sets, it is better to exclude the sets that are in MTGO, because that will exclude cards from early sets that got re-printed in later sets.
As of the release of Magic Origins, the following gatherer search should provide a list of all commons that were only printed in the sets before MTGO was released.
shortened url: http://goo.gl/O8OdKM
full url:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&set=+![%22Magic%20Origins%22]+![%22Seventh%20Edition%22]+![%22Eighth%20Edition%22]+![%22Ninth%20Edition%22]+![%22Tenth%20Edition%22]+![%22Magic%202010%22]+![%22Magic%202011%22]+![%22Magic%202012%22]+![%22Magic%202013%22]+![%22Magic%202014%20Core%20Set%22]+![%22Magic%202015%20Core%20Set%22]+![%22Invasion%22]+![%22Planeshift%22]+![%22Apocalypse%22]+![%22Odyssey%22]+![%22Torment%22]+![%22Judgment%22]+![%22Onslaught%22]+![%22Legions%22]+![%22Scourge%22]+![%22Mirrodin%22]+![%22Darksteel%22]+![%22Fifth%20Dawn%22]+![%22Champions%20of%20Kamigawa%22]+![%22Betrayers%20of%20Kamigawa%22]+![%22Saviors%20of%20Kamigawa%22]+![%22Ravnica:%20City%20of%20Guilds%22]+![%22Guildpact%22]+![%22Coldsnap%22]+![%22Time%20Spiral%22]+![%22Planar%20Chaos%22]+![%22Future%20Sight%22]+![%22Lorwyn%22]+![%22Morningtide%22]+![%22Shadowmoor%22]+![%22Eventide%22]+![%22Shards%20of%20Alara%22]+![%22Conflux%22]+![%22Alara%20Reborn%22]+![%22Zendikar%22]+![%22Worldwake%22]+![%22Rise%20of%20the%20Eldrazi%22]+![%22Scars%20of%20Mirrodin%22]+![%22Mirrodin%20Besieged%22]+![%22New%20Phyrexia%22]+![%22Innistrad%22]+![%22Dark%20Ascension%22]+![%22Avacyn%20Restored%22]+![%22Return%20to%20Ravnica%22]+![%22Gatecrash%22]+![%22Dragon%27s%20Maze%22]+![%22theros%22]+![%22Born%20of%20the%20Gods%22]+![%22Journey%20into%20Nyx%22]+![%22Khans%20of%20Tarkir%22]+![%22Fate%20Reforged%22]+![%22Dragons%20of%20Tarkir%22]&rarity=+[C]

Edit: Looking at the results, it looks like the query wasn't perfect. But it's a good start.

The query isn't excluding cards printed in those sets.  Plenty of M15 cards and similar are showing.  I'm trying to figure out how to fix it, but I don't think I can through gatherer.

@dragoncmd I don't think either gatherer or magiccards.info has a way to search for cards at 2 different rarities. At least I tried using their versions of if(rarity = common && rarity != common) and got 0 results for both of them.


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Where can I find examples of Game Mechanics?
I'm prototyping a game, but I'm not very schooled on board games. I'm looking for a list of game mechanics so that I can

Describe my game in terms of mechanics
Find other uses of the mechanics to learn from
Pick and choose what mechanics I want to have in my game.

(If there are any books about this sort of thing it would be freaking awesome!)

This is similar to some other questions, but with some differences:

What set of attributes can be used to describe, compare and contrast various board games? - but I need only the mechanics, not whether it is easy to carry etc.
Board Game Mechanics - nice question, but the answers with examples of games people likes, are not very helpful (I don't have access to the games or the time to understand them all).

Welcome to the site!  I've reworded your question a bit to not directly ask for the list, but to ask how to find it.  We'd rather not host endless lists here at stack exchange but prefer hosting information that specifically solves problems.  Thanks!

You probably should go looking at the various mechanic lists on boardgamegeek.com.
Examine the various reviews, and find where people talke about the mechanics, as well.
It's a concentrated resource for doing exactly the kind of research you probably should be doing.

OK didn't know of http://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgamemechanic  (boardgamegeeks hurts my eyes `_´ ) Got any other good resources?

For boardgames, not so much. For RPG design, there's RPGGeek.com and The Forge (indie-rpgs.com). And I never said it was pretty... just useful. (Tho' I have gotten used to it over the years.)

There is also a list at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_mechanics.

When I started to build my game over 1.5y ago, that wikipedia page almost didn't exist! :)

Is it worth posting a few examples you think are good?

I'm kinda taking note of what Pat Ludwig said when he edited my post.

There is a fairly notable site Three Hundred Mechanics which you can visit for some inspiration, although it doesn't quite have 300 yet and is not specific to boardgames.

That's a great page, but what are listed are not game mechanics.  (Game mechanics describe the actions players can take, gameboard constraints, and token values and interactions, among other things, but in no universe are "sniper buddies" or "sim game engine" game mechanics;)


text:
40K: No Retreat! combat assault results loophole?
This is a follow on question to Orks Mob Rule in Warhammer 40k. This situation is "No Retreat!" when a fearless unit is defeated in an assault, the fearless unit takes wounds equal to the number their side has lost in combat. I understand so far.
But on p.44 of the WH40K 5th ed rules the last paragraph under "No Retreat!" states:

If none of the enemies involved in the combat against a fearless unit can actually hurt it, the unit does not suffer any wounds if its side is defeated in combat, and simply continues to fight.

If the fearless unit's enemies can't actually hurt the fearless unit, then how did the fearless unit manage to lose the assault in the first place? Are the rules saying any of the fearless unit's enemies still left standing after the assault?

I can imagine a few situations that would trigger this rule.
There are a few special rules that give a unit a +1 to combat resolution.  So if the fearless unit whiffs and gets no kills, they can still "loose".
Another situation is if there are two units involved in an assault with a fearless unit, and the one that can hurt the fearless unit is wiped out.
Finally, if the unit that assaulted was able to hurt the fearless unit only by means of Furious Charge's +1 to ST.
There are probably a few other situations.  It's defiantly an edge case and I've never seen it come up, and I've been involved in running numerous large(30-60 person) 40K tournaments.


text:
40K Orks: what is the tactical value of having Mekboys in a mob of Lootas?
I was considering strategies to help my armored infantry style Ork army get into assault range and was looking at Lootas as a long range direct fire support option. I see Mekboyz may replace 1-3 Lootas, but what is the value of replacing Lootas with Mekboyz? The weapon options for a Mekboy do not offer any advantage over the Lootas deffgun that I can see, so why would someone field Mekboyz with Lootas?
Update 8 October 2012 When I asked this question, 40K was in 5th edition, and the accepted answer remains quite valid for 5th ed. Now that we're in 6th edition, a Battlewagon full of Lootaz may fire their heavy Deffguns as snap shots when their rolling fortress moves. Having a Mekboy along for the ride has some tactical value for immobilized/weapon destroyed repairs on the Battlewagon. I do not want to start a discussion, simply point out I find there is now some tactical value for choosing a Mekboy with a mob of Lootaz in 6th edition.

There's also now with the new wound allocation rules some value in having a bullet sponge that you can stick out front of units.

@Affe Excellent point!

Most people don't field the Mekboys.  In fact, in 5 years I've never seen anyone put a Mekboy in a squad of Lootas.
So, you're not alone in not seeing their usefulness.  Technically you could use the Mekboy to build a little duality into the unit.  This makes them slightly more well rounded so as to be able to deal with other types of threats, but that's not what people generally take Lootas for.
Lootas are Orks most consistent and effective long range shooting, adding a Mekboy degrades their points efficiency.
In response to the edit about 6th
In that case I think you are better off with an attached Big Mek.  That way you can add in a Kustom Force Field to protect the battle wagon.  I'm also not a big fan of just snap shooting them from a moving vehicle.  They'll be susceptible to stun and shaken results on the wagon even if they disembark afterwards.  Going from a 5+ to a 6+ to hit may not seem like much, but is still a 50% reduction in shooting effectiveness.  Why do that if you don't have too?  And finally, why would you need to move a long ranged unit like Lootas in the first place?  A good deployment position should give them range to most of the board.  Put something else in that wagon; something you want to get closer to the enemy.

Only point I see is to field them in an unbound army with a stompa so you can have the lootas shoot from the access point and the meks can repair. Otherwise i agree that there seems to be little to no point.


text:
Do professional-level Go players memorize a list of endgame positions as part of their training?
As in this question there were two questions, I extract the second question here.

You mean memorizing this kind of things http://senseis.xmp.net/?MiaiValuesList%2F100To199 ?

I don't know if they spend a lot of time doing point-value memorizing, but I would imagine that there is a reasonable amount of time spent studying and memorizing endgame tesuji. Counting is important to properly evaluate when the tesuji are profitable.

If I don't mistake professionals learn a lot of typical local value of moves it's a way to play faster and correctly endgames I suppose.

Possibly the best book on endgames (for amateurs) was written by Tomoko Ogawa: http://www.gobooks.info/g15.html
She doesn't exactly "memorize" endgame positions, but she gives a list a "typical" (and not so typical) positions, and teaches us how to COUNT them.

My impression is more that the emphasis is on reading (or counting) the endgame, rather than memorizing the endgame.  Certainly in that process you see some positions so frequently  that you basically memorize how they are going to fall out, but this isn't quite the same thing as deliberately setting out to memorize the position.
This is especially the case because of both endgame tesuji/maek and because even fairly straightforward sequences can be interrupted due to the surrounding stones or thanks to the value of sente.


text:
What is the best strategy to avoid large farms in Carcassonne?
Whenever I play with my housemates and friends, Carcassonne often becomes 'farm wars'; everyone who understands the nuances of farm play gets caught up in playing meeple (or as I call them, 'dudes') whether or not it helps, as we know how much of a game winner it can be.
Often it results in everyone wasting 2-3 farmers when someone gets the super farm at the end, or players who don't place a farmer dude seriously lagging behind. It wouldn't be so bad if we didn't always get one large farm that everyone goes for.
How do we avoid the trap of focusing on farms too much?
(would house rules help us out?)
We're using the third edition scoring rules and no expansions.

I'm surprised you seem to be finding that "winning the big farm" is the only way to win your Carcassonne games.  My intuition would have been that if all but one of the players were fighting over the big farm, the player who was doing other things instead would be the hot favourite to win.

There are a couple of expansions I think could help, as well as some strategery. First, expansions:

The River II tends to at least break the board up into 2 or 3
big farms, if not lots of smaller ones.
Abbey & Mayor adds a Barn piece that can really change the way
fields are played.
I think the dragon from The Princess & the Dragon might play in
here as well, but I haven't ever actually played that expansion, and
it doesn't appeal to me generally.
Inns & Cathedrals can really beef up city and road scoring,
rendering farms less important.

Other expansions could also help simply by adding tiles. Since more players means fewer tiles per player, adding more tiles can hold off the farm rush a bit. Adding other scoring mechanisms also helps de-emphasize farms.
Now for strategy:
Push for big cities. In general, my friends and I tend to fight over big cities, with some scoring over 30 points. Cities score more points this way than as field consumers, so if you exclusively focused on this while your friends exclusively focused on fields, you'd win every time. In reality, putting meeples on fields too early in the game tends to cripple players from playing on cities and cloisters, so take advantage and "share" their cities once they are out of meeples to fight back.
Make little fields pockets. If you spot an area where there are going to be three or four cities, try to isolate it and own it with just one farmer. This happens all the time in games I play, and is really annoying to be left out of.
Toward the end of the game, it's natural for everybody to start going for the big fields, but picking the right moment to really start pushing for this is part of strategy, so just enjoy it. If you are playing with 4 or 5 players, you have many fewer tiles per player than with 2 or 3, so farm rushing happens earlier. One possible way to take advantage is to just try to share in lots of features, rather than winning all of them. If you share every other players big cities or farms, you will do better than if you try to hoard the features to yourself. Obviously this is not true in a 2-player game, and not as true in a 3-player game.

I'm surprised by your first suggestion, we've stopped playing with the River I expansion largely because we've found that when the rules about wrapping farms around the source and lake are enforced it tends to produce one giant farm, and that the person who goes first has a significant advantage on that one farm.

The River II helps this by splitting the river in two, and having one of the lakes attach directly to a city. I suppose how the roads end up laid becomes a big factor in either case, and now that I think about it I do remember this being a big problem with the original River, but I think River II works out much better.

I think another part of this is that if someone tries to take a farm that early in the game I almost always respond by trying to cut it off and build away from it rather than steal it. A six-point farm that someone put a meeple on in their first turn is a real let-down, and discourages people from doing the same thing next time.

+1 A nice analysis of the different expansions. I would also question the river I suggestion, but the river II tends to break up the farmland more.  The dragon definitely discourages/prevents early farming.  It tends to migrate towards high scoring farmers, as they can't run away!

In an act of abject pandering, I've deleted my reference to The River I, since even I acknowledge it hurts this situation more than helping it. :)

I was going to say that it's not exactly pandering, really just revising. Then I realized I hadn't up-voted yet, but after the edit I'm happy to. So, pandering it is, +1!

To add on to this answer: The current edition of the game, C3, has changed the River's source and lake tiles, to allow them to break up fields.

I have played plenty of games that ended up with a lot of points being scored by the person who owns the largest farm.  Having said that I've played plenty of games where either that person didn't win, or where the game ended with several smaller farms (and consequently the game didn't hinge on this).
One important consideration is what rule set you are playing.  The old system for farming gave four points per city to whoever had the most farmers supplying it.  The new system gives three points per owned farmland per adjacent city.  In my experience the old rules ended up with a giant farm more often than the new rules.  I think this is largely due to the scoring "per owned farmland" in the new rules.
A second consideration is stage of the game.  The game is designed in such a way that farming is meant to be lucrative.  The issue is timing.  You don't want to invest your meeples in farming too early, as they cannot then score points elsewhere.  You don't want to wait too late, otherwise you will find all the good farmland is owned.
A third contributor to emphasis on farming is the expansions being used.  We regularly use the inns and cathedrals expansion, and this often means that players are focused for the main part of the game trying to gain ownership of a large cathedral city.  A city that is worth three points per tile cannot easily be ignored.  What's more, if the city is completed, then the owner gets their meeples back, and can still choose to invest them in farming at a later point.
So in short I would suggest playing the new ruleset (if you aren't already) and using an expansion such as inns and cathedrals.  Maybe the suggestion to draw from my second point is that farming is a part of the game, but it's not the only part.

Great answer. Bonus points for pushing 3rd edition rules, and bringing up the distinction. :)

The way to fight the "big farm" problem is to break it up -- play road and city tiles aggressively to close it off where you can.  Failing that, you have to join the crowd and have more meeples than anyone else in the end, which I agree is hard and kind of a waste.

I play 1-2 games per week and play with 10 expansions.  This usually results in HUGE farms where, with the additon of the barn and pig farm tile, frequently makes the farm land worth 125+ points.
The last few games, by sliming farmers onto the huge barn land, taking one pint per city (plus one for the pig, and one for the pig farm, per farm) have had scores over 1000 points!
It's getting so bad that completing cities and roads are meaningless when you can slime onto a farm and get 60 points in two turns.
We toyed with the idea of making fences...  Something that could be deployed similar to a bridge, but instead of joining farms, it would block them...  Haven't figured out the details on that one yet....
I think that using the city of carcasonne as the starting tiles is part of the problem.  The three city sections that are part of Carcassonned allow farm land to flow between them and carc, and the three road sections are trivial to get around using bridges.
Another idea we had was to encourage smaller farms by scoring out farms that become completely enclosed.  If a farm can no longer grow, you get your dude back and the farm is immediately scored out.  Not sure how well that would work.
Playing another game tonight so well see if we can come up with a solution...

Hi Snow, welcome to the site! Right now your answer reads more like a discussion, thought it does have some useful points to it. Could you head over to the [faq] if you've not already, then come back and slim down you response, so it answers the original question? Perhaps if you highlight exactly how you tackle big farms, and not just a discussion about them?


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How to make Settlers of Catan less cut-throat?
I know some people enjoy playing this way, but the other 50% of players seem to prefer a more casual game. This often stops people wanting to play at all, and so Settlers gets left on the shelf.
The issues we have are often:

Unfair/endless trades
Meaning the board is split between those who make ridiculous demands (3 to one trades as described in the link), and those 'who don't ask for enough', which is equally annoying to the other players.

Unscrupulous tactics
Again splitting the table evenly (both sides find each other's options non-agreeable).

Playing to block
A player knows you want resource X for your road, so blocks you off, again and again. To the point you feel there is no need to bother playing again.

Whilst the answers in the questions above1,2 combat this if players agree on one of the answers, I feel sure there must be some middle ground introduced by a house-rule or convention to make Settlers more friendly.
Edit: Added another 'nasty' trick I've seen for 'fun'.

Personally, I would be way more offended by someone giving away resources in Catan than someone trying to gouge other players with "ridiculous demands".  A cartel of "casual" players giving each other everything they need makes much more of a mockery of fair play IMHO!

Yet this is how some people have fun, and why it divides play so often for me.

You could play a less cut throat game, like Carcassonne.

@dwjohnston but that avoids the problem and doesn't address it.

3:1 trades are not unfair; they're bank rate. At which point the trading partner should simply trade with the bank, as that is a winning strategy. Anything better than 2:1 is better than dedicated port trades, and is only useful when you will gain more than your trade partner.
My recommendations for curing both at once are straightforward, but brutal. And they are not exactly "Tournament Catan"...

restrict the nature of offers.
one pass only on a given resource offer.
reply in sequence only.
no "counter offers"
No rejection of particular opponent.

By restrict nature of offers, limit it to offers of "I have 2 X and am looking for a Y". I'd allow the following rates: 1:1, 2:1 & 3:2. (3:1 should be restricted to bank trades via a port only.) Likewise, if you have the resource port, you should be required to use it instead of making a 2:1 trade offer.
One pass only means, if no one bites on the offer, you can't try it again that turn. If it is accepted, it can be repeated.
Reply in sequence only: if players are (in order) A, B, C, &  D, and it's A's turn, he makes the offer, and B either accepts and holds out the asked for resource, or B rejects with a "No." then C gets the same option. If C rejects, D gets the offer. If D rejects, it's dead. Offer something else or yield the turn.
No "counter offers" - either they accept or reject the offer at hand. No discussion, no "how many will you trade?" It really speeds up play to disallow counter-offers, as it eliminates the whole negotiation mindset and the attendent waste of time for others.
No rejection of players: by eliminating trade preference, one forces trade to be quick and about getting what you need. This one should not be a permanent solution - half the strategy in real play is avoiding trade with the leader.
I've played with these restrictions in force. It REALLY speeds play, and reduces the ability to play favorites. I did so with a group of 6th graders, and ones with strong issues with each other at that. The No Rejection was a means of overcoming a couple of players racial biases... but it also changes the nature of play, hence later changing it to "once you make an offer, you may only refuse to trade with someone if they have more VP than you."

It's more that some players I've played with will counter offer a reasonable (from the state of the board) 1:1 with an unreasonable 1:2/3 (No, I want 2/3 of X, not 1, from you). Your suggestions would eliminate that. But it's not speed but brutality I'm trying to cut out.

@Pureferret They will also cut the brutality. More correctly, the cutthroaters will wind up with very little trade and nerf themselves. Both speed and less visibly brutal play are outcomes of these...

4:1 is bank rate isn't it?

I don't agree with the strategic comments on port trades vs player trades, but I'd +1 this a second time if I could because you actually tried it.  In other words, I'm not sure I like your justification for the rules, but I'm glad that they work.

@tttppp Only if you lack a port. And if you lack a port for longer than it takes to get a second settlement, you probably have bigger issues than trading.

@aramis You start with a second settlement?  Do you mean a third/forth settlement?  I reckon in the games I've played about 95% of the player-player trading was 1:1.  Consequently I think players who repeated demanded 3:1 trades would probably just get left behind.

@TTTPPP Yes, I meant 3rd... typo from being tired. I've never played in a group where 1:1 was the majority... but then, most of the people I've played with were also pretty cutthroat. 6th graders are the most cutthroat. But grabbing that port is VITAL to most strategies unless playing with unreasonably cooperative players. Not playing to win is cheating in the other guy's benefit

In games I play where 2 of the players are very experienced and 1-2 players are less experienced/cutthroat, then much advice is freely given/taken and that pretty much solves it.
For example, let's say my 6 year old son really needs a brick to build a settlement and he has an unneeded sheep and 2 ores. I may offer him the brick for 2 ores and a sheep but then the other experienced player suggests he think twice about that offer as he noticed I have a bit of wheat so that would probably give me a city and extend my lead. My son then might (or might not) take that advice and negotiate or trade with someone else.
Also, it's helpful to educate newer players that they can exploit being behind in the game. In later parts of the game you'll get offered generous trades while those who are in the lead will be embargoed. Again - with the advice flowing around - we encourage those who are behind to drive hard bargains if they're doing a trade with someone who is far ahead.
The combination of the robber and trade embargoes can more than overcome cut throat behavior so after a few games, most cut throat players realize they're better off not being so cutthroat if they don't want to be embargoed and have the robber placed on them for so much of each game.

Here are a few ideas, although overall I disagree with the premise of the question, as you'll see toward the end.
"Unfair" trades are the benefit of getting a resource other people want. I don't see how it's a problem. Just turn down the trade. As far as trading eating up time, one option would be to just put a 30-second limit on trading on each player's turn. I'll come back to the players who are too nice.
I personally wouldn't do the Monopoly trick, but anyone who's paying attention already knows what's floating around. There is very little secrecy to be had as far as what resources are in your hand, the main exception being resources gotten/lost by stealing. But that doesn't change the overall count of each resource between all the players' hands. I guess you could just remove the Monopoly cards.
Blocking is generally not a good strategy, at least not when it's done purely to hurt another player. You'll let the other player(s) jump ahead while you're giving the one a swirly. I do think some people are just too sensitive about this, though. For instance, I was recently blocked by a friend, but it was to keep me from placing a settlement where he wanted one, but didn't have the resources yet. If it's to benefit him, not to hurt me, I don't see the problem, but I've had people get really mad at me for doing similar things in the past. In any case, my wife won that game, so maybe even that was bad strategy on my friend's part.
As far as some players being mean, or too nice, to some extent that's just part of playing with human beings. How far is too far is a social question, and you should handle it socially, not with rules. Again, I think it's appropriate to just ask, "Are you making that play in an effort to win, or to hurt/help another player?", or even "If you were in person X's shoes, would you feel this play was fair?" That usually fixes the problems among my friends.


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Can you affect the Haunt roll with items, omens or other effects in Betrayal at House on the Hill?
I was watching Wil Wheaton playing Betrayal at House on the Hill, and someone commented:

Can the Rabbits foot, or the Angels Feather (or anything else) avert the haunt? I can't see why not, but this seems like a special case.

Both the Rabbit's Foot and the Angel Feather have extremely generic text; the Rabbit's Foot says once during your turn, you may reroll one die; the Angel Feather says When you attempt a roll of any kind...
The only restriction I can see is that both the Rabbit's Foot and the Angel Feather must be used by the player who revealed the Omen card and is making the Haunt roll. Both of those items specifically restrict the affected roll to the owner's rolls. The rules state that a Haunt roll is made at the end of your turn, but that means it's still your turn.
TL;DR: Yes, the owner of those items may affect a haunt roll that the owner makes.

The official FAQ states you can use angel feather on another's turn. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/faqs/hoth

@Styphon you can use the feather, but only for your own rolls (such as when defending against an attack). The rules around Haunt rolls are vague on who makes the roll ("Make a haunt roll", and similar, is the phrasing used everywhere), but you can't use the Angel Feather on somebody else's haunt roll.


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What is the best way to shuffle a large deck without damaging the cards?
I'm quite familiar with a few methods of cards, primarily Riffling and Mongean* shuffling. The issue I have with those is that the Riffling shuffle tends to bend cards and wear them out, as well as not working well with a large deck. The Mongean method isn't particularly good at shuffling large decks either.
Unlike this thread I'm not dealing with a well organised deck, but I am dealing with a large deck (80 cards plus).
I've considered cutting the deck in two first, but that then takes twice as long.
What is the best method for shuffling in this case?
*Instead of moving one card at a time, I move a random number.

I'm going to create [tag:shuffling] for this question because I think shuffling is an important enough topic to have its own tag.

I was going to add it myself but I was lacking in rep...

possible duplicate of What is a safe and accurate technique for shuffling cards?

@DaveDuPlantis I don't think it addresses shuffling large decks, thanks for pointing that out though.

With the implied restriction on time combined with the explicit restriction to keep the cards pristine, I'd suggest using extra space to shuffle.  Here's what I do with large decks of cards:

Divide the large deck into several smaller piles.  For 80 cards, I'd make about 8 piles of 7-15 cards
Select two piles at random and combine them using a hindu shuffle (unlike in the video, when I do it, I do it by grasping the wider-side rather than the narrower side of the cards for better control of larger decks.
After a few shuffles, grab another random pile and add it to the deck
Continue until all decks have been added.
Continue with several more Hindu shuffles until you're satisfied.

If you cannot keep all cards in your hand, recombine/shuffle half the cards, then recombine/shuffle the other half, put the two halves together (just stacking them) into 1 full deck again.  Finally, repeat the entire process two or three times (this is only necessary if you had to do a simple stacking).

How long does this technique take normally?

I just did it last night for a stack of about 150 cards and it took about 90 seconds.

How well does it work? Any analysis/justification?

Overhand shuffles (like the hindu shuffle), while not as efficient as riffles, are quickly asymptotic to random.  http://blog.maxshinnpotential.com/2017/11/05/optimality-in-card-shuffling.html

For me, I would divide the deck into smaller parts that you can handle. Riffle shuffle (or any way you like) those and mix the small decks together, one group at a time.

I would do similar to the accepted answer but deal out a different number of piles that never are a multiple of the number of cards. Deal out the entire deck randomly as well to each of these piles, then combine the piles randomly always putting the next pile on the bottom or always putting the next pile on top. For example:
a deck of 80 cards should have the deck divided up by an odd number of stacks. We want the highest number we can take before it's too cumbersome. So say 7 stacks. 7 goes into 80 11 times with 3 left over. If you chose 9 stacks to deal out to then it would be 8 cards a stack with 8 left over. The numbers look more "messy" with the stack of 7 so let's go with it. Now you deal out randomly to each stack even keeping the piles uneven from the 11 increasing the imbalances of each stack. This adds even more randomness into the spread of the cards. Now you take each pile and combine them putting each stack on the bottom. There is no need to alternate top or bottom since you are choosing to pile the stacks randomly. Random is random, so it's faster to just keep it the same in one way but randomize it in your choice of what goes on the bottom.
The deck is now immediately shuffled. There is no reason to do any other type of shuffle. All the cards have been spaced out from each other by at least 7 spaces from their original position and with your randomness you increase or decrease that spacing randomly throughout. Then you stacked the spacing randomly again which gives 3 levels of randomization to the shuffle: the 7 spacing, the random up/down of spacing and the random piling. The faster you deal out the cards to the stacks, the faster this will finish but you will always have a complete shuffle with no need to do any other type of shuffle. Cutting the deck after is totally acceptable and encouraged.
EDIT: It takes me 30s to shuffle a 52 card deck in this way. Shuffling with 14 stacks, only added 15s to the time. The more stacks the better but this will undoubtedly shuffle the deck without damaging the cards.

Welcome to B&CG!

If you have a means of truly randomly assigning a pile for each card, it is more efficient (both in time and in handling) and more effective (in randomising card order) to just use it in making the full deck. This method is not justified and even points out that it is not a true shuffle with all permutations possible.

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Can I use my Tafl game to play Thud?
I recently purchased a new game: Hnefatafl
Now as far as I'm aware, this is the game that Thud is based on, which is the real game I want to play. For reference, here is my set:

And here are my pieces:

I have twelve defenders, and 24 attackers. It looks like those aren't enough (based on the number in the wiki link), so how can I make up the numbers? Or can I play n a smaller board?
Also, what is the best way to reproduce that original board? Do I need to consider anything balance-wise if I do shrink the board/number of pieces? What else should I consider?
edit:
This is actually hnefatafl according to this wikipdia page I found

I think what you have bought is a Tablut set, which is a reduced version, and actually survived into the twentieth century. Viking Hnefatafl had 25 defenders and 50 attackers on a larger board, but the rules are (believed to be) the same.
And Thud, from the link, is a board game (inspired by Discworld) created by Trevor Truran.  It seems a bit unfair to try and play it without buying a set, but if you do you can, of course, try out any combination of board and pieces; at what point you move into creating your own game is an interesting point.
Finally, more for casual visitors than as a real answer; the Thud Lord Vetinari plays existed only in Terry Pratchett's fertile brain.  A boardgame has been officially approved, but it would be as unwise to try and follow  the Dwarf King's actual strategy as it would to try and build a network of semaphore towers across the land.

+1 for warning me off building clacks towers. The real Thud game is no longer in print, and when it was in print it 5x as expensive as this set! Thanks!

In Linnaeus' tablut, "One player has eight blonde Swedes and their monarch; the other has sixteen dark Muscovites." Also the  illustrations of it I've seen are on a smaller board (9x9 instead of 11x11). 12 defenders and 24 attackers is, to my knowledge, one of the supposed versions of Hnefatafl.

As I by the way, @Pureferret, I bought myself a Thud set at the Irish Discworld Convention a couple of weeks ago, so it looks like it's back on the market.

I'd argue against the last paragraph. My memory is old and crufty, but I believe that the book was written ABOUT Trevor's game, which was developed prior to the book, and not the other way around. Terry, Trevor and Bernard then commissioned my business partner and I to create the online version, and we had a word doc of an early draft of the book to go off, as well as Trevor's rules, and Bernard's already crafted and manufactured pieces. So I'd argue that the Thud game that Vetinari plays IS the Thud of Trevor Truran. The Koom Valley Rules variant, however, came along later.

To play Thud, whether regular rules or Koom Valley rules, you need a 15x15 board, made round by lopping off the corners such that the straight edges are 5 long, and the diagonals are 6 long. You then need 32 "dwarf" pieces, 8 "troll" pieces and one central "Rock" piece.
The board dimensions are critical, as is the number of pieces. Any other board size, any other number of pieces, will result in a giant advantage for one side or the other. The balance is all about the timing it takes for trolls to reach the dwarves and start splatting: it has to be exactly the same amount of time as it takes a skilled dwarf player to have the start of a block built, so they can start hitting trolls in return. And that means you need five squares clear between trolls and dwarfs at the start. Four squares, and it's a clear win for trolls. Six squares, and dwarfs wipe the board. Remove the rock in the middle, and it's a clear win for trolls. And so on. It's not like go where the board size can be changed within reason without affecting the core gameplay: any change to the board changes the balance.
It might be easier to just get cardboard and draw the board out, or to get a decent sized go board. It's certainly not immoral to play the game with stuff you made yourself, nor stuff you bought elsewhere and co-opted. Though I just checked and it looks like Bernard "the cunning artificer" Pearson's Discworld Emporium of Wincanton (the only town in the world officially Twinned with Ankh Morpork) does still sell boards and pieces of great beauty.


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Betrayal at House on the Hill characters: Strength and Weaknesses?
The character cards for Betray at the house on the Hill are very complicated, in so much as the track you move the traits along are not linear. Different character's traits start in different places and progress at different speeds.
How can I factor this in when picking a character?
I can easily tell that Ox/Flash are the two physical characters and that Reinhardt/Longfellow represent the mental characters, but is it that simple? I've heard from articles that Flash, despite his speed is a weak character, but when I played him last he seemed balanced.
How should I interpret the other 6 characters, who seem to have a blend of traits?  What are their strengths and weaknesses?
Are all the characters born equal?
Are any of the characters weaker, overall, due to their traits? Or are they all balanced? Are there other strengths/weaknesses not shown in their traits?
A good answer would have a run down of the strengths, weakness and general strategies for playing as each character.

Short answer: They are all balanced in their own way.
Long answer: Each character has strengths and weaknesses, some are harder to spot than others. For example the professor and priest as you pointed out, are mental, but if you look at their stat growth and starting abilities, the priest has more stats that go up to 8, but the professor as more stable stats. It's like this for all the characters. Flash and Ox are both relatively weak mentally, but they each can grow in different directions.
Sorry if this answer doesn't make much sense, honestly this is a difficult question to answer.

A lot of it is going to come down to which scenario you end up with... which isn't any help when trying to choose a character at the start. Some scenarios will punish you if you are low in sanity, others if you are low in strength.
In my opinion, speed is the one thing that tends to be helpful in every scenario... some scenarios will make your level 8 intelligence 100% worthless... but every scenario can make use of speed. Because of this, I think Flash tends to be the "safest" character. You know that your best stat isn't going to go to waste. The trade-off is that you probably won't win the game with your speed alone. You'll still need a teammate with something else that's high, or to pump up other stats yourself.
I think what's important isn't just to look at what's best for your own character, but what's best for your team. You want at least 1 character who is at least decent in every stat, because you never know which stat needs to be high to win.
And as already mentioned, be sure to look at all 3 factors for a stat: The starting value, the maximum value, and the progression. If going up just 1 point jumps you from 3 to 5, that's a lot better than if you need 2 points just to add 1 die.