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Dungeon Lords Questions - Really Hard!
Dungeon Lords (amazing game!) has a free-to-download "Minions Bearing Gifts" expansion at its website.  However, the expansion is only recommended for expert players of the game, and to give an indication of just how expert, the designers have included a quiz that you are advised to score well on before you even think about downloading the expansion.
The quiz is really, really, hard.  Having played maybe half a dozen games of Dungeon Lords, I wasn't expecting to ace it... but I got 1/7.
I thought it might be fun for us to try our hand at working out the answers to the questions together.  After all, there's no reason we can't collaborate in our efforts to become experts at the game!  Without further ado, the quiz:

There are 7 pretty tricky questions. Think well, as there might be a catch. The correct answers might include situations that are theoretically allowed by the rules but probably never happen (as they require improbable yet possible card configurations and player behavior).

If you have to gain more evil than evilometer allows you, you are not gaining any. Can this theoretically happen in the second round of the game?
a. No.
b. Yes.
c. Yes, but only if you hire at least one Vampire.
d. Yes, but only if you hire two Vampires.
What is the theoretical maximum number of imps a player can accumulate during a 4 player game?
What is the highest possible damage one trap can deal?
Can it happen that an illusionary hero created by Second Year’s Illusion spell survives a combat round?
a. He usually does.
b. He never does.
c. He can survive only a round in which was party not conquering.
d. Theoretically, it can survive even a round in which was party conquering.
What is the theoretical maximum number of actually healed damage in a single round of combat if there is no paladin involved?
What is the lowest possible score you can achieve in the game.
It is start of the last round of a 2 player game (fall of Second Year) and opponent has no production room. If scored now, you would win all 7 exclusive titles. May it happen you score no title (exclusive nor shared) at the end of the game?
a. No, you will keep at least one shared title.
b. Yes, but your opponent has to use all three minion actions well this round.
c. Yes, even if your opponent does not perform one of his minion actions.
d. Yes, even if your opponent does not perform two of his minion actions.

Not sure if you're looking for the answers or just comments.

@Egg - I'm a long way away from knowing the answer to all 7 questions, so if someone beats me to it (with working shown!) I will accept theirs as the correct answer.  In the meantime though I'd love any comments about ways to tackle some of the harder questions... your comment certainly helped clarify some of my ideas about the fastest ways to gain lots of Evil!

I worked through the seven questions myself when I first bought them game, but as I don't remember the answers right off the top of my head, I'll preface this answer with the statement that I've gotten the following answers off of a thread BoardGameGeek.
Question 1: If you have to gain more evil than evilometer allows you, you are not gaining any. Can this theoretically happen in the second round of the game?
On round 1 and 2 you play food, getting on the third space (in round one two people do it before your first placement). Thats 4 evil.
On round 2 title envy event occurs. You collect 1 evil per title, for the following:
Most evil (from your 4 evil from food)
Most room (1 vs 0/0/0)
Most tunnels (You dug 2, no one else dug, 4/3/3/3 after the room)
Most monsters (1 vs 0/0/0)
Most imps (4 vs 0/0/0)
Most resources (you gained off the food, they spent some if needed).
Note that you cannot collect 'fewest conquered tiles'.
Thats 10 evil, maxing you out, but we still need one more, so your Monster that you recruited is a Witch for one evil. (Vampire not needed. Ghost doesnt count as a monster for monsterlord).
Your three actions each round combine to these 6 actions:
Food, Food, Tunnel, Imps, Monster, Room.
We go above the top of the evilometer on Title Envy when the final title is awarded. (Note: that Witch recruit was before the title payout, so yes it works).
Question 2: What is the theoretical maximum number of imps a player can accumulate during a 4 player game?
30
3 from the beginning of the game, 12 from magic room (4 x 1 in first year, 4 x 2 in second year), 15 from actions (the player have to take imps as first action each round except last round, so he will be at least once first and so obtain only one imp 7 x 2 + 1 x 1).
Question 3: What is the highest possible damage one trap can deal?
Nine. Poisonous food used onto eight life adventurer with one extra life because of magic food.
Question 4: Can it happen that an illusionary hero created by Second Year’s Illusion spell survives a combat round?
Theoretically, it can survive even a round in which was party conquering.
1st round – illusion is created. Party doesn’t conquer.
2nd round – illusion is boosted by magic food. Party doesn’t conquer.
3rd round – illusion survives one fatigue from conquering.
Question 5 What is the theoretical maximum number of actually healed damage in a single round of combat if there is no paladin involved?
Ten. Party composed from two priests with three hearts each and one wizard (three casting symbols). Initially an illusionary hero with two wounds is created (analogical to previous answer) in first two rounds. Also some damage is dealt among the adventures. In the third round slime hits the party, the wizard casts healing spell and one wound is healed to each member of the party including the illusionary hero. Two priests heal the rest six wounds.
Question 6 What is the lowest possible score you can achieve in the game?
-72. You can have sixteen tunnels which results in 8 x -3 points each year for unpaid taxes. Nine tunnels were destroyed by adventures 9 x -2 (once double conquering because of the spell) and the visiting minister of Dungeons was hungry (2 x -3).
Summary: -48 (unpaid taxes) -18 (destroyed tunnels) – 6 (visiting minister) = -72
Question 7 It is start of the last round of a 2 player game (fall of Second Year) and opponent has no production room. If scored now, you would win all 7 exclusive titles. May it happen you score no title (exclusive nor shared) at the end of the game?
Yes, even if your opponent does not perform one of his minion actions.
First player has all titles, second has none.
Second player dig four tunnels as his first action and hire monster as second action. First player’s actions are chosen so that they do not interfere with loosing titles.
Special event is an Earthquake. First player looses two rooms, second player looses two tunnels (Other option is the Extra tax special event).
The Lord of Dark Deeds – lost in the combat (because of destroyed tiles)
The Lord of Halls – lost because of an Earthquake
The Tunnellord – lost by the only minion action of the second player
The Monsterlord – lost in the combat (because of Dimensional gate)
The Lord of Imps – lost in the combat (two or three Kamikadze Ims)
The Lord of Riches – lost in the combat (two or more traps used)
The Battlelord – lost in the combat (because of destroyed tiles)
Second player doesn’t loose any tile or monster in the combat and he uses no traps (For example party of a paladin and three rogues (the case the first player has taken action Improve Reputation so the second player is the most evil from the beginning of the combat), first round a daemon and a dragon in the Anti-magic Room, second round a goblin finishes the three wounded rogues in Training Room).

I eventually found that thread too, which kind of took the fun out of it for me - but you have correctly answered the question!  What a complicated game :D

@thesunneversets I had guessed as much, as a 'Dungeon Lord Quiz' google pulls up the answers in the first couple of hits now, but I figured that the answer should find it's way back here just for completion's sake.

1) Yes you can, and I think "C", but for sure "D".
I don't have the board in front of me (so I don't remember what the amount you have to lose is to get to the maximum), but I think that it goes something like this:
Turn one

get 2 evil from Food
buy vampire (2 evil)

Turn two

buy second vampire (2 evil)
Event "PayDay" makes you pay 4 more evil.

That's ten evil lost in two turns.  You can do it with one vampire if you only need to lose 8 (substitute the second purchase for another -2 for food).
Sound right?

The real question is, can you max out on evil without hiring any vampires?  I'm suspecting that there must be a way...

This is probably going to be an ongoing mission, but I'm going to post my workings here as I go along, and see what we end up with.
Question 1: It's clearly possible to gain 10 evil by the end of the second turn by hiring Vampires at 2 Evil a pop, and then paying them off on PayDay.  The question is, can we get to 10 Evil in two turns without the help of Vampires?  I'm currently thinking that the answer is yes, and that this is acheived through the Special Event "Title Envy" (gain 1 Evil for each exclusive title you currently have).  Between this, gaining up to 4 Evil from Food acquisition, and up to 2 Evil from hiring Witches or Ghosts, I can't imagine it would be impossible to make it to 10 Evil without a single Vampire in one's employ.  Right?
Question 2: I spent forever wondering why the answer to this wasn't 31.  You start with 3 imps, you buy the Magic Room, you get 2 imps per turn with your actions, 1 new imp per turn in the Magic Room in the first year, 2 new imps per turn in the Magic room in the second year.  3 + 16 + 12 = 31.  But of course (these questions are fiendish!) you can't always get 2 imps with an action.  To use the same action every turn for the entire game you have to use it as your first action every time, or else it becomes an inaccessible action.  If you are always taking Imps as your first action, then it will sometimes coincide with you being first player, and you will only get 1 new imp that turn.  Suppose you are sitting in fourth seat: on the last turn of the second year you don't need Imps to be your first action, but on the last turn of the first year you do.  So you lose 1 imp to the seating order and end the game with a still fairly incredible army of 30 Imps.

Never heard of that event.  Maybe we haven't played with it yet....

@Egg: There's another Special Event that gives you 3 Evil if you have the most monsters.  But I think it's safe to say that Title Envy offers the largest potential for a massive one-shot Evil swing.  I don't know if you could actually achieve 7 Evil from it on Turn 2, trying to work that out makes my brain ache, but I think 4 Evil from it seems like a pretty safe bet.


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Fixing the "Vs. Player" squares in Encore!
Few squares in Encore! are more dreaded by our play group than the "Vs. Player" squares — "Team vs. Player" and "Player Vs. Player." It's not just that they're harder; they're palpably less fun, and kill the momentum that's generated by the game. They remove the collaborative element that's a big part of the game's appeal, and have the potential to cause tension. (Instances where the chosen player gets a word that they blank on,  or when the rest of the team has to sit in silence as the "best" player seizes the spotlight for a while or a stymied teammate struggles with a word that his or her friends can think of half a dozen songs for.)
Here are some steps we've taken to try and fix the problem:

On XvP squares, the "player" is not necessarily chosen in advance; rather, it's the person on the singing team who begins the first song after the timer starts running. This means you'll never be completely without a song unless no one on your team had one.
At our last Encore! party, I served as timekeeper and as the "player" — XvP became "challenge the host." This worked well for the team challenge, but Player vs. Me had many of the same difficulties as Player vs. Player.

We like Encore! and play it regularly, but it seems that this one element is more likely to cause awkwardness in the game than any other. How can this be reduced or eliminated?

From the looks of the rules, ways of solving this issue are rather limited. This appears to be a normal roll and move trivial pursuit type of game of the music variety. Your solution is probably the best solution, just don't use single player spaces. In any game that requires a single player from a team to answer a question, it can be awkward if that player is completely stumped. In a game like this, where you want collaboration, I see no need to force single players to compete against each other.

Since this has turned out to be the most practical, actionable solution, I'm accepting it.

Just ignore it! We always play team vs. team on every square.

Hi, RobinR, and welcome to the site! This looks a lot like the accepted solution posted above, so it's not as helpful as it could be.

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


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Determining Naval Interceptions
I have a complicated situation involving four major powers.  The below chart will summarize their relations.  Both sets of allies are using simultaneous movement.

         France   Russia    Spain   Turkey
France       XX   Allied      War      ---
Russia   Allied       XX      War      War
Spain       War      War       XX   Allied
Turkey      ---      War   Allied       XX

French and Russian fleets are blockading the Spanish and Turkish fleets at Cadiz.
Spain & Turkey wish to run the blockade together as one stack.  Who can intercept and why?

Check 6.3.1.2.
There is relevant errata published in The General #27.2.
Short: if France and Russia declare a combined movement, they can intercept and fight together against Turkey and Spain.
If there is no combined movement then in turn France and Russia can try to intercept and if they succeed can battle both Turkey and Spain, with an opportunity for France to DoW Turkey.

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Can the Trader destroy a disease card?
The trader card says:

Village: In addition to your by, you may destroy 1 card to take any non-Hero card worth up to 2 cost more from the village.

Disease doesn't have a cost listed, so even if it can be destroyed it is somewhat ambiguous as to what you could acquire afterwards.  Does anyone know how this should be played?

The publisher's representative (Ryan Metzler) states in this thread that trashing a disease with a trader is an illegal move:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/622651/village-trader-question
The rest of it sort of falls apart because he missed that they were erroneously talking about gold values, not cost, but it's the closest thing to an official answer I could find that you can't trash a card with no-cost to the Trader.
Also, clearly stated here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/7763776#7763776

What I've seen (though not an official ruling) is that cards with no cost printed on them are assumed to have a cost of 0, and so can be destroyed to get something that costs up to 2. Note that these are costs, not gold values (so the amount of gold you have to pay to get the card in your deck, not the amount of gold the card gives you when it's in your hand and you go to the village).
This is different than my understanding of gold value where I think that something needs to be printed on the card (why else would the Militia cards have a printed 0 gold value? why not just leave the gold value off?) I'm less certain on my interpretations of gold value though, so could be interpreting things incorrectly.

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It was the end of the world...but we didn't know it!
We played our first game of Arkham Horror last night with the new Miskatonic Horror expansion.  Pretty much all the new stuff was used, and we were playing along.  All the usual stuff was going wrong:

Doom track only had 1 free space left
Terror level was 5
Kingsport rifts were close to opening
4 tokens on the Deep Ones Rising track

The only thing going right was that we were still in Act 1 of the King in Yellow.  Of course, Bokrug wasn't done toying with us as the right environment card showed up and we had to go to Act 2, unless we were willing to pay the price and remove an Gate Seal.  We opted not to.  We had 3 seals, and two investigators off world with good odds of sealing.  Not to mention the doom track was filling up and we figured there would only be a couple turns left before the final battle anyways.
Naturally for the very next Mythos card, the King in Yellow decided it was time for Act 3 and the end of the world.  We lost without even a fight with Bokrug.
What factors weigh into deciding whether to delay the Act 1 and 2 cards from showing up?  In your experience how often do you need to pay the price?

This question is about the King in Yellow expansion (in addition to Miskatonic Horror). Is there a reason that you removed the tag?

@Thunderforge - please stop adding the KiY tag.  The King in Yellow mechanic was completely redone in the Miskatonic Horror expansion.  This question is about the King in Yellow mechanic, not the King in Yellow expansion

I'm going to assume that since you mentioned the Miskatonic Horror expansion and environments you're using the Act cards from that expansion and not the one originally present in King in Yellow.
For those that don't know the differences between the two: Originally in the King in Yellow expansion, the Acts only advanced when 'The Next Act Begins!' was drawn as a mythos card. The Miskatonic Horror expansion adds an alternative Act deck to use. This deck, in addition to advancing when 'The Next Act Begins' is drawn, advances when specific types of Environment Mythos Cards are drawn. Act I Begins when an Environment (Mystic) is drawn, Act II begins when an Environment (Urban) is drawn, and Act III begins when an Environment (Weather) is drawn. Another important difference between the two decks is the price that has to be paid to prevent an Act from beginning. In the original expansion, the price to prevent Act I and Act II from entering play was (respectively) by adding two doom tokens to the doom track and removing two elder sign tokens from the board. The MH version of the Act deck requires adding a single doom token and removing a single elder sign token from the board.
So, using the MH version or not makes a difference because the Act Cards are more likely to enter play, but the cost is less when they do.
Now, actually getting around to the question. For us, preventing an Act or not is a factor of how many expansions are in play, how many investigators are playing, who the Ancient One is, how far along the path to victory we are, and most importantly how lucky we're feeling.
First off, the large majority of the Act stopping we do is with Act I. Act II is really painful to stop. In a game where gate bursts already happen too often for comfort, choosing that voluntarily is just depressing.
With the original Act deck, the number of expansions is important. If we're using a lot of expansions, the odds of hitting a 'Next Act' card are pretty low since there's only ~7 of them, so we'll just let 'em pass. I don't know what the odds of of drawing specific types of weather cards, but I'll assume the chances are more or less the same regardless of how many expansions are in play, so when we're using the MH deck the expansion count doesn't really influence our decision.
The Ancient One you're up against is also important. You'll have to weigh a combination of doom track length, in-game effects, and difficulty of the final fight. If it's someone we think we can stomp in a fight, we'll stop Act I. Otherwise, if we're up against someone that wakes up quickly we'll let all of the Acts pass by. If they can eat us without blinking, since there's no chance for us later, we'll probably opt to stop Act II once. With Ancient Ones that have a longer track we'll look at what in-game effects they cause. We definitely won't stop Act II against AOs that make getting seals harder (Hastur, Yog).
If we're doing really well clue-token wise, or we have some Elder Signs to burn, or we've sealed some low-frequency locations, we'll feel pretty safe about stopping Act II. The penalty for removing seals is that the game goes on longer, but if you're fairly confident the additional mythos cards won't add doom tokens it may not be a bad choice. We'll have to be doing pretty well though if we're confident enough to get rid of a seal or two. We'll never stop Act II more than once.
TL;DR: Is the Ancient One going to eat you? Don't speed up the doom track! Don't remove a seal unless you're feeling pretty good! Do you have a shot at winning if it wakes up? Stop an Act once or twice! Find yourself thinking 'What are the odds'? Definitely stop an Act.


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Starting on a tile edge
Can't even do the solo game without a question!
Just opened and punched Castle Ravenloft.  Running the intro solo adventure.

Place Strahd's Crypt
Put your hero anywhere on the tile

I put my Hero right on the edge of the crypt.  After all, the further he can get from Strahd the better!
The turn order is

Hero phase
Exploration phase
Villain phase

So it appears that during my first turn, I have a 4x3 area on Strahd's Crypt to explore.  (There is nothing there).  I can find no rules on placing new tiles during your hero phase so I don't believe my hero can move off the tile edge and needs to wait for the exploration phase to place a tile.
Is this interpretation correct?
I feel like I have to be missing something here.

This is correct.  Tiles are normally placed during the exploration phase.  I haven't found a time when they are placed any other time.
With this scenario, the first turn is, basically, "skip your hero phase", then explore, battle monsters and possibly deal with an encounter.

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Is Klak's Infernal Artifact affected by powers that move monsters?
Adventure 3 in the Castle Ravenloft Adventure book has this special rule for dealing with Klak's Artifact:

Attacking Klak's Artifact will destroy it.  When attacking the artifact, treat the artifact as a Monster.

How does this work with powers that move monsters?  For example, Tide of Iron?
The artifact is represented by a 2x2 marker.  Markers don't typically move, but I didn't see any rule explicitly stating this.

I found the following entry at the D&D Adventure Systems Wiki:

Attack one adjacent Monster.
If you hit, place that Monster (if it isn't destroyed) on a tile within 1 tile of you, and you can move to any square on your tile.

So you could use Tide of Iron to attack it (since its treated as a monster), but Klak's Artifact states:

Attacking Klak's Artifact will destroy it.

So what happens when something is destroyed?  Page 10 of the rules, under Destroying Objects (empahsis mine at the end):

An Adventure might specify that an object needs to be destroyed to win a particular scenario. If the object has an Armor Class and Hit Points, your Hero can target it just like a Monster.  If your Hero has a power that attacks all Monsters on a specific
tile, it can also attack an object on that tile. Once you deal damage equal to its number of Hit Points, you destroy the object and remove its marker from the tile.

So you can attack Klak's Infernal Artifact with Tide of Iron, but then there's nothing to move afterwards, since attacking the Infernal Artifact destroys it, and destroyed objects are removed from the tile.
Phew.

Actually LittleBobbyTables, Klak's artifact has 5 hitpoints, so attacking it with Tied of Iron may well not be enough to destroy it, in which case I reckon it would knock it to another tile.
In fact, my kids were playing and this ended up being the exact situation. The Ranger had just reached 0 hps leaving only the Fighter and Klak's artifact- it needed to be destroyed this very turn or else it'd come back to the Ranger's turn and they'd lose (no more Surges left). Problem: the artifact had 3 hps left.
The Fighter hit it with Tide of Iron. Result: 1 point damage and knockback to an adjacent tile. He chose a tile that had a Dart Trap on it. In my role as DM, I decided that anything entering that tile would trigger the trap (hell, I figure if you, as a character, threw something big at a trap you'd set it off). The trap hit, did 2 more points of damage: artifact shatters into a zillion pieces, and the Fighter drags the Ranger back to the surface to be healed.
Now, hey, some people may say "Nah, Monsters don't set off traps" or quibble; but to me, it was a brilliant idea to blow it back into that space. A heroic idea. An mad adventuring idea. And so the story of that (which to me is the whole point of games) won out- a last second win due to a tricky move...

what about the part that states "Attacking Klak's Artifact will destroy it."?  Doesn't that mean that simply attacking it will destroy it?  Or is it a poorly-worded way of stating "You may attack Klak's Artifact"?

Yes, Tide of Iron affects Klaks Infernal artifact since it's treated as a monster.

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What are the rules differences in Empires in Arms?
The only version of Empires in Arms that I have ever seen is from 1986 by Avalon Hill.  The game was originally released by the Australian Design Group in 1983.
I've often seen comments that Avalon Hill extensively rewrote at least a few sections as well as added most of sections 10-12.
Does anyone know exactly what rules were changed?

I don't own the Australian Design Group version of the game, and I have yet to find a copy of the rules online in any form.
The Avalon Hill version of the rules can be found in several locations. BGG, eia.xnetz (or with Errata integrated)
This person claims that the following were changed.

Inf went from $2 to $3, ships from $7 to $10, guard and artillary from $6 to $7...
In the ADG version, all corps were uniform, ie, all French corps were 20i3c: In the AH version The french 1st corps is 25i3c, 2-6 are 20i3c, 7-9 are 15i2c and 10-12 are 12i1c. The 4 cav corps in ADG were 7cav each, in AH they are 7 cav for 2, 5 cav for the other 2. Similar corps composition changes were made to most of the countries.
Guard was added to Spain and GB, though not guard commitment.
New political combinations was greatly expanded.

Without access to the ADG rules, I cannot confirm or deny these changes exist though.

These claims match my vague recollections of having played the ADG version many years ago.

An article in Volume 24 Number 3 of the General contains an extensive review & commentary of the Avalon Hill release of Empires in Arms. The authors of the article are the designers of Empires in Arms, Harry Rowland and Greg Pinder.
Half of the article is devoted to the changes that Avalon Hill made and states that the designers are happy with almost all of them.

Tightening of the political rules

limits on ceding provinces
alliances were strengthened
added the rule about not being able to sue for a separate peace when a major power is in your territory

corp size changes
added Tyrolian Revolt corps
added guard infantry to Britain and Spain
added cavalry to Russia
extra feudal corps in Podolia, Transylvania and Crimea
added costs to most troops
added maintenance to depots
added victory conditions

Dissolve HRE
garnish British trade
remove factors instead of corps

VP levels were dramatically increased
manpower added to final VP totals
new political combinations were added
alternate dominant powers
restrictions on province loss by major powers
replaced civil disorder with compulsory suing for peace.


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What is the best 18xx game to teach someone?
There are several 18xx games easily available, maybe 8 or so that have mass produced and a few dozen kits that can be purchased or downloaded.
I love 18xx games, but I've found that not everyone I teach shares my enthusiasm.  I understand that some games will never appeal to certain folks but I think that part of the problem is the relative complexity of 18xx games.  As a group, they have several different mechanics that have to be learned for a new player to play a credible game.
With this question I'm looking for recommendations for the best 18xx game to teach a new player.  The game should have the best chance of hooking new players and getting them to want to explore the genre deeper.  I think that the best game would have:

a shorter playing time
The importance of Private companies should be minimized. I've found that asking people to bid right at the start of the game on things they don't understand is very intimidating.
tolerance for mistakes (I'm thinking of the ease of sliding into bankruptcy for even experienced players in 1830 here)

I have 1830, 1870, 1856 and 1833. Of them, I think 1830 is the most suitable for new players.
It contains the basics of the game:

Private companies
Track building
Route optimization
Company management
Stock manipulations

If you want a simpler game, you can ignore the private companies. Lower the starting money a bit if you like. I have played with and without privates and it seems to make no significant changes to the game.
If the stock market is too confusing, you can ignore that too. Just have one company per player. It's possibly wise to reduce the number of trains, else you never get rid of those 2 trains.
Most players run away from these, so no need to get a more complex game.
All 18xx have their own focus. I like 1856, because you can get away with mismanagement and get rewarded in the end (just like in real life).

I think 1830 is a good intro game but for new players you should include the Reading variant rules (resources at http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/56839/1830-take-a-ride-on-the-reading) as there's a bit of extra protection from having a company's trains rust right away when a new phase is entered.  Without that I find new players suddenly end up wearing a company with not a lot of options except bankruptcy and walk away with a "I'm never playing this game again!" feeling.

@cfeduke could you add this as a separate answer?  I think it deserves to stand on its own merits.  Finding out about smaller variants was one of the reasons I submitted this question!

Done. (Obligatory characters to allow comment to be posted.)

1830: Take a Ride on the Reading
Classic 1830 with the addition of the Reading variant.  This variant can be downloaded from Boardgame Geek.  It adds a new company, the Reading, which competes with the Pennsy.  More importantly it adds a delayed rust rule for trains which gives new players some extra protection against being choked out early.
Additionally there is rumor that the reprint may include one or more of the variants.

1870 is my current choice.

I've played a bunch once or twice, but 1856 and 1830 are the only other ones I've played extensively.  All comparisons here are to 1830.

Private companies seem less important (can't specify why, it just feels that way)
Shares have several built in protections to maintain the price, therefore the finance game is less dangerous
No double O tiles (I find these are somewhat confusing to new players)
Small cities can be upgraded (people don't like being locked into a tile they laid on turn 2)
Destination hexes give a default goal for laying track
Can play 2 yellow tiles/turn (building is easier for new players, here they get to do more of it)

There is one major downside for beginners though

Time to play is noticeably longer than 1830

My first 18xx experience was 1870 with four or five players, none of whom had ever played an 18xx game.  And reading through the rules, we all got the idea that it was about laying track and driving trains around -- not manipulating the market.  We quit after twelve hours, not understanding how to shut it down.  That said, 1870 would be my choice too, but it's been to long to justify why with any rigor.

1870 is a tough sell for new players.  Every new player we introduce through it never plays 18XX again.  I think its just game time length (3-6 hours) that does it.

Noticebly longer than 1830? Ouch. I would have thought that for most newbies, 1830's length would already be a detraction. But it completely depends on what the new peoples' existing experience is with game length: most hex-and-counter types could easily support the game length. People coming from the heavier german-game style (including Martin Wallace and Splotter's designs) would be in a for a bit of clock-shock, I think...

@Viktor - well I did say it was a major downside :)  For some games, most notably Civilization, Age of Renaissance and 18xx I make a point of telling people up front that this game is going to take hours.  Some folks are definitely turned off, and I'd rather weed them out up front by being honest.  For me, a long game has to be enjoyable as an experience, not just for the winner but for all participants.  I think the 3 I mentioned qualify.  Of course, there is always Empires in Arms for those who scoff at 8 hours being far too short of a game!

I got introduced to 18xx through 1825 (specifically Unit 1, then Units 2 and 3) and trying more 183x inspired variants later, like 1856, I've value the introduction I got. The more constrained board and the shorter playing time was a real advantage. Also, the game felt a bit more forgiving of mistakes. One of the big disadvantages to the 1825 series, though, is their relative rarity -- if you don't already own a copy, you'll probably find it quite difficult to get one: they were assembled by Tresham in relatively small numbers, and the run of readily available copies has long since sold out, I believe.
Years later, I played Poseidon, a game I believe is specifically intended as an introduction to 18xx-style games. As with Tresham's 1825 units, the game play is shorter, and the field somewhat more constrained than in most 1830-inspired games; for better, or worse, Poseidon "re-imagines" 18xx to a certain extent, using different theme and terminology. But I do believe that it's a good gateway to 18xx games, proper -- for players comfortable with the playing time and difficulty in games like Le Havre or Age Of Steam or Brass, Poseidon can easily act as an enjoyable bridge to full-blown 18xx. Poseidon was also produced by a game studio (Lookout Games) and so is probably much easier to find than 1825 units at this point.
Finally, there are some 18xx games that I believe were rather specifically intended as means to introduce people to games; you can find entries for the "So, you're thinking about giving 18xx a try?" list at boardgamegeek: 18EU and Steam Over Holland (and Poseidon). But also, you'll find a lot of commentary and comments on the pros and cons of introducing newbies to 18xx with a wider variety of games not often thought of as starting points.


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How important is memorizing chess openings in casual play?
I've played chess since I was kid and after much practice have become a decent player.  I still though, have little strategy to my opening moves besides starting with a King's Pawn Game.  I know professional players and grandmasters have a large repertoire of openings they know.  They also know a large number of responses to those openings.  How important is knowing different openings when playing chess casually?

Its far better to thoroughly understand a small number of openings than it is to mindlessly memorize a large number of openings.  Frequently, if you know why a set of moves is considered optimal, then you're in a better position to adapt once the board gets "off the opening".  However, if you have a wide set of openings memorized, you may find that while you are moving down your 'optimal opening', ready to transition to a strong midgame, your opponent may have other plans, and make a move that takes him off your chosen opening.
Now frequently, there's a good reason why that move is not covered by your opening chart;  that move may be terrible.  But if you don't understand why that move is terrible, then you may not be able to take advantage of it, and if the other player improvises better/faster than you, you may find yourself at a disadvantage despite your 'superior' play to this point in time.
Don't let that happen to you.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with this answer - if you are a casual player, even studying opening theory is a waste of time.  That time is much better spent studying tactics.  Even at only half an hour a day doing puzzles, it is fairly easy to jump from 1000 to 1400 in only a few weeks, a huge improvement.  If you spend that time studying openings instead, you will likely find little to no improvement in your play.

I don't think our viewpoints are that far off;  you seem to be saying "Understand tactics over opening theory", whereas I am saying "Don't memorize openings, understand them".  We both seem to agree that rote memorization is a bad idea, at least.

1000x more important (and more fun!) than even studying theory is.. improving your tactics!  The best place I know for this is chesstempo.com.
You can easily get up to 1700~1900 USCF never learning any theory at all (casual players are usually 800~1400), and I've even met a few players over 2000 (master level) who have never studied any theory!
However, if you insist on studying theory, learn the barebone basics, then study endgames - knowing an opening might give you a slight theoretical edge going into the middlegame, but knowing an endgame could mean the difference between winning and drawing/losing. Remember, the winner is the person who makes the second-to-last mistake!

This answer may have some excessive formatting.

For casual play, I don't think memorizing chess openings is all that important. However, studying and understanding why some counter-moves are appropriate for this or that opening may prove quite useful.

Chess openings are very important if you are interested in winning games, as they are sets of moves that help develop your pieces quickly and gain some control of the centre of the board.  Having a grasp of an opening sequence that your opponent doesn't know should give you an edge in the early game that you may be able to turn into a clear lead during the middle game.
On the other hand, if you are playing against an opponent who doesn't know the opening then you may quickly find yourself in an unexpected position - so try to concentrate on learning a shallow amount of an opening.
Finally the other thing to say is that some openings are a must know.  See for example scholar's mate!

I'm quite familiar with a variation of scholar's mate that we used to used to try on each other in middle and high school to see if you were paying attention.

Opening memorization is not important at all, especially to casual play, and shouldn't be the focus of study time for serious players, either, even up to around expert/master level.   For casual play, you should instead follow basic opening principles: put a pawn or two in the center, move all your pieces once before moving any piece twice (unless there's a tactic), castle.   For serious players, it's worth playing a few openings and learning them well, slowly building your mental tree of opening variations game by game, by playing a game and looking up the official lines afterwards, to see where you diverged.
I once spoke with a well known local expert player, who confided to me that he wished he could "get all those years back" that he spent studying openings.   I asked "what would you study instead?"  He instantly responded: "tactics and endgames."   He usually played unorthodox gambit openings and almost always built a great attack with the initiative.

You don't need to memorise every opening move and variation to be able to play it - not for casual play at least. It's better to just play and get a feel of the different characters that varied first moves and common responses can give a game. You may find you enjoy losing games trying to crack a c4 first move more than winning with a King's Pawn game, and you'll learn to understand the opening better than you ever will by memorising the first X moves.
And let's face it, for most of us the game isn't won or lost in the first few moves; there are plenty more opportunities for middle and end-game blunders. A world of experimentation and catastrophic strategic mistakes awaits!

In casual play, it's not necessary to memorize openings. Because your "casual" (by definition) opponent won't know them.
It's much more important to know tactics, and to "read" the opponent's moves. If s/he departs from the "book," its usually to that player's detriment. Occasionally he'll stumble on an alternate variation, rarely find a new line. Figure out why your opponent's moves are (probably) wrong, and take advantage of that fact.


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Does the Crokinole playing surface material really affect the gameplay?
My father in law is saying that his oncle's old solid wood Crokinole board outmatch the cheap cardboard game he actually got.
I never played on this solid wood board and before upgrading to a better board, I'm wondering if anyone who tested many different board types could detail how the playing surface (cardboard vs lacquered vs solid wood) affect the game.

When considering whether "upgrading" your board, you want to consider how it will impact your enjoyment of the game.
Enjoyment of the game is impacted in a few ways:
Gameplay:

A hard, smooth, level, and slick surface allows for accurate shots and purer deflections that allow advanced players to use "angles" better then lower quality surfaces.
The rigidity of the posts, and cleaner cut 20 hole provide more consistent bounces and 20 point hits.
A solid, thicker play surface combined with a taller rail supports having harder shots being trapped in the ditch rather than bouncing back on to the play surface disturbing the remaining pieces.

Longevity:

Stained and urethaned wood or composites are less susceptible to moisture, wear and tear and are less likely to warp and/or lose their shape over time.   Quality crokinole boards are frequently considered desirable heirlooms and can be enjoyed pass down other generations

Presentation, Aesthetic and Ergonomics:

Many owners of high quality boards consider them artwork or attractive furniture.  Over hung on a wall or displayed on a stand, the boards are often conversation starters: you are more likely to play.
Placing a substantial and attractive board on a table with high quality discs definitely changes the look, feel, sound, and even smell (esp a freshly waxed board) that engages players more than a smaller cardboard playset.

If you enjoy crokinole on small cardboard set, and think that this is a game you would be playing for many years, you might consider a handmade board a form of investment.   Its not uncommon for players to point to the size and price point of a quality crokinole board as reasonable alternative to a billiard table or shuffleboard table.

I think solid wood with a wax finish is the best. Basically, the rougher it is, the less finesse you can use. If it's really rough, then the movement starts to be less predictable. Of course, the surface of your cookies is also part of the equation.

"rougher it is, the less finesse you can use" I could infer that myself. My question is about the base material, not about the quality of finish. Is a good veneer, with a quality finish,does a good job as a solid wood board? Did you try the different surface or just throwing that form the top of your head?


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There seem to be several different scoring systems for fields/cities in Carcassonne -- which is correct?
It seems that the scoring for fields and cities in Carcassonne varies -- has this changed over the years, or is this a difference between the US and international versions? Are there generally-accepted correct scoring rules for fields and cities?

The third edition scoring is now what is shipped by both Rio Grande Games(US distributor) and Hans im Glück(Original, German publishers)
Rio Grande Games made the changes for the english version of the game (1st and 2nd edition scoring).
Here are a summary of the scoring rule changes by edition

1st Edition

Small City scoring (Completed 2 tile cities only score 2)
Farmer scoring:

Select a city
Count the farmers in fields touching that city
The player with the majority of farmers on all farms touching that city scores 4
Repeat for each city.

2nd Edition

Small City scoring (Completed 2 tile cities only score 2)
Farmer scoring:

Pick a farm
Count the farmers on that farm
The player with the most farmers scores 3 for each city touching that farm
Repeat for each city.  However, each city can only be scored once

3rd Edition

All city scoring is 2 points per tile, no small city exception
Farmer Scoring:

Pick a farm
Count the farmers on that farm
The player with the most farmers scores 3 for each city touching that farm
Repeat for each farm.  Each city can be scored multiple times.

Rio Grande Games only recently (2009) starting shipping the 3rd edition rules, while Hans im  Glück issued them in 2004.  The reason given is that RGG prefers not to issue rule changes when reprinting a game. This meant that they had to rewrite the rules of most expansions issued to ensure they were compatible.
I do not believe that Jay Tummelson (Head of Rio Grande Games) has stated why the switch was made in 2009.  I think there are two possible explanations.

The Abbey and Mayor expansion introduced the barn piece.  The barn piece is scored essentially like a farm (it scores and eliminates all farmers in the farm).  This is easily understood for those familiar with the 3rd edition rules, but confusing for those using 1st.
All electronic editions of the game use 3rd edition scoring.  This could have forced RGG's hand.  When everyone in the US was playing just the RGG version it was easy to maintain a consistent rule set.  Now, a lot of us play on our Xbox or Ipad as well as using the board game.  This makes the differences more noticeable.

There are three versions of the Carcassonne rules; citing Wikipedia:

In the first and second editions of the game, completed cities covering just two tiles scored two points (one per tile) and one extra point for every pennant that resides in the city. This exception is removed from the third edition, in which there is no difference between two-tile cities and cities of larger size.
The greatest divergence in scoring rules between the editions of Carcassonne is in scoring for fields. In the first edition, the players with the greatest number of followers adjacent to a city were awarded four points for that city. Thus, followers from different fields contributed to the scoring for a city, and followers on a field may contribute to the scoring for multiple cities. The second edition considered different fields separately — for each field, the players with the greatest number of followers in a field scored three points for each city adjacent to the field, although points were only be scored once for any given city. The third edition removes these exceptions and brings field scoring in line with the scoring of other features.

I would imagine that tournaments will typically use the newest official version of the rules, but for recreational play there is no such thing as "correct" rules. Use whichever version your co-players and you agree on.

I actually think that the original scoring (per city rather than per field) was more intuitive, but that's just my opinion. 2nd Edition was very confusing.

The first edition was inconsistent and required extra record keeping. That's the main reason the third was changed: so that it "brings field scoring in line with the scoring of other features"

@Aldaron: it's a largely academic issue, but what extra records did the first edition require that you keep? I've always played first edition rules, and we never kept any records beyond the figurines placed on the tiles. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your remark?

@Erik: Just that you needed to keep track of what farmers had been counted for a given city, since you can't track that by removing them. With all other features (and now all features) figure removal mirrors scoring. Not a big deal, but a source of error and fidlyness.

@Aldaron: Got it, extra record keeping during scoring. I thought you meant during play. Thx!


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Why are there fewer board games with a triangular grid?
Many games have a rectangular grid, some even use hexagonal but it's quite rare to see triangles. I have heard the argument that hexagons confuse players. Is that true? Is there any evidence to suggest it?
My inner game designer thinks that hexagonal games have more choices. So a casual player might be paralyzed by so many options compared with what he "knows as normal". So a 'hardcore' player will love it, again for the extra choices. If that's true, and not just a rationalization I made up, then will a triangular board feel constricted to both demographics?
Is that line of reasoning sound? Is there something I'm missing?

A hexagonal grid and a triangular grid are duals of each other; that is, if you put a dot in the center of each hexagon, and connect them to each adjacent one, then you get a triangular grid:

Thus, playing on the vertices of a triangular grid is equivalent to playing in the spaces on a hexagonal grid, and likewise playing on the vertices of a hexagonal grid is equivalent to playing in the spaces on a triangular grid. An example of this is the game Hex, so named because of the hexagonal grid it is played on; however, you can also play it on a triangular grid by playing it like Go, on the vertices instead of the spaces.

One of the big difference between playing (in the spaces) on a hexagonal grid and a triangular grid is that in a hexagonal grid, each space is connected to six spaces around it; in a triangular grid, each space is connected to only three. This can significantly limit the number of options, if for instance you are only allowed to move to adjacent spaces, or only are allowed to make connections to adjacent spaces. A square grid gives you four connections, or eight if you can move or connect diagonally. A hexagonal grid gives you six. In many game designs, only have three moves or connections available is likely to be fairly limiting, though it may be possible to do something interesting with that.
There are games played with triangular grids. One example that comes to mind is Blokus Trigon. This is an interesting case, as each piece consists of triangles joined by their edges, but you join your pieces together by their corners, with the restriction that each piece must touch another of the same color on a corner but not on an edge. In the traditional square version of Blokus, this means that only two of the pieces which touch at a given intersection may be the same color; while in the triangular version, you have 6 spaces around each intersection, and thus can fit three pieces of the same color in. In this way, it manages to take advantage of both the triangular and hexagonal properties of the triangular grid.

Another example of using triangular and hexagonal boards is attempting to play Go on both. Xah Lee has some notes on how that works. As Go is played on the intersections, not in the spaces, each piece connects to only three others on the hexagonal board, and thus each piece has only three liberties, while on the triangular board, each space connects to six others. In the hexagonal version, only three spaces means that each piece is very vulnerable to capture; the game is very unstable. In the triangular version, each piece has lots of liberties, and is quite hard to capture. It sounds like for Go, 4 connections really is the ideal balance for just enough risk to have good tactical battles, while enough stability to be able to form live groups and be able to think more about strategy.
In summary, triangular grids are used occasionally, but I believe that in many cases they provide too few options or connections to provide interesting strategic play. However, if you're interested in designing games, perhaps you should take that as a design challenge; try to design a game that takes good advantages of the limited number of options a triangular grid gives you.
Image credits

Dual of hexagonal grid by Antal Spector-Zabusky of StackOverflow. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5
Hex board by Tiltec of Wikimedia Commons. Released into the public domain.
Go-style hex board by Twixter of HexWiki. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0.
Blokus Trigon by Gangster 1930 of BoardGameGeek. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 3.0.

An only very tangentially related fact: the duality between hex and triangular grids was used in a great book on pencil-and-paper games I read a long time ago, to obtain a hex grid using square grid paper! What you did was draw 45 degree diagonal lines from (say) lower left to upper right through all grid points; this gives you a triangular grid (try it). Then you applied duality: go-style, you used the grid points and their connections, not the spaces in between them.

By the way, Catan is a great example of a game played essentially on the triangular dual of the hex grid of the tiles: the villages / cities are on the corners, and the streets are the edges of the hexes. Of course the resource production is based on the hex nature of the grid.

Hey, I recognize that first picture! :-)  Out of curiosity, was this why you asked the SO question?

@Antal S-Z Yes, it was. Sorry, I just realized that I had meant to credit you for it, but never got around to that. If you look at the history, I had found another picture online, but which wasn't as good and was probably infringing on the authors copyright, so I was wondering about good ways of generating the picture myself. The question wound up being about drawing that specific picture, though I had intended it to be just about finding a good tool with which I could do it myself.

Another difference between the three grids is the following: for spaces that "touch", a square grid has two different relative positions: sharing an edge or touching diagonally. For hex grids, two spaces that "touch" can only share an edge. For a triangular grid, however, there are three options:

Consider the red triangle. It touches each of the three other non-white triangles; but:

it shares an edge with the black triangle;
it is "opposite" the green triangle (that is, you get the green triangle by mirroring the red triangle in one of it vertices);
neither is true for the blue triangle.

By looking at the dual hex grid, we can see that the blue triangle is two steps away from the red triangle, whereas the black one is only one step away and the green one is three steps away.
Maybe you can use the different relationships that triangles can have to eachother, to your advantage when designing a game, by differentiating among them. In some sense, Settlers of Catan does that in some sense - it uses the triangular grid underlying the hex grid of the tiles for placing the cities and streets on, and streets can clearly only be used to connect "triangles that share an edge". However, cities whose triangles touch share a resource producing hexagon.

True, I have missed completely that Settlers of Catan is also triangular.

Mathematically speaking, Triangle and Hexagon tilings are "duals" of each other.

One reason why the less natural hexagonal grid is so popular in wargames and other games where the board represents real-world terrain is that it measures distances much closer than the others.  All six adjacent hexes are the same distance from the central hex, and the variations even out to four or five hexes are small.  Both square and triangular grids have serious problems with unequal distances as a result of the diagonals.
If you're measuring the range of a gun by counting hexes then it won't be far off; if you're measuring on a square grid then it will be either 40% further or 30% less far along the diagonal.  Variations on a hex grid are in single-digit percentages.
With a triangular grid is that you have the unnatural non-square grid without the advantages you get from the hex grid in not having any diagonals and having a more accurate representation of distance.

Humans tend to think on the rectangular grid. We've built our cities on the rectangular grid, and the primary coordinate system is on the rectangular grid. As a result, people don't know how to work with other systems very well.

I live in England - believe me, our cities aren't on any kind of rectangular grid here!  Still, it's a good point.  +1

@Richard Gadsden: Milton Keynes.

@StuartPegg: I don't get it -- from what I can tell, Milton Keynes is built on mostly a rectangular grid: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=milton+keynes&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1366&bih=664&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

@Joe: Hence it's a good response to the previous comment, which claimed that English cities were not. In retrospect I should have also referenced the vast number of grid-like Victorian estates, such as those in Richard's hometown.

@RichardGadsden Tends to be the case in Europe a lot, cities that started out further back in history where it was harder to bend the land to a design than it was to bend the design to the land, based on technological limitations (not to mention the difference in travel mode being designed for changed priorities) It's very true in North America. Just look at New York's numbered and lettered cross streets.

Hopefully this isn't too long and rambling, but I'm writing this kind of "stream of consciousness" style...

Triangular pieces would have lower surface area touching the board, which would make them somewhat more unstable unless they were shorter in height.  I.e. easier to knock over.
Shorter pieces may be more difficult to manipulate, since you have fewer free sides.  Think of a Scrabble board - you can extract almost any piece without significantly affecting the pieces around it.  This could be mitigated by providing a nub or grip sticking up from the piece to be grasped.
As McKay mentioned, we tend to think in squares.  Up, down, left and right are simple to grasp.  How do you describe directions or positions on a triangular board?
Perhaps not as big of an issue, but manufacturing - particularly at the prototype level - would require additional expertise.  Just about anybody can easily cut square pieces, but equilateral triangles would require more effort to make.
Games played on a hexagonal board are typically because of the increased freedom of movement.  Triangles would actually constrain movement even more tightly than squares.  So a triangular board may work best for "tile"-like games that don't require much movement of pieces once they are placed.
What happens when you bump the board?  On a square (or hexagonal) board, there are always two faces parallel to one another, so the pieces will slide in a straight line.  Triangular pieces will push their way to one side or the other from the axis of movement.

A triangular grid can slide in 3 axis, while the square only in two. Hexagons would be locked.

It's hard for me to put any of these answers as the answer. However this one feels like the more encompassing one. Could you edit it to include the ideas from the others?

Actually, I'd probably go with Brian Campbell's answer, if he wants to include my observations.

Concur.  An absolutely perfect answer would be Brian's, with the additional observations from this answer and Richard Gadsden's added.

One tiny note to add to the more than sufficient existing answers: When using circular pieces (or pieces with a circular base) a hexagonal board is a more efficient use of space. Hexagons are the shape with the largest number of sides (hence being closer to a circle) that tessalate.
Hence a triangular grid board with the same number of spaces would have to be larger than its hexagonal equivilent to accomodate the same size circular pieces.

One obvious reason: space on the card. Squares and hexes lend themselves to game text, while it can be tricky to fit a significant amount of game text on a triangle.

Does this answer the question?  It is asking about grids on game boards.

I thought the question was "why don't games use triangular pieces"?

One thought I've had is that most games are 2 player and a triangular board doesn't lend itself to 'opposition' type games. But if a triangular grid were made into a rhombic or other shape that might help.
I counted 7 chess like piece moves on a triangular grid, though there may be more.

Can you give a citation for the assertion that most games are 2 player?

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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In two- and three-player Citadels, how does the Bishop's ability work?
In two- and three-player Citadels, if I have Bishop, am I always protected from the Warlord?  Or, am I only protected if my second character is the Bishop (i.e. I was most recently the Bishop during the Warlord's turn)?

In two and three player citadels each player still only has one city so the protection of the bishop will protect it no matter your other character.  Your two characters do not directly interact, you simply get two turns and the perks for each.
For example, if you draw both the assassin and the bishop, the murder by the assassin is not undone by the bishops turn.  If you draw the bishop and the merchant, the protection of the bishop is not undone by the merchant turn.


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How can I beat Forbidden Island at Elite or Legendary difficulty with two players?
The title says it all -- maybe it's just me, but the difficulty from going to Normal to Elite difficulty is more than a little challenging.  I've played with a combination of player combinations, but haven't been able to beat the game on Elite yet.
I seem to be struggling to win on either Elite or Legendary difficulty based on the following things:

keeping up with three flooded areas per turn right off the bat (instead of the usual two)
only able to hold 10 treasure cards (2 people * 5 cards per person)
being too spread out to keep shoring up flooded areas

Does anyone have any tips or strategies for dealing with three- or four-flooded areas per turn, and how best to trade and use special abilities?

Your limited power to hold cards is still going to be one of the most important parts of the game.

Since you're guaranteed to go through the deck at least once and probably more, don't be afraid to use your special action cards (helicopter and sandbags). You might already be doing this, but I know my group sometimes tries to save them when we could have easily gotten them again when the deck cycled through a second time and gotten almost double the benefit. The big exception is if you're toward the end of the game, have only 1 helicopter, and know you won't be drawing one soon.
If you have the cards to get a treasure, get it ASAP. Having to hang on to 4 cards essentially gives you a 1 card capacity and means you'll have to discard a lot of things you'd rather have kept. The sooner you can dump those cards for a treasure to free up hand space, the better.
Time is your enemy. You probably already knew this, but it's worth reiterating. You need to manage the cards that you draw as effectively as possible by getting treasures as soon as possible, because once you discard 2 cards of one color, you have to wait until the next reshuffle to even have a chance at getting them back. And with 3-5 tiles flooding per turn it's extremely difficult to shore them up fast enough. Thing will get worse every turn, so do whatever it takes to avoid having to wait a long period of time for a certain card.
Figure out what part of the island you really need to save. There are virtually always some tiles that are less important that you can let sink without much consequence. Since movement is so expensive, be very wary of what's worth moving for. If you're going to use your whole turn to move to a tile to shore it up, make shore its a tile that's actually worth it.
However, if you don't have to move to shore up a tile, I'd always do it unless you have something more urgent, like getting a treasure. Shoring up a tile guarantees that it will stay afloat at least until the next Waters Rise! card comes up, and having its flood card in the deck means that more important things won't be sinking. Any turn you shore up 3+ tiles, even if they're non-essential, is a well spent turn as long as you won't be forced to discard anything valuable.
As for trading, try to identify one part of the island you can keep afloat and both stay in to reduce movement needed to reach the other player. If you have 4 cards of one color between you, do whatever is necessary to get that treasure FAST so you won't be forced to discard 2 cards of one color and have to wait for another reshuffle.

I'd definitely say the game is most difficult with 2 players, so don't be ashamed if you have trouble winning. I'd probably leave out the navigator and messenger as Bryanjonker stated in his answer as their powers will be the weakest in a 2 player game. You'd probably have better odds of winning if you gave yourself a small handicap. My preferred way to playing is with 4 actions per turn and the initial water level cranked up 1 level. Things tend to stay about even, the game goes quicker, there's more tension, and IMHO more strategy. If you like you could also allow sandbag cards to be used as any color treasure to reduce the dreaded long wait for that one card you need to complete a set.

Very nice answer. I really like your alternate rules too.

A lot of it depends on what roles you choose. Engineer obviously is going to have a greater ability to shore up areas, and Explorer is good with that as well. I'd say these are the two optimal roles -- stay close together, and plan to go through the deck at least once.
Pilot and Diver, you are focusing less on shoring up (although that's important), and more on making sure you are together, shoring up the vital areas, and trading cards. I'd say these two roles are more challenging, because more of the island will sink.
The other two roles, I'd skip for a two player game on Elite -- too challenging.
But, it's difficult in any case. Not sure if any of this helps.


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How can I counter Merchant Elves?
In Small World, the only combination we've encountered that we consider "broken" in any way is Merchant Elves - the Merchant property doubles the value of every occupied area, while the immortality of the Elves means that eliminating that race becomes impossible.
Especially deadly is the situation where Merchant Elves are taken by a player who put his first race into decline early.
Has anyone found a counter for this (admittedly rare) problem in Small World?

Why is it so deadly when the merchant elves put their first race into decline early?

In Small World, as soon as you discover that someone has a combo that seems powerful you need only to do a couple things

Kill off any declined empire of his
Regularly snipe a territory or two of his every turn.

If at least one other players agrees with you, the declined empire should be gone by the start of his second turn with the powerful combo (at the latest).  Without a declined empire regularly gaining a few VPs/turn, it is very hard to win.
Next you have to deal with the elves.  You definitely don't want him expanding to 8 territories and taking 16VPs/turn!  8 elves can be knocked back pretty easily.  He has no combat bonuses on either offense or defense, so you should be able to reduce him to a max of 2 territories at the start of his turn pretty fast.  Bottle him up with stacks 2-3 high, this will limit his expansion and should keep his VP generation below yours.
Don't be afraid to go into decline early and often.  Grab any combo with a combat advantage of some sort and exploit it.  Once it plays out, get another one.  The Merchant Elves will be stuck fighting for the same 2-4 territories every turn until he goes into decline.
Merchant only gives +2 troops, everything else except Fortified (+3) gives at least +4 troops.  This means that Merchant is meant to be a very powerful ability, on the other hand, you will almost certainly outnumber him.  Grab a combat oriented power on top of that and the battles should greatly favor you.
Some combos that might be particularly annoying to the merchant elves are:

Flying Ratmen or Amazons (attack his soft underbelly with a ton of troops)
Mounted Skeletons should have him restricted to the mountains in no time
Stout anything - just throw them at him and go get another empire while he cleans up the carnage
Commando Giants - grab mountains, anything around them will probably fall to 1 attacking giant!

The "Solution" to Merchant Elves is anything Sorcerers. With only 8 tokens, ME's are not terribly strong (but are rolling in VP's). If they have ANY one token space, get next to it, and convert an Elf. The Elf player drops a token, and can't get it back, and further, just lost 2 points of maximum potential income.
If the Sorcerers are not to hand, just beat up and reinforce the heck out of the edges.

"Place the substituted opponent's Race token back into the storage tray." SW rules page 9.

When an overpowering combo like that appears, you need a game-wide coalition to form, where players focus more on stomping the winner than growing their own empires.
Most overpowering combos gradually experience attrition, so the coalition gets to dissolve over time. Merchant Elves are exceptional because the coalition never gets to dissolve (unless, as Michael pointed out, Sorcerers manage to convert some Elven singletons).
This isn't necessarily bad, but it does mean the game will be dominated by a standard game theory defection scenario. If the coalition is strong enough, the players who 'defect' and see to their own empires win, but if too many players do that, the Elves win.

I would also add that the sorcerers are a great counter to elves to remove them a token each turn when they overexpand.


text:
Comparisons Betwen Deck-Building Games
I never played Magic. I briefly tried the original Vampire: The Masquerade (V:TM) themed CCG (Jyhad?). I had some Illuminati: New World Order (INWO) cards. I bought and listlessly toyed with a deck of the A Game of Thrones CCG. I really, really tried to like HeroClix. But every single time, the collectible element drove me away. I just couldn't see the merits of the game outweigh the pressure that random buys would put on my completist nature.
Now, there are a number of games that seem to take the good parts of the collectible games and do away with the collectible part. Can anyone offer a compare / contrast thumbnail of what seem to be the big deck-building games out today?

Dominion
Thunderstone
Ascension
Nightfall

I'm an experienced RPG and boardgamer, so it's not like I'll be put off by some complicated rules or emergent complexity arising from multiple card interactions. And it's not like I can't hit BGG for some reviews. I just want to know what these games share and how they differ.
If there's another game like this, I'd be open to hearing about that, too. I'm not sure that the Fantasy Flight Games Living Card Games for A Game of Thrones  and Call of Cthulhu qualify - aren't they just repackages of the old CCGs?

@gomad: it would be great if you could expand some of the acronyms. As a former casual collectible card game player I would be interested in knowing what games you are talking about, but I'm not in the scene enough to understand any acronym beyond CCG. (For reference, see this answer on meta.)

@Erik P - I expanded them. Sorry!

Yes, "Jyhad," although it ran for several years afterward as "Vampire: The Eternal Struggle."

The Fantasy Flight LCGs may be worth considering; while they are in a sense 'just repackaging CCGs', they remove the randomness.  If the random buys are what drives you away, the LCGs should be considered.  If the ever-increasing-card-game-size also drives you away, then steer clear.  (Also, @Jadasc: Vampire was also revived by White Wolf and ran for many years since; in fact they've only just shut it down again this year.  But that's an aside.)

@gomad: New since you asked the question, and well worth including, is Nightfall.  It's particularly worth a look for anyone who liked the theme of Jyhad (although it's mechanically very different).  I'll try to add an all-in-one answer later.

Should a non-card but similar in gameplay game like Puzzle Strike also be considered as part of this question? I've heard it referred to as a deck building game - except with chips in place of cards for easier shuffling/randomization - but I haven't yet picked up a copy and played it

Might be worth distinguishing between the "living card games" and the "deck building games" - LCGs are much closer cousins to Magic and other CCGs than Dominion.

Another deck builder you might want to consider is Arctic Scavengers.

Okay, I'll give it a shot.
First, what they have in common:

Static Cards: They are all static (meaning not CCG) card games.  Some (Dominion and Thunderstone) have expansions, but none of them require collecting or hunting down 'rare' cards to make the game better.
Victory Points: They all use a Victory Point system to determine the winner.  This is called "honor" in ascension (I think) but in essence, its still victory points.  The person with the most at the end wins.
Flexibility in numbers:They are all flexible on the number of players: Ascension is 2-4, Thunderstone is 2 - 5 (or 6) and I think Dominion is 2 - 6.  Not sure on the numbers exactly because Thunderstone has a nice single player variant, and both Thunderstone and Dominion can be expanded to include more players by playing with expansion cards.

Now the differences.

Deck Building:

Dominion is focused on building a deck to buy victory points.
While there are cards to interact and "attack" the other players, the game is centered around building a deck that will allow you to buy the most victory points.
Thunderstone focuses on building a deck from a general pool of cards, and then using your hand to "defeat monsters in the dungeon", thus gaining your Victory Points from the defeated monsters.  Some Victory Points can be purchased as well, but not usually enough to win the game, so defeating monsters is important to winning.
Ascension is much more like Thunderstone than Dominion.  In Ascension, you must also build a deck to defeat monsters to gain Honor (Victory Points) but unlike Thunderstone, the cards in the general pool are revealed one at a time.  So you have a line of 8 cards, and when one leaves play (your deck, or the discard pile) another fills that spot.

All are fairly easy to pick up, especially if you have played CCGs before or one of the above.
Dominion is probably the most well known and most played, as it's been around longer and there are several (many...) expansions.
I like them all and while I played Thunderstone first, then learned the others, I think that they all can be quite fun.  Most game shops will probably have Dominion on their "demo" shelf.  Several around here have Thunderstone and Ascension as well.

I'm a big fan of Dominion, and haven't played the others. I read the rulebook for Thunderstone, and it didn't really appeal to me. It looked like a dungeon-themed clone of Dominion. The limited supply in Ascension sounds interesting, though...I'll have to look into that.

re: "Flexibility in numbers"

Ascension and Thunderstone both have single player variants available as well.

FYI: Dominion is 2-4 players if you have the base set or the Intrigue standalone expansion, and 2-6 if you have both.

The LCG's aren't strictly "just repackages".  While some of the cards are subtly modified from the CCG, they are essentially the same.  The rules are the current CCG rules yet have new gameplay elements present.  The most important distinction is there is none of the traditional CCG randomness to the Chapter Packs.  They are fixed card packs used purely to customize or expand your game.
However I would agree, in my opinion they are not "deck building" games (because you don't build a deck as a primary component of gameplay) but deck building is a component if the owner chooses to buy Chapter Packs.

A few notes on Nightfall, compared to Dominion (the only two games on the list I've played).
Mechanically, the two games are pretty much the same.  I'd played Dominion first and once I was able to associate the mechanics of Nightfall onto the corresponding aspect of Dominion, playing the game came naturally.  Many of the same mechanics exist in both games, though with slight differences:

In Dominion, you win by having the most Victory cards, which are bought using Treasure.  In Nightfall, the corresponding cards are called Wounds, which are the inverse of Victory cards.  Just like Victory cards, there are a limited number of Wound cards in play and the game is over when the supply is depleted.  The winner is the player with the least Wound cards at the end of the game.  So, rather than buying Victory cards, you want to inflict wound cards on other players.  This is done using minion attacks and other cards (more on this below).
Which leads to the biggest difference between Nightfall and Dominion.  While Dominion has some attack cards, such as Witch and Thief, the players rarely interact with each other except to vie for the limited resources.  In Nightfall, combat is key to game play.  All of your Minions (vampires, werewolves, etc.) in play must attack an opponent player or players as a part of your turn.  This is how Wound cards are inflicted on the other players.
You get new cards in Dominion by buying them with Treasure cards from your hand (including buying new treasure cards).  You can gain more Treasure through Actions (more later), to use in the currentbuy phase.  In Nightfall you buy cards with Influence, getting two Influence in your buy phase, but you can discard cards to get more influence during that turn.
In Dominion you start with the opportunity to buy just one card.  By playing action cards (see below) you can gain more buy opportunities.  In Nightfall, you can buy as many cards as your influence allows.
In Dominion you play action cards which give you certain benefits, like getting more actions, drawing more cards, gaining more buys or more Treasure to use this turn.  Only the current player can participate in this action phase.  In Nightfall, the corresponding phase is called "Chaining". Here the player will play at least one card from their hand, which can add minions to the game, attack other players, or gain some other benefit.  It is also possible to chain additional cards from your hand, using a color-based mechanic.  Finally, the other players can also add to the chain.  Then all the cards in the chain resolve, in the reverse order in which they were added.
Both games use a hand of 5 cards, and at the end of your turn you always have 5 cards in your hand.  In Dominion you discard your entire hand at the end of your turn and draw 5 new cards.  In Nightfall your hand is persistent across turns, you just draw cards to bring your hand back up to 5.
In Dominion, none of the cards played in your turn persist to the next turn.  When your turn is done, you have cards in front of you.  In Nightfall, your minions persist from turn to turn, until they are removed as a part of the combat mechanics.
Both have similar models for discarding cards and removing them from the game entirely.  Removing cards from play is fairly uncommon in Dominion, but occurs fairly frequently in Nightfall.
Because of the way players are for the most part isolated from each other, you can be planning your next turn as soon as you draw your hand. It also means there's little need for keeping your hand secret.  In Nightfall, chaining on another player's turn lets you play cards dynamically, potentially changing your plans.  The combative nature of Nightfall requires more aggressive and strategic thinking than Dominion.
To summarize, the biggest difference between the two games is the combat mechanics in Nightfall.  If you don't like competitive games, Dominion will more likely be a better fit.

Nightfall's biggest failure is it strongly rewards card counting.  Don't want to be bothered with games that encourage me to deal with that in order to compete :)

What do you mean by "card counting"?  I can't imagine you mean it as it used with regards to blackjack.  That's all about inferring the cards remaining in the deck from those seen in play.  That doesn't seem to apply here because the set of available cards in known.  Do you mean counting cards in the other players hands?

primarily that the wounds get shuffled in and aren't publicly tracked.  I've seen people lose plenty of games of Nightfall they could have won if they'd been keeping count and attacked the right people in the last few turns :)

Another deck building game to consider is Puzzle Strike. In many ways, it is a remake of dominion, but with a significantly different win mechanic.
Rather than buying victory points, players send gems back and forth filling up their pile of gems. As their gem pile gets larger, players draw more cards, but when it hits its limit, they die and the game is over.
There are other complications, like the option to play different characters, offensive actions to attack people's decks, and team play.

Might be worth distinguishing between games where you deckbuilding BEFORE the game start and games where you deckbuilding DURING game play.
In the first category there are all the LCG games from Fantasy Flight Games and all his clones (that cannot use LCG word due to copyright). If you like to deckbuilding by yourself and than go to the club to kick some asses this is the game for you. And you have not to worried about your completist nature because you can buy easily all the cards without drain your bank account. From my point of view this is the "new" Magic way.
Dominion (and all the others that came later) put the deckbuilding directly into to the game play. So you open the box, everybody start the same and we will see who does better with what we have. From my point of view this come from the Magic Limited format (what I loved most).


text:
Boardgaming Online
This is a community maintained list of online resources to play boardgames with.
Does anyone know of more resources for online play?
Answers that address the following points would be much appreciated:

What game or games are supported? If the answer "many", please consider a link to the list.
What are the operating system requirements, or is it web-based?
Does it support "live" play, where players are connected at the same time, as if playing together at a table?
Does it support asynchronous play - like play by email or any other mechanism that allows each player to make his moves in turn.
Does it have an active community?
Is it easy to use? Or does it at least have good documentation?

This question is too broad.

Although it is a broad question, it is highly relevant for this community

I think this would be better as a Wikipedia article or BoardGameGeek forum thread, rather than as Q&A. As such, I would be in favor of a historical lock.

Specific sites hosting one game

Agricola  @ http://play-agricola.com
Brass @ http://brass.orderofthehammer.com/
Dominion @ http://dominion.isotropic.org/
Hive @ http://www.hivemania.com/play/?0
Settlers of Catan @ http://www.playcatan.com/catan-online-world.html
Go @ http://www.gokgs.com/ (see specific answer below for more)
Through the Ages @ http://www.boardgaming-online.com/
After the Flood @ http://www.slothninja.com/
Ticket to Ride @ http://www.daysofwonder.com/en/play/
Memoir '44 @ http://www.daysofwonder.com/memoir44-online/en/download/

Game agnostic toolsets
These tools are generally used for Play-by-email games.

Cyberboard
VASSAL
ACTS

Portal sites hosting many games

BrettspielWelt (40 games, a sample is given here)

A Castle for All Seasons
Carcassonne
Caylus
Dominion (very limited card set available; see above for a site with all the cards)
Imperial
Pandemic
Power Grid
Puerto Rico
Stone Age
7 Wonders

Pogo (21 boardgames, 29 cardgames)

Monopoly
Risk
Spades
Canasta
Bridge
Chess
Battleship

Boite à jeux (18 boardgames)

Alhambra
Shazamm
Torres
Cities

To expand on this answer, Memoir '44 is also now available to play on Steam.

You should definitely check out
BoardGameArena (aka BGA)
Why, you ask?
1. Games
Supported games (as of October 2012, each month there is a new game introduced. Even cooler, soon authors of the BGA will allow other member of community to design their own games with BGA Studio!):
 1. Coloretto
 2. Kahuna
 3. Dominion
 4. Race for the Galaxy
 5. Can't Stop
 6. Stone Age
 7. Puerto Rico
 8. Amyitis
 9. Haggis
 10. Gosu
 11. Tobago
 12. Uncle Chestnut's Table Gype
 13. Troyes
 14. Diam's
 15. Hawaii
 16. Dragonheart
 17. Saboteur
 18. China Gold
 19. In The Year of the Dragon
 20. Color Pop
 21. Caylus
 22. Seasons
 23. United Square
 24. Gyges
 25. The Boss

2. Technology - web based
The whole thing is web based, no Flash, just HTML/CSS/JavaScript/AJAX/PHP. I can even play games on BGA from my Android device!
3. Live play
It's all "live" play as you described it. There is time limit that each player has. After going over that time player might be kicked out of the game. This gives him bad reputation. You can always see how often other players leave the game (frustrating) or take too much time to think about their moves. You can give someone +1 reputaion or -1 if you don't recommend playing with that person.
4. Asynchronous play
However if you like, in uncommon situations you might want to host a game without a time limit, and it's also possible (this way you can play a game for a week). So that's for asynchronous play.
5. Tables
And as for tables - the whole system is build around setting a table, players joining it, and accepting table rules. You can join table and be a spectator. You can replay game that took place at certain table and view it from player perspective of your choosing. Great feature for learning what mistakes you made and improving your skills. You can as well watch games between best players.
6. Community
You asked about active community - oh yes. BGA is being constantly translated by users to 24 languages (including in-game text, instructions and the site itself). I myself did translate a few lines to my native language and improved what already has been translated. Anyone can do it! How about if you play with someone not speaking English or your language? You got translate button next to each sentence they write in the chat - it takes their words directly to google translate!
Reputation
As i said earlier, there is a reputation system. Something you might be familiar from StackExchange. Works great, and what's important - most players are nice to each other. Want to try a new game? just ask before playing if your opponent is willing to help you get a better understanding of the game.
Feedback
Feedback from site administrators is also great. Users are reporting found bugs and they are giving suggestion how to improve gameplay or site's interface. That's what BGA Forum is for. I myself have reported bug found in Saboteur, and it got fixed not long after that. You can vote for games to be introduced to the platform. Do you know game called Haggis? You can play with Sean Ross (designer of Haggis) on BGA.
7. Ease of use
I guess you have to find out for yourself. And remember that there is a good chance the site is (at least partially) already translated to your language. And if not - you can help make it so! I found BGA extremely easy to use and very much centered on great gamimg experience. Need help? Go to the BGA Help section.
8. Authors
This is what authors say about themselves:

First, we should say that we are gamers. Real, complete boardgames addicts.
We designed Board Game Arena for players who can't play for real
  because of time, geographic or social constraints. We would like to
  provide a new game experience with the best of two worlds: video games
  and board games.
Although we aim to provide high quality online games, we are still
  convinced that the best way to enjoy board games is around a real
  table with friends. This is one of the reason we strongly recommend
  you to buy physical copies of the games you discover on BGA. The other
  reason is simple to understand: each game sale is also a revenue for
  an author and an editor (... we've come full circle).

Ticket to Ride can be played at the Days of Wonder site, and is a very authentic play experience.  Unfortunately, you can only play a few trial games before they expect you to fork over some cash to carry on, but it's a pretty nominal fee and if you really liked Ticket to Ride I'm sure it'd be worth it.  Anyway, the first few games do cost nothing, so I think this is a valid answer to your question!
http://www.daysofwonder.com/en/play/
I know people will recommend the play-agricola site and the like, but I personally find having to manually manage all your tokens, and other fiddly aspects of the turn, removes much of the joy from the experience.  I think I would happily pay a small subscription fee for a really good implementation of Agricola (my favourite boardgame!) online that removes the spadework.  If you'll forgive that farming-related pun...

yucata.de - lots of players, asynchronous (can be live if both players keep making turns), you can play multiple games.  Here is the current list of game available (more than hundred):

A Few Acres of Snow
Alchemist
Antike Duellum
Arkadia
Arktia
Aronda
At the Gates of Loyang
Atantida
Atoll
Atta Ants
Awale
Balloon Cup
Bangkok Klongs
Black Friday
Call to Glory
Campaign Manager 2008
Can't Stop
Capt'n W. Kidd
Carcassonne H&G
Carolus Magnus
Carson City
Chinagold
City Blocks
ConHex
Down Under
Dragonheart
Drako
Egizia
El Grande
Era of Inventions
Famiglia
Fantasy Dice Battles
Fearsome Floors
Finca
Firenze
Founding Fathers
Four in a row
Glen More
Gobang & Gomoku
Hacienda
Hawaii
Hexxagon
Hey, that's my fish
Industrial Waste
Jaipur
Just 4 Fun
Just 4 Fun Colours
Kahuna
Kamisado
Kanaloa
King of Siam
Luna
Maori
Masons
Morris
Mount Drago
Nauticus
One-Eye
Oregon
Othello
Pergamon
Pompeii
Ponte del Diavolo
Port Royal
Rapa Nui
Rattus
R-Eco
Richelieu
Roll through the Ages
Russian Railroads
Saint Petersburg
Santa Cruz
Santiago de Cuba
Schweinebande
Shanghaien
Six
Skyline
Sobek
Space Mission
Sticky Fingers
Stone Age
Sudoku Moyo
Tally Ho!
Targi
The Castles of Burgundy
The Hanging Gardens
The Palaces of Carrara
The Speicherstadt
Thunderstone
Thurn and Taxis
To Court the King
Torres
Trias
Twin Tin Bots
Two by Two
Tyrus
Vikings
Vinci
Völuspá
War of the Roses (Rosenkonig)
Way of the Dragon
Yspahan
Yucata
Zooloretto the dice game

Also, yucata is expected to release a new game about every 3-4 weeks. If you like Euro-type games, this is the place to play them

Race for the Galaxy - you have to download but you can play online and single player
http://www.keldon.net/rftg/

If you are looking to play Risk, Axis & Allies, Diplomacy, or a variety of other games online, check out GamesByEmail.com. It's a pretty simple, easy to use site. Also, the guy who runs the site, Scott Nesin, happily let's others create/enhance games using the JavaScript library he created. If you are a programmer you can create your own games (or enhance existing ones) and get them up on the site! See the Developers Page for more details.
The games are all JavaScript-based so there's no program you have to download or Java applet you have to run and you can create games by inviting certain players or by playing against other random users.

Ok, that site is insanely cool! Not just the games, but the development tools. I've been dragging my feet on learning JavaScript - I looked at it in 1999 and said, OK...why? Obviously, I'm behind the curve! But this looks like a great opportunity and motivation to step up!

@gomad: The site owner/creator, Scott Nesin, is also very nice and easy to talk to and is a valuable resource as you start developing. I added some features to the WWII game on the site (which is an Axis and Allies clone) and Scott was very attentive and patient with my learning and bugs! :-)

Another portal for lesser known games is SuperDuperGames.org. I haven't played anything on there in forever, it is turn based, but can go pretty fast if you happen to be online at the same time.
And yet another board game portal is Game Table Online.  And yet again, haven't played there forever, I know that most of the games cost money to play, but there are some free ones.

There is also this list over at BGG of computer versions of boardgames with a built in AI.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/6483/computer-versions-of-board-games

Another I use fairly regularly is the Brass online game.
http://brass.orderofthehammer.com/
It is slightly different to most of the others, because it allows you to play turn by turn, and will notify you via email when it is your go. Therefore, you do not all need to be in session to play. I have played a game over a week before now.
If you are all online however, you can play it in a few hours.

A third option along the lines of Vassal and Cyberboard is ZunTzu, and a fourth is Battlegrounds. Games available for the first three highly favor wargames, though there are certainly decent eurogames on the lists. Battlegrounds, cautious about getting in trouble for copyright violation due to scans of game parts, doesn't have a list of games but there are quite a few out there, Google being your pal.
I've only played actual games through Vassal, and found the interface to be clunky, but we were certainly able to play.
I've tried to create new games in the Vassal, Cyberboard, and ZunTzu systems and, despite being a programmer, gamer, and generally smart dude, found them to be some combination of impenetrable and too limited.
Mind you, plenty of people enjoy them, and there's not reason to think you won't, but they didn't turn out to be what I was hoping for.

Your description, "...some combination of impenetrable and too limited" is exactly the impression I was getting from VASSAL and BSW. Thanks for the new contenders! So - does that mean that Battlegrounds gets your approval? Or is it just another failed contender?

I haven't touched Battlegrounds so can't say either way, unfortunately.

Although in beta, the quality of Memoir '44 online feels like a quality shrinkwrap product.  You can plenty of games for free before having to fork over money:
http://www.daysofwonder.com/memoir44-online/en/download/

I just signed up for that beta, but haven't played yet. I never played M44, but I like BattleLore, so I figured I would catch on.

EyePlay Games has an online version of Robo Rally that allows for both live play and extended "play by mail" style games where people may only complete a turn or two each day.

Thanks. I take it that site supports only a single game? I've never played Robo Rally, and I'm not really interested in single-game solutions.

It supports three different games, all based around similar Robo Rally mechanics, but with different goals & strategies.  Still, it does not sound like what you are looking for.

http://games.asobrain.com/

Settlers of Catan clone (Xplorers)
Carcasonne clone (Toulouse)

The community is pretty active, there's almost always someone to play.

Note that asobrain currently has a registration stop, so it's not a practical place to play right now.

Since registration was deactivated in March 2010, I think it's safe to say it won't reopen. This one isn't really an option unless you were already familiar with the site.

Online Go Servers:
A much more detailed list is available, but here is a brief overview of 3 popular Go servers with good English support.

KGS, very popular, has players from all over the world, accessible on computers (anything with Java) or through an Android app (iOS not available nor likely to be anytime soon).
Internet Go Server (IGS), very popular, lots of clients for all sorts of OS-es, including iOS and Android. Best for English or Japanese.
Dragon Go Server (DGS), popular turn-based server. Lots of languages and clients supported (including iOS and Android). Games are timed, but usually start with several months on the clock for each player.

Playtou.com is a portal that hosts tournaments (both paid for financial prizes and free). You can play chess, checkers, gomoku, reversi (othello) and roshambo there. You have to register in order to play but the registration is free. There is no client software you need only web browser. You play in a real time. The site also has a rank system.

For Chess play there's no better website than Chess.com
Supports Chess and Chess960, including live (OTB), correspondence (turn-based over time, permits up to 10 days per turn, determined pre-game), vote-based and tournament play. You can play rated or unrated with the worlds biggest online chess community.
It's web based and also offers apps for iOS and Android. It's incredibly easy to use and features written and video tutorials, tactics puzzles and Q&A discussions.

I've been trying out Anywhere Board game (http://anywhereboardgames.com) on Google Hangout. It's game agnostic, you can add game pieces via image URLs. It supports things like deck shuffling and player hand shielding. It also have a server hosting feature and game save on independent of Hangout but I haven't tried that yet.
A very similar concept is Tabletop Simulator (http://www.berserk-games.com/ts/), which is still in development but can be purchased early release on Steam. I haven't tried it, but various Youtube videos of people flipping the table have been entertaining.

HAPPY MEEPLE - Beginner-friendly platform
Happy Meeple is the only beginner-friendly platform targeting players who don't necessarily know anything about modern games. It has great 2-player quick-playing gateway games. If you want your friends to get into the board game hobby, this is where you should send them.
Games

Lost Cities
Finito
Migrato
Level X
Siberia Card
Keltis Card
Keltis Ór

Operating system
Browser-based (=works everywhere).
Play mode
Real-time
Ease of use
Very easy. The whole platform is intended for a casual audience. All games come with a tutorial in 5 languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Turkish).
The interface is simple, uncluttered. Starting to play is 2 clicks away.
Other features

All games come with strong AI (and not so strong for beginners).
All games come with sound FX and music.
All games come with animations.
All games come with a help page (and tutorial see above).
Auto-match system, no waiting time. Play in 10 seconds max.
Meta-game: build your world, collect meeples
Main chat and game chat.

Play card and dice games on Happy Meeple

authors: Антон Макаров