text:
How will Gadwick remember the actual amount of X mana spent?
The text for Gadwick the Wizened (from Throne of Eldraine) says:

Gadwick, the Wizened XUUU
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard
When Gadwick, the Wizened enters the battlefield, draw X cards.
Whenever you cast a blue spell, tap target nonland permanent an opponent controls.

My understanding (largely based on others comments) was that the card won't remember the cost of X when it enters the battlefield?
So how will Gadwick know what the X was, when it was cast?

Based on this discussion on twitter and reddit, this will require a rules change. Specifically with an exception to rule 400.7:
An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence. There are nine exceptions to this rule...

Under current rules, the card would not work as intended with the current wording.
As the card Venarian Gold shows, it is, in principle, possible to refer to a self-chosen value of X for an enters-the-battlefield ability. However, as you might tell, it's quite an awkward wording and, if it got a functional reprint, would probably be handled more elegantly with a replacement effect ("As Venarian Gold enters the battlefield, [..]").
In any case, Gadwick, the Wizened's wording is different, makes no reference to "X as you cast [it]", and would not work under current rules. 107.3 and its subsections do not provide a definition of the value of a self-chosen X on an object outside the stack, because no currently released card would need it.
We have to expect a rules update for Gadwick, and, if they even remember the card, a change in Venarian Gold's oracle text.
Update from Eli Shiffrin, the Magic rules manager:

Now Gadwick, the Wizened gets a new 107.3k rule to clarify that its triggered ability looks at the value X that comes from the spell it was, not the permanent it is.

What about 400.7c? "An ability of a permanent can reference information about the spell that became that permanent, including what costs were paid to cast that spell or what mana was spent to pay those costs." Wouldn't this arguably cover remembering X for ETB effects?

The mana paid is related to, but still distinct from the value of X, especially once reduction effects come into play. See also Quarantine Field's templating, to allow a triggered ability to infer X via a replacement effect.

@Andrew The spirit of the "X" rules are that the value of X is (almost) always the same, and {X} in the mana cost is zero outside the stack, so presumably, X in card text is also zero unless defined. It's just not spelled out in the X rules.

A creature can already remember what choices were made when casting it (such as kicker costs). I don't see how this doesn't apply to the chosen value of X.

@eyeballfrog The problem is that X has a number of specific rules regarding its value under various conditions, and the card Venarian Gold. Venarian Gold has an ETB ability referring to X, exactly like Gadwick, so their abilities should be worded the same. They're not, so you can't just assume they work the same under current rules.

@Hackworth Right, but Verdeloth the Ancient just references X without saying "as it was cast" and works fine. Does kicker have extra rules about X right now?

Again, that's a different case. Kicker is its own ability, linked to another ability that specifies what happens when you pay the kicker cost.

It's also a much older card, and not a creature but an aura. Auras have always had things written differently than creatures. I still see no reason why 400.7c can't apply, etb effects can refer to choices made during casting.

400.7c says "including what costs were paid"; "including" seems to imply that the costs is just one example. Would "Can reference information about the spell that became that permanent" be enough to say that it can reference what was chosen for "x"? The value chosen for "x" is "information about the spell".

How is Gadwick different than a hydra? (Should this be it's own question?) They both have a permanent interact with an X cost paid for the spell, but there's no question that hydras work correctly. It seems to me to be exactly the same except instead of 'put x +1/+1 counters', Gadwick says 'draw X cards'

@Aetherfox Creatures that enter the battlefield with X counters get their counters from a static ability with replacement effect that works on the spell that's on the stack, and X is the chosen value on the stack. Gadwick's ability is a triggered ability that works on the permanent that's already on the battlefield, where self-chosen X was always zero before the rules update.

Ah, I see, thanks! And Gadwick's draw is different from Hydroid Krasis in that Hydroid Krasis draws you the cards before the creature enters the battlefield, and Gadwick draws them after, correct? (And HK draws the cards even if countered, but Gadwick doesn't.)

@Aetherfox Yes, Krasis card draw and life gain is a triggered ability like Gadwick, but unlike Gadwick it triggers while Krasis is still a spell, so it always had access to the chosen value of X. And yes, countering Krasis does not prevent the card draw/life gain, unlike Gadwick.

The Comprehensive Rules were updated
To encompass Gadwick's behavior, subsection 107.3k was added to the rules on Numbers and Symbols.

107.3k If an object’s enters-the-battlefield triggered ability or replacement effect refers to X, and the spell that became that object as it resolved had a value of X chosen for any of its costs, the value of X for that ability is the same as the value of X for that spell, although the value of X for that permanent is 0. This is an exception to rule 107.3h.

(Rule 107.3h is "Normally, all instances of X on an object have the same value at any given time.")
The note in the Update Bulletin about the change reads:

Chamber Sentry got 107.3j to clarify an object with X in its cost and in an unrelated activated ability. Now Gadwick, the Wizened gets a new 107.3k rule to clarify that its triggered ability looks at the value X that comes from the spell it was, not the permanent it is.

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


text:
Which exchange of money is best?

Possible Duplicate:
Should I trash copper or silver with Mine?

In dominion you have the option when the Mine cards are in use to trash a treasure and put a treasure worth 3 more in your hand. In effect you can remove a copper form the game and gain a silver, remove a silver and gain a gold etc.
Is there a statistical benefit to rushing towards gold/platinum?
Is it best to get all of your copper pieces into silver then into gold. Or should you focus getting to the highest possible denomination, and keep coppers in your deck (until you have nothing else to Mine besides copper)?
Something tells me one is better than the other due to the number of cards one strategy leaves you with, as opposed to the other.

The other thread doesn't really cover anything statistical. Just strategy's when using other cards.

I was a latecomer, but I tried to be statistical in my answer

Well, it is almost all the way at the bottom. Too bad since I think it's one of my best answers.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Online Resources for Go Tutorials on specific topics
It is well-known that learning about Go is a never-ending process. This question is on resources that I believe to be useful in a certain stage of this learning process.
In the very beginning, there are a lot of fundamentals to be grasped (and really understanding them fully takes way longer of course) and this question addressed resources that may be helpful for beginners.
I am now advancing into the SDK stage and find that these resources are not helping so much anymore. On the other hand, I also have trouble profiting from the analysis of pro games, because I still have a lot to learn about the reasoning behind moves.
What I found to be most effective for me at this stage, are resources like these youtube videos or these articles on opening patterns.
Is there a place, where learning resources are available that are similar to the above?
To make this question a bit more concrete and answerable, I am looking for material that fits the following criteria:

suitable for SDKs
not a simple listing of fuseki/joseki/whatever
not life&death problems
focuses on the reasoning behind moves
suitable for broadening one's knowledge (i.e. do not cover one topic in immense depth, but concentrate on the underlying principles)
bonus points, if grouped by topic (so you can f.ex. quickly get material related to micro-chinese, or leaning plays, or large knight jumps, or counting, ...)

In terms of textual resources (though I'm open for videos/podcasts/sgfs/...), I am looking for roughly something along the line of one-two pages per discussed topic.
A few resources that I know about, but do not fit these criteria:

sensei: Way too deep coverage of topics. I believe it is an awesome reference for dans and higher SDKs, but I mostly found it more confusing than helpful. Not to mention, that every second word links to more information.. there is the point of TMI.
eidogo: Great for looking up names of josekis.. which I would then like to read up upon in the resources I am looking for in order to understand the underlying principles.
various pages of L&D problems: while interesting and certainly helpful to learn, they do not help much in terms of opening and mid-game strategies.
various books (at least those I have) : they either are for beginners, or they cover a topic very well, but in frustrating depth (meaning you'd have to invest into an extra library room if you want to get a broader picture).

With all due respect, I really don't think you've given sensei's a fair shake. There is loads of material at all levels, and the reason that so much information linkage appears is because there is so much information to link. There really isn't anything that can be done about that.

I agree that you may be too quick to discount Sensei's library.  From the question description it sounds like you are looking for an encyclopedia of go topics...which is more or less exactly what sensei's aims for (and likely the best of its kind in English).  That said, what you describe that you are looking for may not be the thing you actually need to reach your goal.

How to study Go wrongly, a practical reference
Even though you already directly pointed in the right direction, let me disregard part of your actual question and answer differently first. Consider it a supplementary answer.
A common mistake in studying
I believe there is a typical trap many Western players easily fall into (I'm guilty of this myself): Relying on books too much.
Around 10 kyu, studying books should take only a small part of your time. Instead, focus on playing games and reviewing. I'll try to explain my reasoning.
Why you should not study pro games

On the other hand, I also have trouble profiting from the analysis of pro games, because
  I still have a lot to learn about the reasoning behind moves.

As you said, studying pro games at your level is of lower efficiency since you simply won't be able to understand the moves. This applies to dan players, too, but they possess enough shape and (midgame and corner) joseki knowledge to grasp the basic ideas. So apart from seeing what a game should look like and potentially learning a few common shapes, you won't gain much from pro games. It's just not suited to your level yet.
As a student of a foreign language, you will eventually read lots of texts in that language and learn a lot from first hand resources, but before that you have to learn the basics in your native language.
Why you should not study fuseki (yet)

What I found to be most effective for me at this stage, are resources like these
  youtube videos or these articles on opening patterns.

Josh's videos are just as excellent as Matthew's lectures, but again, you won't gain much from studying fuseki. While I most certainly agree that it's fun, I can't say for sure that it will benefit your games.
You have to both remember and understand the fuseki shapes, which is not easy at all since every stone on the whole board is very important.
Are you sure you can remember the basic Kobayashi openings until around move 40? If you do and you are not high dan you were setting wrong priorities! ;)
Disregarding that, actually every stone is important and may change the meaning of moves considerably. For instance, you know the basic Chinese Fuseki, right? Consider this board:
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . 4 . . . . . , . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . 2 , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------

Did you know some pros call 5 a mistake due to the position of 2 at komoku (3-4) instead of hoshi (4-4)? White could make a corner enclosure and the main direction of the Chinese opening, the lower side, will be a lot less interesting all of sudden. Subtle differences like this are very important if you really want to benefit from fuseki study.
So while you definitely will gain some insight from intense study of fuseki, this activity becomes way more efficient at strong SDK to lower dan level. By the way, I recently read how insei nowadays don't study fuseki as much as they used to but instead focus on tsumego - the improved reading helps more than a few moves more depth of knowledge in fuseki.
Why having superior fuseki is useless
Another point to consider is your reading ability. Personally, I grew up with fuseki study and was able to easily solve strong SDK level fuseki problems as a DDK. But in my games, the opponent simply played a move I did not know and I had no clue how to continue - I was completely unable to read how to punish, and ended up losing even though I was supposed to be ahead. That eventually made me study fighting more, and that in turn massively increased my understanding of the fuseki positions I played earlier.
And still, there are actually high dans who have a far worse position during fuseki in even games with me, but their insane reading power makes more than up for it and I always lose even with very high handicap. There is a saying that you should not start to study fuseki until there is nobody who can beat you at 9 stones, and it should be considered.
Why you should not memorize patterns
"Memorize joseki, lose 3 stones."
By always playing known sequences, your will grew unable to see other moves. You won't notice subtle differences compared to the position you know, and miss sharp moves that a player with better fighting senses will spot immediately.
Notice that I am not only talking about actually "memorizing certain sequences" but also "blindly only considering known sequences and shapes instead of actually reading each move". This is exhausting but hey, noone said improving in Go is easy ;)
If you don't know the sequence to play, you have to consider all options, forcing you to read carefully. Eventually, you'll decide on a move, and your understanding of the position has been increased so next time you'll be able to decide on the right move faster - depending on the surrounding position.
This means you will have a deeper knowledge of the position and the moves involved, and you will be able to explain with actual sequences why your chosen move is the best. Or why it was a mistake, which is fine, too.
Why playing games and doing reviews is important
We just noticed that you should try to play lots of games to learn patterns by understanding the moves. If your understanding of the position is flawed, this could lead to mistaking good and bad results. This is why you should have someone stronger review your games to point out wrong decisions that you did not consider as such. Gaining this knowledge will in turn directly affect all your decisions in similar positions - practical reasoning behind high level ideas is one of the points that distinguishes strong from weak players with a shallow understanding.
Why this answer is wrong
It's not. Not yet at least (for DDK players). Or not completely.
If you closely follow the approach explained you'll eventually have excellent fighting abilities and win all the (local) fights but still lose the war (game). How is that possible? It's because you did it wrong to the other extreme: Not caring about theory at all.
By slowly applying more and more theoretical study as you grow stronger, you'll not only understand high level concepts (e.g. in fuseki), but also (thanks to your acquired raw abilities) be able to punish opponents for their overplays.
The actual answer to your question
With all that being said, the original question already contains the important hints:

not a simple listing of fuseki/joseki/whatever
focuses on the reasoning behind moves

In fact there are books that help with these, as mentioned in other answers, so I won't go into them here. Books about tesuji, hopefully with exercises, are likely the most useful kind you will find.
Even with these books, you should keep the basics I was talking about earlier in mind. Many players capture stones out of habit because they know the awesome tesuji to capture them, but they miss that all groups were already alive and the capture was only worth 2 points.
The fastest way to strong SDK level
Apart from the mentioned kind of books, at weak SDK level, playing games and reviewing them is still the most valuable resource. Make as many mistakes as possible, remember them and never do them again, and you will be strong SDK in no time. Theoretical study could never have advanced you that quickly.
There also is a very simple but difficult to follow hint I can give to players who are willing to put in a lot of effort for quickly improving. It is to simply read 4 moves ahead on every turn in the game. This requires more self-discipline than you may think at first, but it ensures you applied enough reading to a) not make stupid mistakes and b) consider all (or at least most) of the options the opponent has in answering. Which boils down to "avoid sloppy reading". You should literally sit on your hands.
And once you find yourself puzzled about situations more often, unable to find the right direction even though you can see the sequences, it's time to switch to theory and study  aspects not easily visible.

I tried the resources given in the other answers and for comparison had stronger players teach me, too. I find it rather telling that I cannot refrain from accepting this as the correct answer, even though it specifically does not list any resources. Thank you for the thorough explanation! I heard "just play games" before, but this was much more enlightening.

+1 Good answer - especially with regard to over-emphasis on the opening.  I was just reviewing a game today (for a KGS 5K) where after the first noseki/fight one player had a significant advantage.  Immediately following this fight however, there were two moves made that were essentially passes (defending 'weaknesses' that weren't there - letting the opponent get large plays in sente).  Suddenly the game was equalized, and before long the position was more comfortable for the other side. It is quite astonishing how opening theory can be overcome with solid tactics and developing a sound plan.

Note that this same advice also applies to chess, and most other strategic games:  studying openings/theory is useless if you do not have the tactics to back that up.

The Daily Yomiuri had a weekly column called "The Magic of Go". The column only ran until 2007, but archives can still be found here and here.
The articles themselves are brief and cover a range of topics from week to week.  They often involve analyzing short segments of pro games, then detailing a fundamental theory behind the plays.
Unfortunately they are not organized by topic, which can make finding a particular article difficult.

I found these videos by Catalin Taranu to be very helpful when I was around that level.  Pros always make defensive moves that look a little slow to me, and in these he shows over and over what happens if they leave those moves out.

Get Strong at Tesuji is an excellent way to get stronger for anyone up to dan level.  It has problems in a range of difficulties, and even the harder problems are usually localized enough that you can work out the variations if you can't just read them out.

As you transition into SDK, you're getting to the place where the book Tesuji will be comprehensible, and I think you'll find it very useful. It's an excellent book. Quoting from one of the Amazon reviews

The first chapter is devoted to reading, then continues into the
  tesuji. Each chapter's theme is accomplishing a certain objective, and
  provides a few tesuji that are used to accomplish it. At the end of
  each section on a tesuji, the reader is given a problem or two to try
  it himself, and at the end of each chapter, around 10-12 problems,
  using all of the tesuji. The difficulty of the problems vary, but are
  never frustratingly hard.

I'd also recommend continuing to look at problems. The vast majority of problems are life & death, but you can also find fuseki problems such as these, and I know I've seen an app (maybe GoGrinder?) that let you sort problems by type.
As a gateway to analysis of pro games, the book Invincible is expensive but well worth it. The commentary is very interesting, and by choosing how much you read and how many of the variations you follow can be of adjustable depth.
KGS+ also has frequent audio lectures that target SDKs. Also the Go Teaching Ladder is a way to get game reviews.
Most importantly, play! Want to learn about the mini Chinese? Use it exclusively for a week.  Play even games against stronger players, and always go over them afterwards.

Yes, the Java version of GoGrinder lets you sort problems by type, as long as they're tagged.

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


text:
Is there any data on most common way to get to 10 VP in Settlers of Catan?

Possible Duplicate:
Settlers of Catan Data

I sometimes track this for myself when I play online, and almost half the time when I win, I have Longest Road and either 3 Cities/2 Settlements or 2 Cities/4 Settlements.
I rarely win with Largest Army, but I have noticed from reading online that one of the more common winning combos is 3 cities, Largest Army, and either 2 VP or 1 VP and 1 settlement.
Is there any data on this sort of thing? Have you noticed and 1 or 2 combos coming up most frequently in games you play.
(Of course I realize there are many possibilities, strategy often changes mid-game, etc.)

I've not seen any collected data released, but the online play sites may have done so.


text:
Creatures with Tribute and targeting
Nessian Demolok, one of the latest creatures revealed in the Born of the Gods spoilers, reads:

Tribute 3 (As this creature enters the battlefield, an opponent of your choice may place three +1/+1 counters on it.)
When Nessian Demolock enters the battlefield, if tribute wasn't paid, destroy target noncreature permanent.

My interpretation of this (and I presume this will be covered in the FAQ, but I figure it's good to get it 'on the record' here...) is that this would be covered by section 614 of the comprehensive rules, particularly sections 614.1c:

614.1c Effects that read "[This permanent] enters the battlefield with . . . ," "As [this permanent] enters the battlefield . . . ," or
"[This permanent] enters the battlefield as . . . " are replacement
effects.

and 614.12a:

614.12a If a replacement effect that modifies how a permanent enters the battlefield requires a choice, that choice is made before the
permanent enters the battlefield.

And that as a result, the choice whether to pay tribute or not is effectively made just before the creature enters the battlefield, and so in particular the choice of whether or not to pay tribute will be made before targets are chosen for the 'destroy target noncreature permanent' ability (which goes on the stack the next time a player gains priority).  Does this look correct?

Would the downvoter care to explain themselves?

It might be the fact that you're asking for rules speculation, since the rules aren't out yet. There's not really any way to write an authoritative answer yet, is there?

@Jefromi Yes and no - it's possible that things could work differently than expected, but 'as this enters the battlefield' is standardized rules templating; I believe that section 614 of the comprehensive rules (and in particular, 614.12a) is the relevant rules sections for this, and I'll make that clearer in the question.

@Jefromi: If the exact wording comes from an official source, it's not that speculative. The ability is not complicated.

Also note the intervening if.  Should tribute be paid, the ability will never go on the stack.  (Phantasmal Image copying Inkmoth Nexus laughs in your general direction!)

@ChadMiller But reminder text isn't rules text, and sometimes there are wrinkles (Bestow, maybe?). Tribute doesn't look complicated, and I'm sure we'll get it right if we read it as rules text, but still - it's a reason someone might have downvoted. I'm just guessing, though, wasn't me.

@Chad Miller, The wording (of Tribute) has not been provided, official source or otherwise. I don't see how that matters here, though.

@ikegami: It's not in the rulebook but they're showing official scans and things like this. The ability is simple enough that there's no reason to believe that the reminder text is actively wrong.

@ikegami: Actually all I said was "if the wording" which is both a counterfactual and doesn't say anything about it being the exact wording in the comprehensive rules. That's pretty lawyer-y but no less lawyer-y than the rest of this conversation. Also that link is to an article discussing the mechanic, not just a scan.

I think the tl;dr here is that the actual end-all-be-all rules aren't out yet (just reminder text and some discussion), so it's possible there's something insane that's not mentioned in the reminder text, but in the real world, that's not actually going to happen, and we're going to get the right answer just from reading the card.

@ikegami: I was pointing out the difference between a hypothetical and an assertion, as well as the difference between "official" as in "from an official source" vs. "canonical" as in "from the definitive official source" and then snarking that, as crazily nitpicky as that is, it's no less nitpicky than this entire conversation. And the text from the article is "official" in that it is a Wizards employee describing it to the public using an official source (as opposed to a playtest leak or something)

@Chad Miller, I never said the text from the article wasn't official, and you misunderstand. I was asking for the meaning of "If the exact wording comes from an official source, it's not that speculative. The ability is not complicated" if it's not "We have the exact wording from an official source, so it's not that speculative"

Yes, this would be similar to Clone effects. Let's say you Clone a Nekrataal:

You cast Clone
Clone resolves
As Clone comes into play, you choose Nekrataal
Clone's triggered ability triggers and you choose a target for it

None of the logic changes when it's your opponent making the decision.

Does Tribute "happen" when cloning a Nessian Demolok? Can't remember.

@ikegami: According to Clone's gatherer page: Any enters-the-battlefield abilities of the copied creature will trigger when Clone enters the battlefield. Any "as [this creature] enters the battlefield" or "[this creature] enters the battlefield with" abilities of the chosen creature will also work.

Correct.
The choice of placing the counters happens before Nessian Demolok enters the battlefield.

614.1c Effects that read “[This permanent] enters the battlefield with . . . ,” “As [this permanent] enters the battlefield . . . ,” or “[This permanent] enters the battlefield as . . . ” are replacement effects.
614.12a If a replacement effect that modifies how a permanent enters the battlefield requires a choice, that choice is made before the permanent enters the battlefield.

The ability is only placed on the stack after Nessian Demolok enters the battlefield.

603.2. Whenever a game event or game state matches a triggered ability’s trigger event, that ability automatically triggers. The ability doesn’t do anything at this point.
603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority. [...]

It's even implied by the card itself; "wasn't paid" is past tense. In fact, the triggered ability won't trigger at all if tribute was paid.

603.4. A triggered ability may read “When/Whenever/At [trigger event], if [condition], [effect].” When the trigger event occurs, the ability checks whether the stated condition is true. The ability triggers only if it is; otherwise it does nothing. If the ability triggers, it checks the stated condition again as it resolves. If the condition isn’t true at that time, the ability is removed from the stack and does nothing. Note that this mirrors the check for legal targets. This rule is referred to as the “intervening ‘if’ clause” rule. (The word “if” has only its normal English meaning anywhere else in the text of a card; this rule only applies to an “if” that immediately follows a trigger condition.)

Say you cast Nessian Demolok when you have priority. This is the order in which things happen:

The choice of whether to pay tribute is made.
The card (or copy thereof) is placed on the battlefield (with or without counters).

If and if only tribute wasn't paid, the second ability triggers.

Immediately after the casting ends, if the ability triggered, the triggered ability is placed on the stack.

Targets are chosen.

I think the fact that this card has an intervening if clause is the most important point. You select a target when the trigger is put onto the stack, but if the intervening clause fails, the ability is never put on the stack.


text:
Settlers of Catan - turn completion

Possible Duplicate:
Take Back Turns / Forgotten Privileges

I recently played and during my final turn, I placed five roads to reclaim the Longest Road. However, I quickly realized that I could place two roads and a settlement elsewhere which would break up the Longest Road, let me reclaim Longest Road, and give me the additional one point for the settlement that I needed for victory. So - I rerouted two of my roads, took back three brick and three lumber from the bank, and made a settlement. 10 points - victory. Was this legit, or is a road laid a road played? I assume from my guilt that it is not legit, but wanted to check with the pros. I didn't pass the dice and then realize my mistake. This was all pretty immediate. Had I only done it to begin with, there wouldn't be the guilt.

I upvoted and voted to close by the way, as I think it's a good question, but we probably don't need one instance of this question for every game out there under then sun!  I don't there's anything special about Settlers that means the question of taking back moves  isn't the same as the aforementioned generic one.

I tend to take a pragmatic view of taking moves back, in casual gaming: did you gain any immoral extra information between the initial move and the improved move?  If you play a move in chess and your then opponent reaches for the piece that will take your queen, it's obviously extremely dodgy to ask for a takeback...
In your own situation, if you genuinely were just thinking through your move and realised the better one while going through the motions of playing the first one, I wouldn't have a problem with the takeback in such an situation.  That's far better than forcing players to sit there in a state of silent "analysis paralysis" for 5 minutes each time, scared to start playing a move until they are absolutely sure that no better move exists.
On the other hand, you could have gained information in this scenario.  When you started playing out your roads, did another player breathe a sigh of relief or even just relax in their chair?  If they did, and you noticed this, then your takeback is much less conscionable.  That's why in tournament situations, once you start playing a move, that's it.  In a casual setting it's a question of your own sense of honour.  But hopefully you are good friends in your gaming group and all trust each other!

Its best to determine how this sort of thing is to be handled among your gaming group.  The rule that I use is that it's okay to rewind state as long as the rewind is short enough that everyone has good confidence that it was done correctly (unanimously).  If any random event has occurred (e.g. a die roll), and I want to 'go back' before the role, I ask if it's okay.  Usually, as long as its clear that the die roll would not have affected the decision before the roll this is allowed.  In Catan, because of the robber, this is likely not true, so my group wouldn't allow it in Catan.
If you want some other viewpoints, consider this discussion on BGG:
Acceptable/Unacceptable Behavior Requesting a Rewind
Hope that helps!

This is not a question that can be decided by the rules of the game: it depends on the "meta-rules" that your group decides. This is something you need to discuss before starting the game itself; some options are discussed in this question.

@Rebecca I agree, the most important question you have to ask yourself is: are we playing to win or to have fun? If I was playing with you, I'd say such a great move must be played, even if it means I don't win. I'm sure you know better than us how your friends react when you do something like that.


text:
What should I know before my first MTG draft?
As a birthday present, I'm taking my cousin to a MTG draft at a local game store this weekend. I haven't really played Magic since Tempest block, but I've been keeping up with rule changes and so forth on this site. My cousin is in high school and has been playing casually with friends for a few months.
We're not expecting much victory, really just to have a good time. I've glanced at a couple questions about draft strategy, and I'll probably read up on BREAD, but is there anything else I should know? Things I should bring? Etiquette? Non-strategy-related tips?

Make sure you know the policy on rares - will rares be re-drafted at the end? Do you keep all rares you draft? Is it a 'winner-chooses' system? Most of the time you'll keep what you draft, but not always.
Talking about the cards you're drafting is generally frowned upon - reading signals and predicting what your opponents are drafting is a big part of the strategy, so discussing your picks is disruptive.
The above applies for discussing what you think your neighbors are drafting, too.
Find out if basic lands will be drafted or removed from the pack before drafting.
Find out what the policy is with regards to looking at your cards during the draft. Some groups won't allow you to look at your picks during drafting; some allow a minute between packs to review
It's really not acceptable to complain about your luck, bad as it may be. Part of drafting is making the best of what you have, and half the skill is mitigating any poor luck with good decisions.
There will almost always be a 'pile-up' where someone isn't 100% sure of all the cards, so needs to read them before choosing - be patient with them! However on the other hand, don't take needlessly excessive time deliberating over a choice.
Make sure you are aware of the drafting order - usually it'll be first pack left, second pack right, third pack left, but some pods do it differently. Passing the wrong way can really confuse matters.
If you find a couple of packs waiting for you, make sure you go through them in the right order. If you're not sure, check with your neighbor.
Take your own lands. Some stores will provide lands but occasionally they'll run out, and having your own can take the pressure off.
Sleeve your cards. All kinds of good reasons to do this; preventing differences between lands and the slippery new cards, protecting cards (especially if rares will be redrafted).
Don't be afraid to ask a judge. It's always best to be safe than sorry.
Don't be too shy to ask spectators to back off if they are distracting you or disturbing your game
It's usually considered polite to offer your deck to your opponent to cut or shuffle to their satisfaction before playing. Not doing so will cause suspicion that you may be deck-stacking or cheating in some other way. In more formal, higher level tournaments it is mandatory to present your deck.
Bring a pen and paper for life tracking and counters to use for all kinds of stuff (+1/-1, etc). Dice are considered too accident-prone in competitive play. If you're just in a casual store draft, dice should be fine. Phone apps are also considered ok for life tracking. In more formal, higher level tournaments it is also standard to track your opponent's life total.
Sometimes you will be unfortunate enough to come across someone who uses cheap tactics to try and put off their opponents. For example, arranging their lands in front of their permanents, or tracking their life in base 6. Do your best not to let these maneuvers distract or fluster you. If you have any concerns at all, call a judge - it's what they are there for. (and if someone's life tracking is obscured in some way, keep track of it yourself, carefully, as they may be using these odd counting methods to disguise cheating.)

For what it's worth, I've never seen rares redrafted at the end. Also, offering your deck for shuffling isn't just polite: it's mandatory.

I'd also add that for tracking life total, verify with your opponent that your method is okay. (He should be tracking yours too, just to be sure.) I've been known to only have two dice on me and have used them in Base 6 (so my starting life has a 3 on the 'tens die' and 2 on the 'ones die'), but I made sure to explain to my opponents how it worked, and what it meant. And of course, any time it changes, you say something "I take 2 damage, I'm at 15".

@corsiKa edited my answer taking your comments into consideration

@shanodin I don't think corsiKa was talking about a cheap trick to put off his opponents, just a way that he made do with what he had...

@Jefromi Two dice is enough to track 20 life even if they are d6

@corsiKa I haven't really seen redrafting of rares, but rare-picking is pretty common in the stores I've played at. This means that after the draft, all rares and foils from the draft are collected and laid out and people get to pick a card in order, winner picks first, second picks second, etc.

To add to the 'sleeve your cards' advice, to speed up your drafting it can be useful to carry your own lands sleeved. When I draft, I carry 30-40 empty sleeves and 10 of each land type pre-sleeved with the same sleeves so that unless I drafted a (nearly) mono-colored deck I can simply grab the lands I need from my sleeved pile, which saves me time when sleeving. This means I have a little more time for deckbuilding which comes in handy since I don't draft regularly.

@Cronax They'd have to pry them out of my cold dead hands. Picking or passing an off color pack 3 rare that's loaded with value but not helpful to your deck is an important part of drafting, imo. Usually I pass because I thought I had a winning deck if I picked a solid uncommon or common for my deck. Every once in a while, I'm just like wow I failed this draft, better minimize my losses. ^.^

@corsiKa I suppose it depends on what you're used to. Personally I prefer rare-picking since it means I can focus 100% on making the best draft deck I can and not worry about whether or not I'm getting enough value from the draft. When you get to the tournament level you basically play the same way, since you usually already own all the cards you need and are focused on doing well in the tournament.

@Cronax brilliant tip re: bringing pre-sleeved lands!


text:
Is Saboteur better in a 4-player game than a 2-player game?
Inspired by this question, especially @RobRenaud's comment on @BlairHippo's answer pointing to an inconclusive argument on BGG. My question is two-part:

(a) In a general 4-player game, is Saboteur a better card than in a
general 2-player game?
(b) Extreme case: in a 4-player game where all three other players
think Saboteur is amazing---will buy it and play it whenever
possible---what is your best general strategy?

I take as given that Saboteur is a terrible card in most 2-player games (based on Isotropic data and the answers to the previously linked question; please direct disagreements with this assumption to that question).
I will actively downvote answers citing anecdotal evidence. @RobRenaud's comment in the BGG link is a good example of the type of answer I'm hoping for; I hope he submits it as an answer (perhaps fleshed out a little more) relatively soon, otherwise I hope someone else does. I'm also interested in well-reasoned arguments that agree or disagree with that conclusion.
And please don't make your answer too dependent on other cards in the kingdom set. Of course Lighthouse or Moat (or many others) could provide specific counters, but keep your answer general.

If anyone wants, I can give you shell access to the councilroom machine to do analysis.  I am personally convinced based on the player scale invariance argument (and subsequent lack of refutation of that point) on BGG.

Unfortunately I suspect it will be very difficult to get data of any significance. From a quick look at logs of a handful of days... It looks like these days there are typically over 10000 two-player games per day, and fewer than 100 four-player games per day. Even a year ago, with fewer expansions, less than 10% of games included Saboteur. And given the noisiness of analysis across all games, I expect conclusions based on four-player games only would be pretty uncertain.

Also, a side note: there are definitely differences, whether or not it's any better. It will deplete the supply piles faster in a four-player game than in a two-player game, which may sometimes change the way the game ends.

My answer's obviously "yes," but as my evidence is all the anecdotal kind shujaa isn't interested in cultivating, I'll just leave it here in a comment.  :-)

Saboteur is undoubtedly more dangerous in a 4-player game, but that does not necessarily mean better.
4-player games can end on piles more frequently than 2-player games because you only have 3 Victory cards per person (rather than 4 in 2/3-player) and 2.5 cards/Kingdom pile/person (vs. 5 in 2-player and 3.33 in 3-player). Saboteur can result in up to 3 extra cards leaving the Supply per play, which makes the piles endgame condition much more likely. If everyone plays a Saboteur one turn and everyone gains a $2 card as a replacement, you've almost exhausted 3 piles worth of cards right there—in a single turn.
In the extreme case of all the players going for Sab, you are likely to be hit at least once a turn, and more likely two or even three times. That's the equivalent of facing a King's Court-ed Saboteur in 2-player: you're losing 3 high-value cards a turn, versus only being able to get one your turn. The general 2-player advice against Saboteur is to ignore it because Sab gives no benefit to the person playing it, and so you can build your deck up faster than your opponent can trash it down, and your opponent loses the opportunity to build his or her own deck by playing Sab. The ability to outrace Sab is lost when you're getting hit multiple times a turn, which means that the game is likely to stall at the $3/$4 card level.

So... is your answer for (b) to buy Estates and end it on piles as quickly as possible?

If it looked like it was going to turn into a Sab-fest, Estates would definitely become a priority. But, you want to be careful if a) there are no über-cheap piles, or b) if your opponents take nothing rather than a lower-cost card. In those scenarios, I don't know if Silver would be better than Estates.

This was my experience with the card in four-player games.  Everybody was desperate for something that would give them multiple $3+ cards per turn to serve as ablative Saboteur shielding.  Had useful $2 cards (like Pawn) been in play, they would have gone CRAZY fast.

I think we can agree that it sucks more to have three other players with Saboteurs than just one player, but that doesn't mean that it was good for those three players that they bought it.

Saboteur is absolutely brutal if combined with 1-3 highways. If you are the saboteur/highway player the other players don't stand a chance as you strip them of their gold/province/5-cost costs extremely efficiently!


text:
Ways different people enjoy board games
I once saw a very nice write-up of the ways in which people enjoy board games. It was somewhat similar to this answer but more comprehensive, focused on different ways of enjoyment rather than different types of people, and it had more technical sounding terms.
I'd really like to find it again. I specifically remember that it had terms for the enjoyment of strategic thinking and finding the optimum strategy, and another for creating interesting or unusual situations -- which I related to a lot and had never heard described before.
What are the ways that people enjoy board games, as generally and technically as possible?

This may be related: a "What-I-Like Glossary" for RPGs.

@AlexP very related! I think this is what I remember seeing, but a board game centric version would be exactly what I'm looking for.

The ways of enjoyment:
1. Joy of playing
2. Joy of winning
3. The Social event of gathering to play
4. Joy by Tinkering
5. Joy of collecting
6. Joy of sharing
7. Joy of Learning
In detail...
Fun of Playing
For some people, the play of a game is its own reward. For many people, this is true of some, but not all, games.
Fun of Winning
For most of us, winning is, itself, fun. One experiences some joy at winning, especially in the face of adversity, be it a hard solitaire or a multi-player contest.
For a few, playing isn't fun, but winning is; playing is the cost for the chance at the fun of winning.
The Social Event
Some people's enjoyment is about or enhanced by the social event aspects of board and card games. The gathering is itself fun, even if the games themselves turn out not to be.
Conventions are an extreme example of this. My own local group of friends seldom gather without something hitting the table.
The Joy of Tinkering
For some people, house rules aren't for fixing things that didn't work, but a way of finding enjoyment all their own. By expanding, revising, "pimping," or strategizing, outside the playtimes, one can find enjoyment of a game.
Pimping a game means acquiring or making better looking components than the included ones... and it borders on...
While not properly "tinkering," strategizing falls into the same basic mode - deriving non-play enjoyment from spending time figuring out how the game works.
The Joy of Collecting
For some, enjoyment is in the having. Either by getting everything for one game, or having lots of games.
The Joy of Sharing
For some, the joy is in the sharing of the games. Either by teaching, by revieing, or by discussing with others.
In some ways, it's similar to the joy of the event; in others, it's different. As with collecting and tinkering, a lot of this is outside the actual realm of playing the game.
The Joy of Learning
For some, this is part of the joy of playing, or of sharing... for others, it's an enjoyment factor all its own.

Nice list to start with. What do you think of adding "The Joy of Learning?" I know that typically the first game or two I play of something is somewhat annoying as I spend a lot of the time just getting used to the rules but once past that a really fun part for me is learning what strategies work and what don't. Another joy for me is the rare super dramatic game, like the time I won Settlers of Catan without building a road link or the time someone blew up every one of my home planets in a single turn at (Eon) Cosmic Encounter, only for me to claw my way back to a shared victory . . .

I agree with the joy of learning - I might reword it as "the joy of mastery".  For me, "cracking" a difficult boardgame by completely understanding its intricacies is an important feature.  Once I feel like I know exactly how to play a boardgame I'm less likely to want to play it lots... but many games are sufficiently mechanically complicated that it takes a while for the optimal strategies to become apparent.  Maybe "the joy of puzzling" is the right word for it?  We enjoy boardgames because how to win them is a puzzle often not easily resolved.

@thesunneversets that falls under tinkering.

I would say tinkering is a little bit different - I have no particular interest in changing aspects of a game to see if it works better, but a great interest in being as good as I can at the game as it stands.  But I agree it could be a similarly obsessive type of thing...

@thesunneversets You're still tinkering with your playstyle.

@aramis - I can see that there's a pleasing symmetry here, between systematically refining the game until you're happy with it, as compared to systematically refining your play till you're happy with it, but the fact that in Magic psychographic terms one is "Johnny" and one is "Spike", and that fact that I'm obsessed with one but deeply uninterested in the other, makes me think there's probably still a relevant distinction to be drawn.  But it's your answer and I will respect that!

I think another possible addition would be the "Joy of Building" or "Joy of Creating" - I'm thinking of people who like to build "nice" cities in Carcassonne or are worried as much about aesthetics as points when placing tiles in Suburbia.

@Gregor I've found few of those keep playing, because they usually lose and lose badly.

Perhaps, and perhaps it's not dominant, but it's definitely present in both my mother and my wife.

Magic The Gathering is an unusual type of "board game" (if at all!) but its creators have spent a lot of time subdividing Magic players into psychographic profiles, and I think a lot of their conclusions are applicable across the board:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr258
To give a brief synopsis:
Timmies want to "experience" something.  The fun and social aspects, the exciting moments that you can tell people about how cool they were later on.
Johnnies want to "express" something.  They want to show off how creative or clever or strange they are through the medium of gaming.  Obviously it's easier to express oneself in a deckbuilding game of near-infinite scope like Magic... but I guess people who are constantly coming up with house rules for boardgames are Johnnies of a kind.
Spikes want to "prove" something.  Winning games, or mastering games, or coming up with better ways to win than the rest of the group has yet discovered.
There's potentially another group called (oddly) Vorthoses who like the art and flavour of games, but they're a bit of a quirky subcategory even in MtG...
Anyway the article I link to says it all better than I can, but it's definitely a good read for anyone thinking about gameplayer psychographics, so I urge you to check it out!

For more on Vorthos (and its companion type: Melvin), see http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr278

Understanding the reasons why people play the games will help when going through the process of publishing a board game.   If your game does not excite people in one these ways, then it will be unlikely to sell very well to the public or to a game publisher.
Board games create a framework within which we can interact with our friends in a friendly competition.
Board games require us to think, experiment, and otherwise exercise our minds.
Board games provide us a way to escape from our current lives.  They provide a desired experience that we cannot obtain in real life.  Good examples of games that accomplish this are Terra Prime, Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition, Railroad Tycoon, War of the Ring, and all role playing games.
Board games provide an easy way to have fun with family and friends in a personal way.  It is not as personal as direct conversation or sports, but it is significantly more personal than watching a movie, television, or playing video games.
These motivations are not meant to be an exhaustive list.  I want to concentrate on the escape from life motivation for board gaming, because it is the most difficult to accomplish.  The process begins at the game design stage, and boils down to this question.


text:
Trash an Estate or Curse your opponents? Full Version
I just asked a question about whether to trash an Estate with Jack of All Trades or play a Witch to curse my opponents. The answer was a definitive "trash!", because Jack is so good at trashing that the curse wouldn't be effective at all at slowing the others. My question now is how good does a trasher have to be to make trashing a better move than Cursing?
I put a list below of (I think) all the action cards costing $5 or less that you can use to trash one of your own cards but don't give +Actions. Given the same set-up as in the previous question, which of these should be played rather than a Witch?
## Trashers
Ambassador
Bishop
Chapel
Island
Jack of All Trades
Masquerade
Mine
Moneylender
Remake
Remodel
Salvager
Steward
Trader
Trading Post
Transmute

As in the other question, the other cards available are
$6: Harem, Fairgrounds
$5: Witch, Horn of Plenty
$4: Bureaucrat, Gardens, Smithy
$3: Smugglers
$2: Pearl Diver

It's early in the game, no opponents have a Witch yet, the both have 1 trasher, and your hand is
Trasher, Witch, Estate, Copper, Copper.

I think the greater message to have taken away from your previous question is that Cursers are not very useful in games with good trashers...you shouldn't have had to choose which to play, because buying the Witch was not that great a move given that board, despite your 5/2 split.  Jack is too good a trasher.  It gets to look at not only the other 4 cards in the hand for trashing, but the next card in the draw deck, and the one after that, if you choose.

Agreed. The question is where to draw the line. I won't bother cursing against a Chapel or a Jack of All Trades. I will certainly curse against a Remodel or an Island. I'd like a more quantitative / objective way of evaluating the choice.

What makes an early-game trasher powerful, especially against an opponent giving out curses, is determined mainly by two things: how many cards it can trash at once, and the benefit it gives.
Curse:

Develop
Island
Mine
Moneylender
Trade Route

Island fails to negate the VP loss when trashing a curse and gives no benefit when played. Trade Route likewise gives no benefit when played at this point other than the +Buy. Mine and Moneylender can't trash curses at all, so Witch away! And, well, we don't talk about Develop...
Trash:

Ambassador
Bishop
Chapel
Masquerade
Remake
Steward
Trading Post

Ambassador, Chapel, Remake, Steward, and Trading Post all trash multiple cards per play. Bishop gives similar trashing power in a multiplayer game. Your Witch is unlikely to be able to keep up cursing fast enough to hurt your opponents.
Depends:

Hermit
Jack of All Trades
Remodel
Salvager
Transmute
Trader

Hermit and Jack can't trash treasures, and the rest give little or no benefit when trashing a Copper. Now, of course your question specified that you have an Estate in hand. To me, playing any of these would be contingent on having that Estate.
For Remodel in particular, the relevant things to consider are:

Is there a 3 or 4 cost card that I really want?
Is there a decent 2 cost card my opponents can turn that curse into?

Thanks for the thoughtful answer and welcome to the site!

With Hermit, as with Jack, it's so effective at trashing Curses that if your opponents have one then the Witch is barely going to have any effect on them. So usually trash is the correct option.

It would depend to me on what the other player(s) have in their deck.  That would be a VERY important part of what would make me choose which one to play.
If no one else had a card like Jack of all Trades (something to trash cards with) then I would 100% go for playing the card handing out curses!  It would serve to do two things.  1) Slows their plays down, and 2) Forces them to buy cards not in their original strategy.  In doing this you force them to play your way, in which they are already behind your lead.
If 50% of the people had nothing to trash with I would still do it because I would have gained control over half of the table.
Less then 50% I would use the Jack of all Trades to trash the Witch.  ;)  At that point the curse is going to be no where near as effective as the Jack of all Trades.  I would need to make ground on getting my deck slimmed down instead of trying to fatten up everyone else's decks.

Thanks for the answer! The Jack case is discussed pretty well in my previous question, this one is focused on the different trashers, assuming your opponents have them. I agree that with Jack, probably Remake, maybe Chapel, the trashing renders the Witch near useless, but what if the only trasher is Remodel? I think I'd still Witch so just so they'll waste actions changing Curses into Pearl Divers and such. The question is where to draw the line between trashers.


text:
Does Day of Judgment remove hexproof / shrouded creatures?

Possible Duplicate:
Does Wrath of God really destroy creatures with shroud?

Does this:

or other similar cards remove any hexproof / shrouded creatures?

Yes.  Since the creature is not targeted, but is being affected by a global property neither hexproof nor shroud offer any protection.

702.17a Shroud is a static ability. “Shroud” means “This permanent or player can’t be the target of spells or abilities.”
702.11b “Hexproof” on a permanent means “This permanent can’t be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.”

In both cases "not being targeted" is the key.

If I think through this logically it seems that this spell targets ALL creatures. How can your spell destroy a creature if it does not target it?

From where did you copy that rule btw? I always see those cryptic paragraps (like 702.17a) but I don't know where do they came from.

@edem : You explicitly need the keyword "target" on the card. Day of Judgment does not destroy "target creatures" but "all creatures".

@edem See the Magic Rules page. Each line of the Comprehensive Rules is numbered.


text:
If I am going to build a small ship, which direction should I build toward?
The center of your spaceship board is on the '7's in all four directions. Since the odds of rolling a certain number increases as that number approaches 7, it seems reasonable to build toward one side if persuing a small ship strategy.
You cannot look at the event distributions until you have placed a single component, so what is the best side to build toward (based on all card events per level), so that you can choose the possibility of a small ship that will take the least damage, before having a chance to look at the events?
Should I only place a component with 1 or 2 open connections as my first piece, and if so on which side?
This question is related to When should I avoid a small ship strategy?
For reference (rulebook), here is the Small I, Medium II, and Large III maximum ship sizes for each stage.
A reference of the 144 ship tiles (original size is available with a BGG account), until I can discover a way to describe the components in text.

Why not just "waste" five seconds placing one tile in any direction, and then look at the cards?

@TheChaz, because if you place a tile with 4 open connections, you will increase the size of your smallship by at least 1 tile. You should be able to place any of the 1-2 connection components (85/140) on any of the 4 faces, or most if not all of the 3 connection components (31/140) if you place those on the left/right with the open connection facing downward.

I find it's more important to get a solid, sizeable piece in early than it is to worry about exactly what that piece is. Since you're building in real time against opponents, part of the strategy is not letting them have the chance to take all the good pieces. Solid choices are most 4-ways, or cargo, or a gun/engine at the ship bottom. Avoid powered pieces if you can, until you know that you're going to want to build for/with them.
Avoid crew for the first piece if you can, due to epidemic. Shields and batteries become more useful with the expansion, where you can perfectly protect a ship with boosted shields. That said, if there's incoming laser fire that you see and you're going to have to deal with it,
As you mentioned, 7 is the single most likely result. Having guns covering each 7 row/column is a good safety measure.
A couple of side/backwards guns are great for protection from meteors.
As with all ships, more important than the exact piece in the middle is that the middle is connective, and that the ship is built without open connectors.


text:
When should I avoid a small ship strategy?
I thought I should break this question out from the other related question, which direction should I build a small ship?
When should I avoid a small ship strategy? Which events would make a small ship not preferable?
For reference (rulebook), during the first round you are allowed to examine 6/8 (out of 20 total) cards that will be in the adventure.
Adventure Cards

4x Open Space (move forward X engine power)
4x Abandon Ship -1 Day,(-2 Astro:$3, -3 Astro:$4, 5 Astro:YG, 6 Astro:RR)
3x Purple -1 Day,(4 Laz:-2 Good/YGB,6 Laz:-3 Astro/$5, 5 Laz:3 shots Front ssL/$4)
3x Meteor (ssss TBLR, Lss TLR, LsL TTT)
4x Planet (-2 Day:RR,RBB,Y#-2 Day:GG,Y,BBB#-3 Day:RGBBB,RYB,RBBB,RG#-3 Day:YGBB,YY)
Stardust (-1 day per open connection)
1x Combat Zone (least Astro -3 Day, least engine -2 Astro, least Laz shot sL BB)

The possibility of avoiding certain negative events does not outweigh the need to have thrusters, batteries, guns, and storage bays. This question seems backwards. Of course, we usually only play this game as a "gateway"...

In the base game, always.
Having a large ship full of useful tiles helps you deal with every situation better: guns for enemies, crew for abandoned ships and stations, engines for open space, cargo space to loot planets. And if something bad does happen, a large ship is more likely to be able to handle the mishap and keep going.
If the cards look dangerous, of course, you might want to take your time building and take appropriate precautions. If there are lots of small meteors, be careful about exposed connectors. If there are large meteors or enemies, deploy as many guns as you can. If it looks like you might take cannon fire--or meteors you can't handle--look for a shield and batteries.
Even if the worst happens, all that happens is you lose a few components, turning your large ship into the small ship you were planning anyway! If you're playing a ship with insurance, this is a paltry loss. If you're playing one without, it's a bigger deal, but if an opponent has a successful and safe run while you take a beating, you're going to have a difficult time catching up anyway, so you might as well plan for success.
In the expansions, there may be times when having a certain type of tile is a liability, but even then, more ship is usually better.


text:
How effective is a shield component during the first round?
I was looking over the Adventure cards for Round I of Galaxy Trucker.

Adventure Cards

4x Open Space (move forward X engine power)
4x Abandon Ship -1 Day,(-2 Astro:$3, -3 Astro:$4, 5 Astro:YG, 6 Astro:RR)
3x Purple -1 Day,(4 Laz:-2 Good/YGB,6 Laz:-3 Astro/$5, 5 Laz:3 shots Front ssL/$4)
3x Meteor (ssss TBLR, Lss TLR, LsL TTT)
4x Planet (-2 Day:RR,RBB,Y#-2 Day:GG,Y,BBB#-3 Day:RGBBB,RYB,RBBB,RG#-3 Day:YGBB,YY)
1x Stardust (-1 day per open connection)
1x Combat Zone (least Astro -3 Day, least engine -2 Astro, least Laz shot sL BB)

It looks as if shields would only matter on 2 adventure cards, if you have no open connectors. You would only have open connectors if you got shot by the single Purple encounter, or the Combat Zone (or you built your ship that way).
How effective is a shield on average during the first round?
Would you ever place a shield in the first round?, why? (Statistcal evaluations appreciated)

Shields are not very effective during the first round.
First, it should be noted that the negative effects of the Pirate, and the Combat Zone adventure cards are some what avoidable. In the Pirate encounter case, if you make sure that your ship has 5+ Laser power, you will not be shot at. With the Combat Zone, you just need to make sure that you don't have the least Laser power.
Second, you need to figure out the odds of drawing that particular Adventure Card. The chances that you will actually draw a particular adventure card during the first round is 8/20 = 40%, if you don't look at the Adventure cards. Since a single shield component can either face up or down. The majority of the small laser fire, and small meteors come from the front, so you should probably orient the shield to face forward. If you do place a shield component, and you happen to draw the Pirate encounter and you don't have the required 5 Laser power, your shield will only be effective 24/36 = 66.7% of the time for each small laser (since rolling 2-4 or 10-12 misses your ship anyway). This means, that if you don't look at any of the adventure cards, you are only going to effectively block:

Block 0 Small Shots: (60%) not drawn + (40%) x (12/36) x (12/36) = 64.4%
Block 1 Small Shots: (40%) x 2 x (12/36) x (24/36) = 17.8%
Block 2 Small Shots: (40%) x (24/36) x (24/36) = 17.8%

                ___
11.1% 5     ___|   |___
13.9% 6 ___|    ___    |___
16.7% 7|       |___|       |
13.9% 8|        ___        |
11.1% 9|___ ___|   |___ ___|
         5   6   7   8   9
        11% 14% 17% 14% 11%

Nearly 65% of the time, it wouldn't matter if you bought a shield or not and only 18% of the time you would have prevented 1 lost component, and 18% of the time you would prevent 2 lost components. This isn't a completely accurate though. It depends a player in-front of you defeats the Pirate encounter for 4 Credits, or you draw the Pirate adventure card before drawing one of the other Meteor Cards. If you draw the Meteor Cards after you draw the Pirate encounter, then your shield is more likely to be effective, but not that much more effective.
For example, if you where shot from the front, and later draw any of the Meteor cards, you have an increased chance of losing another component because of additional exposed connectors. The increased chances are only the chances that you roll the same column/row of the component that got blasted from the front. For example, if lasers destroyed 7 & 8 from the front (Note: Getting hit 2 or more times from the Purple encounter happens about 30% of the time), then if you draw the Lss (TLR) Meteor card:

Small Meteor No Hit: (26/36) x (26/36) = 52.2%
Small Meteor Hit 1x 6/8: 2 x (10/36) x (26/36) = 40.1%
Small Meteor Hit 2x 6/8: (10/36) x (10/36) = 7.72%

You only have a another 50% chance of getting hit again by a small meteor one or more times. I won't work out the exact math, but realize that the odds of losing extra pieces from small meteors is fairly small (60% of the time it won't be in the adventure deck. When it is, only half the time you will draw the Meteor card after the Pirate encounter, and finally even if you do draw the Pirate encounter first only half that time will you be hit by a small meteor hitting an exposed connector).
If you do look at the adventure cards, and neither of the cards are in the 6 cards, you only have an additional 14.3% chance that the Pirate card will be in the remaining 2 Adventure cards.
In general, you should probably avoid placing a Shield component. The only exception would be if you saw the Pirate encounter or the Combat Zone card, and you were unable to meet the requirements of 5+ Laser or not the least laser power.

I find Shields to be reassuring but not necessary for Round 1.
Usually having extra people, lasers or cargo space will be more beneficial. Lots of Round 1 ships can't carry the cargo on all the planets that you encounter.

Shields help mitigate the damage caused by mistakes.
The shipbuilding phase is played under time pressure. While it may be possible to build a ship with no exposed connectors and enough firepower to overcome any enemy, it is not always possible to build such a ship in the time allotted, especially for relatively inexperienced players. Even an experienced player might want to build hastily to grab an advantageous starting placement. Hasty building often means one or several exposed connectors, as the ideal parts cannot be found in time. If a shield is available and fits well with the rest of the ship construction, it can mitigate the risks nicely, costing perhaps spare batteries rather than possibly-important components.

But considering that there is probably only a 50% or less chance from taking a hit on an exposed connector, is it really worth it to place a shield and batteries? That is if the meteor card is actually in the Adventure cards.

You're likely to have batteries anyway, to power a laser or engines. I'm not saying that you should prioritize a shield over another useful component that would fit, but you're unlikely to regret it if it happens to fit in nicely. You weren't going to fill your ship with perfect components anyway. It's also possible that you don't know whether you're going to be able to meet the laser requirements until the best time to place the shield has passed.


text:
Does Avis or Iago have a better chance of winning a match?
In my quest to find the answer to this question, I have decided to start smaller. The rules of Button Men are here, and the characters are listed below.

Avis: d4, d4, d10, d12, dX (where X is d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, or d20)
Iago: d20, d20, d20, dX (where X is d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, or d20)

Note: Technically speaking according to the Button Men rules, the dX swing die can be any number within the range of 4 to 20 inclusive. For the purposes of this question, we will assume that the swing die will be one of the polyhedral dice listed.
If you want to take a stab at this question, be my guest. I will be attempting to brute force an answer over the next couple of days. If you want to post whether you believe brute forcing an answer is possible, and the total number of permutations that need to be examined, that would be nice (I will attempt to make a guess myself).

According to Swing Dice theory, Avis has the advantage.
If both players choose the same size X, Iago needs to keep 20 points to win (the 2/3 difference between his 60+X points and Avis' 30+X). So all things being equal, Iago needs to win and hold on to one of his 20-siders.
The bad news for Iago is that even in the best case (Avis takes a d20, Iago takes a d4), he still needs to hold 9.3 points (which means he still needs that d20, since the d4 won't cut it here). The point difference between the two buttons is wide enough that Iago must always win - there's no case where Avis can end up with a higher point total.
The news gets worse - if Iago ends up with a larger X than Avis, he now needs to hold two dice. And it doesn't help that Avis has five dice vs. Iago's four - given that a normal game of BM involves taking dice each round, he needs Avis to pass at least once.
To sum up - Iago's best action is to take a d4 (regardless of what Avis has), win initiative, force Avis to pass at least once each battle, take all of Avis' dice, and hold one of the d20s.
(Avis, on the other hand, can take a d20 and still force Iago to win and hold a d10 or better to win. There's no bad matchup for him.)
Source: a quick Excel spreadsheet to calculate win conditions for each combination of Xs. :)

You might want to post the tables if they aren't too large, or at least link to the swing dice theory page (and possibly quote the formula).

Added the link, but the spreadsheet was very quick-and-dirty (basically iterated through the various formulas). If I get a moment I'll do up a Pretty GDocs version and link.

This is a good start towards answering the question, but it isn't a definitive answer. This answers the question about what swing die is optimal for Iago (d4), which allows Iago to only have to save 1 die and gives a slightly less than 25% chance of going first. You still need to determine how likely it is for Iago to have his d20s below Avis's dice (or cumulative sum). I think Avis has an advantage, but I have a suspicion it isn't more than a 60-40% split.

@user1873 The problem is that you rapidly fall down the rabbit-hole of probability - Iago(4) has 32000 different possible rolls, which combined with Avis(4)'s 7680 different openings means that there are 245,760,000 different ways the opening roll could play out. And then you start tacking on the branches as you re-roll dice. And that's for just one of the 289 combinations of each player's X die...

it actually isn't 245+ million if you do some pruning. First, if you recognize that one d20 is indistinguishable from another d20 (or a d4), you can prune it down to about 3,536,820 game state nodes (already doubled to account for turn order). Additional pruning would bring this down considerably. I have been trying to think of a way to solve this problem with a computer, and I think working backwards (from possible end states) is the way to go. There is only 31 end-game nodes, and using pruning techniques and working backwards can probably reduce that 3 million game nodes further

@user1873 The d20s could be considered indistinguishable, but the d4 isn't - it's worth different points and will affect the later possibilities. But it sounds like you've got a good start on how to approach it.

I meant that Avis's 2 or 3 d4s are indistinguishable from each other, and Iago's d20s are indistinguishable from each other. This reduces the possible initial rolls to about 19,200,200. Further pruning reduces it further.


text:
Is Fluxx a game of skill or luck?
In a recent question, a link was posted to a BGG member that attempted to objectively measure whether skill exists in the game Fluxx. This wasn't published in a peer reviewed journal, but was just a small project by a dedicated Fluxx fan. This got me thinking about the methodology used to determine if Fluxx should be considered a game of luck.

200 games were played, resulting in a 71%-29% split. Is this significant? (What would a statistical analysis tell us the Confidence Interval (CI) was for 200 games, Chi^2 analysis, etc.)
This game was played only 2-players. Would a 3-player+ game result in similar two times more likely for a thinking player to win?
This Basic Player still made random plays, unless taking those actions would immediately win them the game (example if the standard rules, Draw 1 and Play 1, a basic player would not play one of the cards Keeper:Dog, Keeper:Tree, and the Goal:Walk the Dog even if all of them were in their hand, because they wouldn't win immediately.) Are the results of this experiment similar to the results you would have from a game with no luck, but similar 2-card win goals?

To expand on the last point, imagine a game where each player had access to all of the cards in the Fluxx, and was allowed to "draw" the card of their choosing. Would a Basic Player in this game of no luck have a similar win percentage?

To me Fluxx is self-evidently a game where there's a little bit of skill and strategy, but a great big helping of luck.  I'll be interested if anyone can come up with any answer that's more substantial than that!

I think you might have to expand on that last point a bit.  If I could draw whatever I want, I would draw Play 3/Love/All You Need Is Love in my starting hand.

@Kristo, I admit my question comes from an unfamiliarity with the cards in the deck. I am having a hard time envisioning a non-luck version of this game, that cannot be instantly won. What I am trying to determine is if some such no-luck version existed, why wouldn't te win% look something like a 2:1 ratio?

As to your first question, a result as extreme as 71%-29% over a range of 200 games will occur on average exactly 259038549769305536821652665944548563501370191596359 out of every 200867255532373784442745261542645325315275374222849104412672 experiments, or roughly 0.000000129% of the time, if the process were a coin toss. So we can reject that hypothesis out of hand for any reasonable level of significance. (Source: "Statistics:-CDF(Binomial(200, 1/2), 2*29);" in Maple.)

There's a modicum of skill involved.  You can do some things to increase the odds that random draws will go your way.  Any or all of these could be used to augment Basic Player's behavior.

Recognize that some keepers appear more often in goals.  Prioritize The Brain and generally anything to do with food.
Playing keepers toward the current goal is usually a waste of time, especially with lots of players.  The goal may change several times before your next turn.
Avoid Draw X rules when you don't have Play X to back it up.  Otherwise you hand all your opponents extra card draw before your next turn.  A fistful of cards increases your chances of going off on your next turn, but it does so for everybody at the table.  Risk/reward.
Play your cards in the proper order, e.g., by not reducing/trashing the current Play rule before you've played all your cards.
Hang on to cards like Let's Do That Again and Take Another Turn until the board has some favorable Draw and Play rules.  Setting up a Dominion-style 5-minute turn is soooo much fun.

Ultimately, Fluxx is a fun game because of the crazy combinations that make everyone's heads spin.  Actively trying to win is of lesser importance.  In my opinion, the better skill to master is to make sure you don't make the game boring for everyone else:

Hand Limit 0 is an awesome card, provided you still have plays left for yourself to change it before your turn ends.  Draw 1/Play 1 with 0-card hands is painful.
Play All with Draw 1 is similarly bad, though it gets less painful with more opponents.

Is Fluxx a game of skill or luck?
Yes, yes it is.
It is also a game of skill AND luck.
A fortunate deal can give you the game, but only if you have the ability to play it correctly.  Continually getting the 'wrong' cards can mean that you'll never win, but a skilled player can mitigate that.
You can't look at the colour grey and ask if it's black or white.  It might be more black than white, or closer to white than to black, but you can't say that it's definitively one or the other.

A game cannot be both a game of skill and luck, as the two are mutually exclusive. By your logic, poker is a game of both skill and luck. The definition of a game of luck is that there is no strategy that will increase your odds of winning. Most games have a random element involved but are true games of skill. In fact, one of the greatest skills of a player is making choices that remove elements (consider Magic the Gathering). I don't want to be all William Blake/CS Lewis on you, but the two are mutually exclusive. Having random elements in a game does not make it a game of luck.

Poker is both a game of skill and a game of luck. Individual hands are heavy on luck (influenced by your skilled decisions to draw, bluff, fold, and how you raise), but over the course of many hands, it's a game of skill (But still with a wee bit of luck in it; it's quite possible to draw bad hands all night, just unlikely).  If you insist that every game is either skill or luck, then every game is skill - with the sole exception of Hi Ho Cherry-O.


text:
Does a Monster have to survive an attack to yield Tokyo?
King of Tokyo has one of the most poorly written rules.
The rules state:

If a Monster loses its last life({Heart}) it is out of the game.
If you are attacked while in Tokyo and you don't want to be there anymore [...] you can yield to the Monster that attacked (he has to take your place). You still take the damage, however.
If you are eliminated by an attack on Tokyo, the Monster who attacked you automatically takes control of Tokyo.
Yielding Tokyo / Flee: A Monster can leave Tokyo (yield his place) to the Monster who just attacked him. If a card allows a monster to leave tokyo with no damage from an attack, the attacker still occupies Tokyo.
Eliminated: When you have 0{Heart}.

Does a Monster need to survive an attack to yield Tokyo?
This is important for a card like:

(5) Burrowing: Keep; Deal 1 extra damage on Tokyo.
Deal 1 damage when yielding Tokyo to the monster taking it.

Does a Monster eliminated by an attack deal 1 damage to the Monster that attacked them?

When a monster is eliminated while inside Tokyo, they do not yield. Look at the exact phrasing:

If you are eliminated by an attack on Tokyo, the Monster who attacked
  you automatically takes control of Tokyo.

The rules say "takes control of", not "is yielded," so no yielding happens and the extra damage from Burrowing doesn't occur. Thematically, this makes sense: the monster is dead, and its ability to burrow doesn't help. You aren't yielding to the attacking monster; you're yielding to the sweet embrace of death. (Death takes one damage.)

Not that i disagree with your interpretation, but does this come from a WizKid rep or FAQ?

Alas, no; I have but my own gray matter to support this answer.


text:
Does Burrowing's extra damage affect non-attack damage and where inside/outside Tokyo?
Burrowing's effect states:

Deal 1 extra damage on Tokyo. [...]

Does this mean,

"Deal 1 extra damage [to the Monster] on Tokyo."; or

"Deal 1 extra damage [when your Monster is] on Tokyo."

I believe it is the former, because of the wording on Urbavore, "when dealing any damage from Tokyo." Although, it might have been shortened due to lack of space.
Does Burrowing increase the damage from a non-attack?  For example:

{6} Acid Attack: Keep; Deal 1 extra damage each turn (even when you don't otherwise attack).
{3} Fire Blast: Discard; Deal 2 damage to all other monsters.

According to iello, who wrote the rules for the French and English versions of the game states that you deal extra damage when you are in Tokyo:

Cost: 5 Energy.
Type: Keep.
Text: "Deal 1 extra damage on Tokyo. Deal 1 damage when yielding Tokyo to the monster taking it."

You deal 1 extra damage when you are in Tokyo.
You deal 1 damage when you yield Tokyo to the monster attacking you.

As to the second part, what about damage cards, iello says this about Firebreathing:

Firebreathing: "Your neighbors take 1 extra damage when you deal damage"
Q: Does fire breating activate when you deal any damage?
E.G. Burrowing "Deal 1 damage when yielding Tokyo to the monster taking it."
  or only when attacking?
A: Anytime you do damage wether by attacking or using an ability.

Under this reasoning, I would assume that Burrowing would deal extra damage from any card with an effect that deals damage.


text:
Do you acquire Evolution cards simultaneously when Attacking, and when can you use them?
The King of Tokyo rules state:

If you are attacked while in Tokyo and you don’t want to be there anymore (and who can blame you – it can be rough!) you can yield to the Monster that attacked (he has to take your place). You still take the damage, however.

The King of Tokyo: Power-Up expansion rules state:

If a Monster ends his roll with at least 3{Heart}, he draws the top Evolution of his deck, keeping it secret. [...]
Evolution - Monsters keep their evolutions secret until they want to play them - which can be at any time.

The fact that you can use Evolutions at any time brings up some interesting rules interactions, and some difficult to answer questions:

Do you acquire an Evolution card simultaneously when attacking?

How does this affect when Evolution cards can be played? (provide answers and reasoning for The King's Evolution cards below)

To give some concrete examples, can you play the The King's evolution cards if you roll at least 1 {Claw}, and at least 3 {Heart} immediately during the same turn you acquired one of them?

King of Tokyo: "Gain 1 extra {Star} when you take control of Tokyo or start your turn there." (Can you play this if the opponent yields, or does dealing damage & yielding occur before acquiring the Evolution card?)
Alpha Male: "Gain 1 {Star} when you attack." (Can you play this immediately and gain a star, or have you already attacked? Is this answer different than the above, why?)
Chest Thumping: "When you attack Tokyo, you can force the occupant to retreat." (Do you make this decision to reveal the Evolution card during your attack, or during the opponent's yield? Does that timing difference make it match the first/second rule above?)
Jungle Tokyo: "Discard this Evolution to take an extra turn. Only do this when you have attacked Tokyo and have failed to enter Tokyo."

In the absence of any published clarifications from the publisher or game designer, I think the rules for any game should be taken as literally as possible, unless doing so "breaks" the game and there is a more reasonable way to interpret them.
Naturally, should all players agree to a modification of the rules prior to the start of the game and it isn't some sort of "tournament" play, then the agreed on house rules will supersede the normal rules.  It is your gaming groups luxury to play how you wish.
So let's take a look at the turn order from King of Tokyo rules:

Rolling and rerolling the dice
Resolving the dice
Buying cards (optional)
End of your turn.

From the King of Tokyo Power Up! rules (emphasis added):

If a monster ends his rolls with at least 3{Heart}, he draws the top Evolution of his
  deck

So this all hinges on when the rolls end. For me, rolls are clearly performed in stage 1, and the rolls would end before stage 2 starts.  As such, this is where the rules indicate you should draw the evolution card.
The following question was raised in the comments:

"2. Resolving the Dice - The symbols you get at the end of your rolling step are the actions for this turn." You don't get the benefit of any die faces until you resolve the dice in the 2nd step, why would evolutions be different.

This is fallacious reasoning.  Nowhere in the rules does it say that "you don't get the benefit of any die faces until you resolve the dice in the 2nd step." It simply says that the symbols are your actions and the actions are resolved in stage 2.  A player doesn't take the rolls into the resolution stage, they take the symbols (and the actions they indicate) into the resolution stage.
Drawing the evolution card is not an "action" as defined by the rules nor is it coupled to performing actions. Evidence that the drawing of the evolution card is decoupled from actions can be found directly in the Power Up! rules:

The hearts do not need to to be used to regain life, and a player can even use the hearts
  to draw an Evolution when in Tokyo. The card does not replace healing, the card is in addition to any healing that would normally occur.

What I take from the above rule:

You can draw the card whether or not you can make use of the healing action.  Said another way, even when in Tokyo where the {Heart} symbols would otherwise provide no action.
You can draw the card whether or not you choose to make use of the healing action.
The drawing of the card does not replace the healing action.

In summary, drawing the evolution card has nothing at all to do with the healing action itself.
Moving on to if you can play the evolution card on the same turn, this is what the rules say:

Monsters keep their evolutions secret until they want to play them – which can be at any time.

There is no mention of not being able to play the card the turn you draw it, so when they say anytime, you should be able to play it immediately if you choose.
Based on this reasoning, in respect to your specific questions, here is how they should be interpreted:

King of Tokyo: you can play anytime (for instance before you resolve the dice roll).  But to get the effect, you would need to play it before your opponent yields, but not after he/she does.  Once they yield Tokyo, you now control it so playing the card afterward won't provide the effect this turn.
Alpha Male: if you play it and attack this turn, it will provide the effect this turn.
Chest Thumping: yes, you can use it to force your opponent to yield Tokyo.  You would need to use this when you attack (there is no point if your opponent has already yielded).
Jungle Tokyo: you could play it this turn if you did attack and didn't take control of Tokyo.

Edit: Addressing the point made by user1873 regarding Gigazaur's Gamma Breath/Saurian Adaptability.
Prior to this, I was representing (at the very least in my own head) the evolution draw as somewhat of an added stage in the turn (say 1.5).  I haven't sat down with the rules and all the cards to try to figure out every nuance, but it would have been more clear and accurate to say the draw take place in stage 1, following the rolls but before stage 1 ends.
The ability to modify the results of the final roll indicates the game creators have already allowed for game play to take place in stage 1 after the final roll but before stage 1 ends.  So I would take this as stage 1 doesn't end until stage 2 starts (i.e. the player moves on to start resolving his actions).
This allows for Gamma Breath to function (ignoring whether it is on the same turn played or in future turns).  If stage 1 were to end with the final physical dice roll, there we be no way to use this mutation within the rules as pointed out by user1873.
This also then allows for the evolution card draw as well as being able to play evolution cards at this time.

Wait, doesn't evolution trigger off rolling 3+ heals in a single set of rolls, not based on your total health?

@bwarner, doh, been a while since I played and you are correct.  Let me fix this, especially as that changes my answer.

@Ylearn, your answers for King of Tokyo and Alpha Male seem backwards. Under the rules there are 4 steps, Roll Dice, Resolve Dice, Buy Step, End of Turn. I would expect that you couldn't receive your Evolution card until resolving the dice. If resolving {Heart} and {Claw} happen at the same time, you cannot play Alpha Male until after you have resolved attacking. The KoT card is more complex. It isn't clear if yielding occurs after resolving dice and gaining your evolution card.

@user1873, the rule as written states "ends his roll" not "resolves his roll" so I would take the rule to indicate you draw your Evolution card after the roll but before you resolve (between stage 1 and stage 2).  As such, since you can play an Evolution card "at any time" and with nothing in the rules along the lines of not playing it on the turn you draw it, you can play any of the cards before resolving your roll during the current turn.

@YLearn, Step 2 is resolving your roll. From the rules, "2. Resolving the Dice - The symbols you get at the end of your rolling step are the actions for this turn." You don't get the benefit of any die faces until you resolve the dice in the 2nd step, why would evolutions be different. Technically, a iello representative says that you can actually partially resolve your dice (which isn't supported by the rules as written, iello has a tendency to contradict themselves). The rules aren't clear when you attack, yield, and resolve dice.

For example, the Evolution card Alpha Male is the same as the card you can buy. You say that you can play the evolution the turn you get it, what about the card you buy? In both cases you "attacked", the question becomes when are you considered to be no longer attacking (and what is the order of resolution of dice, yielding, and drawing evolutions.)

@user1873, you are missing the point, namely that you actually attack when you resolve the roll.  With the Alpah Male, you have not attacked yet as you get it before your resolve the roll.  When you buy the card, you do so after you resolve and therefore after you attacked, so you couldn't use it the same turn.

"As you get it before you resolve the roll." So you say, but where is your evidence? I quoted directly from the KoT rule book. I clearly defines when you resolve the dice (Step 2). You claim that there is some step between 1&2 where you draw evolution cards, but no where in the Power-Up rules do I see this defined.

let us continue this discussion in chat

@user1873, from the KoT rules: "A turn consists of the
following, in the given order: 1. Rolling and rerolling the dice; 2. Resolving the dice; 3. Buying cards (optional);
4. End of your turn." The Power Up! rules: "If a monster ends his rolls with at least 3{Heart}, he draws the top Evolution of his deck."  Now, let me ask you, in which stage do you perform rolls? When you are done with the stage you just answered, if you have at least 3{Heart}, then you draw a card. Note, the rules do not say after you have resolved your roll or during the buying cards stage, but when the rolls end.

Just so I understand your reasoning, you would contend that you could use Gigazaur's Gamma Breath/Saurian Adaptability, the turn that you acquired it, "each turn you may change one for your dice to a {claw}" / "Discard this evolution to switch all your dice with one face of your choice to a different face of your choice." And it would be completely legal to change 1/all your {hearts} into {claw}, because you get an evolution at the end of Step 1 before they resolve. What do those changed dice resolve as? (They are ...

no longer the same as what they were at the end of Step 1), and step 2) tells you to resolve the "symbols you get at the end of your rolling step." Those symbols need to be Hearts at the end of Step 1 to draw an evolution, but the Evolution card allows you to change their face before resolving them in Step 2), but Step 2) says that the actions you get are based on the die faces at the end of Step 1 (which are no longer the same)

I would point out, it states you get the card in addition to the healing, which does occur at the resolution of dice. This wording would indicate that the evolution card draw would also be during the resolution of dice as well.

We have a house rule designation for the moment until an actual rules clarification is presented.
We have always treated the evolution draw step as being resolved after the roll and unable to affect the current dice roll.  Beyond that the cards may be played at anytime (so long as they were in hand already) and the effects going into effect immediately including resolving before dice resolve (i.e. healing when damage occurs before being knocked out).


text:
How many points does a thief score when placed on a tile with a crossing completing multiple roads?
I was a little worried that my theoretical maximum Carcassonne score of 338 points might be in error if it was possible to score multiple completed roads during the same turn.
The rules say you place Thieves on a road segment:

The player who has a thief on a completed road scores one point for each tile in the completed road (count the number of tiles; separate segments on a tile count just once).

How many points can a Thief placed on this Road Tile score?

Am I correct in believing that you have to choose a segment to one side of a crossing, and therefore you can only score 2 points here?

The other part of the rules that would've reassured you is the bit about only placing one follower per turn, and of course only scoring for what you put followers on.

That is my understanding of the rules. You could still score 8 points if you previously placed thieves on three of the road segments leading into the tile of course.

Yep, that's correct - you only score for the road you place your thief on, which would mean from the image in the question that the thief placed would score only 2 points, as all completed roads are only 2 tiles long.

Correct, but with the ghost expansion you could claim two of the roads.


text:
Does Paelleall's Wrath of the Volcano ability affect Heroes on her tile and the Entrance Tile?
Paelleall's Summoner Ability reads (emphasis mine):

Wrath of the Volcano
At the beginning of your turn, choose the shortest path from your current tile to the Dungeon Entrance tile. All other heroes within that path receive one wound marker. If multiple paths exist, choose 1.

Clearly her ability should affect heroes that share a dungeon tile with her, or they wouldn't have noted "All other heroes." Does reasoning follow that heroes on the Dungeon Entrance would be wounded as well?
Is this path inclusive of the start and end point?

It looks like you cannot get any more definitive than the designer himself, Mr. Bistro:

Q: Is Paelleall's Wrath of the Volcano ability include hitting all other heroes on Paelleall's current tile, and any figures standing on the Entrance Tile as well? I would assume that it does, but it isn't clear to me.
A: Yes, that is the intent. Every tile in the path is hit.