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Strategies for playing The Masochist in Cosmic Encounter?
Some of the Aliens in Cosmic Encounter have alternate win conditions, some of which are very beneficial as they allow you to simultaneously pursue two paths to victory. However, I haven't really been able to figure out the real benefit of The Masochist's power:

You have the power to Hurt Yourself. At the start of any player's
  regroup phase, before the offense retrieves a ship from the warp, use
  this power to win the game if you have lost all of your ships. Lost
  ships include those in the warp, those removed from the game, and
  those captured by other players.
You do not lose this power because of having too few home colonies,
  and you may still win the game via the normal manner.

At first, I thought this would be awesome because all encounters become a win-win situation. If I win, I either get a colony or prevent my opponent from getting one, and if I lose, I lose more ships and get closer to winning. However, the 2 paths to victory seem pretty mutually exclusive, and I haven't really thought of a way to move toward both of them. Obviously moving towards just one is all I need to do for victory, but whenever I try to lose a lot of ships I worry that a Mobius Tubes will destroy all my hard-earned self-destruction, and whenever I play towards getting a lot of colonies I feel like I'm playing without a power.
I suppose the best way to play the Masochist would be to work primarily toward colonies without much deliberate self-destruction, and view any lost ships earned along the way as an added benefit. How do I take advantage of this power with maximum benefit to myself and minimum benefit to my opponents? How do I determine when to deliberately hurt myself? Is it just me, or is this one of the weaker powers?

You should play as if you don't have an alien power, since Masochist's power is diametrically opposed to setting up 5 foreign colonies and it is extremely difficult to send all your ships to the warp.
I will assume that you are playing with the latest edition of Cosmic Encounter by Fantasy Flight Games, because the Masochist is only available in this version. From the rule book, there are 72 total Cosmic Cards (82 with Flares). If you are playing a 5 player game, then there is just a 38% chance that one of the other 4 players does not have Mobius Tubes in their opening hand. You only have a 18% chance of having drawn a Card Zap to prevent Mobius Tubes in your opening hand. Even without a Mobius Tubes being drawn, you have several things working against you.
The Regroup step isn't optional, so every turn you must return 1 ship to your colonies, which means that it would take a minimum of losing 7 Offensive Encounters (I will get to Defensive Encounters in a moment) instead of winning 5 Encounters. In general, your opponents should see you attempting this strategy long before you can actually win with it. They will avoid allowing you to lose ships quicker by preventing you from allying with them (so you cannot lose more than 4 ships a turn). Additionally, when you win your first offensive encounter, you are allowed to take another turn. You do not have the same luxury when losing encounters, so even the 7-5 ratio is a little bit misleading.
Once you have lost a planet in your color home system, all other colors can choose to attack your 0 defense planet in your home system. This means that it is even harder to lose ships on the defense, since any player that hasn't established a foreign colony on your home system can just attack your defenseless planet (the other ships are just bystanders), and not make you lose any more ships. When they do have to attack your home system with ships on it, they can always aim the Hyperspace Gate at the planet with the fewest ships on it.
As for when to hurt yourself, you might consider all the possible Flares, Cosmic Cards, and situations that would benefit/hinder your progress at losing all your ships.
Beneficial

Amoeba Flare: Its ability to allow you to lose up to 8 ships in a turn is useful.
Masochist Flare: Once you have your flare, you put a clock on your opponents.
Clone Flare: returning Plague would be useful.
Kamikaze Flare: Free sacrifice
Loser Flare: Auto losses each turn.
Machine: Two turns, although admittedly, this would be just as good if not better trying to get 5 foreign colonies.
Filch (Classic) Flare: cheat legally, returning whatever card you want from the discard/retrieve from the deck/etc. once per turn, or "lose a ship." I think I like those choices.
Negotiate Cards: These will ensure a loss, or at a minimum a loss of 3 ships if you cannot "come to a deal." Good thing these cards make up 15 of the 82 cards
Warrior Flare: Useful for extra attacks to lose ships after defense.

Harmful

Healer: Healer so definitively makes Masochist a non-power, since it can heal ships removed from the game.
Mobius Tubes: A complete setback.
Reincarnator and/or Flare: Can make you switch powers, whenever you lose.
Sorcerer Flare: Negate your power

You can only be certain of half of the Flares are in the deck, based upon the Aliens your opponents are playing as. The remaining 5 Flares are random. All in all, it is much more likely that your opponents will draw a Mobius Tubes, and you won't have a Card Zap to counter, than you will have a good selection of beneficial flares in the deck that you actually draw. Masochist is one of the weaker powers, and since you are allowed to choose between two different aliens at the start of the game, it might be best to consider which alien race is worse than Masochist.

I see several ways to use the Masochist to good effect, even if it is weak. I would get myself invited more. Why? Because everyone would understand that I'll always contribute 4 tokens. I would also abandon all my home bases as there's no reason to keep any there (since the power is retained anyway). You could almost restate this power as "you have the power to use your tokens extravagantly, and if this extravagance leads to heavy losses, your opponents will rescue your tokens from the warp to prevent you from winning."

@JoeGolton, perhaps. At some point, your opponents would realize that it is highly likely that you will win with no ships, so everyone else can also play extravagantly with there own ships (they must have a Mobius Tubes, otherwise, why would they let you ally and lose more ships). If everyone is playing extravagantly, is it a power?

I played a ton of the EON version of Cosmic Encounter and can see how this would be an interesting and potentially very good power if the rules work the same in the later versions of CE. So here are some principals that could apply:

You can't lose all your tokens gradually, because then your opponents
will see what's coming and can stop you. You need to gather up
special cards until you can
lose all your tokens in one quick shot.
Consider all the possible special cards and what they do. I actually lost all but one token in a single turn of EON Cosmic Encounter once because every planet in my home system was simultaneously blown up through a combination of the Filth power and the Terrorist flare card. You may not have the Filth power (part of Cosmic Conflict expansion) but think about all the different powers and cards that do things like cause planets to explode or be evacuated, cause more than the maximum number of tokens be used on attack or defense, cause results or attack/defense to be switched/reversed, cause you to have more turns than you normally get, etc.
Do everything you can to delay using all the special cards in your hand (while protecting them to stay in your hand) until the moment you think you have a fairly good chance of playing them all right in a row with just the right timing.

Then do it. You might get stopped. Or you might not. But it will be one heck of a dramatic moment in the game, like the terrorist/filth play that eliminated 19 of my tokens in one shot, that I still remember to this day (incredibly, I came back to win a shared victory in that game with the person who nearly put me out of the game . . .)
But there's more. In my initial thinking about how I might win by losing with this power, I neglected to think about the benefits obtained by the threat of losing. I would get myself invited more. Why? Because everyone would understand that I'll always contribute 4 tokens. I would also abandon all my home bases as there's no reason to keep any tokens there (since the power is retained anyway).
You could almost restate this power as "you have the power to use your tokens extravagantly, and if this extravagance leads to heavy losses, your opponents will rescue your tokens from the warp to prevent you from winning." Being able to mount attacks (or ally with others) with no fear of suffering a permanent setback has to be worth something, though until play testing this power a number of times it's hard to know exactly how worth while it would be.
EDIT 1/23/14: I obtained the FFG version of Cosmic Encounter and have played enough games over the past month to have additional info. In games where tech cards are used, the Masochist has a significantly better chance to win.
By far the best tech card is the Omega Missile. It will take several turns to get all of your tokens on either a single planet or the Warp. Then you win at the start of any player's encounter by launching the Omega Missile on that planet.
The Precursor Seed could be helpful with the right power such as the Machine or Amoeba but is more likely to result in a useless power and with cost 9 takes a long time to build.
There are several other tech cards that are mildly useful, and potentially more useful when combined with other cards: Plasma Thrusters, Infinity Drive, and Delta Scanners.
A general principle in Cosmic Encounters is that large hands give you more options and control over the game. With Masochist, it becomes almost mandatory to build a very large hand with many special cards that, when used with the right timing (and hopefully combined with a good, developed tech card), lead to a quick victory.


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How can one reach 20 points in At The Gates of Loyang?
In all of the Loyang I've played, about a dozen games, nobody has reached 20 points. Have you or someone you've played with reached 20 points? If so, what kind of strategy was used?
I've noticed the following traits among game-winning strategies in the 17-19 point range:

Always pay 1 Cash to score 1 point at the end of each turn.
Selling to high-end casual customers (payouts of 10 or 11) is the easiest way to get 20+ Cash in one turn. You can simply pick them up and hang onto them until you have enough regular customers to get the +2 Cash bonus.
Get regular customers in the middle of the game. Regular customers must be acquired on or before Turn 6 to reach their max payout by game end (Turn 9.)
Plant all empty private fields each turn to ensure an adequate supply of vegetables.
In general, plant the most expensive vegetable each field allows.
Buy a cheap two-pack (0 or 1 cash) every turn or have lots of market stalls for exchanging vegetables.
In general, only take followers you intend to use immediately with the exception of game-changers like Squire. Stockpiling helpers for possible later use can end up being dead weight that makes those card picks a waste.

Which of these are also applicable to a 20-point strategy? What should be added to or removed from the above?

I don't think I've ever gotten better than about 18-19 (so far).  Uwe Rosenberg games tend to be about developing meticulous efficiency.  I bet a perfect Loyang score is possible, but only if you really do do everything perfectly and maybe have a bit of good luck too!  As it's basically almost a solo game for each player, I'd expect it would be possible to work out a 20-point strategy "on paper"... unfortunately my copy is in Canada right now, and not joining me in London for quite a few weeks :-/

My first game, I got almost to 19 and the winner got 20; my second game, I scored 20 points (no loans, 15 coins left). It caused a big of a stir on boardgamegeek, since Uwe said nobody beat 19 in testing.
It's been a couple of years, so I can't remember the details, but I see this game as an exercise in efficiency. Use your veggies right so you never have to discard them, always go up two steps early on when it's cheap (although the turn I went 3 steps was 8-9-10), never take loans, keep the 2-packs cheap..
I found this bit I wrote about the game back then, discussing the game on BGG.

I usually had 2-3 regular customers and one fewer casual customer; I
  skipped delivering to each regular customer 1 time to plant. I believe
  I bought 2 extra fields. I never sold to the shop (although I
  considered it once) and I actually used the helper who refills the
  shop so I could buy more grain. I used two-packs to manage the number
  of customers so that I always had more regular than casual without
  letting any regular customer go unsatisfied more than once. Like last
  game, I started with radishes, although next time I think I want to try
  starting with grain if possible. The first time I played I concentrated
  on keeping max{shops, helpers} to 1 for cheap 2-packs; this time I used
  the helper who makes your 2-packs free regardless (I think I got him
  twice, once when I had several helpers covering customers I was saving)
It could be my group just isn't that nasty - we didn't really use any
  of the interaction cards to mess each other up.
Edit: yes, I realize I used the word shop to refer to two different
  things, but I don't have the rules handy and I think it's fairly
  obvious what I mean

Thanks for sharing! It would be great if you could dig up your original BGG discussion link.

"Never take loans" is the bit of advice here that jumps out of me as interesting.  Taking a loan is obviously not something to undertake lightly, but are you saying that it is always worse to go into debt, even when that gives you that initial competitive boost?   Or just that there may be opening situations where a loan is the right play, but it will be really hard for you to get a high score if you do?  I'd certainly like to see more analysis of the "value" of loans, because I always wonder about them when I play...

I've never seen a situation where taking a loan seems like a good move. Since it costs you a point at the end of the game, you have to somehow use that money to both go up an extra step AND get enough benefit to make up for having to pay an extra dollar for each second step you go up for the rest of the game. Early in the game there's too much downside (lots of extra money spent over the rest of the game) and later on it's not enough to go up a step.

The only situation where I could see it being worthwhile is if it let you go up two extra steps on the first turn, after needing to spend your money because some really good cards game up.

@thesunneversets Its nearly always bad to take a loan. You might have to take one though, if you have to pay a fine for unsatisfied regular customer and have no coin.

@Nick I think there's definitely an argument that taking a loan drastically reduces your chance of getting to 20 points, but I wonder if there aren't some starting positions where it's better to take a loan than not take one, even so.  In fact the mathematics of Loyang loans might make a good BG:SE question in their own right...

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How many of each land do I need to support a draft tournament?
I am planning on running some booster draft tournaments, and want to make sure I am well supplied. The best case scenario is that each player takes 8 of one color and 8 of another color (assuming a typical 40% land spread). Realistically this doesn't happen, though. Sometimes there's more of one color than another in the draft packs. Some people go mono-color. Some people might be poor players and go with a color they don't have strong cards in (this is very common in red and green) which increases demand for that 'overloaded' color (while decreasing demand for another).
So the 'best all around' would be 4 land per color per person. So for a 10 player draft I should have 40 land of each color.
The 'worst case scenario' (while realistically impossible) would be 17 land of the same color for every person. So a 10 player draft would be 170 land of each color (since I don't know ahead of time which color will get 'overloaded' as such).
In summary, For a magic booster draft of N players, how many of each land should I have available to accommodate a reasonably likely scenario?

Don't know what else to add, you pretty much answered your own question!  Draft you can pretty safely assume some level of forced color distribution.  "Worst" case for a pod is 3 people play the same color mono and use 18 lands each, then there are simply no more cards in that color.  however for sealed deck, you do need to be prepared for almost everybody to play the same colours, that does happen with some sets.  (Which means most stores/TOs have way more land on hand than any draft will ever use because of hosting pre/release parties :), thus this has never come up for me. )

So Affe, you're saying 18 * 3 = 54 lands, 8 people per pod means 54 / 8 = 6.75 so my equation for land is 7 * N rounded up to the nearest multiple of 18 for each color?

That also assumes players only take what they need and don't just grab a fistful and take it back to the table.  And that you don't have people who try to build multiple decks out of their pools.

A little bored at work, so I coded up a simulation.
I assume that each of n participants picks 2 different colors, with slightly higher probabilities for choosing red or green (0.23) than blue/black/white (0.18) to account for the "overloading possibility". I assume each person wants 8 lands of a chosen color. I ran this simulation 10,000 times, and took the 90% quantiles of the number of lands required.
I ran the above code for n=5 up to n=30, which I figured covers your home-drafting range. Fitting linear models to the results (they do look linear, see below), gives
red/green lands = 10.3 + 4.2 * n
blue/black/white lands = 10.4 + 3.5 * n,

which for n = 10 is 52.3 each mountains and forests and 45.4 each of the others. Sounds pretty reasonable (like what @Affe says in the comments and @wpickett says in the answer).
My assumptions are bad in that each player's choices are independent--if 9 of 10 people pick blue, the 10th is still just as likely to pick blue too, but that's conservative, and somewhat makes up for the impossibility (in the model) of someone picking a mono-color.

Red dots are for red/green lands, blue dots are for blue/black/white lands.

I think a reasonable conclusion for this would be a minimum of 50 cards no matter what, for sure. In the overloaded formula, I would need 9.45 users to warrant those 50 cards. So if I simply say max(5*N,50) per color, it appears I should be safe.

In a booster draft, generally a player has about 16-18 lands depending upon their card choices. So for a 10 person draft, you can assume around 160 - 180 lands in use at one time. However, because of the random nature of the cards in the pack you can't assume the distributions of the colors for each player, so you should probably assume that you need at a minimum 180/5 = 36 lands of each type. I wouldn't feel comfortable holding a draft unless I had 50 or so of each color, though.
The next question you need to ask is if you are allowing the participants to keep their land or if they need to give it back. MTG players are kinda forgetful in giving back basic lands, so you should probably consider having as many lands as possible so that you don't run out as you hold multiple tournaments.

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In Killer Bunnies do you replace a very special card when played?
As I understand the rules, you can play a very special card from your hand at any time. However, what I can't tell is whether you then replace that card, or just continue playing,  one card short.
Do you replace it immediately, or do you draw two cards on your next turn?

Excellent question.  I do not believe the rules clearly address this point.  It's my belief that you can only play SAVED very special cards on other people's turns (thus avoiding the question).  You can write them here to get an official answer:  http://killerbunnies.com/?page_id=292   The other 'fun' option is that playing a very special card from your hand is never replaced, so don't play too many of them that way! :)

The rules state that you can play a Very Special card from your hand at any time, even when it's not your go.
The rules also state (order of operations) that at the end of your go you should have 5 cards in your hand and 2 in the run. So you should take a card when you play a Very Special card, although it's not completely clear whether you should do so immediately or wait until the end of your go to do so. Unless you happen to pick up another Very Special card or a Play Immediately card I don't think the timing actually makes any difference.
Anyway, I've always played that you take a replacement card immediately when you play a Very Special card from your hand, it seems the most sensible approach.


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How much bandwidth does Vassal consume?
A friend of mine is designing a game, and I'd like to playtest it with him.  We have no possibility of meeting face to face; also, finding ±90 minutes to play through Vassal when I'm at home is quite difficult.  However, I travel quite often by train, and then I have much time.  The problem is, I have then only a very slow Internet connection (using my mobile phone).  Do I assume correctly that this should be enough to play through Vassal?  (I assume that it sends only info about my move - no graphics etc.)

Vassal is pretty low bandwidth - as you correctly guess, the graphics are all part of the pre-downloaded game files, so in play it only sends information about which pieces you moved and where to.  It's on the same order as using a text chat app, and pretty favourable compared to a web page.
Obviously you'll need to download and update the actual game files in advance, as those can be larger.
(There's still enough bandwidth usage that you could notice the cost, however, if you're on a pay-per-byte plan for your mobile.)

Thanks a lot - this is what I've expected.  I have a flat rate, so with low bandwidth it should work perfectly well for me.


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Card Games for Three Players?
We have a great time playing Hearts, Spades, and Euchre with 4 players.  Oftentimes though we have three people available to play but not a fourth.
How can I find card games that are interesting for 3 players?

Seems like a good question, so many card games are optimised for 4 that some sensible advice for when you're a man short would be good.  I hope we don't get a lot of "this is a card game I like, and it sort of kind of works for 3 players too" though.

I think one of the best card games for three players is Skat (not to be confused with the Scat mentioned in another answer). This is a pretty heavy game on the level of Bridge, so you can decide whether it's a good fit for your group.
I personally prefer Ninety-Nine which is like Oh Hell! with a really funky bidding technique.
You might also find this list on pagat.com helpful. It seems like the numbers outside square brackets are the recommended numbers of players.

99 is THE BEST 3 player card game.

When I was at university we often had exactly this problem.  The way I solved it was by extensive googling for a card game that was designed for three players.  The game I ended up finding was 3-5-8.*  It has an interesting imbalance that means you spend a lot of time deciding which of your opponents is actually in the lead, and you often get the choice to give a trick to one or the other.
*I think I actually came across 8-5-3, where the order of the hands is reversed.  Very similar games are 9-5-2 and Sergeant Major.

The Indian version of this, I suppose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Do_Paanch

@tttppp we played this a little last night.  It seems like the rich get richer with this game b/c of the card swapping after the first hand.  Doesn't the first person to end UP earlier in the game get an unfair advantage?  Maybe we're playing it wrong.

When we played it we found that some positions seemed to be harder than others (5 seemed worst, and 3 best), which led to players building up an advantage and then losing it again.  Also we found that it's hard to get much more than 9 or 10 tricks.  This means that the rich don't often get indefinitely richer, as they can be reeled in when they're playing 8.

500 Rummy is the best game of the rummy family IMHO, and it works well with any number from 2-5.
klabberjass is a trick taking game that works only with 3. I'll admit upfront that I've never played, but I assume its a good 3 player game as no other amount can play.
psychological jujitsu is great with 3. It's a game of skillful bluffing and psychological matching of wits.
Egyptian Ratscrew is really fun with anywhere from 2-6. It's a game of speed, so if you're group doesn't like moments where you're all racing to slap a pile of cards, then I wouldn't try it. But try it at least once, it's a lot more fun than it sounds. :D

Since you mentioned the games you enjoyed playing, I'll point out they all can be played three-handed, with minor rules modification. I've enjoyed playing Hearts three-handed.

Hearts with three or five players
Spades for Three Players
Three Player Buck Euchre

Where I live, the canonical three-player card game is Cribbage.

Cassino
A brilliant card game that just magically deals out evenly to both 2, 3 and 4 players.

+1! I just came here to add Cassino!

Nice. Good game.

The easiest way to get a three person game is to take a two person game with an extra person. Poker is the one that immediately comes to mind. . It's also possible to have "three handed" gin rummy, with one dealer and two players in every game. The loser of one game becomes the dealer of the next.
It's possible, but harder, to downgrade a four person game into three. In a pinch, I've played "three handed bridge." Deal out all four hands, highest bidder gets dummy, score each person separately. On the other hand, "go fish," often a four player game, can be downgraded to three relatively easily.

Durak (Fool) is a Russian game that plays very well with 3 people. The mechanics are also quite distinctive; it's rare to find a good card game that isn't built on trick taking in my experience.

I'd recommend:
31 (or Scat... but I've never heard it called it that)
http://www.pagat.com/draw/scat.html
3 handed Pinochle
http://www.pagat.com/marriage/pin3.html
or Oh Hell!
http://www.pagat.com/exact/ohhell.html
3 is pretty fun with the right group, and all of these work great.

Pourquoi le moins-un?

I'll neutralize the downvote.  Cutthroat Pinochle is certainly worth a mention.

Briscola is a very Euchre-like trick-taking game that can scale to many different player numbers. I prefer it with 3 so it sounds like the right fit for you folks. If your group knows Euchre, they'll be able to learn Briscola quite easily. Traditionally, it's played with Italian playing card deck (cups, swords, clubs, coins), but can easily be played with a modified International deck (hearts, spades, diamonds, clubs) by removing the 8, 9, and 10 of each suit.

Canasta has a three-player variant, where the players all compete against each other instead of playing in teams of two.


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Does "Mountainwalk" imply "Snow-Covered Mountainwalk"?
If I am playing a deck with Snow-Covered Mountains, does a creature with Mountainwalk become unblockable or do they require Snow-Covered Mountainwalk  (where "mountain" is interchangeable with plains, islands, swamps, forests and mountains)?  Conversely, if I had a creature with Snow-Covered Mountainwalk, is it unblockable if an opponent has only regular Mountains in play?
I lack the experience with the Comprehensive Rules to be able to conclusively go one way or the other.

702.12a Landwalk is a generic term that appears within an object’s rules text as
“[type]walk,” where [type] is usually a subtype (as in “islandwalk”), but can be
the card type land, any land type, any supertype, or any combination thereof (as
in “snow swampwalk” or “legendary landwalk”).

702.12b Landwalk is an evasion ability. A creature with landwalk is unblockable
as long as the defending player controls at least one land with the specified
subtype and/or supertype. (See rule 509, “Declare Blockers Step.”)

I suppose the question boils down to this: is "Mountain" a supertype of "Snow-Covered Mountain"?

Yes.
Since Snow-covered is a land supertype, and mountain is a subtype, a snow-covered mountain is also a mountain and thus plain vanilla mountainwalk applies. The land subtypes are specified in rule 204.3h

204.3h Lands have their own unique set of subtypes; these subtypes are called land types. The land types are Desert, Forest, Island, Lair, Locus, Mine, Mountain, Plains, Power-Plant, Swamp, Tower, and Urza's.
            Of that list, Forest, Island, Mountain, Plains, and Swamp are the basic land types. See rule 305.6.

However, you are correct about the converse. A creature with Snow-covered mountainwalk would be able to be blocked if you had a mountain but no snow-covered mountains.

Yes,
What can Landwalk through what is covered in 702.13c

702.13c A creature with landwalk is unblockable as long as the defending player controls at least one land with the specified subtype (as in "islandwalk"), with the specified supertype (as in "legendary landwalk"), without the specified supertype (as in "nonbasic landwalk"), or with both the specified supertype and the specified subtype (as in "snow swampwalk"). (See rule 509, "Declare Blockers Step.")

This is equivalent to

A creature with landwalk is unblockable as long as the defending player controls at least one land that has:

the specified subtype (as in "islandwalk")
OR the specified supertype (as in "legendary landwalk")
OR does not have the specified supertype (as in "nonbasic landwalk")
OR with both the specified supertype and the specified subtype (as in "snow swampwalk")

In your example a creature with Mountainwalk has evasion due to a Snow Mountain due to condition (1).
Your second example is not viable as a creature with Snow Mountainwalk can only evade through a Snow Mountain due to condition (4).


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Tri-dimensional board games: How does the additional dimension extend possible player requirements & game structure?

Recently I saw the Star Trek chess game in a serial and looked it up on wikipedia. It exists as a real game, but it seems it's not too popular, too tricky, too unwieldy to carry and play everywhere, and the rules are too complex (?). There seem also to be no world-wide championships or other questions on boardgames.SE ;)
Does anyone know of a good scientific site/report (maybe a topic in neuroscience experiments) describing different rule sets for e.g. 3D-chess which covers a bit the theory how in general 2D games differ from 3D games? Differences might include more possible game moves, the role of spatial perception (afaik men and women have different strong faculties here - so maybe 3D games are not gender-neutral and less popular besides hardly portable/digital playable?), or mappings of well-known game strategies from 2D.
PS: My first question here. I have no idea if this question is too open, so please reformulate if so. I'm more asking for some good links shedding some light on the general differences in game theory/structure between 2D and 3D.

The most problems are physical representation of boards, i think.

While I've not seen serious work on it... I have played trek-style 3d chess
Take the pawn. In 2d, it has one move option. in 3d, given the start locations, it has 2, sometime 3, options Twice that many "covered" squares it can attack to.
The 3D has several effects:

increasing piece movement options
different board shape reduces flat move options for many pieces
perception of good versus bad moves is more difficult
occasional adjustment of board results in different dynamic (small boards are mobile)

this al means a direct comparison is difficult as the needed strategies change.
3D tic tac toe, however, merely gets more move options - the same strategies apply.
 So it varies by how the 3D is done.

This answer seems too specific to examples, not the general question.  Perhaps the question can be clarified to be one or the other?

The general question is practically unanswerable because it's too general, and not much is really done on it academically.

@aramis thx. What academic branches deal in general with this topic? Psychology, Game Theory...The star trek chess looks also quite unsymmetric :), so you go constantly around the board to view from diff. angles?

Star Trek chess is actually fairly symmetric along one axis. It just doesn't look it. The few times I've played, we just both sat to the sides; one's playing upwards, the other downwards, but it's easiest to see moves from above and to the sides.

Summary
3D games are not fundamentally different, but are less common because they are usually harder for people to understand the basic game mechanics.  The main problem with 3D chess is that spaces on the board are adjacent without easy visual indication of such.

Full Explanation
Let's start with games with discrete spaces (like Chess, Risk, etc), the important principle is not the "dimensionality" of the board (2D vs 3D), it's the graph of the spaces on the board.  2D games usually have a planar graph, whereas 3D games are usually made that way to intentionally have a non-planar graph.  They could still be made on 2D boards, but are not for the sake of novelty.  There are still plenty of examples of games with 2D boards that still have non-planar graphs, such as the following:

Scythe, which deviates from being planar with the special movement rules)
StarCraft: The Board Game, which explicitly calls the exceptions to the planar nature "Z-axis connectors"
Cosmic Encounter, which has something approaching a complete graph for a board

The thing about non-planar graphs is that they are harder to reason about because there the visual cues for adjacency of spaces are either weaker or abstract.  Edge detection is a key facet of both the neuroscientific study of human vision and the machine learning approach to computer vision.  Thus, having adjacent territories share an edge means that you can have a human "understand" that adjacency in the Occipital Lobe.  Two adjacent territories that are physically separate and only indicated to be adjacent on the board need to make it through the Occipital lobe and to the Cerebrum for someone to understand the adjacency, though there are at least high level visual cues they can use to help.
Two adjacent territories that are adjacent by means of game rules and not visually indicated at all or using something other than color (such as "vertical overlay plus 2D adjacency" in your 3D chess example) are probably the hardest to handle because there is no support whatsoever from the visual cortex, and this is purely effortful abstract reasoning.  Effortful abstract reasoning is a major obstacle to gameplay when present in the basic mechanics.  Take the classic Diplomacy map as an example of how much visual cues matter: many players miss the fact that Norway and St. Petersburg are adjacent because the border between them isn't very wide, even though the rules for adjacency are quite unambiguous.
Games that are popular tend to be ones that people get "intuitively".  This is a really hard concept to define, but is best understood through examples.  If, in Magic the Gathering, a goblin could fly and an angel couldn't, this would be really hard for people to remember (even though there is no rules reason this could not be the case), whereas the other way around is quite easy.  If Settlers of Catan used species of plankton as the five resources, it would be an identical game, but would be far harder for people to remember what resource did what (since plankton have nothing to do with building roads and cities) and would consequently be massively harder to play.  Similarly, that physically adjacent spaces allow movement between then is easy to understand, whereas physically disjoint spaces with no visual indicator allowing movement between them is hard.
Even in regular chess, the knight is usually the hardest piece for new players to "visualize" the movement of due to the fact that it cheats adjacency in it's movement, and consequently has fewer visual cues as to how it moves.  Try playing chess on a board that is all one color (instead of alternating colors) and see how hard it is to visualize the movement of bishops.
The 3D chess game you give as the example is most likely unpopular primarily due to all of the reasons above making moving non-intuitive.  The rules of the game are intentionally complex to take advantage of the novelty of the 3D structure of the board.  While this is certainly entertaining for a game or two, it leads to a game that is more about not making mistakes than one with interesting strategic analysis, since you have to spend so much cognitive effort even understanding what moves are legal.  From what I can find about the rules the proper way to visualize a move is to look at the board from above, but due to the overlap of the boards, this requires you to look at the board from a number of sides to see what is obscured by the bird's eye view.  Add on top of this the fact that some of the boards can move to different positions and intuitive adjacency goes out the window.  The lack of portability of the game is a minor inconvenience in comparison.
All of the above has been with regard to games with discrete spaces.  There are plenty of examples of 3D games that are very successful that aren't about spaces:

Jenga
Operation
Barrel of Monkeys

The success here is that they don't require reasoning about complex 3D structures; they're just object manipulation and the human intuition about physics.  I'd file Blacksmith puzzles (also known as tavern puzzles) as also having the attribute of successfully using 3D geometry to create engagement, but these are intended as solo exercises rather than having competitive rules draped on top of them.
As an extreme example, Allan Calhamer (the inventor of Diplomacy) made a four-dimensional game called "Hyperspace", though embedded the four dimensions onto a 2D board with some interesting movement rules.  This ended up being sufficiently unintuitive that the answer to multiple questions in the included FAQ in the rulebook is "You don't understand hyperspace."

I have played an 8x8x3 version of Chess, somewhat similar to Millennium 3D chess But since I received my set in 1978 nd that dates from 2001 they can't be quite the same. The board had three plastic chessboards stacked one above the other (not offset as in the Star Trek version), and pieces could make their regular flat moves or make related moves across levels.
At the tiem I was a fairly inexperienced chess player, and I did not find the experience very different, except that the end game was harder with another way for a king so slip away from a pending mate. One had to have at least one piece on the adjacent level to block the king's escape, and it was pointless to try to mate on the middle level except with overwhelming strength. The physical positioning allowed fairly easy visualization of relative positions and move. It helped that the "white" squares were actually transparent.

This question possible does need to be a bit more specific, so I am going to restrict my answer to tri dimensional chess.
In tri dimensional chess, where the different levels of boards overlap, the overlapping squares are considered to be the same positions and a piece ending its move on an overlapping square has a choice of levels to end on.
This aspect alone completely over hauls a 2D chess players rule book.
Depending on which rule set is employed.
By far, the most played rules are Andrew Bartmess' Federation Standard rules, adopted by memorabilia 3D chess board makers and sanctioned, initially, by the makers of Star Trek.
The additional strategic mechanisms open a whole new range of options for each move.
Unfortunately, Federation Standard rules offer a major tactical advantage to whoever plays from the top board, in what is commonly referred to as the 'highest board' move.
I won't go into it here but there's a good explanation on boardgame geeks:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2725970/why-highest-boards-rule-so-bad
Two other popular rule sets are Jens Meder's and the jedi smurf rules, both utilised in many computer versions of the game.
These severely undermine the point of the overlapping squares as a piece on any level can block the path of any other piece.
To really explore the 3D space across all the boards, I recommend the World Tri Dimensional Chess Federation rules.
http://w3dcf.com/information/laws
They make blocking harder as pieces may move along any path, provided there are corresponding empty squares.
They are also more intuitive for 2D chess players.

You have grafics, or, pictorals, &, symbolics in, any 3d communications.
ONEdemention is always simple "graphics."
The other, 2 are "symbolics &, pictoral" because, it's a 3 D/demention, &, 3D conceptual design.
THEREFORE, It's HOW your brain views the strategy, of, the game,
as, a cube, OR, a flat surface graf, not, unlike "graff paper."
The 3D is a 3d "concept,"
W/, invisable sides,
a top,
midle,
&, base/floor demention.

It's a more solid open, constructive play, automatically, vs.
the flat 1-demention graff paper, flat, foward, backward, corner, to corner moves.

The 1 dementional is more "grafic" not, unlike a stick man represents a person drawing, to the mind.
whereas,
the 3D dementional is more "pictoral"
&, the moves played, ARE on, more than, 1 level, in, one single move per, piece is highly "symbolic,"
in otherwords, I move here,
&, below,
& impose a pictoral, upon, the oponent, a 3d concept when, I start my piece moving, in a cube sphere.
The instantaneous pictures, create solid symbolics, in the shape of, posts, ladels, &, sides, which, in, turn,
invisablly contains the
Opponents piece's
&, imprisons the moves, by the mere 3d design &, conceptual piece.
ALL the opponents moves are "symbolic" attempts, on, levels above, or, below, their pieces.
If, a pyramid, or triangle were 3 D conceptual design,
INSTEAD OF THE 3 CHESS BOARD TRIPLE STACK,
you cant move, or even leave the game, unless,
you go outside, the invisable boundaries,
or resort back into, the one demention flat "graphics"
With no 3d conceptual design communications, because, AGAIN,
In order, to play the game  you must use "pictorials &, symbolics" in a 3d conceptual design, to communicate ALL your moves.
Theres no concept structure, In 1 demention, you just, keep playing in a flat 1dementional graphic, non-pictoral level, completely, w/ out any higher "symbolic" required thinking.
*Uno.
Understand?
Its a "pictoral "game of "symbolics" &, intentions, vs. Simple
"graffics" 1 piece moves flat demention no conceptual 3d design communications just 1 "grafic" cross stick movements.

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


text:
Can I sell a third party expansion?
I've got an expansion for a semi-popular board game that my friends and I have been having a lot of fun with.  I was wondering if I could package and sell the expansion to the game without consent from the original publisher.  I know I'd need to create all of my own materials (artwork, text, etc.) but I wasn't sure if I could market it as "Third party expansion to X".
Are there any pitfalls I should be wary of?  I don't want to rip off the company or cause problems with them, but ideally I wouldn't need to have a lot of contact with them either (since they may not like it, even if it is perfectly legal.)

There will be very different answers to your questions depending on where you plan to sell your expansion. I think Europe in general is much more restrictive about mentioning trademarks without explicit permission than for example North America. You'll probably want to consult a lawyer before going ahead with this.

My guess would be that in the US, as long as you don't imply that the manufacturer authorized it (I'd go with 'The unauthorized expansion to...' in my title), you'd probably be ok, legally. But remember, even if you are within the letter of the law, they still might sue you, and you'd still have to defend. I'd check out the manufacturer's history of legal action to see what you might expect.

0) I am not a lawyer. I am definitely not YOUR lawyer. I don't even play one on TV.
1) go read the circular on Trademark at the USPTO.gov website.
2) Realize that, if you aren't in the US, you need to find the equivalent for wherever you are.
Canadian IPO —
UK IPO — French IP Agency
Directory of Intellectual Property Offices
3) Realize that anywhere you intentionally sell it, you have to obey their trademark laws, too.
4) before doing anything commercially, hire a lawyer specializing in intellectual property law, and have him go over the risks and requirements with you.
Fundamentally, a 3rd party supplement can't use the distinguishing marks of the core game (TSR v. Mayfair), and can't use the unique phrases associated with the game, either. The closest I've seen to doing so that wasn't challenged nor licensed was "Not a complete game; requires the use of n, by n." and "For use with n and other n games."

The artwork and language may be copyrighted so at a minimum you'd have to create your own.
What you should do is call them up and see if they are willing to license their product.
Some will, some won't.
Here's one good link.

"The artwork and language may be copyrighted" - actually, they definitely will be copyrighted, absent some really weird situation like a game published before 1973 by a company that went out of business, or made entirely with public domain art.

+1 I really like that link.  It does a good job of describing what you can do legally, but also the problems with a larger company threatening legal action even if you are within your legal rights.

Back in the 90's, I remember seeing (and purchasing) several "unauthorized" expansions for Axis & Allies at GenCon. Some even had brand new plastic molded units. I can't imagine that anyone would go through that level of effort (both in quality and in renting a booth at GenCon) on an unauthorized expansion if they had any thought that MB/Hasbro would sue them. So as long as you give credit to the company that makes the game you are expanding and (as others have said) don't use any of their artwork, you should be fine.


text:
Must a caught novice walk back to her cell even when passing out of sight?
In Nuns on the Run, when a novice has been caught by one of the guards, she must walk the shortest route back to her cell so long as the abbess or prioress can still see her.
My question is, must the novice complete her 'caught' movement honestly even if it takes her out of sight, or can the novice jink to the side as soon as there's a door between her and the guards?
Example: Ann Marie is caught two spaces from the south door to the chapel.  Her first two moves have to be south, but do her last one or two also have to be south, or can she turn and head into the garden?

Our group allows the novice to choose. If she stays 'caught', her token stays on the board even when she passes through a doorway but the head nun can't re-catch her and she automatically passes her noise checks.

In short terms, no.
When the honest movement takes you out of the guard's line of sight, you may then take the last one or two steps (since you are only walking) in your preferred direction.
In longer terms: I've interpreted the rules literally. It says on page 3

If you are caught by the guard, you are required to walk (not run) in the direction of your cell by the most direct route, as long as you are visible to the guard. Flip your novice status card over to "caught" as a reminder.


text:
interaction of "Foreclosure" and "Crop Insurance" cards
In the game Farmageddon, if the Foreclosure card is used to "buy" a crop from another player with a Crop Insurance card on it, is the crop acquired complete with the Crop Insurance, or does the Crop Insurance get kept buy the original owner? The Crop Insurance card mentions that it is added to the harvest pile when the crop is "lost"-- and thereby there seems to be an ambiguity: it is "lost" from the point of view of the original player, but otherwise the crop is not "lost" per se.

The way I played was to leave the Crop Insurance card to the player to who had played it while the crop ownership was transferred to the other player. Then we played the same rules otherwise where if the crop is destroyed in some fashion then the player who put down the Crop Insurance card received the insurance. This would further what I believe was the intention of the card, which is to deter other players from acting on the crop. If they took the crop, the owner of the insurance would have more reason to try to destroy that crop since they would receive their insurance back.
When we played this way, we would have the card facing the owner of the card, so the Crop Insurance moves with the crop, but is rotated to face the correct owning player.
I'm unsure if this ruling was read somewhere or if we just locally decided to play it that way.


text:
Where can I find reviews of a set once it's established?
The only set reviews I can find are when the set first comes out. Does anybody know of a reputable site that reviews the cards after a few months when the cards are more established? I am more interested in limited (draft) reviews.

After a few months it's a bit late as the next set is shortly to be released, no...?

True, maybe a few weeks is more realistic

Channelfireball.com LSV makes a scaling from 1-5 after a few weeks the set is released gives his opinion to each card.


text:
Recommendation for D&D players who want a faster dungeon/questing game after dinner?
My friends and I play Advanced Dungeons and Dragons from time to time. Since it's cumbersome to make so many preparations to play so little, I'd like a faster alternative reason to get together and play some board games.
It could be a war game or preferably a dungeon/questing game. Ideally, something to play in two or three hours, maybe more.
If it's legally available to print & play, all the better.

You might also want to check out answers to this question: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/q/1008/5

For Dungeon Questing, your best bet is, sadly, long OOP¹: the GW game HeroQuest² or it's sequels Advanced HQ and Warhammer Quest. Note that the rules are available for free from Hasbro, but the bits aren't, so if you find it on ebay, you can replace the rules.
Another excellent, light, but not actually short, ans sadly in between printings, game: Wiz-War. (The more expansions, the longer it plays...)
If your players like medium length (30min to 2 hours) PVP, Dungeoneer (Example: Tomb of the Lich Lord is also excellent. It's a series of standalone games (which can be combined) of dungeon-crawling hack-n-slash. It is PVP, tho', and brutally so. It can be a blast with the right players, tho'.
Order of the Stick is popular; if I could stand OOTS at all, I'd probably enjoy the game, but the art is utter drekh, and interfered with my ability to enjoy the game. It's also longer than I care for.
Another fun one, very different, is Aye, Dark Overlord. It's not of need a dungeon crawl, but the descriptions needed are usually dungeon crawl-ish.

¹ Out of Print
² Not to be confused with the Issaries RPG of same name.

Being D&D related I suggest games from the D&D® Adventure System:

Castle Ravenloft™
Wrath of Ashardalon™, and
the upcoming Legend of Drizzt™:

A Game of Thrones
You indicated that you were open to wargames and other types of boardgames, so for a fantasy (but not dungeon-crawl) experience, I really like the Game of Thrones boardgame, especially if you are a fan of the books (or, now the series, I suppose). But fandom is not required for enjoying the game. In fact, I have seen things go the other way, where someone becomes a fan of the source after playing the game. I'm not sure of the current in-print status of the game, but I imagine with the series being very popular, the folks at FFG won't let it languish out of print. And you can play up to 5 without any expansions.
Claustrophobia
How many friends do you have? If you don't have very many, this great 2-player game offers the best dungeon-crawl experience I've ever had in a boardgame. It's tense, tight, and atmospheric. Most games are complete nailbiters, with the outcome riding on a razor's edge until the very end. And it's quick, too. If you have 3 friends, you could play 2 games in an "after dinner" timeframe, and everyone would get a turn.
Mansions of Madness
Ok, it's not a dungeon crawl. But it is an RPG-derived trip through a confined location filled with monsters! This one-against-all Call of Cthulhu is my favorite "RPG-Lite" boardgame experience. I've been though a lot of games in search of one that would offer some of the goodness of an RPG without all the prep and time commitment, and this one is the winner to-date. Customizable characters, customizable scenarios, great miniatures, beautiful maps...just turn the lights down, put on a somber soundtrack and prepare to go insane and be devoured! This game has left Arkham Horror gathering dust on a shelf for my group.
BattleLore
Another 2-player wargame, BattleLore brings the outstanding system behind Command and Colors: Ancients and Memoir '44 to a fantasy realm. Battles are fast-paced, rules are simple enough to learn and teach in an evening, and once again, I've played it twice in a row in a reasonable time. Frequently, we'll switch sides after the first battle and try again. I haven't played the Westeros-themed version yet, but it's on my wishlist.
Munchkin
If what you're looking for after dinner is some simple silliness, try Munchkin. This RPG-parody card game is packed with RPG tropes, inside jokes, and backstabbing. Fair warning: Munchkin seems to be a matter of taste - even more than most games. Some people hate it. I played (and bought) tons of it early in my boardgaming career. But it doesn't see much play these days.
Sorry, I see that I totally failed to address the print-and-play aspect of your question. I'm not much in that world, as with both glue and hobby knife I represent a danger to myself, my furniture, and any unfortunate bystanders. So I will take the easy way out and refer you to the BGG catalog of PnP games and the wisdom of many others.
If you set the category to Fantasy and the sorting to rank, the top entry is Song of Blades and Heroes. If you sort by average rating instead, the item Dungeon Crawl popped out at me.
I hope you find something in here that suits you!

Battlelore isn't short, and isn't light. Figure 20-30 min setup, 60-120 min to play, and 10-30 min to put away. AGOT is several hours - 4-6 is common from what I've seen.

@aramis - the asker said less prep, not 30 minutes. I tried to give games that would scratch a fantasy itch without hours of prep on the GM's part.

Kobold's Ate My Baby is a very quick and humorous game. It is very enjoyable and provides that dungeon/questing experience you are looking for.

It's also an RPG. The current version has done away with most of the boardgame elements.

Thanks, I was unaware. I only have played the old version in the little orange book.

Which was, still, an RPG, albeit of the hack-n-slash variety, and bordering on boardgame.

People seem to have omitted Talisman.  Talisman really has the feel of d&d, and I love it.
However, if you're looking for co-op, also consider games like Lord of the Rings (coop version).  This has the hopeless quest feel to it.

I'd recommend Descent, although it can take longer than a few hours. It's easy to set up, the Overlord (DM) doesn't need any preparation time, and it feels like D&D.
Cutthroat Caverns is another nice game that works well.

Descent feels like D&D but does seem to have a high standard deviation in play time.  Do you know of a source of short (but still-enjoyable) scenarios?

A lot of times, we'll give everyone a silver or gold treasure, find the boss and give him some extra minions, and just finish the boss battle.

At the upper end of "fits in the time after dinner" is Runebound, which involves fantasy combats and quests, character growth in different stats, and fighting dragons in the end.  It's rated at 4 hours, though with fewer players (it supports up to 6) it goes faster.
Descent (mentioned by bryanjonker) is a dungeon-crawling game with individual player characters, a variety of obstacles, and miniatures.  I've seen games take anywhere from 2 to 8 hours.
For something a little different, Tales of the Arabian Nights is a story/adventure game that plays in about two hours and uses a "choose your own adventure" style book to lay out the story.  (With something like 2500 nodes in the book, though, you won't memorize it very soon.)

A board game that is much easier than D&D and still has somewhat of a dungeon questing feel is Thunderstone. I enjoy playing it with friends quite a bit as many of them do not want to play a full blown rpg.


text:
When should a bridge defender return the second, rather than fourth highest card in suit?
Against a bidding sequence of 1NT, 3NT, partner, West, opens with what looks like the fourth highest of a suit. Dummy goes down with two small cards in the suit. I have four to the king in the suit, two of them little ones, with this question revolving around my second highest card.
I take the king, which is allowed to hold. If my original holding was something like K642, I was taught to return the 2, my original fourth highest. On the other hand, if my holding were KJ42, with the second card being the J, one is supposed to return the Jack.
With KJ2, I would return the Jack to "unblock." Does a similar reasoning hold here with two small cards?
One thought is that partner (West) and declarer (South) probably have the ace and queen between them. If South has Axx, it doesn't matter what I lead, but if South has Qxx, leading the Jack will "trap" the queen. Is that the reason to lead the Jack?
More to the point, how high does my second card have to be, before I lead it in preference to the 2? That is, would I also do this with KTxx or K9xx?

From KJ42 you are supposed to lead the Jack? Where did you get that?

@Aryabhata: From various bridge books.

Can you provide a reference? If this was stated as a general rule, this sounds strange to me. If you have four cards, and there is no danger of blocking the suit, you lead back the 4th best. (Of course, depending on the hand, that might change, but this is a general rule). The idea of the rule is to help partner determine how many cards you have.

As I remember,it was Victor Mollo's book, "Defense, Where the Points Are Won." Maybe "blocking" was the issue, and maybe it was a matter of trapping Qxx in South.

Yes, depending on the hand, things might change. But as a general rule, with nothing to go on, from KJ42, you lead back the 2. (Check Bill Root's How to defend a bridge hand, for instance).

The most common reason you'd lead back your second highest card from four would be to smother a relatively high card in dummy. With KJxx and 10x in dummy, leading the J seems right. This way you pick up the suit if declarer started with eg Q8x, and doesn't hurt on other holdings. But if dummy started with eg 6x (ie something that can't force your partner's high honor if declarer ducks) and your high spot is low enough that you won't block the suit when partner holds 5, it's important to convey the count to your partner by leading low.

+1, but when dummy has Tx, playing the J can hurt too . For instance, declarer has Q9x opposite Tx. If you play the J, declarer can cover with the Q easily. By playing low, you give declarer a guess as to who has the J. Note: I am not claiming/disputing correctness of any play.

This is an important part of why many experts now use 3rd and lowest leads instead of 4th best, particularly against suit contracts. In this fashion one leads 3rd best from an even number, and lowest from an odd number.
Although it takes a little practice to get used to, and of course must be agreed with partner in advance and marked on your card, this lead system has many advantages over standard leads.

A defender should lead the second highest card in a suit for the same reason s/he would as declarer: into a tenace in partner's hand.
Partner has opened with an honor. If that honor is the queen, then it doesn't make a difference. But suppose partner has the AT9x to start. Then you want to lead the jack into the tenace, so that if the queen doesn't cover, you can lead a second card into the tenace for a finesse of the queen.
This example would be better if there were only one card in the suit in dummy, and partner, you, and declarer all had four. Then it be imperative to lead the jack, keeping the lead (unless the queen covers), so you have a second lead into the tenace, making all four tricks in the suit.
The move wouldn't work with your KT42 against declarer's presumed QJx. But it would work if the J were in the dummy and the K dropped it on the first turn, making your T the third highest card (after the A and Q).


text:
What are ways to "read" the shape of your opponents' hands early on?
Toward the end, the shape of opponents' hands can be read by "counting" (playing out two or three suits and inferring the shape of the remaining one(s)).
In the beginning, one looks for more subtle clues. If a lead is fourth best, one might look in hand or dummy for lower cards to see if the leader might have a fifth or sixth. If opener has bid three suits they are likely to have a singleton or void in the fourth. If one defender has bid they probably have the bulk of the defenders' points; if neither has bid, the points are (probably) evenly split.
What are other ways to draw inferences about opponents' hands after hearing the bidding, and seeing one or two rounds of play?

The opening lead often gives you some hints.  Ask yourself why LHO chose to lead that suit and that card.  You can also get information from later leads if the opponents win tricks early.
If the opening lead is a high spot against a suit contract, there is a good chance it is a singleton or a doubleton.  If LHO is leading RHO's bid suit, is it a high, middle, or low card?  The answer can frequently help you determine the distribution of the suit.  If LHO leads low in a random suit, perhaps he is trying to avoid leading from honors in the other suits.  Against NT, there is a good chance that the suit lead by LHO is his strongest (unless it is RHO's suit).
Ironically, you usually get more information from leads by strong opponents than leads by weak opponents, whose leads are a lot more random.


text:
For a given development strategy, how do you ensure enough secondary resources?
This question could be asked for just about any strategy, but to make it "not broad," I'll specify my strategy.
Suppose I was planning to follow a development strategy. After placing my initial two settlements, I'll establish two more, and upgrade all four to cities, bringing me up to eight VPs. After that, I'll buy development cards and hope to get two more VPs directly, or possibly through the largest army. I've picked this strategy because it minimizes my need for brick and wood. With two new settlements, two new roads, and four upgrades to cities, my initial resource requirements look something like this:
4 wood, 4 brick, 2 wool, 10 grain, 12 ore.
If I concentrate on sites that will get grain and ore what is a good way of making sure I obtain "enough" of the others?

If I go for hexes that will get grain and ore with good numbers on the die such as six and eight, or at least five and nine, can I afford hexes where I get the others with fours and tens, or even threes and elevens, since I need proportionately less of them?
If I have one settlement/city at a harbor, am I likely to generate enough of my "good" resources so I will be able to trade for the ones I need?
Some development cards will give me two free roads. How helpful are these likely to be?
I'm assuming that if I take an early lead, others will be unwilling to trade with me. Am I being too pessimistic?

There is no sure fire path to victory in Settlers, since there will be some games where a six is never rolled and a twelve is rolled four times in ten turns.  Nevertheless there are some principles to follow when playing Catan.

Watch the resources you don't have. Know who is holding them and who is not holding them.  Often times the entire board will be short on a resource and at other times there will be an abundance of something you don't have.  Look for trades when there's lots out there.  Look to soldier when there isn't.  Managing your acquisition of your most limited resources is the most important skill in Settlers.
Don't waste soldiers.  Hold your soldiers and only use them when they can provide you with a big advantage.  If you have no need for the resource that the thief is sitting on then don't worry about it unless it's worth multiples for you.  Unplayed soldiers are valuable bargaining material. You may be able to get a good trade by threatening others.  Use your judgment though, some players won't take kindly to threats. Ignore this rule if another player may snipe largest army.
Try and create jackpots.  Having a jackpot number makes you less of a target when you don't have your number come up and allows you do almost always do something when your number does come up.
4-1 trades can be worth it, but only do so after exhausting diplomatic/military options.
Never hold the resources which are scarce to you.  It's better to burn the sheep on dev cards, the brick and wood on roads than to try and save them for another round to get a settlement.  Inevitably, if you risk holding them, you will be thieved or lose some other form of opportunity.

You will be short of resources in every game of Settlers.  You can't have good incomes of all the five resource types, so it's important to understand your current game situation and how to maximise your advantages, while minimising your weaknesses.  Development cards are excellent for papering over the gaps in your civilisation.  Brick/wood players are trying to out-expand their opponents.  Wheat/ore players are trying to advance their civilisations so quickly that they can out-produce their opponents.


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In bridge, is there a way to determine when and where to "transfer control" to defeat a squeeze?
I am West, defending a no trump contract. (No bids by our side, no other bids than NT by the opponents.)
We're down to the last few cards, and I have two suits, call them diamonds and clubs, like this:
(d) Kx (c) Qxx
I am guarding two suits, and when South leads a third suit, e.g. a heart, I will likely be squeezed because I have two "secondary" (non top honors) that need to be protected by x cards.
If I knew that partner had e.g. Qx of diamonds, I could "transfer control." of that suit by discarding K, and then x, while protecting the club suit. If I knew partner had Jxx of clubs, I could discard my Qxx of clubs and protect diamonds.
How do I know whether (and in which suit) I can transfer control to partner in this fashion? What should I have been doing/looking for in earlier play to help make this decision?

Sufficiently advanced partnerships will have good enough signaling that you should be able to narrow down which stopper partner might have. For example:

Partner may give suit preference signals throughout the hand, as described in "A Switch In Time" by the Granovetters, so you should know whether partner has the missing Q.
Partner may give count throughout, so you should know whether partner has 3 clubs (and therefore may hold Jxx), if this is in doubt.
Partner may give attitude discards while declarer is playing down the squeeze suit; giving negative attitude for diamonds would eliminate the possibility they have the Q.

To expand on Ruds answer:
You also must have been counting the hand from the moment the bidding began. Every call and play made at the table, and even more particularly every possible call and play not made, bears on situations such as these. If you are not noting these as they happen, you will never remember them well enough, or fast enough, later.
Visualize declarer's hand, and note where what play ordering choices have been made - these choices are made by good declarers in order to extract information from the defenders, but in turn can be used by defenders to infer declarer's holding.
Finally, if you are only making this decision as declarer plays the squeeze card, you are lost more often than not. Squeeze defence is most effective when recognized very early, because that is when defenders have the most options; delaying critical decisions will reduce options, often resulting in failure to recognize the last defensive chance.


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What does the Yoke card mean when it says "Plow"?
I played the Yoke minor improvement, and there was some disagreement as to whether it referred to the number of fields currently on the board, the number of times the "Plow 1 Field" action has been taken, or the number of "plow" minor improvements that had been played.  What is actually meant by this card?
Card Text:

When you play this card, you can immediately plow 1 field for each Plow that
  has been played (by any player) or Harrow if it has been played.

The Yoke is talking about the other minor improvements with "Plow" in the name: the Swing Plow, Stump-Jump Plow, Riding Plow, etc. So, for each one that's been built (and is still in play) at the time you build the Yoke, you can immediately plow one field.
If nobody has played any of the Plows/Ploughs/Harrow, then it's not useful. It's cheap to build (as long as you have cattle), but it's also not very powerful.

I play, or used to play, a fair bit of Agricola draft and I think it's fair to say that the Yoke is almost always a last-pick card.  Even given that Plows are usually very good, and people will generally play them if they can get them, the Yoke... isn't.  Maybe in a 4 or 5 player game where everyone has ended up with a Plow?

@thesunneversets Good point: it's a card with huge prerequisites (that you can't even control!) and an underwhelming effect; its one redeeming feature is the low cost. If there's only one Plow in play, then it's exactly the same as the Plow One Field action, except it costs you 1 Wood to boot. (Maybe it's still useful if you're more interested in taking First Player, but that's about it.)

Yeah, what REALLY makes the Yoke suck is that you can't even play it in the early game when you might need to grab first player.  (Lots of Minor Improvements that cost 1 Wood are rather playable in the early game, but the Yoke's requirement of a cattle totally kills that...)

The text in the card refers to 'Plow or Harrow' with capital P and Capital H. This is because they are nouns (note that when the verb is used, as in "you can plow..." it is not written with capital P).
The manual is specifically referring to the Minor Improvements whenever the Harrow is mentioned along with the other Plows.
It only makes sense that text in the cards follow the same semantic.
Also, actions are not played. Actions are taken. You can play a family member into an action space to take one (or more) of the actions in that space.

In the absence of specifics on this card it is incorrect to interpret that 'playing the plow' means playing the plow card. This is incorrectly restricting the meaning which has no justification in the official rule book.  Playing a plow card is just one way in which you can 'play a plow'. The other way is playing the plow action space. 'Playing' a plow is a verb and this therefore means any action in which you plow a field either single or multiple.  This includes playing a plow action space (the most frequent way in which a player can play a plow) or player a plow card (much less frequent).  In regular play you cannot not therefore restrict the 'playing' the plow' meaning to any one way in which a plow is played since this is not supported by the official rules. Playing the plow there refers in unrestricted terms to any action (action space or card) by any player in which one or more fields have been plowed during the game.


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Why is the Pandemic starting position always Atlanta?
Why did the creators of the game Pandemic decide that the starting position for each game would be Atlanta rather than any of the other possible cities on the board?

Because Atlanta is the home of the CDC. And since we all live in America they are responsible for diseases everywhere...
EDIT: I just checked the English and German rules and now understand your confusion. The German rules explicitly say that this is why players start in Atlanta. For some reason the English rules skip that part.

Danach nimmt sich jeder Spieler die farblich passende Spielfigur und stellt sie in Atlanta auf, wo sich das Zentrum für Seuchenkontrolle und -prävention (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) befindet.

Which roughly translates to:

Then every player takes the matching pawn and places it on Atlanta - where the CDC is based.

the English rules mention that you start in Atlanta because it's home to the CDC, too (at least, the copy of the game I have does)

Atlanta is US headquarters for disease control.
I don't see any gameplay related reason as to why the game would not function equally well by moving the starting position to any other city of your choosing.
As an aside, note that Essen is a map location. It's a fairly minor German city of around 500.000 inhabitants, but included in many games because of its relation to The Spiel fair (the world's largest board game trade show)

Then again, the map places Essen somewhere in Belgium or France, at least on the copy I played with.

@MichaelBorgwardt Note that many of the city markers have small lines extending from them that show where the city is actually located.

@Zayenz: yes, and it's definitely pointing at the wrong location for Essen. Look at http://www.digiboardgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Pandemic-ingame-board.jpg - that's somewhere northwest of Paris...

@MichaelBorgwardt Ok. I hadn't checked that closely.


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Do you have to play a (replaced) joker immediately with 2 tiles from your hand?
I don't have the paper rules here as a reference, but I grew up playing Rummikub with the rule that, if you replaced a joker on the table you must immediately replay the joker in a run or set with at least 2 tiles from your hand. This rule could make the endgame particularly interesting. We also played that the joker froze whatever group of tiles it was in--they couldn't be manipulated without replacing the joker. However, I just looked up the rules online to settle a dispute about making the initial meld, and noticed that both of these special joker rules are missing.
I'm pretty sure that way back when they were official, not house rules; were they? If so, when (and for bonus points, why) were they changed?

My family played by those rules as well and I was confused when I played with another group of friends and we checked the joker rules.

According to the official rules, your house rule (which I also used to play) IS currently official:

Once a player replaces a joker, they must use it in the same turn as part of a set.

Although it specifically contradicts your other house rule about manipulating sets containing  a Joker:

Sets containing jokers can be split and manipulated like regular sets.

FWIW, I used to play that Jokers didn't have to be replayed in NEW sets, but could alternatively be played in existing sets (e.g. I replace a Joker, and then add it to a 6-7-8 run as a 5 to allow me to play a 4). I infer from your question that your house rules require Jokers be replayed into new sets, but I may be misunderstanding your explanation.
Source: http://www.rummikub.com/info/Rules.aspx

Also of interest might be this discussion on Boardgamegeek http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/371138/old-rules-new-rules (although I confess I didn't fully read it)

That link is useful, basically confirming that the official rules have changed a lot over the years.

Also, you did understand my explanation. We play where at least two tiles played with the Joker must be new from your hand.


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How can I make Kids of Catan less luck based?
My almost-5-year-old is loving Kids of Catan, and to be honest I've grown to like this game too, even with just two players. It's all about luck, but it's fast and a really good foundation for more advanced games.
What rule would allow young players of this game to begin to exercise more control over their chances of winning, given that they are experienced and comfortable with the core rules?
Has anyone had success in transitioning children from Kids of Catan to a more strategic game by adding house rules to KoC?

I thought this was a good question - all you would probably need to do to make it "fit" would be to rephrase it to something like "How to modify Kids of Catan to improve the play experience for children?"  A specific purpose for the improvements in other words, that creates the reasonable possibility of an objective right answer.  I hope you haven't been discouraged - the "house style" for this site is something that confused everyone when we first arrived here!

Continuing in the vein of "lets overwhelm the new guy" :) I offer this meta post which contains advice on how to word requests for house rules.

No worries folks, I understand what you mean. My rewrite ends with this question. Is it acceptable? "What rule would allow young players of this game to begin to exercise more control over their chances of winning, given that they are experienced and comfortable with the core rules?" I will post a new question without the word ideas in the title if that sounds good.

Sorry it took so long to revisit!  I like your rewrite a lot and am editing it into the question and then reopening it.

In this thread on BoardGameGeek there's a house rule that the players can choose which direction to rotate the board.  In order to choose the direction, players should consider the resources they gain, as well as the resources their opponents gain (or lose).
Further down in the thread are several other suggestions for introducing more choice into how to rotate the board (e.g. roll two dice and pick one).
I also saw a suggestion that trading could be introduced to reduce the amount of luck, but I haven't seen any reports of whether that was successful or not.


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What can I do against Aetherling?
Suppose that my opponent plays an Aethering:

, and I can't counter it so it arrives on the battlefield. How can I remove that card from the battlefield? I'm playing Standard Constructed.

what do you mean? this is a very broad question. Are you asking how can you get rid of it? cast a creature removal spell and when they try to react by flickering it, counter the ability with Stifle

@Pow-Ian Well, as long as they have mana, they can respond to the Stifle by using the ability again.

yeah you are right.

@Pow-Ian Trickbind to the rescue. That extra "can't be activate again" clause is so nifty sometimes. :D

Removing Aetherling is useful, but not always necessary. The key thing is: how can you use the cards you have in your deck to deal with the threat?

Turn off its abilities
Aetherling is only powerful because of its activated abilities (in particular, the unblockable and bounce abilities). Pithing Needle will turn it into a vanilla 4/5, which really isn't a very powerful creature at this stage in the game. Which is a pretty good deal if you're stopping your opponent's best win condition or hosing multiple copies of it.
Outside of Standard, cards like Linvala, Keeper of Silence and Damping Matrix can play the same role.

Race it
While an Aetherling can do significant damage every turn, it's not actually the fastest kill card in Standard. When the Aetherling comes down, look at the board position — are you better off trying to kill it or just killing your opponent?
If you plan to race, focus your removal on swinging the game's tempo. Use it to get rid of blockers (including Aetherling, if only for a turn) so your guys can get in more damage. You can also use instant-speed removal like a Fog against the Aetherling.
Life gain can be very useful to keep you afloat. If you're playing Bant or BUG in a control mirror against UWR or Esper, for instance, you'll likely have more life and more ways to gain life than your opponent. Even if you can't hold out forever, you can try to use your life gain to force your opponent to commit more than just U (for the unblockability) to the Aetherling each turn in order to kill you quickly. At which point you can take advantage of the next tactic...

Overload your opponent's mana
Aetherling is only survivable as long as your opponent has access to blue mana. Watch you opponent's mana usage. If you have more ways to kill the Aetherling than he has blue mana, it's dead. You may need to spend more than one spell to do this, but it's better than losing the game altogether.
The easiest example is right after he casts it. Say you're playing Jund and your opponent just cast Aetherling with one Island in reserve to flicker it. You've got Liliana of the Veil and Putrefy in hand. Play Liliana's edict. When they put the Aetherling's exile trigger on the stack (spending their last U to do it), Putrefy the Aetherling in response.
"Machine-gun" combos also work pretty well. I've seen Olivia Voldaren and Nightshade Peddler overload an Aetherling pretty easily.

Prevent it from attacking
Aetherling is annoying to get rid of, but it's still just a creature that has to attack you to end the game. Sphere of Safety and Stormtide Leviathan are the only such cards in DGM Standard, but if you have access to a wider card pool you can play cards like Moat, Blazing Archon, or Ensnaring Bridge (your opponent could pump down the Aetherling to allow it to attack, and then pump it back up to allow it to do damage, but that costs a ton of mana, so it's not exactly a problem for you).

"TurboFog" decks are also very effective at blocking out creature damage, even from nasty creatures they can't kill outright.

Split second
The "phasing" ability won't save Aetherling from a split-second card. These are cards like Take Possession, Trickbind, and Sudden Spoiling.

What is a "mirror"? Like the "control mirror" you mentioned.

@AdamArold "Mirror" is jargon for two of the same kind of deck (or sometimes just the same deck) playing against each other. It's a different experience from two very different decks playing against each other because there aren't necessarily any "natural" strategies to adopt, since our decks have very similar strengths and weaknesses.

@AlexP, the description of "Pithing Needle" says it only affects non-mana based abilities. Which means it would have no affect on Aetherling or am I reading this wrong?

@Damainman "605.1a An activated ability is a mana ability if it meets three criteria: it doesn't have a target, it could put mana into a player's mana pool when it resolves, and it's not a loyalty ability."

@AlexP, that makes sense now. I misunderstood and was thinking abilities which cost only mana without the need to tap.

@Aethercrush667 Please read the comp rules (there's even a citation in the comments - 605.1a). A "mana ability" is an ability that produces mana (and doesn't target) -- cards like Elvish Mystic or Chromatic Star. An activated ability isn't a "mana ability" just because it has mana as its activation cost.

Debtor's Pulpit was used in Pro Tour Dragon's Maze to lock down Aetherling. It's a CMC-5 aura that gives the enchanted land the ability to tap a target creature. You can tap Aetherling at the beginning of combat. It they blink it, it can't attack during that combat anyway.

Gossamer Chains has a similar effect to prevent it dealing damage. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3713

As it has already been said, but I will second Pithing Needle. You don't need anything more than that, as it can turn Aetherling into a 6 mana cost vanilla 4/5 creature. You don't even need to let the Aetherling hit the table; On the first turn you can drop Pithing Needle naming Aetherling and he's taken care of. Plus there are many other targets in Standard, like Planeswalkers and Olivia Volarden.

To be honest you can't do anything if they 3 or mana up as they resolve it. However you can stall for the win. Remember this card has 2 downsides it cost mana to keep it alive and it cost mana to end the game. Keep your removal spell to create a fog effect and keep swinging. If he blinks his creature its fine it just means he loses 1 attack step


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How can I speed up a game of High Frontier?
I really like High Frontier, but it takes a long time to get going and can take several hours to play. Does anyone know of any house rules to make the game run faster?

ire_and_curses edited your title to avoid asking just for house rules - often when you find yourself asking how to change the rules, there's another way to accomplish what you want, without mucking with the balance of the game. Very commonly with play time questions, the best answer is something along the lines of SocioMatt's last suggestion (essentially, figure out how to play faster), and it's good to phrase your question so that you don't exclude that kind of answer.

I've found a few suggestions on how to speed up this game, both from the living rules and from users on Board Game Geek. I've also found a number of people who believe it is impossible to actually speed up a game of High Frontier. I'll explore each option below, ending with reasons that none of the suggestions may work. If you don't want to wade through the reasoning and arguments, skip right to the conclusion. It's what I think the best way to speed up the game might be.
Straight From the (Living) Rule Book
In the most recent version of the living rules for High Frontier (found here), there is a single rule suggestion for shortening games:

3.3 SET-UP FOR A SHORTER GAME
For a shorter game, after set-up per 3.1 or 3.2, each player draws one card from each deck at random into his hand.

This is meant to speed up the start of the game by allowing players to build rockets earlier.
Adding Extra Water to the Beginning of the Game
A user on BGG doesn't like the Living Rules suggestion because it a.) adds an element of luck to the game based on your initial deal and b.) eliminates early auctioning altogether. His alternative is to give all players extra water at the start of the game, discussed here. Initially he says 13 total for each player, but after some discussion, settles on 9. This takes out the randomness of dealing cards while leaving the initial auctions intact, but with slightly more resources to bid. This would potentially decrease game time because people wouldn't wait around as long before launching their first rocket. This leads another user in the same thread to think this is a bad option:

I think starting with more water is a mistake. It will disturb the [balance] between the strategy of A: "start flying as soon as possible with a tiny rocket" and B: "stay on Earth until you have a monster rocket".
...
If everyone starts with 13WT in the beginning, the balance between strategy A and B is disturbed, and it seems to me that pretty much everyone would want to do strategy A (except they would fly a medium rocket). Yes, this would get everyone in space sooner. But, the cost will be fewer paths to victory.

This user is probably correct in noting that this would reduce the number of strategies since everyone would be able to launch bigger rockets earlier, eliminating any attempt to launch a small rocket first to try and outrun the "big rocket" players. So the suggestion of allocating more water at the start is going to be dependent on your group's style. If everyone just wants to make huge rockets, this may be a good option. If there are players that employ a strategy of using smaller rockets, this will significantly impede their ability to do so.
Use a Quick Start
In the same thread, one user mentions that they used a "quick start" during a board game convention. They describe it like this:

I've only tried a "quick" start once, at a convention. We were dealt 6 cards (one of each) for the advanced game, keeping 3 and getting 9 water for the other 3. So we started out with scads of water, and a tech boost. But we did still see one person mounting missions earlier than others, and a fair diversity of destinations. I found it to be a nice way to cut down on the play time.

This is a mix of the above two ideas. Instead of only one card at random from each deck, each player gets two (I'm assuming there was a typo in the original post when they said "6 cards" and "one of each"). Each player can only keep three cards, and must sell the other three for water. This reduces the randomness of getting only three random cards while also increasing the initial starting resources for each player. This technique also falls victim to the critique about adding extra resources, but will give players cards so there isn't a bidding war over valuable ones. Of the suggestions I've seen, this seems like the best way to speed up the game because you get more resources and don't have to use them on bidding for cards.
Enforce Time Limits
In that same thread, a user suggests two things that enforce limits on the amount of time players take to play since a lot of slowdowns happen because of decision making (discussed in the section on why you can't speed High Frontier up). He suggests:

(b) impose a time limit on auctions; (c) have everyone prepare what they want to do during their turn while they wait for their turn, so when their turn comes up, they are all ready to go;

A lot of games slow down when people aren't prepared for their next turn or haven't thought about their potential actions ahead of time. One of my all-time greatest pet peeves in Magic: the Gathering is when a player takes an inordinately long amount of time to make a decision, especially when they decide to either take no action or ultimately don't do anything complicated anyway. The player playing mono-red isn't going to deal with the enchantment that's keeping everybody from attacking; stop wasting everybody's time while you pretend you might have an answer. Tangent aside, the inability for people to make decisions in a timely fashion will cause problems, so try to reinforce the idea that people should have some foresight and have a good idea about their next move. There's another question on B&CG that deals specifically with this problem here.
Limiting auction times will also help, although probably only marginally. It'd be worth doing if you feel like the auctions in your game go on longer than necessary. I would encourage the use of one or both of these with another option, as they don't guarantee a shorter game but may help a little.
Adding Resources Each Turn
A suggestion on a separate BGG thread is that each player receives water at the beginning of each round:

I am thinking about this after last session. At the beginning of each round (including the first round), all players receive an amount of water tanks. I am considering to try 2 WT/round -1 for each factory and Space Venture the player possesses (no negative WT as tax, though)
PROS: It doesn't direct a player's strategy like the default express setup and does not turn the initial players' turn into a spending spree. No book keeping needed beyong giving WTs at the beginning of each round (not each player turn). It benefits players who are behind the factory/venture race.
CONS: This is the slowest express setup.

I think they lay out the pros and cons nicely.
Why It's Possible No Alteration Will Speed Up Your Game
One user argues strongly they don't think a game of High Frontier can be realistically sped up. I've collected some comments below from this thread addressing this.

James Moore: Personally, I don't like any of these variants, and I'm dubious that they really speed up the game in any significant way. The slowdowns we see are when people need to think about what they're doing, and have to take extra time to make a decision. (And don't get me wrong, decisions are what makes a good game - this isn't a criticism.) None of these variants would change that. In fact, I think that having more WT might make the game longer since it's sometimes harder to optimize when you have more resources.
...
I think you're mistaking correlation for causation. HF does not have an unreasonably slow game start. HF has a steep learning curve, so it feels like it's got a slow start with inexperienced players.

Conclusion
If I were trying to speed this game up, I'd do the following based on the suggestions I've seen:

Give each player six cards at the beginning (two from each pile)
Each player may only keep three cards, selling the rest to get 9 water
Strongly encourage players to be thinking about their next moves so that decision making time is reduced
Start imposing auction time limits if it seems that people are taking too long to make decisions during auctions (find a sand-timer that matches the length of time you want to limit this to)

While none of this necessarily guarantees a faster game, it should help trim a lot. Good luck!

The 3rd edition is coming soon... The new fuel strip will make the game much faster with very intuitive and straightforward fuel calculations, the main game stopper.
And what about Colonization and Exomigration/Exploration/Simulation (incl. Bernals start on the ground) on top? And a multiplayer Interstellar afterwards? This game is like a mini campaign. The replayability using all the advanced and expert scenarios is tremendous. Divide your game into multiple sessions with the following checkpoints:

basic amount of factories reached
first lab established
end of Colonization game
end of Interstellar game.

The new Exomigration rules are making politics much more interesting. The new Exploration rules give a deep theme to Glories and Ventures with likely different paths each time.
You may also borrow the mechanics of Rebalance (from PC verison of Voyage of the BSM Pandora) and after a play, reduce VPs for successful Glories, Ventures and Futures and increase VPs for the rest of the Glories, Ventures and Futures. Remembering each games' achievments and adjusting the yet-unconquered ones will guarantee that your gamers group will eventually explore all the possible paths to victory like in a typical Legacy multi-game campaign.
Another rebalance possibility comes from factions - choose new factions each new game and mix the radical and standard ones with one another. If a specific faction wins a game, adjust a handicup for all the factions (reduce the starting WT for winners, increase for losers). After several plays things will settle on optimized, if not balanced in your group due to a lack of knowledge of how to play a specific faciton.
If you are advanced in algorithms, you can also balance not a single faction this way, but spread the balance into two domains: the colour of the player and the ability of the player so that if e.g. NASA wins, NASA will lose 2WT, ISRO will lose 1WT and SpaceX 1WT, while others will randomly share the increase of the lost 4WT to balance the overall amount of water to 0.


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Is it possible to get old Vanguard cards?
If you start Magic Online today, is there a way to acquire Vanguard cards that do not come with the client but have been released in the past? Can they be bought or traded?

Yes, they can be traded.
I don't believe they are sold by Wizards, when I used to play they were given as tournament or set release perks.
Ah, looks like nowadays new players get a booster pack of default Vanguard cards.


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If a blank POI marker is set on fire, does it still count as a victim?
We've tried to understand the manual, but maybe the fact that it is written in English, which is not our mother language, could be making it hard for us to understand.
When an explosion occurs, and a POI is in the way, the manual said that you flip the POI marker and take it off the board, to the dead toll.
So if the POI marker is blank, does it still count as a victim at the end of the game?

No, blank markers are "False Alarms", not "Victims".  They do not count towards the loss condition of "4+ Victims Lost", just like you place revealed False Alarms on the Rescued space but they do not count towards the victory condition of "7 Victims Rescued".


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What happens when all your cards (the whole deck) are in play?
I am particularly fond of going through my entire deck each turn. However while I like to do this, are there any actual rules for handling cases like "You just played a smithy, but there are only two cards in your deck which aren't either in play or in your hand"?

The rule is always that you do as much as you can of the card, in order.
So, if you play a Smithy, you would draw those two cards.
A case that is more illustrative of how the process works is Lookout. Lookout reads: "+1 Action, Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Trash one of them. Discard one of them. Put the other one on top of your deck." If you only had two cards remaining in your deck, you would do as much of the card as you can, in order:

+1 Action; no problem.
Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. You only have two, so that's what you do.
Trash one of them. You can do this, so you must trash one of those two cards.
Discard one of them. You can also do this, so you must do it.
Put the other one on top of your deck. You can't do this because there is no other one, since you only had two to start with. So, you skip this step.

Be aware that, while Smithy is a "safe" card to play to draw cards, things like Courtyard, Oasis, and Inn still require you to put cards back / discard cards even if you can't draw any.

A note (much belated): This is all assuming that there are no cards in your deck or discard pile. If you need to draw cards but your deck is empty, you first shuffle your discards, draw the remaining cards, then if there are still not enough cards then all of the above applies.