text:
Is Circus Maximus solvable?
Circus Maximus is a chariot racing game in which players place their 3 chariots within the starting gate, and then take turns racing around the oval course to be the first to place all 3 chariots at the ending squares,
Since there are only 15 starting locations, and each turn both players only have access to a move 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 in a straight line cards (or pitch a card to change direction), but still must reserve a card for each chariot...
Shouldn't this game be solvable at least as a 2-player game with minimal computing time?
By solvable, I mean that a brute force solution can be obtained with PC hardware available to that average person, and a sequence of moves exists that if followed results in a win.
The rules can be found here.

Do you have a link to the actual game mechanics?  I found a few things on the web but it looks like it is more than the simple dynamics you have outlined.

Sorry about that. Just realized that Circus Maximus is it's own game, outside of the GMT release in Rome (triple game pack).

Have you read about the minimax algorithm?

I suspect that you're right that in principle and possibly even in practice an optimal AI could be built for this game to determine who can win from the starting position, though it would likely take more computing power than you're likely to have readily available.  The best approach for brute-force solving a game like this is something close to what user1873 suggests in comments: rather than considering all lines of play, simply consider all board positions and determine the value of each board position.  This is the approach that's typically taken for solving Chess endgames; while this board has many more cells (I count roughly 200, although the diagram isn't very clear) than the average chessboard, the fact that all the pieces are identical here does help a bit, and so it may be within reach; note that the chess endgames with 6 and 7 pieces have been solved for quite a while now.  There are roughly (200 choose 3) = 200*199*198/6 = 1313400 positions for one team's chariots, and so roughly 1.7 trillion positions for all the chariots that would need to be evaluated.
Now, note that you don't have to build a 'move matrix' of 1.7 trillion x 1.7 trillion entries explicitly; that would be too large.  Instead, the game could be solved with a sort of backtracking: first, identify those positions which are clearly won, and which person is winning them.  Next, 'backtrack' - that is, play a turn in reverse - to identify all of the positions from which won positions can be reached, and then forward-evaluate each of those positions with a short move tree for that one turn to determine which of these positions lead to a forced win by one player or the other.  You need a 'move tree' here because a turn isn't just a single move, but instead consists of multiple interlocking moves by the two players.  Once that first turn's worth of backtracking has been done, another turn's worth can be handled in the same fashion; positions can be continuously added to a queue for evaluation, with a bunch of new 'one-move-back' positions added each time the queue empties.
Unfortunately, the catch here is in that move tree; the branching factor there is large enough that it probably pushes an explicit solve out of the realm of practicality (although perhaps not out of feasibility for someone with enough computing power).  A 'move tree' consists of an assignment of the cards 1-5 to 3 chariots (plus a possibility of throwing cards away) for each player, plus some interleaving; this gives roughly (ignoring the throwaway) 75 moves at the first branch (3 different chariots that can be moved, times 10 (picking 3 cards from 5) + 10 (picking 2 cards from 5) + 5 (picking 1 card from 5) possible moves for the picked chariot) and up to 28 moves at the second branch (2 chariots that can be moved, times 4 (picking 3 cards from 4) + 6 (picking 2 cards from 4) + 4 (picking 1 card from 4) possible moves for the picked chariot).  Since cards can be thrown away for turns, we'll back-of-the-envelope bump these to 100 and 50, and call it 10 moves at the bottom branch; this gives roughly 50,000 moves for each player that have to be considered in the move tree, or about 2 billion possible branches to examine on the move tree.  I suspect this is highly overestimated - possibly by up to a factor of 100 or so - but a more careful analysis would be much trickier to finagle here.  Even so, I'd guess there are many million possible ways of each turn playing out, and while doing some standard alpha-beta pruning (using established positional values) will cut that back down, it's still likely to take quite a bit of work at each of the 1.7 trillion nodes to establish a value.
Since positions may have to be evaluated more than once (if the first time determines that they can't be wholly solved yet), the overall work done is likely to be on the order of several exaflop (i.e., quintillions of operations total) worth of computation.  That's a lot of operations - but note that you could get yourself access to a petaflop/second's worth of computational power, and thus do the whole solve in a few thousands of seconds - i.e., a few hours (possibly a few days).  The biggest bottleneck is likely to be access speed to the database of values for positions, since something on the order of a terabyte (the rough size of that database) is still a bit too large to be kept in memory at this point; it'd have to be carefully designed to keep as much as feasible cached in memory and to be very smart about its disc accesses.
That said - I'd say that this is right on the edge of supercomputer feasibility right now; if the game were a bit better-known, this would make an excellent graduate project for a sufficiently motivated supercomputer programmer (or team).

Sort of.
A computer could brute force the optimal move each round based upon the decisions made by the opponent.  You could even construct a matrix(huge) of all possible moves for a game. But there is no single path of one players choices that would guarantee a win.  Your opponent can make choices that counter your choices effectively and give them the advantage and vice versa.
But there are a limited enough set of rules that it would be possible to create a matrix of all winning solutions in a modern database and based off of that database quickly return the most effective strategy to counter your opponents most recent move.  That program would be non trivial to write but the rules are simple enough that it should not be unreasonable.

My guess was that it should be solvable, since each turn you have so few permutations of moves (fewer than 5 cards in any order (5!) * possible use on each chariot or discard (4), * possible direction for each card (6). Would probably require some pruning to remove less desirable legal moves that probably wouldn't result in a win, but could (backwards on the track). Perhaps just an examination of all possible moves from all possible positions, and which other game states that leads to) very big matrix n*(n-1)*...(n-5) different game states.

@user1873 - But there is no 1 set of moves that guarantees you a win regardless of what your opponent does.  But yes you could have a matrix of winning moves and each round prune off those results that no longer apply.  Each round would shrink the applicable moves by a factor of around 5~15

@user1873 Even with some pruning, a game with that level of branching may well be beyond brute force.  Draughts (or Checkers) has a branching factor of about 10, and I don't think the lines of best play have been computed yet.

I've just wiki'd it, and the best line for draughts has been found - it's a draw.  It doesn't sound like it was an easy job to solve it though.

@tttppp - brute force would be a bad characterization of how I would solve the problem.  I would create a database of all possible branches encoded to allow an indexed and aggragated search to find the highest percentage of wins.  In the event of a tie go with the highest number of wins.  Each round you can prune a factor of 5.  The initial setup of the db may take a few hours to complete.  But once complete the run-time processing needed would be very doable.  That said the effort value required is far greater the reward value.

@Chad I think what you're suggesting would be a very good ai opponent, but I'm not convinced that a home computer could find the best line of play (e.g. to determine if the game is first player wins or not) in (e.g.) a day of processing.  I looked at this a bit, and I'm not even convinced that it's a simpler game than draughts.

@tttppp - I guess it depends on the size of the computer.  But you can obtain a relatively cheap dual core 2ghz with 4g ram and 500g hd.  That would be plenty to do what this needs.  My point is there is no single solution that wins every time.  There are solutions that provide greater or lesser chances of winning but my guess is that until you get at least 4 or 5 rounds into it you are not going to find many solutions that actually provide a clear advantage.  And even those advantages will not be unbeatable for many more rounds.  A good opponent can probably draw at worst anyway.


text:
How does the cost of designer board games compare to other forms of entertainment?
Some people complain about the cost of designer board games. With most board games near the $50 mark, and some approaching $100, they might look at the price of a movie ticket, DVD, or video game and think that this is an expensive hobby.
What do you think is the approximate cost of playing board games per hour of enjoyment when compared to other forms of entertainment?

Is this on topic?  Meta question

@Alex, I don't think so. To me, this falls into the category of questions where every answer is equally valid, and seems to lead to a discussion rather than a clear solution.

Interesting question; it should be added that the measure will be for americans and in dollars. In other places the prices are for the exact exchange rate + some profit; even if the per capita income is much lower (it's much more expensive, simply put)

I’m not sure if it’s on topic;  but it’s definitely not opinion based.

This could be answered by looking at logged plays on BGG for each game and noting the average play time plus the number of plays for users who had logged any plays against the game. I'm in agreement that this shouldn't have been closed as primarily opinion-based.

To those Voting to re-open this question, I would recommend going to the meta question first. If you think the question should be open you should vote/post an answer saying why first.

I'm an aging grog... For me, I judge a game based upon player-hours of play. At about $1 per player-hour. Same rate I've used since the late 80's...
And at that rate, the $30 supplement I just got for TTR/TTRE has some way to go. 1st two plays were 4p @ 2.5h and 3p @ 3h - so far, $19 of the $30. One more large play should do it.
Dominion and Intrigue got enough time to "pay off"... and did so rapidly, even tho most were 2p games.
The $50 Cargo Noir is close. At 1.5 to 2h per play, and 3-4p per play, I've gotten 7 plays out of it since mid Dec.
Now, I will say, I never adjusted for inflation, and find most movies on DVD today not worth the $1/person/hour, so that metric still works for me.
You might, however, consider a more movie based metric. A movie is $5 at matinee, per person, and typically 1.5 to 2 hours.  If we add the anticipation and post-movie discussions, we can justify calling them 3 hours. That calls for $2 per person-hour.
I'll note also that I'm 56 hours in on a $50 videogame (Skyward Sword) and 30 in on another (Ocarina of Time 3D), so that $1-$2 per player-hour is quite well holding. Mario-Cart, at that rate, paid off in the first week: 10 hours, 3 players, two days; $20 paid for the disk.
Update for Dec 9 2012: The latest supplement I got for TTR paid off with another $12 of play.
Update for July 2013: All the mentioned games have since paid off. And the Wii has paid off.

The money/time calculation is my usual measuring stick for amusements too.

It would be appropriate to add Music and Video on Demand.  For music, If I have a collection of about 100 albums at a cost of about $15/album, which I listen to about an hour a day over ten years (random rotation), I'm paying $1500 to enjoy 3650 hours of music or about $0.41/hr.  For Netflix, I watch about 50 hours per month for a cost of $10/mo.  So that's $0.20/hr.

@NealTibrewala, I second the motion. The more common forms of entertainment the better. So far my favorite answer. $/player hour seems like a good objective measurement (even though fun is rather subjective). $1 per hour seems like a good threshold. DVD rentals are pretty cheap under total persons enjoying the movie (1.25/2+ people).

I don't rent movies, and I don't often buy music other than for work.

For me personally, dollar per hour calculations aren't useful. I usually peg costs to something else. Recently, I've been using Chipotle burritos. When I look at a $50 game, I determine whether I would rather have that, or 7 burritos over time.
As far as being an expensive hobby, I'll quote someone from BoardGameGeek, on the MSRP of Antiquity being $125: "I would pay $125 for two sheets of plain white paper if they consistently provided the kind of enjoyment I get from Antiquity." Value is relative. It's certainly cheaper than skiing (for instance) and the right game should be playable dozens, if not hundreds, of times, which most single player video games and movies can't boast for most people.
It is an expensive hobby if you need to have new games all the time, but most people don't do that.

My copies of Splotter's Indonesia and Duck Dealer have long since paid for themselves, and paid for my copies of Roads & Boats and Antiquity (which haven't yet, but I anticipate they shall eventually). My general rule of thumb is that a game needs three to five fun plays in it before I really feel like it's been worth the money, even with the cheaper end of things.
It's not just a matter of hours of play, it's also important to factor in that the time I spent playing game X, I did not get to spend playing game Y. The few hours I spent playing Shadows Over Camelot I will never get back at any price.

You never get hours back on any play... time is a one way road.

Seeing how most Video Games start at $60 for standard versions it puts it on par with the price of a designer board game. Same would be true for 2 people to go to the movies with popcorn+soda mixed in. DVDs are probably the only case where the cost to entry is lower than a board game.
I tend to calculate the cost of a game vs the number of times I am likely to play it. Settlers in all it's variants, Ticket to Ride, and even Mah Jong for me have paid for themselves many times over. Dominion I have played only a couple of times but feel I got value out of it. Revolution was hot enough for the number of plays I had to make it seem like a worth wile purchase even tho I haven't played it for like 8 months now.
I think a key factor you have to work into the price in the intangible entertainment value. When you sit around a board talking with your friends there is more social interaction than in most movies, DVDs, or video games unless they are specifically party games. It's hard to put a price tag on good conversation, jokes, and potential stories you will tell for years about what happened while playing a game versus going to a movie.

If you are measuring dollars per player-hour, board games are an excellent value--provided you find a game that your group actually will play time and again. For example, my group has played my copy of Chaos in the Old World probably 50 times. At $40, and each of those games being a 4-player 90-minute game, that works out to $0.13 per player-hour. That's better than anything I can think of except for exercising outside or a library card. The expense of driving too meet at game nights certainly eclipses the cost of this game. (Traditional card games are probably the very best bet; you can get hundreds of player-hours of Bridge, Poker, Spades, Hearts, etc. out of a $2 deck of cards.)
On the other hand, a game you don't enjoy and never play again is much worse, quite possibly $10 per player-hour. (And you're not even enjoying that!) So if you're buying games without having played them before, you'll have to accept more risk with the purchase. Reading reviews or being prepared to sell/trade the game can mitigate this risk.

What all these $/hour calculations fail to include is the cost of playing.  Depending on your setting, you could include driving costs, room hire, expensive beer prices, etc. when comparing to a video game or a dvd at home.  I'm not saying that makes it an expensive hobby, but when you compare it to old PC games on gog.com, for example, it comes out quite dear.

I'm not your downvote, but this isn't much of an answer. As-is, seems like a comment.

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What happens to target creature when Essence Scatter is played?
When one plays Essence Scatter, does the target creature go back to the opponent's hand, or does it go to their graveyard?

Note: a "creature spell" is a spell that is on the stack and has not yet resolved.  Once a creature is on the battlefield it is a creature.

Essence Scatter counters a creature spell, and countering a spell is defined in the Comprehensive Rules 701.5a:

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

Note that technically there is never a creature in this case: a spell becomes a creature only when it enters the battlefield.

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text:
Does Containment Priest exile one's own creature?
Containment Priest says "If a nontoken creature would enter...exile it instead," but it doesn't specify "opponent," so does casting this creature mean that Containment Priest's controller would also have to exile all noncasted nontoken creatures?

does casting this creature mean that Containment Priest's controller would also have to exile all noncasted nontoken creatures?

Yes, when it comes to creatures entering the battlefield after Containment Priest. It does not mean you have to exile all existing non-token creatures.
Creatures entering simultaneously (including the Priest itself if it isn't cast) won't be affected, as is reflected by the rulings under the card in Gatherer:

If Containment Priest enters the battlefield without being cast, its ability won’t exile itself.

If Containment Priest enters the battlefield at the same time as other creatures, its ability won’t affect those creatures.

To add: Containment Priest can be cast after a creature-summoning effect goes onto the stack to exile such a non-token creature.

Yes, this ability affects your own creatures as well as your opponent's. Note that it does not affect any creatures that are already in play when the Priest enters, or the Priest itself if for some reason it is entering the battlefield without being cast.


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Do harbor pieces count for determining the end game phase in Ticket to Ride Rails and Sails?
The game moves towards its end once a player has “6 or fewer pieces”. Question: are the “harbor” pieces included in this count or only “locomotives” and “ships”?

It only includes Ships and Trains. The English rulebook is a bit unclear on this point, but other translations make it clear.
The specific wording form the English rulebook:

When any one player’s supply of plastic pieces contains six pieces or fewer (regardless of their type), each player, including that player, gets two more turns, after which the game ends and players calculate their final scores.

Note that "plastic pieces" is also used in the rulebook in other places, such as when talking about exchanging pieces. Because you start with all your harbor pieces anyway; you would never need to exchange them; you are only exchanging trains for ships or vice-versa.
From the French rulebook:

Lorsque la réserve de wagons d’un joueur tombe à 6 pions (wagons et bateaux confondus).

Google Translate:

When a player's wagon reserve drops to 6 pawns (wagons and ships combined)

The German rulebook:

Wenn ein Spieler am Ende seines Zugs nur noch 6 oder weniger Figuren (egal ob Waggons und/oder Schiffe)

Google Translate:

If, at the end of his turn, a player has only 6 or fewer pieces (regardless of whether they are wagons and / or ships)


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Using Commander Abilities from the Command Zone
So I have Horde of Notions and I am wondering if I can use it's mana cost ability from the commander zone. The ability which by paying one of each color, I can bring a Elemental from the graveyard to the battlefield.

Related: In what ways does a Commander in their Command zone influence the game?

Related: Which commanders benefit from being in the Command Zone other than Oloro?

No, abilities of permanents usually only work when they're on the battlefield. Exceptions exist, but are generally explicit on the card.

113.6. Abilities of an instant or sorcery spell usually function only while that object is on the stack. Abilities of all other objects usually function only while that object is on the battlefield. The exceptions are as follows: [..]

Most permanents' abilities, including all activated abilities such as on Horde of Notions, will explicitely say so in their text if they work in any zone other than the battlefield. Horde of Notions' ability does not say that it works in any zone other than the battlefield, so it doesn't.

No. Unless stated otherwise, abilities on creatures only work when the creature is on the battlefield.

113.6. Abilities of an instant or sorcery spell usually function only while that object is on the stack. Abilities of all other objects usually function only while that object is on the battlefield.

Some exceptions follow, but this is not one of them.

There are specific commanders that can interact with or have abilities that can be used from the command zone, all of them very specifically say 'command zone' on the card or in the rules for keywords (Eminence). In general though abilities work only on the battlefield unless the ability says otherwise. You can't use Horde of Notions' ability from the graveyard or hand for the same reason you can't use it from the command zone. This comes from Rule 113.6 in the Comprehensive Rules:

113.6 Abilities of an instant or sorcery spell usually function only while that object is on the stack. Abilities of all other objects usually function only while that object is on the battlefield.

The exception that applies to the commanders in the search I linked earlier comes from subrule b:

113.6b An ability that states which zones it functions in functions only from those zones.

So unless a permanent has an ability that falls under one of the subrule exceptions to 113.6, it only works on the battlefield, commanders included.


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Carcassonne: how to score city points when tied
The question is explicitly about a situation when two or more players have the same number of knights in a closed city.
The instructions say: "In case of a tie, the tied players each score the points.". So, the question is how many.
Let's assume the closed city is worth 10 points and is being closed during the game. Should all players get 10 points (each player) or should they get a split (5 points for each)? Or maybe any other way to count those points..

When multiple players score a feature, each player gets the full amount.
There is only one way to score a feature, and if the rule says that each player scores that feature, each player will get the full amount of points. Every feature that can be shared (city, road, farm) has the potential to have a number of points such that an even split would be impossible to begin with.
For example, finished cities with a cathedral triple its score, so you can end up with an odd score for that city, making it impossible to evenly split between two players.

In polish instructions there's a rule describing splitting points from roads in a way Hackworth describes, so it seems even more legit.

Triple? Wasn't it 2 pt for each tile or shield without a Cathedral -> 3 pt each with one (or two)? So 1.5x, not 3x.

@ilkkachu The baseline score for a city is the number of tiles plus number of shields. Finishing the city without cathedral doubles that score, finishing it with cathedral triples it. We are saying the same thing, you just took a different baseline.

Interpreting the sentence as regular English, and comparing it with the official rules in other languages, lead me to believe that all players get 10 points. There's no splitting involved.
Here is the Dutch version; the emphasized word means 'full', i.e. ten points in your example.

Bij een gelijke stand krijgen alle spelers met de meeste horigen het volle aantal punten.

Just found it. In older version of instructions in polish there's a rule describing spliting points from roads. It says both players get full number of points

Z-Man Games English rules for the current edition (p. 5, bottom of page):

If there are multiple meeples in a single scored feature, the player with the most meeples is awarded full points and
all other players receive nothing. When more than one player have the most meeples in a scored feature, the tied
players all score full points.

And there's an example under it of a tile being placed to connect two roads, completing it with four tiles:

Since this
completes the road, it is now
scored and both you and the other
player score 4 points. Then, you
both take your meeple back

I have no recollection of that having ever been different between the various editions of the game (or the variants, either).


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How do I address the power creep in my pod when I can't afford to keep up? (MTG)
About a year ago, a friend introduced me to MTG Arena. I played very often over the course of the pandemic and as a result have gotten pretty into Magic. My friend has been playing for three or four years, both tabletop and Arena and has a decent collection of cards.
Fast forward to a couple months ago and I discovered another friend of mine also plays Magic, mostly tabletop. He has been playing for over 10 years and could probably become a Magic judge if he put some time into it. He has a massive collection of cards and 15-20 constructed decks for standard, modern, and commander.
Realizing we all played, I got everyone in contact with one-another and we decided to try commander. I bought two precon commander decks just for this, watched a bunch of videos on how to play commander (I'm more familiar with standard), and even bought a couple singles to upgrade my precons. Needless to say our 10-year friend completely dominated with a couple really powerful combo decks, but it was such a good time. Our group got along great and we all had a blast despite the games being pretty lopsided. We had so much fun that we've continued doing a commander night each week, and even found a fourth friend on par with my 3-year friend skill and card collection-wise.
Over the past two months, I've invested a fair amount in MTG cards, all of them singles, and tried to put together a deck that can at least hold its own. I'm not super competitive, I just like being able to play and see my deck do a cool thing or two each game. My decks are budget in the truest sense, and I think the market value between my 4 decks is less than $200 (thank you Commander's Quarters!). I'm in a tight spot financially, so I'm maxed out on upgrades for the time being.
The problem has only started to arise in the last few weeks. Each week, everyone plays mostly the same decks, but recently everyone has been bringing some significant upgrades. For example, one person came this week with The Great Henge (~$50), Hullbreacher (~$28), and Rhystic Study (~$40) added to their deck. I am the only person in the past couple weeks that hasn't spent a lot of money on singles or packs to upgrade their decks, and I'm starting to be completely outgunned. I haven't won a game in the two months we've been playing, which doesn't bother me by itself, but its to the point where I'm out first pretty consistently. If I stay in any longer it's because I'm a non-threat not worth being dealt with, and even then any of the tiny combos I manage to produce get shut down easily.
I know it's not 100% the power of the cards that's causing this as I am pretty new, but I can't help but feel a little defeated. I'm watching a bunch of videos on how to get better at magic, watching them play and trying to learn, and trying to learn about historic cards to know what's out there for reasonable upgrades. But I know that my budget is definitely "holding me back", as I need to settle for the budget versions of particular cards that just make them less effective. For example, I run Verdant Force (~$0.80) instead of Tendershoot Dryad (~$16) as a token generator in my green token deck. Tendershoot is objectively a better card, but I could never justify spending ~$16 on a single card I may never play, let alone draw, in a game.
My question is, what can I do to address the power creep in our weekly play group when I can't afford to keep up? I really want to stay involved because I love playing with everyone and they're all really good friends, but I also don't have the most fun sitting on the sidelines for an hour or more each game. Some of the solutions I've thought of are:

Asking to play my friend's decks instead of my own
Asking to do a "budget challenge" one week, where everyone's decks must be below, say $50
Finding a new playgroup to play with in addition to my current group that is more my level

I'm not particularly fond of any of those solutions because for (1), my friend's decks are so combo-heavy that I don't know what cards are in them/how to use them. It isn't really fun to play when it's constantly being pointed out which triggers you missed, which card you could have played instead, or just topdecking through a deck to figure out what there even is. For (2), that's more on me because I'm probably too proud to admit I don't have any money to spend. I'm also afraid it could come off as me asking to play my custom budget deck against something less powerful for the sake of trying to win a game. And for (3), I do really like my friends in my current playgroup and I don't want to ditch them because "I'm not winning". I want to play with them but also find a way to not get functionally shut out because I'm not spending money on upgrades.
All my research yields questions from the opposite perspective, like, "What do I do when my decks are too powerful for my playgroup?". I don't even know what other solutions there might be, especially because I'm newer at the game.
I know there's probably not a best answer to this question, but given I can't find any other solutions and given that this is likely a common problem, I figured it would be a good question.

Budget variants of Magic are not too uncommon. I think rarity-based is the most common (no rares or commons only, e.g. Pauper), although that's a lot more limiting that simply excluding expensive cards. Max-price-per-card/deck could also work, although that might cause some issues if players aren't inclined to check and keep up to date on prices. Magic is expensive. It's perfectly reasonable to not want to spend that much on it, even when one can afford it, or to want to experiment and mess around (which is more viable when everyone's playing cheap decks).

Drafting is a nice way to level up the field, as everyone starts with unknown cards, and gets to keep some good (well, rare at least, no necessarily good per se) cards at the end.

And to make it even cheaper, your group could build a draft cube to draft from. Then everyone one is on the same footing every time and no one needs to spend any further money.

@Shufflepants I think that could potentially be an answer rather than a comment.

Have you mentioned this problem to the group? What did they say about it?

Commander is a Magic:The Gathering format which emphasises multiplayer play, social interactions, interesting games, and creative deckbuilding. Source. Talk with your group and make the game fun for everyone :)

It's time to have a Session 0 or power level discussion. It sounds like the members of your group are showing up to the Commander table with different expectations. There are a few likely scenarios, and each would benefit from a different approach. But regardless of which scenario is true, communication with your playgroup is the most important. They can't help you if you don't tell them what's wrong.
Scenario 1: You each want to play at different levels of competitiveness.
It's worth making sure that you have that power level discussion and figure out what you each are expecting from a game of commander. You mention that one of your friends has a highly tuned, technical combo deck. That player may be wanting to play very competively while you might prefer just hanging out and playing cool cards. These approaches to gameplay and deckbuilding are different and can lead to unbalanced situation like what you have described.
Ask your play group what power level they want and expect to play at. The answers might surprise you. And even if the answers are different, this doesn't mean you have to find a new group. It just means that you can request playing at a lower/slower power level for one game and then move on to the "anything goes" high power game later. Then your group will have a mix of games that should give you a better opportunity to enjoy the game.
And it might even be the case that you really will want to find another group to play a different kind of magic. You'd play with your new group for more casual games and go back to your current group for high-powered games (expecting to be destroyed).
Scenario 2: You all want to play at the highest level but have different card access.
The other members want to play powerful magic with high impact cards. You might also want this but don't have the financial means to do so. If you are all on the same page in wanting to play high-level magic then the solutions will be more about balancing budgets. There are a few approaches that you could take here:

Request budget limits for some of the games. Obviously, your friends will likely want to play their "best" decks, but it shouldn't be too hard to request a budget game to be added to the rotation.
Borrow a deck. Many players are very happy or even eager to let their friends borrow a deck. It's kinda a win-win for them since they get to set another of their creations at work.
Proxy the expensive cards. Frankly explain to your playgroup that certain cards are outside your budget and ask if they would be ok if you proxied some cards. This might be a long discussion since they might want to proxy even more expensive cards, but proxying does level the budget playing field. And if you all truly want to play high-level competitive commander (CEDH), then proxying thousand dollar dual lands and such will allow you as a group to do so.

If you do go the proxy route, you should establish price limits as to what everyone will proxy.  Sure, you could all stock your decks with the hundred most expensive cards in magic, but it probably won't improve your game experience.

@ArcanistLupus Sorry, it's probably a silly question, (because I have played Magic about twice in my life), but why would it be no fun to let everyone play with (proxies of) the most expensive cards in the system? Naively I would have assumed that this would make a perfectly reasonable game.

@Clumsycat Because it tends to make games rather boring due to how quick they finish. The norm in competitive Commander when unaffected by budget is games that last ten turns or less, and they tend to be rather boring after a while unless the players enjoy gambling (because that’s essentially what the game becomes). Also, unlimited budget leads to a distinct advantage for anyone who is especially good at deck construction.

@AustinHemmelgarn Thanks, that's really interesting, it adds a new dimension to the discussion around Magic being an expensive game.

There are a ton of really good answers here, but I think this one captures the communication aspect of it the best. We talked at the MH2 prerelease event about power levels etc. and essentially had our session 0, which cleared a lot up. We decided to (a) try to match the power levels of our decks each game, (b) play at least one other variant of magic per week (e.g. pauper, two-headed giants, etc.), and (c) allow for some restricted proxying of certain cards. But communication was what made that happen!

So in my group, I'm the long time veteran of Magic with the crazy decks.  What we do to balance things in my group is:

I'll loan out decks - the trick here is using decks that you don't have to be intimately familiar with the strategy to pilot properly.  So you might have to ask your friend for a comparably powerful deck that isn't combo centric.
I'll play my lower powered decks - just because I have some bonkers decks doesn't mean I have to play them every time.  Yeah, everyone wants to play their shiny new beater cards and see them go off, but you don't have to do that every game.
Play different types of Magic - look into playing 2 headed giant, archenemy, star or other variants.

While my playgroup usually doesn't need to do this, you could always ask your friends about proxying the more expensive cards you'd like to have in your deck.  That way you (and everyone else who would like to) can play with the expensive cards but not have to spend a ton of money to do so.

This is good advice in your situation, but points 1 and 2 especially don’t really help the OP.

Playing the other types of Magic is really good advice, we decided to play pauper, two-headed giants, etc. once per week. I think that will allow for some really fun group dynamics even with my restricted budget. Thank you for the answer!

In my experience, Two headed giant and Star are more sensitive to disparities in deck power levels than free-for-all multiplayer.  In free-for-all, players have much more ability to gang up on stronger players.  Bringing a weak deck to a two-headed giant game will just drag down your teammate, and bringing a weak deck to a star game likely hands the game to one of the two players opposing you.

My group used to play a lot of magic; but none of us wanted to spend a lot of money. This is what we did:
When we started out; each person either donated random MTG cards that they had lying around to the group, or threw in a little money. The money was used to purchase booster packs.
This gave us a nice-size collection of cards which were collectively owned by the group; not by any one person. From this collection we would do mixes of drafts and passing out random piles. The cards you got would be considered ”yours” and players could trade with each other and build decks. While of course not getting any crazy powerful tournament style decks this way, it didn’t matter because we were on equal footing.
Every once in a while we would recombine all the cards and start over with a new draft.

My friends and I bought around 10,000 cards on ebay for ~0.5 cents each (so, $50 total).  We then organized them by color and type.  Whenever we want to play Magic, we all sit down and make decks from that pool.
This only works if your friends are willing to play and make decks consisting entirely of cheap common/uncommon cards, rather than the overpowered $16 cards.  It also takes away from time playing together, since everyone needs to dig through tons of cards and make their decks on the spot.  But it is fair, and cheap for everyone.

I have a similar issue in my usual play group in that I am significantly less willing to shell out on cards to upgrade my decks than most of the rest of the group.
So what I do is a bit different from most people: I intentionally build decks that I have fun playing whether I win or lose. For example, one of my favorite Commander decks is a heavily modified version of the old Mimeoplasm precon deck built around Laboratory Maniac as the primary win condition. It doesn’t have any complicated, hard to disrupt combos, it doesn’t look threatening at all if you don’t know how it works, and it has a bunch of ‘decoy’ win conditions that still need to be dealt with by opponents even though them not working usually puts me in a better position overall in the long run. Within my typical play group, it wins only about 40% of the time, but I always have a blast playing it because while everybody knows it’s a ticking time bomb, none of them can seem to decide what to do with it and prefers to deal with more immediate threats.
As an alternative suggestion that has been received well in my group, consider suggesting playing some games using the Pauper variant. The general rules for Pauper are simple: only common rarity cards are allowed, with the exception of your commander which can be uncommon. This leads to a much lower powered game that’s still generally interesting, and often requires little to no investment from any of the players (for anybody who has a decent collection of cards, they can usually throw together an acceptable pauper deck without having to buy a single card).

Once upon a time I was the player with a lot of disposable income and the ability to make a lot of decks. I would buy a case (6 display boxes) of a set for several hundred dollars and I usually ended up with a couple complete sets. This was fun for me, but less fun when I was playing against kids at the local shop.
Ultimately, I realized the onus was on me to bring my deck to something that was enjoyable for them. But how could I make it still enjoyable for me? It boiled down to two things:

Make the big, powerful decks, but don't play them against the kids all the time. It's a little fun for the kids to see them, but they don't want to play against them every game.
Make unusual decks. I made a pretty good deck out of nothing but green common cards. This was an example of a pretty decent deck that even the kids could probably get their hands on. I also made a Mercadian Masques block "sparkler" deck (no creatures). Not too many people were expecting this.

Ultimately, make sure that the players with more money to spend have a little chance to show off, but also challenge them to build decks out of cards that are on everyone's level.

If the other players always want to play the same competitive combo decks, then you'll need to convince them to try something new.  Either appeal to them to change it up, or become the "fun police" and force them to change.
Look for cards that say "can't":

Can't cast cards from graveyards (grafdigger's cage).
Can't cast cards from exile (Drannith Magistrate).
Can't draw more than 1 card (Spirit of the Labyrinth).
Can't cast more than 1 spell a turn (Rule of Law).
Players can't search libraries (Leonin Arbiter).
Can't cast even cost spells (Void Winnower).
Spells cost more (Thalia, Guardian of Thraben).
Whenever a spell is cast, do something weird (Possibility Storm).
Enters the battlefield tapped (Thalia, Heretic Cathar).

It may be a forced power-down, but it could lead to more interesting games.

This is great! I actually picked up Weathered Runestone because of your answer (my group does a lot of graveyard/cascade shenanigans). That should give me at least a turn to play catch up if I can't protect it right away.

I'm going to suggest another strategy that may work, though may be a little 'creative', and will only really work if you regularly play with the same group. I call this strategy the 'hall of fame'.
Hall of Fame
Each week, for each winner of a game, their most expensive card enters the "hall of fame". That is, it gets "retired" and cannot be used by anyone in the group for the duration that the card is in the hall of fame.
This solution has a number of benefits:

It allows people to play expensive cards for those that want to and can invest in them.
It reduces the value of those uber-expensive cards in the players deck, because they may only get to play it for one week.
It keeps the gameplay fresh. There will be no two consecutive weeks where identical decks are played (though they will be only marginally changed).
It still rewards players who are able to both deck-build well and play well. It can kind of suck to buy a fancy card then not be able to play it. Having that card be honored on a shared list with your name next to it though is pretty cool. The trade off that player is receiving for balancing out their deck with the rest of the pool is prestige.

There are a number of variables that can be applied to this formula though:
The "most expensive" card
It's possible that each player may just throw in a fodder expensive card that they don't actually care about. It will make their deck less perfect, but at the cost of just one card, could put a huge incentive to just keep throwing money at the problem. One possible solution is to instead have the X other players vote on that player's 'MVP'.
This is potentially fraught with problems though as some decks are really built around one particular combo, but counter to that , it may be reasonable for a group to say "that combo is too powerful". A good counter to this is that it can help keep games fresh while giving the nod to the combo.
Only one card inducted
The fact that only one card will enter the Hall of Fame per week means that change will happen slowly. If one person comes to the table with 5 $50+ cards, it will be months before your decks are remotely competitive.
One possible solution to this as well as the "most expensive" problem is to present an option: the group elects an 'MVP' card, and the owner of the deck can decide to induct either the MVP card chosen by the group or the top two most expensive cards. This gives them some choice as well as makes it a bit more prohibitively expensive (and hits the efficiency of their deck twice) to simply load their deck with expensive cards. You'll need an extra rule for if the MVP is one of the most expensive cards (maybe it's the 'next 2 most expensive cards' or 'next 3...'), but that seems doable.
Inductees affecting other players
If I have a competitive super expensive deck and get a card inducted with it, should other players not be able to use it? This is a good question. I think it's reasonable to say either way: either "yes, it keeps the playing field even" or "no, just because your deck did really well with this one card doesn't mean that I should have to stop playing with it." Honestly, I think either answer is reasonable. One other issue with inductees being per-person is that it slows the number of inductees.
In the end I think this one may have to be experimented with. I do know that it would absolutely suck to invest in a Sword or a fetch or something, only to have someone else's deck induct it. I think that downside would probably outweigh the other downsides the second it happened to me.
Commanders
The question then becomes, what happens if a Commander itself is the most expensive card? I think it may be fine to exempt Commanders from this query, but once again it's hard to balance when one's Commander is more expensive than another's entire deck (in the case sometimes of even 'spruced up' precons). This will have to be at the discretion of the group, or may be resolved with discussions of 'MVP'.
Too many banned cards
Eventually if this goes on long enough, it may be possible that too many cards join this list. It may be a good idea to have a maximum length that any one card can be on the list before it is allowed back in. Maybe like 13 weeks worth (one quarter). You could also say "if a card is inducted 3 times, then it's on there for good" or something.
Conclusion
Such a system may be difficult to implement, and any implementation will need to be flexible. Remember, the goal of the game is to be fun for the group, and it's absolutely possible for a set of rules to not be fun. That said, I think that the Hall of Fame solution may provide a tradeoff for making a more balanced playing field in acknowledging and rewarding those players that put in the effort to find those particularly powerful combinations or to invest more of their own financial utility into honing their decks. They can also keep the majority of their lists together to play with other groups, and only make limited swaps for balance. All in all, I think this could add more fun to the solution attempting to balance power vs fun, though your mileage may vary.

In general being much weaker in a multiplayer game isn't a problem. As you wrote, everyone knows you're a non-threat not worth dealing with. As that sinks in they'll realize that attacking you early is a losing strategy. In my group the person we knew was playing a weak deck was almost never the first out, for that reason. In fact, sometimes the really weak player got to the final-2 and won by pulling out a few lucky cards.
The other non-problem is that the other players probably don't mind. Being the strongest by a wide margin ruins the game, but not the other way around. It's nice seeing different cards (the cheap alternates you use). All that matters is they can't completely ignore you. Look at it this way: without you they're playing against 4 other people. With you, it's against 4-1/2 people.
If you really want, a friend told me about a "2nd-place deck" in a group he played with. Circles of protection and healing and other defenses. They always made it to the final-2, but never had enough offense to actually beat anyone. Don't go that far, but adding defenses could help you stay in the game longer to where you might get lucky.


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Can I use "Divinity of Pride" in my mono black commander deck? If not, then what card is/similar to Divinity of Pride but is a mono black?
Can I use the MTG card Divinity of Pride in my mono black commander deck?
It's a multi-colored card - black/white - but it pays for either four swamps (black mana) or four plains (white mana). I know of the rule in commander indicating that "All cards must be in the color identity of the commander." But since this is a black/white and can pay for either four black or four white, I just want to clarify.
So, my question is Can I use Divinity of Pride in a mono black commander deck?
If not, then what card is/similar to Divinity of Pride but is a mono black?

Can I use Divinity of Pride in a mono black commander deck?

No.

903.4. The Commander variant uses color identity to determine what cards can be in a deck with a certain commander. The color identity of a card is the color or colors of any mana symbols in that card’s mana cost or rules text, plus any colors defined by its characteristic-defining abilities (see rule 604.3) or color indicator (see rule 204).

White appears in Divinity of Pride's mana cost, so it can't be used in your mono-black Commander deck.

If not, then what card is/similar to Divinity of Pride but is a mono black?

There is no mono-black creature gaining abilities depending on having X "or more life"  – that's an ability associated with white.


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What's the tactics for Tac Tix?
What I've found is:

First Player If N Is Odd (non-misere): The player takes the center
piece and symmetrically imitates every one of the opponent's moves.
Second Player If N Is Even (non-misere): Player copies opponent's
moves symmetrically. You will eventually take the last piece and win.

But what should I do when N is even and I go first, or when I go second and N is odd?
My best guess is I should count amount of rectangles and alone "chips" and, based on that, make moves, but the problem is that I'm not sure that this will work and maybe you have a better strategy for this game.

The game is solved. The "tactic" for playing the losing side is to hope the other player makes a mistake. With perfect play, there are no moves that are better than others for the losing side : they all lose.
If the winning-side player fails to play optimally, then your move should attempt to restore the position to one it could have reached if you had been the winning-side all along.
For instance, on a 3x3, if your opponent goes first and takes a side square instead of the center, then you should take the 2x1 region of the center and the opposite side square.
Note though that the winning-side player has other equally-winning moves beyond what the winning algorithm prescribes, it's just that the algorithm reduces it to a sufficient move. On a 3x3, for instance, the first player could take the whole center row and still be winning.


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Does a robber block maritime trading?
As the title says. If someone places the robber in one of the outer hexes which has a settlement or city that lets them do 3/2:1 trading, does the presence of robber block them from trading?

No. From the almanac, p11:

Players with settlements and/or cities adjacent to the target terrain hex receive no resources from this hex as long as the robber is in the hex.

That's it; the robber rules say nothing about maritime trade and the maritime trade rules say nothing about the robber. In the absence of some rule telling you there's an exception, the normal rules must be assumed to apply, i.e. you can continue to trade normally.

I imagine that the argument would be that the result of the trade counts as “resources from this hex,” though there are a number of dubious logical leaps required to come to that conclusion.

Definitely. For one thing, the trading port is printed/placed (depending on version) on a different hex. Thus even if those trades did count as "resources from the hex", they're not from the hex that has the robber on it, just like a robber on a hex doesn't stop adjacent settlements from claiming resources from their other hexes.


text:
Monopoly Deal: Fairest way of removing extra cards
It is not explicitly specified how the remaining card(s) should be removed before finishing your turn.
The obvious option is to put it at the bottom of the deck, but in this way a player can manipulate the odds (for instance, if a player needs a red property to win then he can throw to the bottom of the deck a property of that color).
So, is there a better option than putting the remaining cards at the bottom of the deck?

There are two options:

The rules as written say that they should go on the bottom of the deck.
You could opt to have players put extra cards face up in the public discard instead.

The official rulebook says the following (my emphasis):

If you have more than 7 cards in your hand at the end of your turn (not including cards on the table) discard extras to the bottom of the draw pile so you only have 7.

This is an unusual way for games to handle discards; I think that this is an inelegant solution, and it sounds like you do too.  monopolydealrules.com is non-authoritative collection of rules clarifications and improvements sourced from the community, and suggests a discarding face-up to the discard pile.  Their "general rules" say:

At the end of a turn, a player cannot have more than 7 cards in their hand. If they do, they need to discard the excess cards into the discard pile in the middle.

This is only a meaningful difference if you actually go through the entire deck in the game, which is unlikely.  I'd recommend going with having discards go to the discard pile, as it's a more normal way to handle discards and it addresses the concern of players potentially manipulating the deck through discards.

So, should  the remaining players see them?

@David The discard is public; all players will see them

You say the rulebook at MDR says..., but the rulebook there ("Instruction Book") says to put them under the draw pile. It's the "general rules" section there that changes it to "put them in the discard pile".

@L.ScottJohnson The rulebook is the section "General Rules"

Ah. That doesn't match the usual usage of "rulebook", but OK.

@L.ScottJohnson I've edited it for clarity

Depends on which version you have. Some say to place the cards under the draw pile while others say to place it on the play pile (which is sometimes called the discard pile)
One Way (under the draw pile)
If placing them under the draw pile, the rules don't specify the order when placing them on the bottom of the draw pile, so you're free to choose whatever order you like.
Rules:

End your Turn
If you have more than 7 cards in your hand at the end of your turn (not including cards on the table) discard extras to the bottom of the draw pile so you only have 7.

It's worded differently in these rules, but the effect is the same:

If you have more than 7 cards in your hand at the end of your turn (not including cards on the table) discard extras to the bottom of the draw pile so you only have 7. If you've run out of cards, take 5 at the start of your next turn.

Scan of those rules
PDF of those rules
The other way (to the play pile)
These rules (branded "Monopoly Millionaire", but they're the only ruleset I can find that gives the alternate play style) say to place them on the play pile (in which case they'd be placed face up like other cards placed there):

Just before the next player’s turn, check how many cards you have left
in your hand.

More than 7? Throw any extras on the play pile

Both Ways (monopolydealrules.com)
This unofficial site says that the rule is to discard to the discard pile, but references the official rules that say to discard to the bottom of the draw pile:
General summary:

At the end of each player’s turn, they cannot have more than 7 cards in their hand. If they do, they need to discard the excess Monopoly cards into the discard pile in the middle.

Linked rules:

If you have more than 7 cards in your hand at the end of your turn (not including cards on the table) discard extras to the bottom of the draw pile so you only have 7.

I would say the card should be laid down to build another deck. Then was the initial deck is exhausted, a player shuffles the new deck and the game continues.
I hope this works.
Thanks.


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Does Complete Disregard check a creature's power or base power?
I've been playing Magic with my boyfriend and I wanted to cast Complete Disregard (CD) targeting one of his creatures, but my question is, does CD work with base power or with power after alterations?
Specifically: the creature I wanted to target was Impostor of the Sixth Pride acting as a Sliver creature, with Cleaving Sliver giving it +2/+0 and also with a +1/+1 counter on it. Now, I am pretty sure that the +2/+0 obtained from Cleaving Sliver matters more than the +1/+1 counter, still, would Complete Disregard work on it?

No, Complete Disregard won't work (and incidentally you can't target the Impostor, since it's not a legal target). Complete Disregard, like almost* all other cards simply cares about the actual power; the base power doesn't matter. Both buffs (+2/+0 from Cleaving Sliver and the +1/+1 counter) alone would be enough to raise the Impostor's power above 3, so that it ... wait for it ... completely disregards Complete Disregard.
*: the few cards for which this is not the case explicitly mention 'base power' and/or 'base toughness' (example), and as @murgatroid99 notes, they all change the base power/toughness, they do not check it.

I want to add, regarding your last point: there are cards that set base power and/or toughness, but there are no cards that check base power or toughness, or use it as the input to a calculation.

To add extra clarification around that, note that "base power" is a somewhat recent wording addition to MTG; created simply to make it clearer how interactions between effects that set power to a specific number and effects that change power work. "Base power" has no real rules usage outside of adding clarity to effects that set a creature's power/toughness.

@murgatroid99 Since your comment, there is (at least) one card that does check for base power; Baird, Argivian Recruiter.

Sure, it looks at base power, but not in the same sense as cards like in the question. The actual value of the base power doesn't matter for it, all that matters is whether the current power is greater than the base power.


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Clarification on Provoke the Trolls
I'm not sure if I understand what Provoke the Trolls spell does correctly.
If I cast this spell on Knight of Obligation and it resolves, does it basically mean that it becomes a 7/1 creature until end of turn (3 damage and +5/+0 until end of turn)?

Yes, that's a reasonable simplification.
To be more precise, it's a 7/4 with 3 damage on it. This may matter in the case of another card which wants to know the toughness of the creature like Abattoir Ghoul. If you attack with the Knight and your opponent blocks with the Ghoul, they'll gain 4 life, not 1.
Also, resolving Provoke the Trolls is not enough; it needs to actually deal damage. If the damage is prevented, e.g. with Avacyn, Guardian Angel's first ability, it doesn't get the +5/+0 bonus.

I'm not sure I agree that it's a reasonable simplification to call a 7/4 with 3 damage a 7/1. There are lots of different situations in which the distinction matters; and more importantly calling it a 7/1 can lead to lots of misunderstandings about how damage and toughness work.

Provoke the Trolls can target creatures and it works close to the way you say (That's what it will look like on MTGa, but damage doesn't actually reduce toughness). There are two reasons it was worded this way.

It needs to do the damage to give the power to a creature - the spell is flavored as hurting a troll to make it mad, no damage, no rage. If something prevents the damage from being done, something like Test of Faith, it gets no boost. Note though it only needs to do one point of damage, if 2 points of the 3 are prevented, the creature still gets +5/+0.
Non-creature targets - This spell can target players, which don't have a power to modify. It can also target planeswalkers which don't usually have a power statistic to change. If this were cast on a Gideon Jura before you turn him into a creature, and the ability didn't specify damage needed to be done to it as a creature, there would likely be confusion about if the +5/+0 applies when Gideon is turned into a creature or not.


text:
How do multiple copies of creatures with activated abilities interact?
Anointed Chorister has the activated ability:

{4}{W}: Anointed Chorister gets +3/+3 until end of turn.

If I have two or more copies of this creature in play on the battlefield and pay the cost to activate this ability, will that one time payment of 4 colorless and 1 white mana activate the other copies as well, without spending more mana, or would I need to spend another 4 colorless and 1 white mana to get the other copies to trigger?

Welcome to the site! I've taken the liberty of suggesting and edit with a title that makes it easier to see what your question is about; if you prefer, you can [edit] the title yourself.

The part of the linked question about Vector Asp addresses the same issue that this question is about.

Thank you for your time and clarification on the title. I am grateful.


text:
If you give Ochran Assassin trample, does it destroy all creatures my opponent controls?
If I give an Ochran Assassin trample and attack with it, does it destroy all of the opposing creatures, which are forced to block it?

In the title, when you say "all enemies", are you referring to creatures your opponent controls?

yes, only the creatures my opponent controls (and thank goodness), id be VERY mad if my own creature with deathtouch killed one of my other creatures.

OK, I've edited your question to clarify the title and to remove the other opinion-based question in the body of your post, and I replaced it with a restatement of the title. Please feel free to edit it further, but the other question that was previously in the body of the post doesn't belong on this site, and even if it did, it should be asked as a separate question.

Not necessarily all of them.You have to assign lethal damage to each blocking creature, and deathtouch here means that lethal damage is 1; therefore you can kill as many creatures as your Assassin has power - and unless you've increased its power, that's still only going to be one creature. Trample doesn't make a difference to the number of creatures destroyed, only to whether any excess damage goes through to the player or planeswalker you're attacking.
CR 120.4a:

Any amount of damage greater than 1 is excess damage if the source dealing that
damage to a creature has deathtouch

so does it deal 1 damage to each creature if it is buffed or does it dump all of its damage to kill 1 creature

I think it's important to note here that trample is entirely irrelevant to which or how many creatures will be destroyed by the Assassin.

does it deal deathtouch damage spread out or waste it on 1 creature?

@Parkerdaboss216 I'm not sure how I can put that more clearly than "you can kill as many creatures as your Assassin has power". In theory, you can assign more damage to some creatures and kill fewer creatures if you wish, but that's very much an edge case.

i wish i can confirm both XD

Per rule 510.1c, "[An attacking creature] can’t assign combat damage to a creature that’s blocking it unless, when combat damage assignments are complete, each creature that precedes that blocking creature in its order is assigned lethal damage." Because of deathtouch, each individual point of damage is lethal, so it is a legitimate damage assignment.

No, trample has no effect on how an attacking creature deals damage to defending creatures.
With or without trample, an attacking Ochran Assassin can destroy any number of blocking creatures, up to its power. So if the Assassin has 3 power, it can destroy up to 3 creatures. This is because Deathtouch only has an effect if at least 1 damage is dealt, and any amount of damage with Deathtouch is lethal. So the Assassin can assign its total damage as power, split into one per blocking creature, and each creature it deals damage to that way is destroyed.
The only effect trample has is to allow you to assign excess damage that is not needed to destroy any creatures to the defending player. For example, if the Assassin has 5 power and the defending player only controls 3 creatures that can block, the Assassin can damage and kill all 3 creatures and also deal 2 damage to the defending player. But if the Assassin only has 1 power, it can still only destroy 1 creature.

Trample will play no part in how many creatures get destroyed by a creature with deathtouch. How Deathtouch works is defined in the the rules as rule 702.2. The important parts for this question are parts 2b and 2c:

702.2b A creature with toughness greater than 0 that’s been dealt damage by a source with deathtouch since the last time state-based actions were checked is destroyed as a state-based action. See rule 704.

702.2c Any nonzero amount of combat damage assigned to a creature by a source with deathtouch is considered to be lethal damage for the purposes of determining if a proposed combat damage assignment is valid, regardless of that creature’s toughness. See rules 510.1c–d.

This works combined with the rules on assigning damage in the combat damage step (emphasis mine):

510.1c A blocked creature assigns its combat damage to the creatures blocking it. If no creatures are currently blocking it (if, for example, they were destroyed or removed from combat), it assigns no combat damage. If exactly one creature is blocking it, it assigns all its combat damage to that creature. If two or more creatures are blocking it, it assigns its combat damage to those creatures according to the damage assignment order announced for it. This may allow the blocked creature to divide its combat damage. However, it can’t assign combat damage to a creature that’s blocking it unless, when combat damage assignments are complete, each creature that precedes that blocking creature in its order is assigned lethal damage. When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures that’s being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that’s actually dealt. An amount of damage that’s greater than a creature’s lethal damage may be assigned to it.

So the way this works is each creature blocking needs to be assigned lethal damage before you can assign damage to the next blocking creature. Normally lethal damage is damage equal to or greater than a creatures current toughness, however because of rule 702.2c this is changed to anything greater than 0, meaning 1 point is enough to be considered lethal and destroy the blocking creature.
Ochran Assassin is a 1/1 creature, unless that's been modified by other effects it only has one point of damage to assign and deal to blocking creatures. You as the attacker will get to choose which order it deals damage to, but with only 1 power it can deal "nonzero damage" to only one of those blockers, the rest will take no damage and not die. Damage naturally moves on to the next blocker when it finishes doing lethal damage to the previous blocker, Trample only affects what happens when it's on the last remaining blocker, either all remaining damage must be assigned to that last blocker(no trample), or any damage remaining after lethal damage is assigned to the blocker can be assigned to the defending player or planeswalker(trample).

Notes:
A damage multiplier like Furnace of Rath or Dictate of the Twin Gods affects damage after it is assigned. A 1/1 Ochran Assassin will still assign it's 1 point of damage to only one creature and that damage will be multiplied when it's being dealt.
If you want your Assassin to kill everything, there are cards that will make it work, like Beastmaster's Magemark or Barreling Attack. You can also get a similar result by using Engulfing Slagwurm with something like Lure or Nemesis Mask.


text:
Lead trump to partner's call?
When my partner calls trump and the  dealer is on my right and has the right bower,
should I still lead trump knowing we can't get that trick?

There are a LOT of possible scenarios. What trump are you leading? Do you have off-suit aces you could have led instead? Personally I'd probably never lead trump in any scenario here, but there could be an argument made for some

So, you yourself have a trump, and your partner ordered up a jack to the dealer?  That must be a heck of a hand your partner has... likely at least three trump, including the one you are holding and the one ordered up that's already five trump accounted for.  The other opponent didn't order up, so likely has one or zero.  That leaves one or two unaccounted for... Your partner will have a void in something, likely what you don't have a void in.  If you have a void, I'd not lead trump and would try to cross-trump.  If you don't and have no aces, yes I might lead trump here.

Your best bet is to lead trump to your partner in this scenario
Think about this from your partner's point of view.  What would they play if they had the lead?  They ordered up the right bower, so they must have a pretty solid hand in that suit.  What is their plan for making three tricks, knowing that one is guaranteed lost to the right bower?  Probably it involves some variation of outlasting the dealer in the trump suit.  The biggest threat to that plan is that the dealer somehow manages to win a trick with a little trump that they might be holding.  If that happens, then the defense has two tricks, and the final trick is likely to be an off-suit trick that could go either way.  Therefore, if your partner had the lead, they would likely play their highest trump to try to force the right bower out, and you leading trump to them is the next best thing.
If you lead trump, and your partner plays their highest trump (which I'm kind of assuming is the left bower, if they ordered up the right), then the dealer has two choices.  They can either throw off a small trump, which helps eliminate your biggest worry, which was that they might have found a way to make that small trump good.  More likely, they will overtrump with the right, which means your partner will be playing last on the next trick.  That gives your partner the possibility of discarding a loser if you are winning the trick, or winning it with a low trump if you're not, and they're void in the lead suit.
The only scenario here that is not too good is if the dealer leads an off-suit card, you're not able to win in that suit, and your partner is forced to follow suit.  However, if that's how the cards were dealt, then that play is bound to happen eventually because the dealer is guaranteed a trick from the right bower. To avoid it you would have to find an opportunity for your partner to discard their loser, and there is no safe way to do that with you in the lead.
Both of the alternative plays suggested in the comments seem more risky.  Consider the options:

Play a side ace (if you have one): If either of your opponents is void in the suit of your ace, this will give them a chance to make good on a low trump, or at least force your partner to burn a trump to save the trick.  It also doesn't buy you that much because if the dealer is holding that suit, there's a reasonable chance that they will play it when they win the lead with their bower.  So, you're risking giving away a trick in exchange for the possibility of winning a trick that you could have won through less risky play.
Lead low and hope to cross-trump (if you have a void):  As before, this creates opportunities the defense to make good on a low trump, or worse, an off-suit card.  On top of that, there's a good chance your partner ends up having to spend a trump to take a trick where neither of the opponents played any trump.  It's particularly bad if each of the opponents has a low trump, because then they might be the ones cross-trumping.  Leading trump ensures that if both of your opponents have trump, then they will at least collide on the first trick.

In summary, leading trump is likely to call out the dealer's right bower on the first trick, and put your partner in a good tactical spot for the second trick.  To me, that's less risky than any of the options for an off-suit lead.
Here's another perspective on the matter that leads to the same conclusion: https://members.tripod.com/~Borf_Books/ecolum31.htm#leadtrump


text:
Where do these game pieces belong?
On BoardGameGeek someone posted a picture of Mongols, Japanese, and Chinese (along with Frederick?) game pieces. It's posted under the game called Khan: The Rise of the Mongols, but that game uses different pieces. Can somebody identify the pieces in this picture? Many thanks. Picture below:

Link to full picture here (the full pic was too big to post so I posted them separately in screenshots).

The description on that image says "Optional counters (see files)", and if you go to the Files section of the game on BGG there are a number of PDF files that call themselves "Optional countersheet for Khan" that look just like that image.
At a guess, they're designed to replace the counters that come with the game to either be more readable, or look nicer, or something.


text:
How can I rate player skills in a social deduction game?
I want to create a scoring system for my boardgame group that often plays the resistance (currently online over video call because its 2020).
In my short research I found that Elo score works for two player games and True skill applies to multiplayer games where everyone plays for themselves.
Resistance assassin mode with bodyguard, false commander and blind spy (Avalon expansion) seems far more difficult to score. So my thoughts were to use an Elo score with adjusted weights depending if you were vanilla or had a role.
The closest thing I got is this online ranking reward system for werewolf. But that doesn't go into the math and score calculations.
I know this is a very niche question and more suited for Math Stack Exchange but any input or link would be much appreciated.
I will gladly post the math to this if I ever find a solution.

This might be quite a bit easier if you always play with the same group. Score ranking methods are useful for accounting for the skill of your opponent - a win against a low-ranking opponent doesn't count for as much as a win against a high-ranking opponent. But if you're always playing with the same group, you don't really have this issue - no one can pad their rank by playing against weaker players. A simple win rate over many games might suffice, as variations in roles should average out over time.

I wouldnt be surprised to see people better or worse depending which team they are on. It might make sense to have a separate spy/resistance rating. I think special roles would average out though.


text:
Need help with keeping track of +1/+1 counters on a large amount of creatures
I have a problem keeping track of counters on my cards. For example, I have too many things to keep counters on and would prefer not to use dice.
I tried using paper but there is too much to keep track of.

My group mainly uses dice, but even then with counters on many creatures, that can become burdensome. One thing we do is have "group dice" aka use one dice for a group of creatures to represent counters on all of them.
That same principle could easily apply to non-dice counters. These green baubles in front of this group of creatures are +1/+1 counters on all of them.  This red one is a -1/-1 on these 3 creatures.  This coin is the number of times I've cast my commander (bigger stack = more expensive?).

Similar to this (or I could have made a new answer I suppose) a specific counter could represent a group.  I use pennies sometimes for my counters and theorize you could use a quarter to represent 25 counters.  Could do the same with non-money by colour, size or just designation.

Dice. While you would prefer not to use them (I am not sure why) there is a reason why dice are used by most players, they simply are one the best way to keep track of large numbers of counters.
The most common way is to use 6 sided dice, stopping adding to one die when you hit 5 pips - most people can very easily count by fives - 5, 10, 15, 20 - and then add whatever dice is only partially complete to 5 in, so 24 would be 4 dice at 5 and 1 die at 4. If you need this on many cards though this can add up to a lot of dice very quickly, but six sided dice are the most common, and I probably have hundreds of them laying around personally at this point (and have lost hundreds more).
If you need a large number up to 100, then you can use percentile dice. These are the 2 ten sided dice used in some role playing games, one has 2 digits, to represent tens (10, 20, 30, etc) the other is a normal ten sided die, representing ones (1, 2, 3, etc) This gives you any number up to 99 as digits very easily. 63 would be the tens ten sided die set to 60 and the ones ten sided die set to 3.
If you need a truly large number beyond that, multiple 10 sided dice can be put on the card carefully in order as exact digits, if the number is in the thousands that's 4 ten sided dice, each one in order set to the thousands, hundreds, tens and ones digit and read just like you would read a normal number. Often I see the highest digit done with a six sided die, usually this doesn't change by much (outside of repeated doubling effects)
For tracking counters on a large number of creatures, there is a method that can be combined with any of these above, though it can go wrong much more easily than tracking individual creatures. If you have effects putting counters on a large number of permanents at one time, say something like Basri's Solidarity, you can group the permanents that got that counter into one spot on your battlefield and just use a single die to represent the counters on that group. Creatures played after that group would be kept in another spot, and additional counters on those cards would need to be represented separately, until there is enough to form another group. There can be multiple such groups on the battlefield, each showing a different number of counters, and as a creature gains or loses counters it moves from one group to another - this takes up few dice but a lot of space, to make sure the groups stay distinct. I have seen this done and don't recommend it, cards often get moved around and the meaning can be forgotten much more easily than individual counters, but if you have dozens of cards with a large number of counters, it might be necessary due to lack of supplies to show them individually. It also doesn't work very well if the number of counters is different, say added by Cathars' Crusade where only large groups of token generation at the same time Rhys the Redeemed will put the same number of counters on a group of permanents, in this case they will all have a unique number and it is hard to keep track.
Similar methods are also done to represent large numbers of tokens, putting two or three individual tokens in play (untapped, tapped, summoning sick) and a die to represent how many of those tokens there are in the stack.

Good point about Cathars' Crusade making things a staircase of different counter amounts. That one is rough. Otherwise, I've gotten the "zone" strategy you describe to work reasonably well.

@ryanyuyu the problem is most of the time when you have counters placed they are going to one spot in particular, not onto everything, and those that go onto everything quickly start to give different numbers as new creatures get added. Most field effects are static like Lords. The only big example that sees much play I can think of where there will be equal counters on everything are effects like The Great Henge, where it makes everything enter with a counter, thus everything gets one.

Many shops (also online, which is handy in this pandemic) sell these kind of counters; just search for 'mtg counters' on your favorite marketplace or search engine. As long as you have only one type of counter, you can use any kind of token; if you have multiple (e.g. +1/+1 and -1/-1) you probably need different colors to distinguish them. I have a set similar to this one.
Six-sided dice are really useful in that you only need one of them for up to six counters, so they don't take up much space; they're also stable (not likely to roll over). I wouldn't use d20s some people use as a life counter.
You can also use various small objects which might be already present in your house, e.g. coins, macaroni or other dry food of the same size like nuts, nuts (the hardware kind), ... Just make sure they're not likely to damage your cards.

Those counters are a garbage deal.  You can get several times that many for a cheaper price at michaels or joanns as filler gems for vases.

Sure, it's just an example, not a recommendation. I actually forgot where I bought mine.


text:
What are the rules to the card game “Queenie”
This is a very old game that was played by my previous generation; however no one can remember the rules and there seem to be few people who actually remember how to play it.

It would be useful to provide any details at all the you remember about it. Especially given the two answers that currently exist, is this a solitaire or multi-player game?

It’s a simple betting game.

All 52 cards are dealt.
One hand to every player
plus a dummy hand to the side.
The left out card - The last card in the deck is not handed out or turned over until the hand is over.

Their are 2 pots:

First person out pot
The first player who have played all their cards.
Queenie pot
Who ever plays the queen that is the same suit as the left out card.

You contribute money in each pot to play the hand.
I have played $1 / $1 per pot or 25 cents / 25 cents per pot, it’s what every you want.
The goal is to:

Go out first and / or,
Play a Queen that matches the left out card.

Before play:
The dealer has first choice to swap hand with the dummy hand. If they say No it goes to next person and so on.
Most of the times you swap, if you don’t have a run on numbers or Queens.
Game play:
You start the game with 2 of spades.
The next card to be played is 3 of spades, then 4 of spades and so on. The game continues until no one has the next card in turn.
Then the person who played the last card (i.e. highest spade) plays their lowest red card. Again everyone follows suit in sequence until nobody’s can play the next card.
Then you go lowest black. You keep swapping back and forth until someone goes out.
Winning the pots:
That person (who first got rid of all their cards) gets the First person out pot.
Then turn over the left out card. If someone played that suit's Queen, they get the Queenie pot.
If nobody played the Queen that pot rides. The same if nobody can go out.
Next hand:
You then repeat the above all over again, each contributing again to both pots.
Finish:
You play as long as you want or until the cash is gone.

What's "not how you play"? The question didn't specify anything to hang that statement on. If you'd like to reply to another answer, do that (but note that my answer is just quoting the rules of a game called "Queenie" on another site).

Quoting from the rules on this page:
Queenie
Build stacks of cards in alternating colors as in Klondike, move arbitrary groups of cards as in Yukon, and deal waves of cards onto to the tableau, as in Spider.
Objective
Place all cards on the foundation in sequence.
Deck
One standard deck of 52 cards.
Layout
Stock

When selected, deals one card to each tableau pile.
Only a single pass through the stock is allowed.

Foundation

Four empty foundation piles.

Any Ace may be played to any empty foundation pile.

A card may be built on a card in a foundation pile if it is one rank higher and the same suit.

An Ace may be played on a King, continuing the sequence.

Tableau

Seven tableau piles with one card dealt to the first pile, two to the second, and so on.

All cards are face-up.

An empty pile may be filled with any King.

A card may be built on a card in a tableau pile if it is one rank lower and a different color.

Stacks of cards may be moved from a tableau pile if they are each one rank lower and a different color.


text:
Odds of this happening in euchre
Last night in euchre, 4 times in a row around the table we all turned up the Jack of spades. All good shufflers and we had 2 splits and 2 no splits. I know there are many variances in determining the odds of a given situation in a euchre game, but, is there anyone whiz out there that can break it down? What are the odds of 4 different dealers flipping up the same card consecutively?

Wikipedia say "[Euchre] is played with a deck of 24, 28, or 32 standard playing cards" You'll need to say how many cards you were playing with and if the deck included jokers.

Assuming a Euchre deck with 24 cards (9, 10, J, Q, K, A of each suit, no joker) and perfect shuffling, the chance that the 21st card in the deck (the card that gets turned up) is a particular card is 1/24. Thus, if you play 4 deals, there is a (1/24)^4 = 1/331776 = 0.0003% that all four deals will turn up the Jack of Spades.
There's much higher chance of all four deals turning up the same card: (1/24)^3  = 1/13824 = 0.007%. That's because there's a 100% chance that the first deal turns up some card, and each subsequent deal has a 1/24 chance of turning up the same card as the previous deal.
If you play N deals over the course of the night, the probability that at some point all four deals turn over the same card consecutively is (N - 4) * (1/24)^3 (the sequence can start on any but the last 3 deals, and the probability of the sequence is (1/24)^3). This works out to about 0.1% if you play 20 hands and 0.7% if you play 100.

The odds of turning up a given card that occurs once in the deck are 1 in N, where N is the size of the deck. Since you say the shuffles were all good, this means the trials are all independent. So the odds of it happening four times are
(1/N)^4
If N is 24, this comes out to 1 in 331776.
If N is 32, this comes out to 1 in 1048576.
If you don't restrict it to the Jack of spades, then, obviously, you're reducing the number of trials by one: the first draw sets the card and is not a trial itself. So for drawing 4 of the same card, whatever the card, you use (1/N)^3 to calculate the odds of the subsequent three draws matching the first one.

Worth pointing out that with a standard deck of cards (N=52), the answer is 1 in 7,311,616...not as unlikely as you might think! Across America, say every family carefully shuffles a deck of cards then selects a card at random. They write the card value down eg. 9D. Repeat this another 3 times and compare the card values. Dozens of families will see the "miracle" of all four cards matching.

As the other answer points out, this is correct ONLY iof yiu specify the card in advance. If the question is the chanve of getting the same card four times i a row from a deck mof N cards it is (1/N)^3 not ^4, which makes a significant difference.

Yes. The explanation of the odds can be used in many different cases, sure.


text:
Dominion Prosperity play out treasures
I have a question regarding the dominion extension prosperity, especially the new treasure-cards
Venture: "When you play this, reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Treasure. Discard the other cards. Play that Treasure"
I really don't understand these instructions, let me explain how I understand the buy-phase

I take a card from the stack, e.g. a market for 5 money
I pay the money for the card, e.g. and play out a venture and two silvers, other treasure-cards on my hand I ignore.

Now the venture-card doesn't make any sense, as well as most of the other treasure cards in the expansion. If I have already bought a card, why do I need the venture? Am I right that this card only makes sense, if you have more than 1 buy?
Or am I completely wrong about how the buy-phase works. My SO thinks that you first play out all the treasure-cards in your hand and then take a card from the stack .... but what if I have e.g. 10 idols ("When you play this, if you then have an odd number of Idols in play, receive a Boon; if an even number, each other player gains a Curse.") and only buy a silver from it, does my opponent have to take a curse (because I have 10 idols) or do I get a boon (because I have paid 3 of them to buy a silver)?

Does this answer your question? Do you need to buy a card when playing treasures in Dominion?

@L.ScottJohnson Even though there is some overlap in that the same set of rules answers both questions; I think the question being asked is very different in each case.

Despite the title, the subject of this post seems to be "How does the buy phase work?", which seems to be a duplicate of the other question.

The other question is specifically asking whether or not buying a card is mandatory. How treasure cards work and the order that things happen in the buy phase seems like a separate issue.

You are playing the buy phase incorrectly.
In the buy phase, you always play all of your treasure cards, one at a time, before you buy any card. In fact, you are not allowed to play any more treasure cards after you buy a card.
You never play specific treasure cards to buy specific cards. Don't think of treasures as the currency you use to buy cards. Rather, treasure cards are just cards like action cards are, except that you play them in your buy phase rather than in your action phase. When you play a Silver, it produces $2, just like how playing a Festival produces $2. After you have played all of your treasures, you will have some total amount of money available, produced by all the actions and treasures that you have played. Then you proceed to spend that money on cards you want to buy.
So when you play Venture, you first get $1 added to your pool of money, and then you reveal cards until you reveal another treasure card and play that as well.
If you play 3 Idols, you play them one at a time and fully deal with each Idol when you play it. So the first one will give you a boon, the second one will give your opponents a curse, and the third one will give you another boon. Only after you are done playing all of your treasures and dealing with all of their effects do you buy cards. The treasure cards and the instructions on them never care if you actually buy anything. You can play a bunch of Idols just for the extra benefit and then never buy a card.
From the base-game rulebook (second edition):

First you can play any number of Treasure cards from your hand, in any order. Treasure cards say "Treasure" on the bottom and have a yellow banner. You play one by moving it to the "in play"
area; you probably will not announce your Treasures, though you can if you want. The Treasures have no text, just a big coin with a number on it. You get that many coins to spend this turn - one coin for a Copper, two for a Silver, three for a Gold, indicated as $1, $2, $3. The amount is also in the corners at the top of Treasures. You do not have to play every Treasure in your hand (but only get $ this turn for the Treasures you play).

Then, you can buy one card, costing as much as you have or less.

You cannot go back and play more Treasures after buying a card; first play Treasures, then buy.

The treasure cards in Prosperity follow the same rules as the treasure cards in the base game; it's just that in the base game; no treasure cards have effects other than producing some amount of money.

Thanks, question regarding the Idol, so you have to play out the treasures one after another and not all at the same time, so it is actually boon - curse - boon - curse depending on how many idols you have, am I right? Cause I thought it depends on the total number of idols,

@Féileacán That is correct; you always play treasure cards one at a time and do everything it says when you play it. It's just that with the standard treasures doing so never makes a difference so people tend to play them all at once to save time.

And with idol you can see the order matters - one of the boons is trash a card from your hand - you'll want to play the idols begore your copper so that you might be able to trash the copper.

Order is also relevant for many other treasure cards such as Counterfeit where you probably want to play your ventures first and Fortune or Horn of Plenty where you'll likely want to play the venture lastish.


text:
Identify this resource conversion game
Here's what I can remember about this game:

There are different resources in the form of different coloured (wooden?) cubes

You can buy cards that give you the ability to convert the cubes, i.e. 1 red to 4 brown, or 1 brown and 3 grey to 1 yellow

This conversion is shown vertically on the side of the card in this manner (I think) :

[red cube]
[red cube]
[grey cube]
[up/down arrow]
[yellow cube]

Cards that are available to be bought have a bonus resource placed on them in order, which you gain when you buy that card, i.e. the first/left-most card gives you bonus 3 cubes if you buy it, the next gives you 2 cubes, etc.

I can't remember what the goal was supposed to be. Any help or questions to jog my memory of this game would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

After googling various terms together, I found it:
Century Spice Road

Sorry I didn’t see this an hour ago; was just about to post the answer! Glad you found it.


text:
Checkmate but confused why

Could someone please let me know why this is checkmate, could I not have captured that queen with my king?

For future reference, you might want to consider posting questions like this on https://chess.stackexchange.com. I'm not saying this Stack is a bad place for a chess question, I'm just saying there's a specific Stack that is better because (and only because) it's specific to the game. I'm sure I'm not the only person who is a member of both. On more difficult questions, it would likely be more appropriate or get better answer on the Chess stack, anyway. And you might learn more about chess there, too.

Migrate to chess.stackexchange.com. Another benefit it has is animating the move history.

The queen is protected by the bishop on c5, i.e. the one on the dark square. Therefore you can't capture it. As the king has nowhere else to go, and no other piece can capture the queen or interpose, it's checkmate.

Just in case: capturing the queen isn't just a losing move. It's not a move. You're not allowed to put your king in danger. Chess is very deferential to kings that way

@user253751 You do, though. Rather, you lose when capture of your king is inevitable.

We wouldn't have stalemate; that means a small material advantage would be decisive way more often.

@user253751 that would arguably take a huge portion of the strategy/skill that chess players tend to enjoy

@user253751 There are versions that use King capturing, usually ones that make it possible to survive the loss of a King somehow.  First one coming to mind is Four Kings One War on Steam (I believe it's free), where you have an extended board and control two full sets of pieces each.  Losing your first King costs you one of your two moves on your next turn, and prevents you moving pieces of that King's color with your remaining move that turn - that color is "stunned" by the loss of the King.  Losing your second King also loses you the game.

@PCLuddite: I am a chess player and I detest the possibility of stalemate. It just adds more ad-hoc complications to endgames, which is not appealing at all from an abstract game theory viewpoint, because there is little structural beauty there. It is like claiming that regularly playing Chomp is intellectually exciting, or 16×16 chess is more interesting than normal chess. No, not at all.

Nitpick: "we wouldn't have stalemate" is incorrect. It would still exist, but just be way less likely to occur in a real game: https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/4836/19465


text:
Re attack after “noping” a chain of attacks
In a game of Exploding Kittens, what happens when a chain of attack cards is followed by a Nope card, and the previous person attacks again?
For example:

Player A plays an Attack card
Player B plays an Attack card
Player C plays an Attack card
Player D plays a Nope card
Player C plays an Attack card

What happens exactly? It re starts with only 2 turns, or 6 turns for player D?

As I understand it, a Nope card cancels only a single card (or one action with multiple cards in the case of a special combo) so player D will play 6 turns.
From the rules:

Stop any action except for an Exploding Kitten or a Defuse Card. Imagine that any card beneath a Nope Card never existed.
You can play a Nope Card at any time before an action has begun, even if it’s not your turn. Any cards that have been noped are lost. Leave them in the Discard Pile. You can even play a Nope on a SPECIAL COMBO