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Does a Curse card count as a Victory card when playing the Bureaucrat?
If I play a Bureaucrat and my opponent reveals a hand with a Curse card, does that Curse card go back on top of his/her deck?  Or does it not count as a "Victory card"?

No.  Curse cards do not have the type Victory.  They just have type Curse.
(You can see this in the rules or by reading the card closely - although they affect your VP total, they do not have "Victory" in the type line, just "Curse").

No,
On page 2-3 of the rules you'll see the various types of cards.

Treasure
Victory

Estates
Duchies
Provinces

Curse
Randomizer
Trash
Kingdom

Curse is it's own type of card and not a Victory card.  On page 2, the explanation of the Curse card includes "card type, (curse, purple)

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Supporting Routed Units in A Game of Thrones
In FFG's A Game of Thrones boardgame, can routed units be supported?
In a recent game, one player (the aggressor) attacked another (the defender) but was defeated. His routed units had to retreat into the area they started from and were turned on their sides - exhausted.
The defender had a March order on the newly-victorious units, and used it to attack the routed units in their original area. But the aggressor had an adjacent supporting unit, and a third party did as well.
It seemed to me (I was neither the aggressor, the defender, nor the interested third party) that units have to be able to give battle in order to be supported.
But we couldn't find a rule that said specifically either way. We found rules that said that battles ensued when one player moved units into an area with another player's units already in it. We found rules that said that routed units have no combat strength and must be lost if they would be forced to retreat again while exhausted. But nothing specifically relating to whether an exhausted force can be supported and therefore have a combat strength.

One of the players in the game in question just sent me this link: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/98106/supporting-routed-units

Routed units have no combat strength. They still count towards a player s Supply limit, but if a routed unit is forced to retreat again in the same game turn, it is automatically destroyed. Routed units may never be taken as casualties in battle. Routed units may not participate in a march, even if a March order token is resolved at their new location. After all March orders have been resolved for the turn, return all routed units to their normal upright position.

It seems that the accepted interpretation is that routed units may give battle (with a strength of zero) and may be supported.

+1: the one time I played, all 6 players came to agreement that, by the wording of the rules, this is correct.

Does that mean that house cards need to be used, regardless of whether the routed troops are being supported or not?

Yes, routed troops can be supported. A battle against routed troops (who have zero combat strength) still follows all the regular rules of combat (including Calling for Support).

To quote the rulebook:

Yes, combat ensues normally:

"Whenever a player marches one or more of his units into an area containing units from another House, combat ensues." on p17

They are still units. And there is no rule telling you otherwise.
But they provide 0 combat strength:

"Routed units provide no Combat Strength, but still count towards a player’s supply limit." on p21

And they can't retreat:

"If a routed unit is forced to retreat, it is instead destroyed." on p21

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2 Investigators in Mansions of Madness
I now have a few games of Mansions of Madness under my belt, all of them with three players - a Keeper and 2 Investigators. And I've noticed that there doesn't seem to be time for them (the Investigators) to get even the majority of the house explored or make much progress once the objective is revealed.
So, I turned my designer's eye on it and thought this thought:

In a 5-player game (a Keeper and 4 Investigators), the Investigators will have 4 actions per turn. So an Event card that takes 3 turns to flip expects 12 actions to occur before it's activated. With 2 Investigators, only 6 actions have been taken in the same span. Since the Event card timings do not scale with the number of Investigators, it is no wonder that it seems the players are running out of time.

I saw two possible fixes for this:

Give Investigators in a 3-player game 2 actions per turn.
Scale the number of tokens required for an event to keep the number of actions between events the same for a given number of players.

I have decided that the "2 movements and one action" structure of the Investigator turn is too integral to mess with. So I am thinking of doubling the number of "clock ticks" between events for my next game - I'll almost always have 2 Investigators playing.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?
Have you solved it?
How?
Is your solution satisfactory?

I have only read the rules, I haven't played the game -- but it does seem outright weird that there's nothing in the rules adjusting things based on the number of investigators. Keeper turns every 4 or 5 turns instead of every 2 seems like a huge difference.

@lilserf - There is one thing that changes - the Keeper gains 1 threat per Investigator player. So the number of actions the Keeper can take is scaled by the number of Investigators. But the pace of Events is not.

Multiple Investigators
After my last 2-Investigator game, I was explaining this issue to one of the players and proposed the "scale the time between events solution."
She said, "Why don't we just each run two adventurers?"
Why didn't I think of that?
I think that from now on, MoM will be a 4-investigator game, with players running enough investigators to make up the difference. It works great in dungeon-lords.
EDIT: There are additional benefits to this solution:

Scaling the time would drastically reduce the sense of urgency in MoM.
Not only the number of actions but the reduced breadth of abilities is unaccounted for in a fewer-than-four-Investigators game.

This is decidedly my preferred way to play the game now. I would only consider less than four Investigators as a way to bump the difficulty for players that consistently win too easily.

Accepting my own answer for lack of others. Verified by play that MoM with 4 Investigators is how the game is built to play.

This is a brilliant answer. I can now play properly with my girlfriend!

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Settlers of Catan 15th Anniversary Edition?
I just heard about a 15th-anniversary edition of the Settlers of Catan game, and I must be blind because I can't find anything on Mayfair's site about it.
So my questions are:

What exactly are the contents?
How does this differ from the 10th-anniversary version?  Is it not 3D?
Is this in English or German?

I held this in my hands last week.  (Closed box)

All wood, large painted set
It is not 3D, but the tiles looked quite thick (nearly domino sized)
English version
Retailed for $150 I believe
Has the 5-6 player expansion in it as well

Here is the page at Mayfair.

Man, that was fast.  I mean, the question's still warm.  Does it contain Cities and Knights like the 10th-anniversary set?

@Little - I aim to please :)  No C&K, but the Mayfair page says it supports up to 6 players.  Didn't notice that part at the store.  That makes it a little better value.

All things considered, it looks pretty "meh" to me.  I massively dislike the re-designed wooden pieces, and for the price, it looks extremely ho-hum.  Now I just need to get back on track and make my own 3D version!

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Good sites for trading unwanted board/card games and expansions?
I recently bought the Rio Grande/Alea Games Treasure Chest box set to get the Puerto Rico and San Juan expansions, but the boxed set comes with other expansions for games I have never played, and most likely will never play.
I don't want to deal with the hassle of selling them on eBay, and want to make sure the expansions go to go homes, so are there any sites where users can list their haves and wants for board and/or card game trading?

BoardGameGeek provides several ways to sell or trade boardgames online.
The first is to simply list it as available for trade. Once you have an account on BoardGameGeek, at the bottom of every game page you can add the game to your collection (click on the "user info" link at the top to get there quickly; for example). You can then click "add a copy to your collection" to list the fact that you own the game, and then fill in information on it; check boxes to indicate that you're willing to trade the game, fill in information on the condition of the game, etc. For games that you would like in trade, again go to the page for the game, go down to the "user info", click "record information", and check the "want in trade" box.
Once you've filled in some games you have available for trade, and want in trade, you can try and find trades. Go to the "My Geek" menu at the top, and select the "Trades" option. This will bring you to the Trade Manager, where you can find potential trades and track the process of trades in progress. Click "Direct Matches" to find people who have games for trade that you want, and who want games that you have for trade. You'll likely get a long list of matches, telling you what games they want and what games they have. You can then propose a trade with them, which will send them a GeekMail proposing the trade, that they can accept or decline. If they accept, you work out the shipping details with them, and then send each other the games. If you leave games listed as available for trade, other people who find them through the trade finder may also initiate trades with you, so if you're hoping to trade some games, check back relatively often to see if you get any GeekMail with trade offers.
There are also other ways to trade games via BGG. Some of the popular ones are "ultimate trades" and "math trades". The principle behind both is the same, to try and create circular trades, though the mechanism is different. The idea is that if you have game A and want game B, you might not be able to find someone who has game B and wants game A; but there might be one person who has game B and wants game C, and another who has C and wants A, so you can do a circular trade, where you send A to the person who wants it, he sends C to the person who wants it, and that person sends B to you.
Ultimate trades are generally posted as a GeekList, where someone starts the trade off by listing a game that he has for trade (so, it will start off as a list of one item). Then anyone who wants that game will come along, and post a new game that they would offer up for the original game (the new game should be of roughly equal value, or if it's a bit cheaper than you might also throw in a "sweetener" of a cheap game to even it out). This goes on, with each person in turn saying that they'll be willing to take the last item in exchange for a new one that they post. Eventually, the person who started the trade will see a game he likes, and close the loop by saying that he'll take that game. Then everyone shares shipping information with the person before them in the list, and sends their games to the people who claimed them. You can find examples of ultimate trades by searching for such GeekLists.
Math trades are a generalization of ultimate trades. The problem with ultimate trades is that they'll sometimes lose steam before you complete a loop, and so you will never complete them; or sometimes people have games to trade but don't want to initiate an ultimate trade nor do they find an existing, open one with games that they want. In a math trade, each person lists one or more games that they have for trade. Once they've done so, a list of games available is compiled, and everyone lists, for each game they have available for trades, one or more games from the list that they would like in exchange. Once all of this information has been submitted, someone runs one of several tools that will crunch all of the numbers, and try and find a set of trades that will maximize the total number of trades completed. It may find one big circular trade, but more likely it will find several smaller cycles, that satisfy more people than one big circular trade would have been able to. Then you all exchange shipping information, and ship the games. You can find examples of math trades by searching for them.
All of these trading methods allow you to leave feedback on the reliability of the person you're trading with, just like eBay. I've only done a few trades through BGG, but I've found everyone that I've dealt with honest and prompt about shipping their games.
Finally, there is the BoardGameGeek Marketplace, where you can buy and sell games. If you list games for sale on there, they will appear on each game page, so people interested in the game can buy them quickly and easily. I have never used the marketplace, so I can't speak about it much, but you can find some more info on it on the BoardGameGeek wiki.
And not exactly trade related, but similar, are the Secret Santa or other gift exchanges that go on. These are usually intended for new games (thus not directly relevant for trading purposes), but they are good ways for sharing your love for games with others. They will frequently be started as threads listing the rules for the exchange (the target price point for the games, any theme or other restrictions), and people can sign up to be given targets. It used to be run manually through GeekMail, but now there is a tool for creating and browsing gift exchanges, which can be private or public.

Their site still makes my eyes bleed, and navigation is a bit clunky, but that is a fantastically-detailed explanation.  Thanks!

@LittleBobbyTables It looks like many people here are those folks who can't stand to look at BoardGameGeek. I used to use it a lot more often, but stopped hanging out there regularly after they did a redesign that made it even more cluttered (and added more ads), as well as a few other issues. Glad to see it's not just me.

the ads on BGG don't bother me as much as the rest of the clutter. It's impossible to use that site now. Almost impossible to find a game's rating quickly.

I have never used the features there, but BGG has "haves/wants" features and from what I understand there is plenty of trading that occurs among users.


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Optimal Leading Card in Cribbage
In the "Play" phase of Cribbage (31's), what is the optimal leading card to play. I have always played a 4 if I had one, because it can't be fifteened and is less likely to result in a run, because an opponent is unlikely to play a 5 or a 6. It is also not as useful as 1s, 2s or 3s at the later part of the Play when it gets close to 31.
However, I fear that this tactic is becoming too predictable, and my fellow players will know that my hand lacks a 4 if I have not played it immediately as a Leading card.
What other cards are optimal leading cards.

Having spent some time trying to work out probabilities and carrying out some research, I have come up with a few conclusions.

Almost NEVER lead with a 5 or a 10.

There are 16 cards that value 10 in the pack (30%), so playing a 5 gives a very high probability that the other player will get 2points for 15.
Same theory for leading with a 10. Although far fewer 5s are in the pack, these are highly valuable cards and often not sent to the crib.

Keep back Aces for the end

They come in very useful for getting 31 for 2, and possible doubles or triples.

6s, 7s, 8s, 9s

These are strong cards in a hand, so are often quite easy to 15. Leading with a 9 or 6 allows the other player to get a 15 with little worry of a run occurring. 7s and 8s can trick the other player into going for a 15 to gain you a run, but can be followed by another card to make a further run from the other player. This would give the other player 7 points and you 3 points. Not a great return.

Deuces and Treys

2s and 3s are what is left. A 2 is probably useful to hold back for the same reason as the Aces, but 2s and 3s are the safest options for leading.

So, the answer to vary the leading card (i.e. instead of always playing a 4) is to use a 3, or even possibly a 2.

Excellent list, i have thoughts though.

Never is too strong a word, it's acceptable to lead a 5 or 10 if you're prepared to pair what the other player uses to make a 15.  It's probably a stronger move to lead a 10, because there are four kinds of 10 and therefor harder to pair.
Fours are also excellent to lead.  The strength of 2-4 is that they cannot immediately turn into points off a 15 for the other player.

Points noted in my answer. I agree with 4, that is the card I always use, I wanted to find something less predictable. That is why 4 was left out of the answer. I have updated to make this clearer though.

4's and 3's are my usual lead, if I have them. Then 8's and 9's.

If I have 2 cards that add to 5, I like to lead with one of those

Most tournament pros agree to unload aces early.

The first of a pair, or the middle card of a run
The key strategy to take away is that in the play you're trying to trap or entice the other player into playing something that might give them points but sets you up to get more, or you're trying to increase the number of cards they can play that will enable you to respond with a scoring play. For example:

If I have a pair, I typically lead with one of them.

You're hoping to entice the other player to play a pair-for-two so you can turn around and play triples for 6. An obvious exception is starting with a 5, as you're asking for them to take 15-2. Starting with a 10 is less risky as there are only four 5s in the deck but many 10-value cards.
The probability of the opponent getting dealt exactly 1 of the other cards of my pair is 23% (in their opening hand, they could have dumped it to the crib), while the probability of the opponent having both of the other cards of my pair is less than 1%.

If I have a run I'll also often play the    middle card. That gives me run-for-3    options if they play any one of four    cards, the two ranks below and the    two ranks above what I played. For    example, if I have 6, 7, and 8 I'll    play the 7. If they play 6 and I can    play 8 run-for-3; 5 I play 6, 8 I    play 6 and 9 I play 8. This    particular run also had the advantage    of trapping them into playing the 8    to get 15-2, where you can answer    with a run-for-three. I know it's    only a one point advantage, but I've    won many a game by one point.

Of course if you have 6-7-7-8 then you can do both strategies simultaneously and you're really set, both for the play and for the killer hand you're about to lay down during the show. :)
Appendix:
To compute the probability of my opponent getting dealt exactly 1 of the other 2 cards of my pair is (in octave or matlab code):
(nchoosek(44,5)*nchoosek(2,1))/nchoosek(46,6)

The probability of getting dealt both of the remaining cards is:
(nchoosek(44,4)*nchoosek(2,2))/nchoosek(46,6)

This strategy is nice, but it should be noted that the first bullet is a move where you will probably very rarely see pay off.  The chances of having three cards of one value spread between two four-card hands are (though I'm no mathematician) quite slim, I imagine.

Good point although in practice I'd say I see this happen every couple of games or so (at least until the people you play with wise up and stop playing into your strategy). I think the reason it happens more than probability theory would lead you to expect is that certain cards are more valuable and thus more likely to be kept in the hand vice sent to the crib. For example, 5s, Jacks, 7s and 8s. Those cards are good for making 15s and with 7 & 8 are in the wheel house for runs.

@izzy pretty slim, but I've seen some ugly hands happen. to have a hand of a pair in yours and a single in theirs is actually not that low. I'm to tired to do the branching probabilities, and don't know the shortcut math, but it's better than 1/5525, as that's the odds of 3 5's happening in the first 3 cards dealt...

On occasion, there may be value in playing a card of the same rank as that turned up in the cut, since there's a reduced chance of your opponent being able to pair it. "See one, play one", was how it was usually described. I wouldn't recommend it for a 5, though...

Actually, see one, play one is not so good for 6-9, as they have complements that are not evidenced. For 6,7,8,9 showing, playing the complement in reduced chance of a 15, but... no reduction in odds for the mate. And leading a 5 is a desperation move.

A great deal of leading off in the play depends on the board position. If you are ahead, you should play defensively, so playing a 4 is fine there, and any low card (1-4) could be counted. It is a common mistake to be tied to closely to your aces, as they usually only get you a point for go, and very rarely a 31.
If you are behind, playing from pairs, playing connected cards etc, hoping to get points after they get points is a common strategy. so if you have a horrible hand and are behind (A79Q), you would lead the 7, hoping they play 8 for 15-for-two, and you can play 9 for 24-for-three.
Playing a 5 can be a fun play in certain situations (you have a 5JQK hand, and you only need two points to win, play the five, and you have a 75% chance of matching their 15), but is quite bad in most others. Playing a 10 is not too bad, especially if it is a double (no chance for them to redouble for 12), and that same principle is true for all cards 8 and up, there is no danger if they match your card.


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Board Game Mechanics
I find myself always purchasing games that have similar game mechanics. I prefer worker-placement games, and railroad tycoon type games. All of these games borrow from each other in terms of how the game plays. I find this type of game suits my strategic style of play.
I now want to introduce something new to my gaming group, and want to know what type of game mechanics I am really missing out on, and why they add to the overall experience of the game.
What I want to know is what other type of game mechanics make a game more interesting to play, increase the strategic element and really make the game what it is. The type of thing I am after is similar comments to a conversation at my last gaming meeting, which was

I much prefer Age of Steam to Railroad Tycoon, because of the way the resources are replenished. Where as Railroad Tycoon can dry up a city's resource quite quickly.

The problem is rooted in imprecision over what constitutes a "new" game.  Most people consider new game "titles" to be new games, even when the games are recombinations of existing mechanics.  Add-on mechanics to pre-existing fundamental mechanics are common, but new fundamental game mechanics, upon which many variations can be created, almost never occur.  This similarity in game play you are experiencing is a function of the rarity of novel, fundamental game mechanics.

The resource track in Power Grid leads to some interesting decisions.  If you haven't played it, the resource track has costs increasing left-to-right while the resources are replenished from right-to-left.  This has a few interesting effects:

Resources in demand tend to cost more.
You can get resources on the cheap if you have a power plant type no one else is using.
You can hoard resources (up to a point) to make them more costly for everyone else.

Players have to make tough choices, especially since turn order is so important in Power Grid.  The player in the lead goes last when buying resources.  So a player can forego easy victory points in the short term to set up better prices for himself.  It adds another dimension to the decision-making process, and those decisions matter.

I thoroughly enjoy games that force players to interact with each other.  If players have to directly interact with each other in order to advance in the game, I find that rather fun.  It lets you get to know your friends better, and encourages them to talk.
I enjoy resource trading in games likes Settlers of Catan immensely.  While there are only a few rules governing how players trade, these interactions set the tone of the game.  If you can cut a deal that helps you get the resources you need, this really helps you advance towards the game.  However, how willing people are to trade with you is directly affected by how you've treated them in the past, this game and others, and what your offering them in return.
I've also enjoyed how Citadels requires you to anticipate what other players think your doing.  Citadels requires you to choose characters that helps you with a special ability each around.  In Citadels, if your predictable in how you chose your character, you become an easy target to be either assassinated or robbed.  I find the decisions and thought process I go through to choose a character, and the interactions that develop very rewarding.
There are downsides to games with a lot of social interactions.  I have one friend who is ruthless in Citadels and tends to cause one or more of the players to gang up on him during the course of the game.  A number of us prefer not to sit next to him since this gives him a leg up on guess what character you've chosen.  This tension though, makes the game more interesting to me.  I've also noticed he rarely wins in Citadels.
There are games though, like Apples to Apples, that consist mostly of social interaction.  I enjoy those also, but find they can get a little boring after a while.

I particularly like the strategy cards from Twilight Imperium.  At the beginning of a round, everyone chooses a strategy card that gives each player a different special ability for that round.  On your turn, one of your options is to activate your special ability.  Most cards also come with a secondary ability that the other players can execute at that time.  Since the drawing order varies from round to round, it's an important strategic element to be able to choose the strategy card you want.  In a large game, odds are you won't be drawing first much of the time, so you'll need to make the best of what's available on your turn.
Another game with a similar mechanic (though I've not played it) is Puerto Rico.

Also Puerto Rico's little cousin San Juan.  And yes, +1 for Twilight Imperium's strategy approach.

I might recommend Carcassonne - it has a slightly different take on builder placement, while relying primarily on tile placement. The game board itself will be different every time, as you're drawing and placing random tiles every turn. Play itself goes quickly after your first playthrough, and there are several different strategies toward victory.
With your personal preference for builder placement games, this seems like a nice way to learn a tile placement game while still retaining a little bit of that mechanic.
Whatever you decided to do, have fun! And good luck :)

I like the way Tigris and Euphrates allows a user to sabotage someone's game plan. In games like Brass, I have been in situations where a player has built a link that has blocked me off from building, due to the way coal must be shipped to the location.
Therefore, If I was able to blow up the rail link, and build over it, I think this would add an extra level of strategy, as a play could never become certain of their super position.

A great element of Brass is that a Player gets two actions per turn, and the turn order changes based on the amount of money that is spent per round (the lowest amount spent is the first to go next). This allows a player to have upto 4 actions in a row, which makes hiding one's strategy quite effective.
This mechanic keep players on their toes because it does not expose someone's strategy and makes it more difficult to defend against. This forces players to be more diverse in their own play.

The game of Targui has a nice way to divide the turns:

There are 5 turn cards for each player.
A dice is thrown, if the result is 1-5 shuffle that amount of turn cards. On a 6 only one card is shuffled.
If your color is drawn, you can have your turn. On a 6 everybody has 2 turns in a row.

Each player controls a tribe of desert people. The board consists of 7 x 7 tiles. Each having their own proberties. Your goal is to have the most resource points in the end.
You can use your camels to occupy territory and you can fight with each other.
Each stack of turn cards has an event card added. Which can be benificial or sometimes even disastrous.
Because you never know when its your turn, you need to be prepared for almost anything. (the other player can have 3 or more turns before you can act).

I would suggest you try something with auctions or haggling. They provide immediate player interaction, but they also have strategic depth. (How much is this worth to me? How much is it worth to you?) One of the most popular games that I've played using auctions is Medici. A paper and pencil game that distills auctions and stock markets to their essence is Eric Solomon's Middleman. One of my personal favourites is Basari, and it's unusual in that I think it's best for three players.


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Cuba Ship Movement
Last night I play the board game Cuba for the first time.
One of the rules that we could not quite figure out from the rule book, was how the ships moved down the shipyard.
So, at the beginning of the game, there are two ships, one in position 1 and one in position 2.
At the end of the round, the rules state that the ships must move down one space (and then repeat until all spaces are filled). However, it only mentions a ship leaving the shipyard if a ship becomes full.
So, if a ship is already in position 3 (the final position) and not full, does it stay where it is, or does the move down one position move it off the board.
We played it so that it stays, because it did not explicitly say to remove the ship, but I am not sure if this was the correct or not. I think the two parts of the rule can be interpreted to mean one way or another.

I believe that the ships leave the harbour (i.e. move off the board), due to this rule:

The end of the 2nd to 5th round is
  different from the end of the 1st
  round only in one way: there is a ship
  in the  3rd dock in the harbor; it
  leaves the  harbor, regardless of its
  load.

In the first round, you have ships only on position 1 and position 2, so there is no way for one of them to leave the harbour.  As of the second round, you can have a ship in position 3, at which point this rule kicks in.


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Seating orders effect on Puerto Rico

Within my group its taken for granted that some seats in Puerto Rico are better (if only slightly) than others.  There's a general consensus that 3rd and 4th seat are strictly better than 1st, where 2nd and 5th lie is a matter of debate.
I remember stumbling across some hard numbers (data collected from tournament play if I recall correctly) backing some of this up, but can't seem find them anymore.
Basically, does anyone have those numbers?
I'd also appreciate some opinions as to why this is the case.
My personal pet theory is that 3rd and 4th seat are in the sweet spot for both diversified production and an early game Factory.  Although that's not a guarnateed victory, it should keep you competitive in most games (all else being equal).

+1 I was going to ask the same question (but I didn't have the interesting background to add).  Thanks.

Seating is very important in Puerto Rico.
The seat that wins the most is 1st Corn (based on World Boardgaming Championship stats).
Here's one of the tourney pages with stats, if you look around you'll find more.
Here's the compilation of stats from 2002 to 2009:
Seat 1 indigo 41.53 scoring average, 19.9% of wins
Seat 2 indigo 40.73 scoring average, 19.5% of wins
Seat 3 corn   43.48 scoring average, 30.8% of wins
Seat 4 corn   43.35 scoring average, 29.7% of wins

Having corn allows you to produce sooner, and more, so you can make more points shipping.
It requires less men, so you can do more with the men you have.
One of the big reasons that it gives an advantage is that it's a simple strategy, just make corn and ship.  The other strategies take more thought and hard decisions.
One other factor that comes into play in Puerto Rico is that you have to change your tactics and maybe your strategies based on the player to the left and what he does.

Corn also gives you a solid shot at a Small Market with the first build order, since both Indigo are probably going for a Small Indigo Plant or Indigo Plant to take advantage of crafting.

@LittleBobbyTables - I will say its not uncommon for 1st seat to skip an indigo build for the first round, since he can get a manned quarry easily and grab one for free in the second build.

@Kevin - Interesting...

Starting with corn (seat 3 and 4) seems to have a large advantage from stats, but this does not mean necessarily that the game is that unbalanced.
I believe this advantage, something close to a 50% extra comparing to seats 1 and 2, is accentuated by the fast the producing and shipping corn is an easier strategy to grasp and effective deliver. When playing with more experienced players the gap is probably not that wide.
This is similar to the Temple strategy on Tzolkin. It is not that the temple strategy is stronger but it is the easier thing to do without messing your game up, if you don't know what you are doing.
Still, for the new or casual Puerto Rico player, the 3rd seat is the best spot, followed close by the 4th.
This topic on BGG has more stats and balancing suggestions with simulations.

The statistics are interesting and I certainly can't argue with them.
My thinking is that it does not give any lasting advantage.  It is nice to produce and ship early but it is also nice to produce a good that has Trade value early on too.  In other words your strategy for a particular game may be influenced, for good or ill, by the seating order.  Part of that influence originates from the first round effects of seating.  However, the seating arrangement/order of play matters at least as much for trading, shipping, etc.; but not because someone got corn or indigo to start.  For instance, if the person to my right produces the same items and likes to trade frequently I find that has much more of an impact than that they initially had a corn plantation or an indigo plantation.

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post - you can always comment on your own posts, and once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post. - From Review

@Samthere - I just re-read my 'answer' and I see you are correct.  I will go back to a dictionary and look up 'comment' then look up 'answer' and try to remember, lol.  Thanks.


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Are general 3-to-1 or specific 2-to-1 ports better in Settlers of Catan?
Which type of ports do you find more useful in Settlers of Catan, General 3-to-1 ports or 2-to-1 ports for a specific resource?

Unfortunately, it depends.
After the initial layout you want to try to identify which resources will be scarce and dominate them.  At the same time you want to try to identify which resources will be plentiful and dominate them and position yourself for the related 2-1 port.
It's unusual that you will be able to accomplish all of that :)
Once the layout is down, and folks have placed their initial cities you can then work to determine if you will have significant extra of a commodity.  If so, see if you can angle towards the 2-1 port.  If not, the 3-1 can work out just fine.

It depends on your personal situation in the game.  In some situations, both have no value at all.
With my usual tactics, 3:1 ports are much more useful.  2:1 ports are better only when they are of a specific resource that I have too much of in a given game, which generally happens when I have several settlements on several hex of that resource with values between 5 and 9.  The 2:1 port of the resources you lack is useless.  Since the resources you get changes during later stages of the game, the 3:1 has the advantage of staying useful during all the game.
Ideally, it's always better to not need a port.  If you use your resources to build without exchanging, or exchanging with other player at 1:1, or getting 2 (or more) for 1.  You don't need a port.
You should also compare the opportunity to build of a port compared to the other building opportunities.  When a good spot that gives three resources is available, your port will be a more valuable investment only if you desperately need to trade.  When those places are gone and the only 3 resources spot are the ones with a 2 or 12, 2 resources and a port become one of the best places you can still build.
The situation also changes when you build new settlements or cities.  At some point in the game, you might need to trade a lot to establish a settlement providing the missing resource, and after building it, you don't need to trade anymore.  If you lack wood or brick, a port is useful when your strategy is focused on new settlements, but it becomes useless when the good spots are all taken and you change your focus to cities and development cards.
If you know that you will run out of available settlement spots (when there are still several turns to play), you should should consider a wood or brick port, since you will have to exchange those resources after you run out of settlement spots.  (You can still compete for the  longest road, but if you have it, you can't get anymore points by building more roads).

It's probably just a psychological memory bias, but I keep finding that when I reach a 2-to-1 port, even when I'm on good numbers for its associated resource, I start collecting a surplus of something else.  Usually something relatively worthless.

I've noticed that myself.

We always found that a 3:1 port is useful, but never dominating. A 2:1 port combined with cities on that specific resource can be completely dominating. If there are three sheep hexes next to each other, then go for getting the six-sheep city and the sheep 2:1 port.

Usually, I find that 2-to-1 ports are more valuable. They produce resources of your choice at half again the rate as 3-to-1, and you will usually have a resource that you will have a surplus of and can shoot for the 2-to-1 in that resource.
Of course, it does depend on the circumstances; sometimes, you just can't reach the appropriate 2-to-1 or really have an even balance of resources, and it's better to shoot for a 3-to-1 instead. But I'd say that all else being equal, a 2-to-1 that you have a good chance of a surplus in is preferable to 3-to-1.

When placing your 1st settlment, you don't usually consider a port when choosing a location.  There are just too many unknowns.  When placing your 2nd settlement, you can build on a 2:1 port or consider building towards it.  You would do this if there was an excess of one resource, and you expect to have good access to that resource.
To implement this strategy, you must look ahead and see where your opponents will place their second settlements.  Try to determine which strategy your opponents are using based on their first settlement, and figure out what the logical second location is.  If you don't build on the 2:1 port, and instead try to build towards it, you must consider that an opponent will get there first.
There are 3 problems with trying to use a 2:1 port as part of an overall strategy.  First, you many not be able to predict where you opponents will place their 2nd/3rd settlements.  Second, if you have 2 settlements on a 5-6 or 8-9 hex of that resource, your oppenents will target this hex when they roll a 7.  Third, you will start getting resources in chunks later in the game after you have upgraded to a city/settlement on a hex.  Getting your resources in chunks increases the risk of loosing resources to the robber.
If you are placing 3rd-4th, you will often only have 1 viable location to get access to brick or ore (since there are only 3 hexes of each).  If the hex is a lower probability (3-4, 10-11), you can build 2 settlements on it without drawing your oppenents attention.  If one of those happens to be on a 3:1 port, it enhances the value of the settlement.  Since it won't get rolled a lot, you won't have excess of this resource type, but you may have an excess of something else.

Use 2-1 ports if at all possible, provided of course that you will be getting the resource in abundance, and can do so without sacrificing the necessary probability and variety of resources.  Placing on an abundance of wheat or brick, especially in Cities and Knights (C&K), and then placing on the special harbor allows you to make up for a deficit in any resource or commodity.  This is especially useful if you are "last", and you get to place your city and settlement at the same time.
BEWARE: if you don't have a reasonable variety of resources with a reasonable probability, no amount of 2-1 can make up for all the 1-1 that other players get, when they are well placed to get a good mix of resources (and commodities in C&K).

A 3-for-1 port is more generically useful, since you can trade down any excess cards.
A 2-for-1 is situational. If you can focus your production on that resource AND get to the port, you can gain a lot of advantage.
To answer the question, I'd put it this way: If you're heavy in a specific resource, and can get to the 2-for-1 without too much trouble, go for it. Otherwise, save the roads and take the 3-for-1.


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How do you place your initial settlements in Settlers of Catan?
Initial settlement placement in Catan can really affect the outcome of the game.  What strategy do you follow in Settlers of Catan for initial settlement placement.  Does this strategy change if you have first, or last placement?  Also, when playing Seafarers, do you alter your placement strategy?

If I'm the first player, I always go for the most powerful settlement, since I have no idea what I'll get when it comes back around to me.
If I'm last, I grab spots that based on the numbers and the available ports will get me an advantage.  I also like to try to place the second settlement on a brick/wood combo so I can start with a road.
The other positions are variations in between the others.
In general, I try very hard for number diversity.  I love it when I can get both a 6 and an 8 placement.  Next in line is at least 3 of the following: 5, 6, 8, 9.
The final thing you have to look out for is that you have somewhere to go.

+1 for numbers.  It's more important to be getting ANY resource quickly than to get a specific resource with a lousy number.

I also find that having a 4 and a 10 is helpful in providing diversity, too.

Resource diversity is still important though, especially for the player who places settlements LAST. Easy to see what resources are going to be rare amongst other players, which sets you up for steady trade.

Don't forget that if you put down the number tokens in a random way, then you shouldn't put 6 and 8 tiles next to each other ever. (the rules state that: "In such case, the tokens with the red numbers must not be next to each other."). When we forgot to enforce this role then the first player usually steals a place with multiple red tokens which usually breaks the balance of the game

There are a ton of variables to deal with, such as where everyone else has already placed, the numbers on the resources, and nearby ports.
I always like to try and get my brick/wood combo on my first placement, because that's absolutely necessary for roads and settlements.  For my second placement, I'll go for whatever I'm lacking.  If you have to skip out on a resource, I generally skip out on ore, because you don't need it until late game.
There are always exceptions -- I'm a sucker for a high-number resource with a matching port nearby.  I'm also a sucker for placing two settlements so I can get both numbers -- yesterday I managed to get lumber and brick on 6's -- instant roads for every six.
I haven't played Seafarers, can't help you there.

Tip: do not try seafarers. Knights and City's is the only true expansion!

@Powertieke I like Seafarers but I'm a big fan of the map diversity.

Complementary to some of the advice above, I generally follow a two-step process, especially when I don't have first pick:
(a) see which resource is going to be rarest in the game, by the numbers;
(b) pick the most advantageous point on the best number hex for that resource.
If I'm going last-first-round, first-second-round, this is especially powerful; if there's a single resource that has something like a 2-11-5 mix of numbers, I can completely monopolize the 5 with my dual placement.

I consider these in the following order, mostly because those listed first are more obvious and easier to assess:

resources production rates
spacing / room to expand
resource conversion potential at ports (trading with the bank)
dependence of strategies on trading
sizing up opponent

Adding up the dots on the dice roll chips to get an idea of the production rates of a given vertex is like a non-committal first pass to see what spaces are immediately viable. You need to have a very pointed strategy in mind to deviate from going for these high probability spots for your initial placement simply because you're not likely to get much to pick from by the time you place your second settlement. Naturally, playing a 2-player game allows more flexibility than if you're in a 4-player game and first to place.  The point is simply that the further away your turn is for your next placement the more heavily you should weight simply looking at production rates.
Beyond that, eyeing certain ports because they give an exchange rate with the same resource that they border can offer a place to settle that others might disregard or overlook. Again, however, placing your initial settlement here is probably not worth it in my opinion if it risks giving up a high production rate vertex.  Being any player other than the last to place the initial settlement puts you at least two placements away from your next opportunity on a pretty small board.
Consider what resources you can imagine you'll end up securing based on your first move.  As first of four players, this can be difficult and you likely should simply play the highest production rate vertex. As third of four, you might get a good idea 50%+ of the time what you may end up securing, so can consider what strategy you might use and how much it depends on trading with other players.  Do you expect to have a resource that is particularly low in production probability (and thus less worry over not having particular resources on your own settlements)?
Size up the personality of your opponents.  Are they straight forward by the numbers, or wild vengeful spouses who delight in attacking their partner, or meek and easily convinced. How do they perceive you? If you are the resident veteran, you might take some of the heat off of the likelihood of your opponents ganging up on you by completely forgoing the obvious best placement in favor of having solid arguments why another player is always 'in the lead'.  You might take a strategy that is more transparent if players are always suspecting you and avoid placements that lean toward development cards.
Considering your opponents' tendencies is the most underutilized (and the most fun when you get it right).

I try to maximize the number of numbers I have.  This works especially well when playing with the lake tile from Traders and Barbarians.
In the last game I played, I was eventually able to get something (unless being robbed or a seven is rolled) with each roll and won because of it.

I try to get a rock wheat intersection. I find I win more often if I can get cities up fast. Then I collect double on the good middle numbers as opposed to expanding to less desirable numbers. A harbor with a couple of good sources is good too. One good source is not enough as the other players can keep the robber on it if you are ahead and they work agaisnt you. A good brick wood intersection is more important  on a more crowded board, 4 players, to grab up space at the beginning.

One more tip, I always size up what the most scarce resource is, and unfairly favor it. For example, if the only sheep spaces are a 5 on the coast, a 3 and 11, I'd be pretty hard pressed to not take the 5 if I know I'll be the only or 1 of two with access to it.

There are four positions in the basic game, and each position has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Going first offers an advantage if there is one outstanding intersection on the board, e.g. a 5-8-9 ore wheat sheep, or ore wheat brick. Then the first placer takes that "best" spot and doesn't worry about the fact that s/he will place last on the second round. This becomes a disadvantage if all four players can get comparably good opening settlements.
One version of the rules suggest that (apart from die rolling), that the placement start with the oldest player. Here, I would interpret "oldest" as "most experienced, not chronologically oldest. That's because this person places last on the second round, so this person must make a good enough first settlement choice to compensate for this disadvantage.
The second player may be considered the second "first." Studies have shown that the second position wins slightly more than average. The reason is that "most" boards have two comparably good first settlement spots, A and B. The first player takes A, the second B, then second player has an advantage over the last two players because the value of the third and fourth settlements often fall off dramatically. The second player also has the advantage over the first player at the "back end" when the second settlements are placed.
I will skip to the fourth player, because this person has it easier than the third person.  The fourth player has the disadvantage of going last on the first round, but goes first on the second settlement. To compensate for the disadvantage of the last first settlement s/he has to "back to back" settlement choices and doesn't have to worry about other players will do (and this may be a good position for a "newbie.") This means that the player can be sure of their starting resources, dictated by the choice of settlement at the beginning of the second round.
From the above, the third position is the hardest to play, "squeezed" in the first round by the first two players, and in the second round by the fourth player.

Depends on the starting order, but generally speaking, going for maximum number of dice opportunities is not ideal according to my experience. Getting lots of varied income will force you to either make shitty 4-1 trades or risk losing cards when someone rolls 7.
The best strategy according to me is to aim for one specific port and lots of income in the corresponding resource. This will let you complement whatever other resources you DO get to actually match the requirements for what you're going to build. This will let you buy whatever you want often enough while never losing resources to the robber.


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Question about The Shallow Grave (Spell Card)
Here is the chain of events: I activate The Shallow Grave to special summon a needle worm from my graveyard (and my opponent chooses their monster), and then my opponent uses D.D. Crow to remove the needle worm from play.
Does my opponent still get the monster he has chosen to special summon?

Based on this ruling on Disappear:

When a card that selects a card in the Graveyard as a target, such as "Monster Reborn", "Mask of Darkness", "Magician of Faith", "Spear Cretin", or "The Shallow Grave", is activated, you may chain "Disappear" to remove the targeted card from play, and the "Monster Reborn", etc., will resolve without effect. This is because these cards select their target at activation, not resolution.

(Source)
Your opponent wouldn't get the monster.
D.D. Crow appears to work exactly like Disappear when discarded.  So the same ruling should apply.

Aha, that is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.


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Playing with less or more than 10 Kingdom card types in Dominion
In Dominion you choose 10 of the 25 Kingdom cards to play with in a given game, generally at random. Is it possible/advisable to play with less or more sets? I've considered playing with less to make it simpler for new players, and likewise more to add possibilities for players that are already familiar with the card types, but I've never heard of anyone else trying it before. It would throw off the end conditions (one of which is running out of three stacks of Kingdom cards, which is respectively more/less likely in my examples); would it unbalance any other game aspects or lead to problems?

I'm not sure how to properly answer the root question, but anecdotally I can report that I have played with 7 players using the 6-player rules (18 Provinces, 4 stacks gone) and found the game to still be very playable.

@lilserf: It depends on the cards.  Since we play Dominion during lunch at work, we try to play quick games.  On a side note, this means that Alchemy is almost always left out.

Definitely some sets are just going to take forever :)

I think playing with less would be fine.  From the games I've played with there are about 2-5 stacks that never get any buys, and 1-2 that get bought down really fast.  For inexperienced players I think it would be a big plus.
However, for experienced players it could change some of the strategy a bit.  The other stacks, even if unbought, can serve as a threat that players may buy those.  For example, if there were multiple reaction cards then the attack cards seem less desirable.  So right there 2-4 stacks may be off-limits on the premise of mutually assured destruction.  However, with no reactions attack cards gain a lot of value.
Thus adding more cards would be bad IMHO for experienced and inexperienced players but for different reasons.  The inexperienced players would be too confused while the experienced players would settle on 'sure fire' strategies with so many other strategies to game against.  A limited selection limits the amount of competing strategies, and hence may reduce the number of spoilers to more entertaining card selections.

The Black Market promo card may give you some of what you're hoping for. If a Black Market is one of your 10 Kingdom cards, it allows vast diversity in the actual Kingdom cards in the game.

It probably won't break the game to tweak the number of Kingdom cards if that's really what you want to do, but that magic number of 10 was presumably arrived at after a lot of playtesting.
Personally, I find that beginners have an easier time if you play some of the recommended sets or play with the simpler cards (many of the base Dominion cards fill this bill).  Another way to cater to beginners is to "draft" the set of Kingdom cards by letting each player select a pile from the 25 in turn.  That way each player is familiar with a few piles at least, since they selected them.
For advanced players, drafting the set is also a great way to liven things up because they'll choose cards that synergize well and are generally powerful.  The other way I like to enliven the game for advanced players is to increase the card pool by mixing more expansions in.  Selecting from the nearly 100 cards in the first 4 sets will basically always give you new combinations that are ripe for experimentation.
Playing with 6 advanced players and 4 or 5 sets worth of cards is quite a cutthroat, enjoyable experience.

I second the comment about the magic number coming from a lot of playtesting.  I've read that this game was play-tested very extensively, including all expansions (present and future) before the base set was released.

I've experimented a bit with different numbers of kingdom cards. For small variations (say 8-12 piles) the game seems mostly unchanged. That said, 10 usually feels like a good number. This depends largely on how you select those cards. With straight-up random selection, with fewer cards you decrease the number of combinations. This can often result in games without much engine potential, so players will just play Big Money, or Big Money + (one or two cards),  which doesn't make for a very interesting game. However, if you're picking cards deliberately, you could craft good sets with fewer than 10 cards.
Playing with more than 12 can overwhelm people with choices.
In many cases, whether a game ends on piles or on Provinces is determined by what piles are out there. There are some cards that almost always get bought out (e.g. Fishing Village, Caravan). If you use more than 10 Kingdom cards, I think you will find a higher percentage of games have  more than 1 very popular card, which might result in more frequent endings on piles. Conversely, if you have fewer than 10 kingdom cards and people start playing strategies close to Big Money, I think the game is more likely to end on Provinces. (I only include this because I think it's opposite to what you assumed in your question.)
As far as house rules to modify the kingdom cards, the most successful one we've tried at my house is to have mixed piles where you can only buy the top card. We'll select 8 or 10 kingdom cards (often with each player secretly picking a share), then shuffle them all together. This stack is divided into 4 piles, with only the top cards visible. On your turn, if you gain a card, you put a token on all the piles you didn't buy from, and when a pile has tokens equal to the number of players they are removed and the top card is placed on the bottom of the pile. We like that you only have partial knowledge of what's going to be available, so there's a lot of excitement when new cards get revealed. It also increases the luck factor, which can help even a game out if there's significant skill gaps between players. We'd do it more often, but it's a bit of a pain to set up and clean up....

This is kind of an indirect answer to the question, but I've played with the following alternate rules (for 2 players only):
Lay out treasure, victory, and curse cards as normal.  Optionally lay out a randomly chosen defense card (Moat, Lighthouse, etc.) and a randomly chosen alternate victory card (Garden, Harem, etc.)
Each player writes down five kingdom cards that he would like to play with (A card may be chosen by both player).  The lists are swapped and each player can veto one of his opponent's five cards and replace it with any card of the same cost.  Lists are returned to their owner and each owner gets his own five private stacks of 5 cards each according to the list.
A player can purchase cards from the communal piles (treasure, victory, curse, and the optional cards), or from his own private five piles, but he cannot purchase from his opponents'.
After the game, players swap their five private piles and play a game with their opponent's chosen cards.

I can't decide if this is a good variant or not. On the one hand, I like that players can construct their own strategies (and the vetoing keeps it a little in hand), but the beauty of Dominion can come from the fact that players are competing under the same set of restrictions. Still, nice idea and I'll have to give it a try before I settle on an opinion.

+1 I like this idea a lot, but I think I'd like it with more cards in common, maybe 2 or 3 private stacks. Very interesting!

I think a better thing to do with new players is to just reject complicated cards.  Play more with Smithy or Laboratory type cards where the text on the card is short and simple.  Play less with things like Potions, Possession, durations, or Intrigue like choices on the cards.

In my group, we tend to adjust the number of piles based on the number of players.  With 3-5 players, we keep 10 piles.  6-7 players 11-12 piles.
Keep in mind that, if you have all 5 Dominion box sets (like I do), you have 112 Kingdom cards to choose from, so you may want to mix and match them.  115 if you have the 3 promo card sets as well.
Recently, we've been doing one of the following methods to choose cards:

Each player chooses 2 cards.  If there are not 10 cards yet, discuss what other cards to add as a group.
Use a randomizer program (Dominion Kingdom Deck for the iPod Touch/iPhone seems to be popular where I work) to select 10 cards.  Each player can then opt to swap out 1 card for a card of their choice.

If we have multiple games, we do the second between each game.

For sake of speed we often play with only 10 piles of 8 cards in 3 player games, and 8 piles of 8 cards in 2 player games. Faster games are a bit more exciting and gives new players a few opportunities to get the hang of the game - as well as see more cards as we mix up a few piles in followup games.
While I do like to randomize the sets, I find it's best to always have a few favourites in the mix. I don't have a complete list, but cards like Bridge, Coppersmith, Pawn, Talisman are highly desirable & help burn piles faster.


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Settlers of Catan play takes hours
I was under the impression that the play time in Settlers of Catan was more modest than say, Risk. However it seems almost as long. This is often due to a lot of trading and talk which drags on for a lot of time as people propose variations on a declined trade. Have any of you found similar problems? How would you solve this?

Turns in Catan have much less potential to go on indefinitely than turns in Risk, but both games (just as all other games) can drag if you introduce analysis paralysis or jibber jabber. The tolerance for both should probably be discussed by your group, and the consensus enforced.

Very similar: How do I avoid the endless trade negotiations in Settlers of Catan?

Are you playing with more than 4? (expansion)

First, make sure you're following the rule that the person who's turn it is must be involved in all trades during that turn. If you let everyone trade during the trading phase, discussions could take a while.
Assuming you're following that rule, it really shouldn't take that person very long to figure out all of the available trades. If you start out by saying "I'm looking for sheep and ore. Is anyone willing to trade those to me?", you can very quickly get a sense of whether any trades will be possible. If anyone says "yes", you say "I have wood or brick that I'm willing to trade, are you interested in either of those?" Now you allow them to propose the precise details of the trade, or you let them say "I'm interested in brick" and you propose a precise trade. There really shouldn't be much of a back and forth; either there's a trade that both of you are interested in, or there isn't, and it shouldn't take more than a few seconds to figure that out. Yes, occasionally you will have a back-and-forth negotiation, but it shouldn't happen in the majority of trades.
It can take some practice to get into the habit of trading quickly and efficiently. I'd recommend trying out Bohnanza(bgg|wikipedia) with the group; it's a fairly quick and easy game that consists almost entirely of trading, so if you play it, you will get in the habit of trading quickly and efficiently or else the game will drag on forever.
Beyond that, it's really a matter of being disciplined while you play. In almost any game, if you allow people to take too long making up their minds or getting distracted by something trivial, it will take a while. Try and set a reasonable pace for the trading by example and by encouraging other players to trade efficiently, and it should speed up after a little while.

oh, i know people who can trade for ages, in #bohnanza, in other games, try to get everybody involved (You give me A, then I can give A to the other player and get B which I can give to ...)

Multiple trades of the same bean are prohibited by the Bohnanza rules.  Any bean which is traded is set aside and planted at the end of the trading phase, but cannot be traded another time.  You can see a slight variant of this, when you receive one bean from a player and trade one of the two trade-stock beans of the same type to someone else, but that situation is fairly rare.

@jjb, off topic, but it sounds like your bohnanza trades are not following the rules. You cannot trade away anything you receive in a trade. You are required to plant everything you receive in trades

@atk - I say right there that you cannot trade a bean a second time. Twice. What I'm referring to is a situation where you can sort-of arrange a trade between two people, as long as one of your two new beans matches. That is, player A wants to trade an 8 to player B, with a 10 going back. You have an 8 and 10 that were dealt as your two beans. Player A gives you, say, an 8 and 20. You trade them the 10 you were dealth. Player B gives you a 10 and 20. You trade them the 8 you were dealt. Net: A and B effectively traded, and you got two 20s for your trouble. It's rare.

@jjb, You're right.  Your comment was very clear.  I suspect that my original intent had to be to respond to johannes,  but I probably selected the wrong username.

@atk No problem, I suspect I was overly defensive in responding. My example was a bit unclear there.

If analysis-paralysis is your issue see here. Some minor encouragement to speed things up usually helps, and if not you can think about imposing a turn timer if you think its necessary. Its tempting to figure out every possible trade you could make, but its rarely beneficial or a good use of time.

If you've played the game a few times, solved your long trades issue, and still want quicker game there's a few other tricks you can try. Granted these will change the strategy of the game in minor ways.

play to 9 victory points.
use cards instead of dice. I just combine two decks to simulate a dice roll. Having one player do all the card picking can make things go a bit faster.
give the beginning of the game a little jump-start.
roll the dice twice before each player's turn in a 2 or 3 player game.

We often play to 7 VP for a faster game (especially with beginners).  At 5‒6, it still feels like anybody's game, but there seems to be a plateau after 7 that can drag things out.

At Oxcon, games have a 1-minute timer available.  If you think someone is taking too long, you can force them to conclude their turn within a minute.  This works well, and games rarely take longer than an hour.
Alternatively, get a DGT cube or equivalent smartphone app.

You can also use the accelerated start: instead of placing two towns and two roads, you start placing (with the usual order): 1 town + 1 road, 1 city + 1 road, 1 road.
This rules made the game notably faster in my usual gaming group.

You asked how I would solve this... well I wrote an app for that!
My friends and I have always had the same problem - especially if there is any drinking going on... We find that playing with only 3 people is not so bad but 4 and above the games seem to get exponentially longer.  So I wrote an app I call 'Time for Settlers' which does a couple things to help speed up the game - and it really has helped us get more games into an evening.
1) It provides a turn timer - a time limit for each player to do whatever they are going to do in their turn.  You run out of time - your turn is over - with or without a completed trade.  This really helps people focus on what they need and get their trades done quickly at the beginning of each turn.
2) It rolls the dice for you.  Seems simple but this does actually help keep things going, and the app offers multiple rolling styles to vary the degree of randomness and/or roll distribution during a game.  A more even distribution can actually speed up a game too since most people place their settlements and cities where they have the highest odds - but sometimes regular dice do strange (random) things and roll a bunch of 2s, 3,s 12,s etc. meaning that less resources are paid out and the game drags.
Together, the timer and the dice rolling really can speed up a game. And as an added bonus the games tend to be more fun with the added pressure of time.  It has worked really well for us - it could work for you too!
Its free on iOS and Android:
Google Play Store
Apple App Store
Also, +1 for the answer provided by shrlck - we call this Tournament start and we always play this way now.

This house rule might speed up the game a little bit:

friendly robber - doesn't block players with 2 pts
super friendly robber - doesn't block at all, but gives additional resources on hex he's standing on. If settlement - take 2 instead of 1, if city - take 3.

Our group plays Catan with no trades, if you need something, go to the bank.  Not even a houserule actually - simply most of our players have a policy of autodeclining everything (or at least anything that's not strongly in their favor like "I'll give you two grain and wood for that single sheep I desperately need"), and trading can't take long even if someone wants to trade, either he makes a very strong offer (which would happen very rarely), or the player who's turn it is simply says no and moves on.

To me, this is not a good solution. Trading is a major part of the game and removing it makes the game much more luck based.

I would expect this to cause the game to take longer since it would require more resources to obtain the trade, and thus to be able to build.

No trades? Why do you even bother playing?

We play with open hands - everyone sees everybody else's cards.  That saves a lot of time asking if anyone has a wood for sheep, and we end up with more complicated trades.  We also allow everyone to trade and build on anyone's turn (if there's a conflict, priority is clockwise from the current player).
I believe these changes shorten the game, but the real advantage is that they keep everyone involved all the time, so they don't get bored waiting for their turns.

You are not playing settlers of catan anymore

Your players would speed the game up greatly by not "waiting for their turn" but planning their move in advance, including analysing what others are doing.


text:
House rules to make the cloister less of a game winning tile in Carcassonne?
In my experience, cloister tiles in Carcassonne are often "too lucky". If you draw a cloister tile in the beginning of the game, it will typically still require an investment of quite a bit of "meeple" time to obtain the full 9 points, which makes it a fair trade-off. However, after about half of the game, it's relatively likely that you can "parachute" a cloister tile in some spot and get 8 or 9 points immediately. This adds a lot of randomness to the game.
What house rules work well to diminish this effect?

I've read strategic advice to the effect that Cloisters are abysmal and hardly ever worth playing; and while I wouldn't go that far, I think you overrate them.  A late-game Cloister can grab you an easy 6-9 points; however, the same is true for a late-game Farmer in a pasture adjoining 2 or more cities.  If it really does drive your group mad when someone gets a bunch of points out of a Cloister in the late game, the solution is fairly simple: avoid leaving lots of Cloister-shaped holes in the terrain!

Reflecting on this question two years after the fact, I think the difference in my and other people's views may partially be caused by using different official versions of the rules. I am (and was) used to the first edition rules; later editions make farms and cities stronger, which alleviates the issue already.

In my experience, cloisters are one of the big reasons not to keep at least one meeple in hand. It's not so much random points as points to people who have dicipline in closing features and don't play too many farmers in the early game.

There are a couple of expansions that reduce the usefulness of cloisters. You don't get the points until all the surrounding squares are filled, which is a safe bet in 'vanilla' Carcassonne, but not such a sure thing with expansions. The Tower expansion makes it less attractive to leave meeple on the board for any length of time, because they are sitting ducks for capture by a tower. The Catapult expansion makes it possible to remove Meeple from the board, or replace them with your own. The Princess and the Dragon expansion also encourages Monk removal as dragon-food.
You could ban the 'instant cloister' case, disallowing the dropping of a cloister into a hole for an immediate 9 points. I personally don't find this a huge problem though. You have equivalent 'instant city' and 'instant road' cases. Ultimately, there is quite a lot of luck involved in Carcassonne, by design, I think.

Knowing that cloisters can have this effect is half the battle.
Rather than adding a house rule to a very popular game I would advise you to alter your strategy a bit to account for future cloisters that you may not control.
Examples:

Leave a good cloister spot next to an open road that you own.
When considering placing a tile between two relatively equal spots determine if one or the other creates a better cloister opportunity.
Keep track of how many have been played!  If you get down to 10 tiles left and 4 of them are cloisters, make sure you have the meeples available to use them.  Alternatively, keep your opponent from freeing his meeples from the board.

I totally agree. This would be like asking about chess house rules to make the rook less powerful.

I have never had this experience with Carcassonne either - typically in our games it's more likely that a late-game cloister will be wasted because the player doesn't have the meeples to spare for it.
Even an 8-point late game cloister will be outpaced by a decent sized field, and it will tie up that meeple too.
The other factor that can affect this is experience of the players - experienced folks are wary of creating an easy 9-point-parachute-cloister spot on the board and will avoid it if they can.

I don't have bad experiences with cloisters. But if they count too heavy, you can rule that an unfinished cloister counts as 0 points in the end. Which makes it harder to spend too much meeple on them.
Another possible rule is that cloisters must have unique 9 squares, not shared with another cloister.
But use them wise.

One option that I've used before is to disallow placing cloister tiles in spots where they are adjacent to more than three existing tiles.

You could borrow the "Abbey" idea from the Abbyes and Mayors expansion.
Abbeys are special tiles (6 of them divided equally among all players) which you can play rather than drawing and playing a random tile. The abbey counts as a cloister for scoring and playing a meeple on, and has a solid edge, so that it ends a road, and walls off citys and farms that it borders. Abbeys can only be played in holes - spaces that have tiles on all four sides.
The effect of this is that areas that are prime "gotcha" cloister locations at end game are a little less likely as they either get Abbeys dropped into them, or players shy away from letting such places appear.
Without Abbeys and Mayors, you could allow each player once or twice a game, the option of playing a tile face down in a whole rather as an Abbey than as a normal play, and otherwise following the normal Abbey rules.

In my experience, the cloisters are punishment for people that don't have spare meeples.  I have seen people get into a bidding war over farms and then draw several cloisters and not have meeples available to claim them.  Also, without cloisters, there would be far less to lose by committing all of your meeples in the late game.  With them, you must chose between taking a small number of points for a partial city or road, versus hold out in case you draw one of the remaining cloisters.
That said, simply using the base set compatible tiles from the expansions mitigates the power of cloisters somewhat due to the odd features that show up on those pieces.  It makes it harder to drop a cloister into an empty spot, due to more city tiles with attached roads and cloister tiles with roads or cities on them.  This makes the situation of a nice all-farmland hole much rarer and also not compatible with all the cloister tiles.


text:
What are the name and rules of this hand signing spell game?
I remember finding the rules to this game on the internet, oh, 15 years ago or so. The players (typically (or necessarily?) two) sit around a table. At every "turn" - for advanced play indicated by some clock or so, but for beginners like me when all players agree that they have worked out what to do next - each player simultaneously reveals two hand signs out of an alphabet of five or so, independently with the left and right hand. Hand signs were things like a wavy line, pointing with your index finger, or a fist. Then there was a dictionary of ten or so sequences of three to five hand signs that form spells; you look for each hand if the last couple of signs match any of the spells exactly, and if they do then that spell takes effect - for example, if "fist - wavy line - fist - point" would be "lightning bolt" according to the dictionary, then if for the last five turns your left hand had done "wavy line - fist - wavy line - fist - point", that would trigger a lightning bolt. I believe players started with a certain number of life points; there were damage spells, healing spells, counter spells, maybe a shield spell as well?
The fun of the game was, of course, that you'd have to figure out what your opponent was building up to with both her hands, and evaluate if you could afford to carry out your own plans or whether you needed to do something to counter it. Also, sometimes you could come up with nice combinations: the last few hand signs of one spell might form the first few of another, so you could make them overlap for higher efficiency.
I'm pretty sure this was never a commercially published game - since there are no physical objects to sell, that would be a tricky proposition anyway.
Ideally of course I'd like to find the game rules as they were available back then, but I'd be happy to just hear from people who remember this as well. I would even be open to trying to recreate it collaboratively, if anyone is up for that sort of thing.

This game sounds awesome.

Sounds a lot like Waving Hands, or Spellcaster. Here's an online copy of the rules.
According to BoardGameGeek, you can even play it online, here.


text:
How to run an easy Battletech campaign
My friends and I are wanting to run an simple Battletech campaign where our pilots have a chance to grow and progress after a few scenarios.
Which products from Catalyst Game Labs could offer this experience?
An extended look has led us down a rat hole of expectations without an easy answer.  All of their products seem so inter-related without a way for one to dip their toes into a "shallow end" without drinking the kool-aid.

Probably the simplest jumping off point is the recent BattleTech: Beginner Box, but if you've got more than two potential players the more extensive BattleTech: A Game of Armored Combat will cover up to 8.
Once you've wet your toes you can move on to a fuller campaign with the free Chaos Campaign, or any of the BattleTech: Starterbook series (Sword and Dragon is intended as the first one, but needs it's errata to work).

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


text:
Can I use Stormland Mirror on my last turn?
After enough Guardian Keys have been found, and the Guardian revealed, each player gets one more turn per the rules on page 14.
Can a player use Stormland Mirror during that last turn to get another turn, including another potentially very lucrative shot at the Guardian?

Co-designer Bryan Reese says yes:

"Stormland mirror does give you an extra turn, even on the final turn."

Source: Bryan Reese (https://boardgamegeek.com/article/28348033#28348033)


text:
What is a functioning power turret?
One of the modifiers for table 5-6 Bomber Defensive Fire Resolution is:

+1 for defensive fire by a functioning power turret (electrical power, hydraulic)

But I'm unsure as to what a "functioning power turret" is? Is that just another term for any of the twin guns(undamaged) on the B-17?, or just the Ball Turret?

The errata posted last year clarifies the definition of a power turret in rule 5.5.2.

Powered Turrets: Chin (B-17G), Nose (B-24J), Top
Turret and Ball Turret (All models of B17 and B24) and tail guns (B-24). The Tail Guns (B17) are
not powered.


text:
Does "defeat" trigger before/after battle abilities?
Specifically in regards to Mawgarn's Axe which allows defeating a monster when moving through a dungeon area.
Unfortunately Defeat is not addressed within the Lexicon.

Dungeon abilities are resolved before battles.  Thus, this would trigger prior to any Before Battle ability.


text:
What is the hit effect multiplier in Campaign 1 for a Me-210?
In campaign 1, I got result 45 my next wave after bombing Paris.  The Me-210 coming in from 9 High was piloted by an Ace and got me good for 3 hits.
However on table 5-11 the only entry for a Me-210 is for campaigns 3-6.  Should this entry be used for campaign 1 as well?

In the errata posted last year, this table has been fixed to apply for campaigns 1-6.


text:
Where can I find the most reliable information on upcoming boardgame releases?
Usually I just troll my FLGS to see what new has popped up and that works for me.  However, right now I have a pressing need to figure out what games have been recently released, and which will be released very soon.
Now I can (and have done) some Google searches to try to figure this out.  I'm not looking for answers with barebones information like that.  What I'd really like is to hear from people who have been keeping a better eye on game release cycles for a while.
What sites or sources of material have you found to be truly reliable?  I'm particularly interested in shorter lists of popular hobby games.  I don't have a  need to hear about new Monopoly expansions or tracking down every Indy game release.

Boardgamegeek has a section where you can look at games released within the last 1/3/6 months,  as well as unreleased games based on their expected release.  It then lets you sort these by number of people with it on their wishlist, which should give you an idea of how popular they are.

The most reliable data is usually to troll the various publishers' websites. For a singular point of information, it varies by game type.
Miniatures Games: The Miniatures Page
For Board Games and Card Games: Board Game Geek, especially the Recent Releases page.
Somewhat less reliable: online game retailer websites, such as Boards & Bits, Thoughthammer or  Troll and Toad. In general, I've found these sites to have excellent notes on upcoming releases. Moreover, many of them have notification services for registered customers. Most list items once they've been solicited for them and submitted an order; if the order is late, they will often pass along information on revised due dates.
Another source, albeit one that's even more unreliable, is Kickstarter.com. Search for games on KS, and you'll find out about a lot of forthcoming games... but many of those, you'll need to preorder using KS in order to get them at all.
The least reliable, in my experience, has been Amazon.com. I've had items in hand from my FLGS that Amazon says have been either canceled or delayed for several months past the date I bought the item.

The new releases section in the Internationale Spieltage is also a very important resource to consider. Basically, if it's not there, it's not going to be available soon.


text:
Taking advantage of an Insane Investigator
I've only played a couple games so I know my experience could be faulty and I'm definitely comparing Mansions of Madness to Arkham Horror where loss of sanity and loss on health are roughly equivalent.
That said, as the keeper player I haven't found causing a player to go Insane to be very effective.  The ability to play a trauma card as a keeper action doesn't seem very strong.  By the time you've driven someone insane, it is late in the game and Threat is at a premium.  I haven't been able to get enough Insanity Trauma cards to take advantage of the Insane person.
How can I better take advantage of an Insane Investigator?

In at least scenario 2 mythos and trauma cards are pretty cheap. For 1 threat you get 1 mythos or 1 trauma card per cultist. Playing the trauma card is in itself free. In my last game the keeper managed to get my insane investigator to run 3 spaces into one of her monsters who at once took a sample and ran through a locked door I couldn't follow. This ended up being probably the most important move in the game. I forced the investigators to go from passive to aggressive to stop the keeper from getting her last sample.
So while the use will depend on the luck of the draw a well placed trauma card can change the course of the game. Many of the low insanity cards are really not nice. In a game where your objective is to kill the investigators you could get lucky and draw "final solution" and simply make the investigator kill themselves or the card that makes the investigator attack one of his friends.
In a couple of the scenarios you get trauma at the same time as you get mythos. This is a way to get some use out of them.

Actually, I read that card last night as *...draw one mythos or trauma card per cultist..." - One of my players used a power to force me to throw out my hand and I never had 4 of them again until the endgame.

You are right. It's "Or" on that card, I'm going to edit my text. Still when I played that scenario with 4 players last I always lots of cultist out. I could easily produce more mythos cards than I had use for during a round. The surplus whent to trauma in my case. My players during that game though had an tendancy to roll 1 all the time...

Did you use "Summon Worshippers" more than once per turn? I didn't get the impression you could do that. Between the tommy-gun-toting Investigator and my use of "Summoning" to swap cultists for bigger monsters, I never had many cultists out at one time.

Keeper actions that are usable once per (turn/character/what have you) seem to explicitly say so.

@gomad, @tunaranch had to check the cards. Summon Worshipper says "Place a cultist in a space containing an altar". So for 1 threat you get to place 1 cultist. It doesn't say anything about once per turn as for instance Take sample does. "Summoning" doesn't say it explicitly but I would guess you only get 1 monster per 3 threat. But as with Summon Whorshippers you could use it multiple times per turn.

Yes, that card has no restrictions, so you can just go nuts with them. The fun of campaign 2 is that if you really wanted, in a 4-player game:
1st Turn: Cultists,
2nd Turn: Summoning,
3rd Turn: ARGH ARGH WE'RE BEING ATTACKED BY A SHOGGOTH, WTF?

Granted, I prefer to have a bit more of a story to my games, but "We all went mad within 2 minutes, and then he had us dance the can-can" is technically a story.

Oh, and 6th turn: TWO SHOGGOTHS? TWO? ... You're trying to drive us insane out-of-game as well, aren't you, you ******.

Obviously the counter-balance to this is that in some of the campaigns, you need a decent supply of cultists.


text:
Do opposing forces immediately fight upon a Declaration of War?
For this question, Russia and Prussia start at peace.  The sequence of events is:

Month 1

Prussia declares war on Mecklenburg
Russia gains control of Mecklenburg - Russia does not DOW Prussia in support of the minor
During its land move Russia puts a depot with garrison in Mecklenburg
Prussia moves a corp into Mecklenburg and drops a garrison in Lubeck

Next Month

Russia Declares war on Prussia

Are the forces in Mecklenburg forced to fight immediately?

They are not forced to fight immediately.  However, if the Prussian corps remains in Mecklenburg, at the conclusion of its movement phase, it would fight a trivial combat with the Russian depot garrison.

Do you have any rules citations to support your answer?

And welcome to B&CG!


text:
Can Uncontrollable Urges be used to force one Investigator to attack another?
Uncontrollable Urges allows the Keeper to force an Investigator to do an action where the Keeper makes all the choices.
The attacks all seem to state "Attack a monster" but I'm wondering if Uncontrollable Urges overrides this and allows one Investigator to attack another.

It looks like the answer is no. From page 2 of the FAQ:

Q: Can the keeper use Uncontrollable urges to make an investigator attack
  another Investigator with a weapon?
  What about spells?
A: No. This only
  allows him to use a spell, equipment,
  artifact or tome card. If he forces an
  investigator to cast a spell, he must
  choose a legal target. To clarify, if
  a spell says “choose a Monster”, it
  may not be used against an
  investigator (even if playing Story
  5). As another example, the Keeper may
  not force an investigator to use the
  “Sedative” equipment on an
  investigator who does not have a
  Trauma card.


text:
Can an Investigator move directly to the balcony without using the stairs in the Foyer?
The rules say that it costs 1 movement point to move into a different area of the same tile.

In the case of the Foyer it doesn't seem logical to move from the floor (1) directly to the balcony (2) without going through the central hallway/stair entrance area first.
Have I missed a rule to cover this special case?

No. There's no special case. The division between those areas is marked with a white border. The movement cost to cross a white border is 1.
I believe the FAQ addresses this issue specifically and says that it represents characters climbing over the banisters.
EDIT: I realized that if you read just the title of your question, it seems like I'm saying the opposite of what I really am. So:
YES - you can move directly to the balcony. NO - there is no special case, you haven't missed anything!


text:
Is the Axe as powerful as it seems?
Having an item that can potentially defeat all locks seems to be counter to the natural flow of the game where the Investigators go from room to room following clues.
Once the Axe is found, the Investigators can go whereever they want, short-circuiting the whole adventure?
Is there errata for the Axe, or am I misunderstanding it?

It doesn't auto defeat ALL locks. Only those described as Lock Puzzles on the Lock card but not wiring or rune puzzles for example.

Checked the card.  It appears we completely misunderstood it.  We had it countering all lock cards (and none of the puzzles).  Whoops!

Happy to help! I'm constantly getting things wrong! We just finished a game where we were using equipment card attacks completely wrong! 8)

Us too.  We just played the one game of M&M so far, but it was well received and I expect to be playing again soon.


text:
Can one hero use multiple Toryn Gauntlets?
Toryn Gauntlet allows a hero to wield an additional weapon.  Can another gauntlet be wielded?  How about a third?

This is a bit like in Magic the Gathering where you can equip human-sized helmets and swords to birds and insects and so on.  My favourite online "interpretation" of three Toryn Gauntlets is a hero wearing two of them and using the third to slap the enemy in the face, challenge-to-a-duel style!  +1 for the image of an awesome three-armed adventurer, anyway...

@thesunneversets yes, but since they're only made for one hand, one has to stack them when wearing them. :)

Yes, you can equip multiple Toryn Gauntlets to one hero, adding the benefits together. Note also that you do not add together the weights of the various weapons - each weapon's weight is compared to the hero's strength individually, so a hero of strength 2 could equip a gauntlet (weight 2, I believe - assume it's right for the example) and another weapon of weight 4 (2 strength from the hero base and 2 strength from the gauntlet).


text:
Does Finn Edwards have to pay to upkeep his Bank Loan?
Finn Edwards has a power called Holdout:

Any Phase: Finn never has to discard items or lose money, even when he is knocked unconscious or driven insane. He must still pay costs as usual.

He also starts with a Bank Loan:

Upkeep: Roll a die. On a 1-3, pay $1 or discard all of your items along with this card. You cannot get another Bank Loan this game.

The player controller Finn thought that he could opt not to pay the Bank Loan's upkeep instead choosing to discard all items and the Bank Loan.  With the Holdout power, all he lost was the Bank Loan.
Is this the correct interpretation?

That's absolutely correct (although there's also the additional penalty to the end-game scoring if you do that thing). You can always choose to default on a bank loan and lose all of your items. Since Finn doesn't have to discard items, he gets to keep everything. Basically, the Bank comes a-knockin' and all of his stuff is stashed away. It seems to me like this is just the situation a Holdout would be wanted for.
Now, you could choose to interpret the 'pay $1 or discard' as a cost rather than a loss, which would prevent Finn's ability from protecting him. Much like the 'discard' section of the dynamite or the holy water is a cost of using the item, I could see an argument for the 'cost' of a bank loan being either paying $1 and repeating the process next turn or losing everything. But I've always seen it played that Finn's ability protects him from the Bank Loan.
The same question was asked here in the Kevin Wilson answers thread on the FFG forum (although the question wasn't answered by Kevin)


text:
Should I shuffle the Visage tokens after an investigator gets devoured?
The Ancient One named Ghatanothoa has a power called Annihilating Gaze.

While Ghatanothoa stirs in his slumber, place the eight visage tokens facedown on this sheet. Each time an investigator gains 2 or more Clue tokens at once, he must turn a visage token faceup. If it has Ghatanothoa's face on it, he is devoured. If not, leave the token faceup. Once four visage tokens are faceup, turn them facedown and shuffle the visage tokens.

Perhaps I'm being overly pedantic, but it isn't clear what happens if Ghatanothoa's face is turned up and there are not yet 4 visage tokens face up.
After the investigator is devoured, are all 8 tokens shuffled?  Is the next pick "free"?  I was unable to locate a clarification for this in the rulebook.

From page 9 of the Innsmouth Horror rulebook:

Remember, leave visage tokens faceup after revealing them
  unless either Ghatanothoa’s face is revealed or there are
  four visage tokens faceup after revealing the new token.

So while it doesn't explicitly tell you to turn them facedown and shuffle them, I'd say it's clear enough. So yes, no freebie clue harvesting after your poor friend gets devoured!

Thats what we did but the vagueness bothered us.


text:
Can the Diplomat power be used against a player without an active race?
Tonight I gained Diplomatic Sorcerers, two of the other 3 players were in decline so had no active race.  A reading of the rules implied to us that the Diplomatic power could not be used against those two players as they had no active race.

We were wrong.  Consulting the Day's of Wonder FAQ I learned:

Q: Is a race with the Diplomat power allowed to nominate a player, who has just declined or who has not yet had a turn (and therefore has no active race) as an ally?
A: Yes indeed, the only restriction in the choice of an ally is that you cannot choose a player if you just attacked his active race.

Years of playing MtG have made questions like this easier for me.

At the end of your turn, you may select one opponent whose Active race you did not attack this turn as your ally. You are now at peace with him and he cannot attack your Active race until your next turn. ...

Breaking this rule down:

At the end of your turn, select one opponent.
That opponent must not be someone whose Active race you attacked. (here is where you misread it. The rule isn't requiring that the opponent have an Active race, only that you did not attack their active race.)
That opponent may not attack you until your next turn (Ghouls specifically excluded by the rules edited above)

authors: טוביה ה - 1 בחט


text:
Is there a penalty for misplaying?
This afternoon my wife tried to play a green 8 on top of a red 2 in Uno.
Obviously a mistake on her part and I could find nothing in the rules to suggest that there was a penalty so we allowed her to withdraw the green 8 and play another card.
The rules do state that a Wild Draw 4 play can be challenged, but no other misplays are called out that I saw.
Is anyone aware of this situation being covered, perhaps in a previous ruleset, or maybe I'm just overlooking it (It's been known to happen!)

The penalty for misplaying a card, is that now your opponents know you have that card in your hand. Besides that though, the official rules (2003) state the penalty (among other listed penalties):

If a player plays a wrong card and it is noticed by any other player, he/she must take the card back and take two extra cards from the DRAW pile. Play continues with the next player in turn.

It appears as if the penalty section was removed from the 2008 printing.

Since this game is a fun family game, and is so easy, we have penalties for: asking if it is your turn to play, playing a wrong card, and also taking to much time just staring at the board (prob you don't know who turn it is)...

Exactly what I was looking for! Something in the back of my mind was thinking that there was an explicit penalty.  Thanks

@PatLudwig: We also have similar penalties, we always draw 2 for a penalty with all the different friends I've played against. In fact we introduce new rules (silent 7's - speak while a 7 is face up, slap down 9's - last person to slap their hand on top of the 9, saying either 'sorry' or a person's name. We tend to introduce them slowly as you get into the game and add anything extra we can think off!)

I love that the rules say and it is noticed by any other player - half the fun of Uno is cheating :)