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Is it correct to infer a second, third etc place in board games with a score?
This may stray a bit into philosophy, but  I believe it has some real-world impacts.
Many games rank players during the game, and some leave players in some sort of order at the end (ie. a 'score').
An example of this is Settlers of Catan, or Pandemic: Contagion
Each player has a number of points an any time, and at the end of the game, the person with the most points is declared the winner.
A lot of rulebooks have wording like this:

The person with the highest score overall wins.

Pandemic: Contagion

If you have 10 or more victory points during your turn the game ends and you are the winner

Settlers of Catan

At the end of the 10th game round, the House that controls the most areas containing either a Castle or a Stronghold is declared the winner. If, at any time during the game, a player controls seven such areas, that player immediately wins the game.

A Game of Thrones. The Board Game
These phrases seem to indicate that there is only a winner, and the remainder all lose.
In other games (semi coopoerative games) there is sometimes no winner
Semi cooperative games
In such games, it is strongly implied that when the group loses, there is no 'second place' etc.
Lots of people I have played with sometimes infer that there is an implicit second place due to the fact that at the end of the game players are still ranked by score.

So there are two aspect to this that I think are slightly related:
- Is it correct to infer positions beyond winner based on these scores?
- Does doing so affect gameplay?

Is it correct to infer positions beyond winner based on these scores?
There are probably two ways of looking at this

At the end of the game, you take all the markers off the scoreboard, and put them in two piles: The Winner, and everyone else.
The other way is to say that the person with the second most points did 'second best' at the game.

I would argue that the 1st interpretation is correct for the victory condition given in Settlers of Catan, given its wording. Other games are maybe less clear. Some rules books explicitly say whether there are positions beyond 'winner'.
Interpretation 2. makes some questionable assumptions about how the score reflects how well that player played. For example, if in A Game of Thrones I make a decision that gives another player their seventh castle, the fact I have the second-most castles should probably not be a consolation.
Similarly, some games allow 'long play' strategies in which case they may have won had some other circumstance not ended the game early. The fact that even though they might have one given more time still doesn't mean they win, also seems to imply they shouldn't receive some kind victory for second.
Does doing so affect gameplay?
It seems that it probably does.
From my experience, it definitely seems to effect gameplay in Settlers of Catan.
When two players are behind a leader, it benefits them embargo the leader and work for mutual benefit. With a second place, they have to weigh up how much second place means to them against the possibility of beating the first player, leading to less cooperation.
Another situation is where a player will cause the game to end voluntarily when they are not winning, perhaps to preserve a second place. If there is no second place, then there is definitely no incentive to do this from a gameplay perspective.
Another scenario may be that given a choice between a high probablility at moving from third to second highest score before game end, and a low probability of moving from third to first highest score, the player needs to make a choice if there is a second place, else it's not a decision at all. Players should always take the options that might give them 1st.
Semi-cooperative games seem to make the issue even more stark; in those games if the group loses, then a second place makes little sense.

Has anyone written any articles on this subject?
What do most gaming groups choose for resolving this?

I suggest reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory before I elaborate an asnwer when I have time. From what I read from your question, this is how computers play. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax is a basic strategy to win games with absolute knowledge.

In Catan tournaments I've seen, players' scores are converted into some tournament ranking, so it definitely matters.  But on yucata.de online play (for all their games, which does not include Catan), points are only awarded on the basis of win/lose.  So there clearly isn't a generally accepted interpretation.

This seems too broad and also pretty opinion based ("what do most gaming groups do?") - maybe narrow it down to e.g. 'how to determine positions after the winner for game X' - if you are interested in that...

Note that there are other options to determine players' ranking rather than score only - e.g. 'who is likely to reach the winning condition next'. Consider a Catan game for example, where player A has 10 points, player B has 8 points and is 2 resources short from building a city and a settlement (both of which he can generate from his territories), and Player C has 9 points but has just exhausted his resources in order to reach that state - it may be argued that B should be ranked 2nd, not C. In Essen 2014, players of Istanbul continued to play to determine ranking after first player has won.

@G0BLiN I guess my question is in the title. In a non-tournament environment is it correct to infer positions beyond first in a game that ranks players. I have been following the kickstarter for the new Mistborn game which can basically reverse the victory condition at game end (lowest score wins). This seems to muddle matters for me even more.

@xorsyst I think tournaments is perhaps a special case, as the game you are playing falls within a larger meta game. You can even have situations where throwing might be strategically advantageous to get more favourable matches later in the tournament.

I've even played in a Catan tournament where there were 2 games in the semi-final, and the final game was for the top 2 players of each board.  Playing with a 1/1/0/0 utility function is very, very, different.

In general board games only specify how to win, and this can massively affect play. A lot of board games are balanced by the understanding that all players will play to win at all times, and hindering the leading player. I've had a game of Tikal largely ruined by a player who wouldn't try to win and was aiming for "not-last". They thus spent all their efforts countering the other player at the back and letting the leader run away with it, instead of working together to get back into a competing position. They still came last.

Tl;dr: Players' meta-goals do affect gameplay. And unless all players have the same goals, the entire concept of "best player" isn't well defined, let alone "second best", etc.
First a bit of game-theory framework. Let's say each player has a "utility function" which takes as input the game end-state and gives as output how much "utility" they get - an abstract stand-in for happiness, bragging rights, etc. As an example, you might assign yourself 10/1/0 utils for getting 1st/2nd/3rd highest score in the game. A player's ultimate goal is solely to maximize their own expected utility, regardless of how much their opponents get. (Most utility functions in most games, however, are set up so that maximizing your own utility also minimizes your opponents' - e.g. if all players are using that example function, then to maximize yours you have to get more in-game points than everyone else, which minimizes theirs.)
Your choice of utility function absolutely affects gameplay. You give a bunch of accurate examples of this, so I won't go into it.
Now to the philosophy.
There isn't one "correct" utility function. Some games may have been made with one in mind - as you mention, some rules emphasize the winner while others tell you how to rank the players. But if one player is almost as happy with 2nd as 1st and another only really celebrates when they win outright, neither is likely to convince the other that they're wrong. Not only that but in most situations there's no need to - these two can happily play at the same table, each pursuing their slightly different goals. (Though as a sidenote, if these differences in goals remain hidden then some moves may appear irrational. This can lead to hard feelings, so it can be a good idea to discuss where you stand on this spectrum before you play.)
However, players who are playing with different functions are effectively playing (perhaps only slightly) different games. After all, since function affects gameplay, what is objectively a good move for one player might be a bad move for another! Thus if your goal in "inferring positions beyond the winner" is to determine how good the players are at the game relative to each other, well you can't even be certain about inferring that the winner is the best, let alone the other places!
As a concrete example, let's say you have a 3-player game in which Alice is average - say she can get 1st/2nd/3rd place 30%/40%/30% of the time. Bob starts out objectively better - he can get 1st/2nd/3rd place 35%/60%/5%. Then Alice decides she hates getting second and from now on makes a desperation push for 1st every single time, which fails more often than not, so her new values are 40%/0%/60%. I will now tell two stories. In the first story, Bob knows how to do the desperation move but he's happy with second place so he doesn't think it's worth it. Thus Alice wins more often than Bob (40% vs 35%), but Bob is still the better player. In the second story, there's a massive cash prize awarded to first place, and Bob can't figure out how to pull off that desperation move himself - he watches in frustration as Alice walks away with the prize 40% of the time. In this story, the percentages are exactly the same but this time Alice is clearly the better player.
Thus, unless you have a way of forcing everyone to use the same utility function, you might be unable to determine any rank - even best player - since the entire concept of best player isn't well defined. Luckily, this isn't usually a big problem since the people who really want to rank the players often do have a way of forcing everyone to use (roughly) the same utility function: those people are tournament hosts and that way is prizes. So when you're playing for fun you're welcome to your own concept of victory, and when you're in a tournament, well the prize for 1st in the second story above is not only the reward for being the best but also the reason we can define who's the best.

"A player's ultimate goal is solely to maximize their own expected utility, regardless of how much their opponents get." That's one big assumption! A very interesting discussion though.

The utility framework is relatively assumption-free if we expand the domain of the functions. If a player cares about playing in a civil atmosphere, they can get -1 util for each angry word uttered. If a player's goal is that everyone else enjoy themselves, they could decide their utility function returns the sum of everyone else's, and now they just have to maximize their own. The cool part of the analysis is that even if we do restrict all players to only care about what place they get, the slightly different ways they can care are enough to make a definitive external ranking impossible.

@user2390246 - and it's sometimes a false assumption. I remember at one point my uni friends introduced The Prime Directive: "p*ss Andy off!". Their utility was most definitely affected by how many points I got!

Great point about incompatibility of utility functions - games can become un-fun when players have wildly different utility functions, as they're hardly even playing the same game. I've been on the receiving end of a scorched-earth Risk revenge campaign, where other players weren't actually trying to win, but just make sure that I didn't. It can be difficult to play against someone deriving utility from something orthogonal to the game rules.

In a game where there is a scoring function, one can always rank players beyond the winner into 2nd, 3rd, etc.  The real question is whether positions beyond first have any value.  That question depends on many things, including player psychology, game design, and external incentives.  Here are some examples of ways that this varies between games:
Example 1: Poker
Poker is arguably a game of pure external incentives.  You play with money, for money.  The obvious scoring function is how much money players have at the end of the game, using how long players were in the game as the tiebreaker for eliminated players.  One of the significant variants of poker is how cash is dolled out in the end.  In one variant, known as a "cash game", players can leave whenever they want, taking with them however much money they have at that point.  In anther variant often referred to as "tournament style", players play an elimination game until only one or a few players remain and the total money put in is given exclusively to the last player or the last few players.
Which variant is used causes significant difference in game-play.  In cash games, the focus is on having an overall profitable strategy.  Meanwhile, in tournament style, it is much more important to accumulate a drastic chip advantage and eliminate players, and there is usually a 1-on-1 showdown at the end (called "heads up") which plays very differently than poker at a larger table.  Alternatively, if there is a big enough prize for second or third in a tournament style game, playing very conservatively and just trying to survive can be a very good strategy, despite it not doing very well in a tournament style game that only gives a a prize for first.  While the mechanics of the game are the same between these variants, the strategies differ wildly.
Example 2: Diplomacy
Like Poker, Diplomacy is a game with both an obvious scoring function and player elimination.  Players control supply centers, each of which supports one military unit.  A player wins by controlling 18 supply centers and a player with no supply centers is eliminated.  Also of importance is that Diplomacy is a notoriously long game, often taking about 8 hours with the full 7 players if played to completion.
The rules of diplomacy describe the game as only one player wins, but in casual settings, players often form alliances and decide to declare their alliance as winning the game rather than playing the game out to its ultimate conclusion.  In tournament Diplomacy, there is a provision for all players remaining in the game to declare joint victory, in which case all remaining players get a number of points equal to a fraction of the players remaining (so three players remaining in the game would each get 1/3 of a win).  In a casual setting however, it is often hard for players to emotionally differentiate between 1/3 victory and 1 victory, especially given playing to full resolution can take another several hours.  Whether or not players consider a joint victory to be a true victory causes massive differences in the integrity of alliances, since playing to true victory requires breaking alliances at some point.  This causes huge differences in the outcomes of casual diplomacy games.
Another important factor in diplomacy is that if players have set aside a particular amount of time to play, getting eliminated early can be of significant dis-utility because then they are no longer part of the social event of the game.  This can cause significant differences in game play, including players willing to make disadvantageous alliances simply to keep themselves alive.  I played one game of diplomacy in which one player made a permanent alliance with me claiming he "just wanted to come in second"; it turned out to be true, and ended up wildly unbalancing the game in my favor.
Example 3: Archipelago
Archipelago is an unusual game in that it is semi-cooperative.  In most cases, a game ends with all players winning or losing together, but then there is also a points system used to define the "grand winner" in the case that all players win.  Having played Archipelago, I have difficulty emotionally differentiating between "losing" and "winning but not coming in first".  The game explicitly defines a "second place" that most players get, but it still kind of feels like losing.  I care much more how close I came (points-wise) to being the grand winner in Archipelago than about the fact that I nominally won since how many points I have is an indicator of my performance.  I believe the game would be just as good if it was defined as "one player wins or everyone loses" instead of defining grades of victory.
Example 4: Games with Kingmaking
There is a fairly lengthy discussion on kingmaking here.  The relevant aspect of kingmaking here is that players not in the running to win become rogue agents since they are no longer motivated by the stated goal of the game.  This highlights that players usually are trying to achieve the stated goal of the game.  Players then have secondary goals, which may include implicit standing at the end of the game, but can also include getting revenge on a player that screwed them, helping a person they like better, or doing something that amuses them.  Kingmaking is one of the results of the enormous complexity underlying players' actions in games.  The gist of it is that players' motivations are far more complex than a univariate utility function.
Asside: Tournament Match Fixing
There is lots of external discussion on the topic.  The relevant aspect of match fixing here is that players can be willing to lose games given proper external incentives.  Consequently, tournaments often have very severe penalties against it to preserve the intended incentives of the game.
Using Score for Future Games
The implicit places beyond first are a good approximation for the strength of your strategy, assuming that the outcome of a strategy is normally distributed.  If you "come in last" in a game, it could be a result of bad luck or it could be a result of bad game-play, but either way usually requires a very different post-game analysis than if you "came in second".  Coming in last often requires rethinking your entire approach, while coming in second may just be about tweaking the finer points.  But even here, we care more about margin of victory than we do about ranks.  If you "come in second" in a game of Catan, with the final scores being 10, 9, 6, and 3, you did much better than if you "come in second" with the final scores being 10, 5, 4, and 3.
Of course, this becomes less useful if the outcome of the game given a strategy is not normally distributed.  Taking a single incredibly risky move that causes you to win a lot or lose a lot all at once (such as picking up an enormous pile of the discard in Rummy 500, keeping a very difficult set of routes in Ticket to Ride, or trying to shoot the moon in Hearts) will usually cause you to come in first or last depending on whether or not it succeeds.  These moves are typically only good if coming in first (i.e. "winning) is all that matters, since if they fail, they will be very detrimental to your points.  Taking these moves also makes your final points value a poor indicator of the performance of your strategy since the average is a worse approximation of the strategy's chances of success.  For example, a strategy that scores 100 points 75% of the time and 0 points the remaining 25% will win far more games than a strategy that reliably scores 90 points, despite having a lower average score.
Conclusion
Players have very complex utility functions when playing games.  Some players try to win, no matter the cost.  Some players try to do as well as possible relative to other players, and care about "coming in second" even if the game doesn't say that it counts for anything.  Some players care about doing well relative to their past performance so that they can improve at the game.  Some players will use the scores of the players as a tool to analyze the strategies employed by each.  Some players play for motivations unrelated to the stated purpose of the game, such as to do something amusing or to achieve some external social goal.  There is lots of overlap between these categories, and lots of things (like prizes) that can change players' utility when playing a game.  I believe that implicit ranking is real and is always a factor in playing a game, but how much of a factor is entirely situational.

These answers seem to me to conflate two slightly different goals because of English usage considerations.  Winner and "Best player" are not necessarily the same,  In my Puerto Rico circle there is one player who is decidedly the "best", winning most of the time.  When he loses he doesn't lose the assessment of being the "best" (most skillful) player, even if he loses this one game. (Though we all cheerfully assure him he has lost the gloss of "best".) So winning is a simple matter of scoring (as are 2nd, 3rd, etc.), and scoring one (or even several) game does not imply "best" player - especially given that most popular board games have some elements of randomness in order to keep them interesting.

Randomness is orthogonal - I'm sure OP understands that it can prevent the best player from winning in a single game. I think the point of the question is whether "2nd most points" and "2nd best player" can be conflated ignoring randomness. In a 2-player game, they can - usually both players want to win, and so (over the long run) the player who wins more often is the better player. The point of my answer is that with 3 or more players this stops working - even if you play enough to overcome randomness, you can't ignore the differing values that people place on coming in 2nd.

It depends on what the goal is.
Games like Scrabble or Yahtzee have scores on a fairly wide "continuum." So in games like these, it may be valid to use scores to measure "degrees of goodness."
Games like Catan have scores on a narrower continuum (7 or 8, up to 10). Such games are more "binary." You either achieve, or don't achieve the victory condition.
In the game of "Thrones," the basic victory condition is seven strongholds, but if no one achieves that, then smaller numbers are used to "rank," and hence determine the winner. (But that is a second choice.)
Like Catan, Thrones is a "first past the post game" (seven for Thrones, ten for Catan. In Scrabble or Yahtzee, there is no "post," only relative scores.


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Where do the zombies move in this quest?
My friends and I will soon play the Zombicide Black Plague Wulfsburg quests, starting with Welcome to Wulfsburg, which has the following setup:

My question is the following. Where do the zombies that spawn in 5R move before the characters make their way through the houses of 1V, 5R and 8V ?

I think I found the solution. This is from the Zombicide Black Plague rulebook, page 24:

In case there are no open paths to the noisiest Zone, Zombies move
  toward it as if all doors were open, though locked doors still stop
  them.

Which means the zombies from 5R will go stuck themselves in the dead-end of 8V until a character opens the door (which also allows another character to snipe them from the tower 10V in the meantime).

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How to play AKJx opposite xxx for 3 tricks at matchpoints
Say I need 3 trick from the suit AKJx opposite xxx to make my contract at matchpoints. I recently discovered that the best line is to cash AK and then lead to the jack (winning when the suit breaks 3-3, Q onside or Qx offside). However this line gives up on overtricks when Qxx is onside.
Should I play to maximise my expected number of tricks? I think this involves cashing the ace and finessing the second round (since Qxx onside is more likely than Qx offside).
Is there a standard line 'the room' would take and should I vary my play accordingly? I'm assuming I'm in a normal contract that most pairs will find themselves in.

Example hand:
I was considering this suit combination when reading 'The Rodwell Files' and this 3NT hand appeared,
  ♠ K7                   A2
  ♡ AJ83                K42
  ♢ AQ42                K55
  ♣ J76               K8532

On a spade lead Rodwell wins in hand, then plays on diamonds finding a 3-3 split. The ninth trick can then come from finessing the club Ace and falling back on the heart finesse, or by playing the heart Ace
King and lobbing towards the Jack. Rodwell gives both lines a 76% chance but says he would favour the latter line at teams (because of the slight chance of well placed singleton Ace or Queen of clubs).

What was the auction? What was the opening lead? Are your opponents strong, weak, or in between? Are you in a suit contract or NT? What are the full hands for Declarer and Dummy? What is the vulnerability? What system are your opponents playing? Are you having a good game or a bad game? Is it early or late in the session/game? What has been the play up to the point where you must decide on a line? Before a wise decision can be made here, which will rely on subtle inferences to get right. more information is required.

@ForgetIwaseverhere I realise it is difficult to say much about this suit in isolation. I haved added a 3NT contract for context (is there a right way to format hands on this site?).  I was hoping answers to this question would explain how the factors you mention affect the play. For example, does an opening lead that gifts a trick make the safety play more attractive since I'm beating pairs that received a different lead?

"How to play this combination for 3 tricks" is answerable, but you seem to know the answer already. "Should I play to maximise my number of tricks" [which is the opposite of maximising the chance of making 3] is not answerable without much more information.

The best line for maximum tricks is to cash the Ace and then finesses the Jack. This has an 18% chance of success and averages 2.87 tricks per occurrence (from hardcopy of The Bridge Encyclopedia). This is a losing play in Matchpoints; unless other considerations exist.
The real trick in Matchpoints is to make losing plays that work, and avoid winning plays that fail. Barry Crane is alleged to have been able, when he really needed a top, to incite a revoke from opponents. ;-)
However, making these subtle choices requires complete information on the hand. Not to be rude, but the fact that you are asking this question, a rather basic one on declarer play, without specifying the other conditions suggests that you actually have no idea how to judge if a contract is normal or not. There are several contributors on this site who can help you learn how to properly make those judgements, if you can provide more detailed information.
For this particular card combination, I would much rather be looking for a squeeze or endplay to get my extra trick. That requires an exact count of opponents distribution as well as our own, and a better than random guess at the high point locations. I also need to know how hard to try for the extra trick. Hence all the questions asked in my comment above.
Let's review some basic end game techniques to emphasize why full disclosure of the hand is necessary. Fundamental to all Squeezes is rectifying the count, meaning losing the desired full number of losers early. Fundamental to all Throw-Ins is losing the desired full number of losers late, possibly to a specific opponent. What are my prospects of doing so on a given hand? Only after that is answered does one even begin to think about taking optional random finesses.

More on Crane, for anyone interested, by Grant Baze, who was one of his regular partners.

Thanks for your answer, could you explain in more detail what makes playing the Ace and finessing the Jack a losing play. I'm unfamiliar with the terms winning and losing play in this context.

@Bysshed: You don't win at Matchpoints by getting tops; you win by avoiding bottoms. The way to do that is to swing only when you have an edge, and to play down the middle when you don't. My best rounds are when partner and I have only zero or one result below 3 (on a 12 top). Collect your tops with expert play as they become available, not by randomly betting on unknown card lies.

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Bridge Responders Jump shows a preempt or points...Playing Standard American
I am back, played a club level tournament recently.  Got creamed in it.  I think I couldn't deal with the pressure.  MY question is that my partner (an old timer) to my opening bid of 1 Club responded 2 Diamonds.  I thought it was a sort of a preempt bid but she had 14-15 points and 5 diamonds.  She was trying to say show a big hand which I failed to comprehend.  Needless to say we missed game.
as always many thanks for your time.

Please separate this question into two questions, as the answers to the two questions will be quite different!

Count; count; and count some more. The two most effective techniques at improving your game are: To count more; and to again discuss with partner which sequences are forcing and which ones are not. Weak players constantly distinguish themselves by not doing either task, and instead learning still more conventional calls that occur only rarely, and which they will use poorly from not having discussed the forcing and non-forcing continuations.

Just Did...thanks.  And you are absolutely right,  I am now taking a break from the conventions and focusing on table play and count.  Once this is in place will start work on bidding again.

Since you seem to have a regular partner, you may want to discuss with him/her what your pair is going to play. It is meaningless to learn some biddings just to have partner totally disagree with your methods and methodology.

For questions about Standard American, you can always refer to the  Standard American Yellow Card System Booklet.
In this case, the booklet says that jump-shift responses are strong and slam invitational. The downside to the booklet is that it doesn't really cover followups for most bids.
Preemptive jump-shifts are quite popular among players who play a 2/1 system, but Standard American's inability to force to game at a low level makes slam exploration too difficult when responder holds a good hand with an excellent suit unless you play strong jump-shifts.

Neither a "jump shift" nor a "jump raise" are pre-emptive.
Since your partner's bid was in a new suit, and "one more than necessary," it was a "jump shift" that showed more than a minimum opening hand; at least 15-16 high card points. Opposite a minimum opening hand, it is good for a minor suit game if you can find a fit. If you similarly have a "more than a minimum opening" with at least 15-16, the two of you are close to the slam zone with a minimum of 30-32. Then the viability of a slam depends on "extras" such as "controls," short and long suits,  extra trumps (above eight), or extra strength (above 15-16) in at least one hand.
A "jump raise" from one to three clubs is a "limit raise" showing just below a minimum opening hand, say 10-12 points. Opposite a minimum opening hand, it means that you and partner have at least 22-24 points so it is not predominantly pre-emptive. It does, however have some pre-emptive value, insofar as it prevents opponents from "reopening" a higher ranked suit with 17 points between them at the one or two level.


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In Catan, how to ensure nobody lies when monopoly card is played?
I don't like that the rules assume players are honest. One time, we had a player that lied about not having the requested resource, but was caught in the next turn when he tried to buy a road with that resource. However, a cunning opponent can lie and get away with it.
What's the most practical way to handle this situation? How do you deal with it? I don't really like any of the solutions I can think of. Forcing everyone to show all of their cards, having a judge/game master who checks everyone's cards, relying on everyone's honesty, ... all of them are either impractical or unfair.

it's easy: don't play with cheaters.

This is a very relevant post

@Pow-Ian: don't find that easy. There are two problems there: 1. as I said, a skilled player can fairly easily avoid being caught, thus making identifying a cheater hard; 2. the fact that you can get away with it creates incentive for otherwise honest players to lie about this on exceptional occasions, thus making your rule very hard to follow :)

How can a skilled person avoid being caught? All cards going into your hand are public knowledge, or known to the person you are robbering. All cards leaving your hand are public knowledge, or known to the person taking it. Once someone says they have 0 of something, people just have to track how much they have. They will be caught eventually. (Unless they never spend it, and no-one happens to steal it using a robber, but then what was the point in cheating?)

@Nick: in absolute, technical terms, you are of course correct. However, you assume that every player can and will perfectly track other players' cards. But unfortunately, in practice and in casual matches (like the ones I play) this is not the case. Not all players are capable or interested or consider it fun to track perfectly other players'cards.

@Nick: Also, consider an example where I play the monopoly card and ask for all the bricks, and all players give me all their bricks, but player X has one but doesn't give it away. Then, on the next dice roll user X receives 3 bricks. Then, maybe they use the robber and steal yet another brick. Or they trade and buy yet another brick. It can take them a couple of turns to spend all of those bricks. All of this doesn't make it impossible to check if the user lied when the monopoly card was played, but it sure makes it not trivial.

The commentary in the answers illustrates one reason why I dislike Catan: its game design encourages players to associate out-of-game consequences as a response to in-game events. In particular, Catan frequently becomes a "kingmaker" game, where one player cannot win themselves but can strongly influence who does win; such a situation encourages players who still can win to negotiate out-of-game consequences for the kingmaker's decisions. I don't find that very amusing.

Technical solutions for social problems tend not to work so well.

@stojadin skilled player can fairly easily avoid being caught, thus making identifying a cheater hard; Cheating is a major social faux pas. If one is caught, then people possibly won't like that person in real life, and certainly won't want to play board games with them in the future.

Count the cards in the supply
In Settlers of Catan you are always allowed to count the number of resources left in the supply decks.  It is a perfectly legal move to count the deck before using the monopoly on a resource.
This also means that after you got the resources you can just check how many you have in your hand, and how many are left in the deck.  If you are missing one, then someone is cheating.
In the 4th edition of the game there are 19 of each resource card.
Even if you think that counting the deck is out of the spirit of the game, having someone do it after a monopoly reveals no new information, and just controls for cheating.

Not playing fair with friends is also out of the spirit of the game ;)

@kreys  There is a reason why in Magic the Gathering any time you force your opponent to discard a type of card from their hand, you also get to look at their hand.  Any good rule set should be cheat proof to that extent

Yay, this is exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for! It's by the rules, and avoids creating the cheating-as-a-strategy meta game thing. Brilliant!

In my group we always employ the 'Shenanigans' rule.
I have a couple of 'creative' players and though they may swear they are not cheating, they may be doing it inadvertently or from sheer ignorance (or they may be untruthful). Thus the birth of the 'Shenanigans' house rule set.
We add one rule to cover all cheating that is detrimental enough that if caught, the player would be at a severe disadvantage but not out of the  game. For example: our shenanigan rule for cheating in Catan is as follows:
You start by discarding your entire hand, If you have no cards in hand you must remove a city, or a settlement, or a road and finally a development card. If you have none of these things to remove then you are simply removed from the game. Zero tolerance. If you are caught cheating three times you are removed from the game.
The way you call 'Shenanigans' is a lot like the classic card game of 'I Doubt it'. After a player takes an action, anyone can call 'Shenanigans'. If the accusation is accurate then the player who was accused is given the penalty as described above, if it is in-accurate, each player has three strikes; the first three times a player wrongly calls 'Shenanigans', there is no penalty. If they are wrong a fourth time however it is considered harassment and they are instead given the penalty.
This has proven to be equitable for all involved in our group because we agree to it at the outset.
In your case above, I would have called 'Shenanigans' when the player tried to build the road and they would have had to discard their entire hand.
If you have more creative players, you simply need to get more creative with your penalties. The important part here is that everyone understands at the outset how it works and that you make sure everyone can still have fun playing this way. Otherwise you may find yourself lacking a group of individuals to play with.

This is an interesting approach, though it runs the risk of creating a meta-game where cheating is considered a valid strategy as long as it is weighed against the cost of being called on your Shenanigans.  In some groups, that might very well be considered perfectly fine, but definitely something you want to clarify up front.  It does have some interesting consequences for games like Catan in particular, since a coalition of cooperators can starve a known cheater of trade opportunities.

you have summed up its strengths and weaknesses very well. They are of course acceptable in our group which is why I emphasize this only works if everyone agrees they can have fun while using it. And it certainly does create a meta-game, which we find can some times be very entertaining in and of itself.

On the other hand, in this specific case, the question "do you have a sheep in your hand or not?" isn't exactly a complex concept open to interpretation/misunderstanding of the rules...

The way I handled this - as we played with a player who subscribes to the philosophy that "it's up to the other players to enforce the rules, and he is only 'using his resources' (the unknown being one)" - is we added writing down our resource transactions on paper face down (we use small notepads like you'd use in clue or yatzee)
like this:
Jim - roll - transactions(s)
    7 - robber lost 1 brick
    9 - 2 wheat, 1 sheep
    3 - 1 brick, built house
    5 - 1 ore, 1 wood
    4 - monopoly played - 3 wood gain
Lisa
   7 - discard 3, stole 1 brick
   9 - 1 sheep, 1 brick
   3 - 1 wood
   5 - 1 wheat, 1 wood
  4 - monopoly 0 wood lost
You get the idea.  - Going with the examples above: If Jim 'challenges' Lisa (on wood) he would see she SHOULD have 2 wood. The "challenge" - he gets to look at the 'resource record' and compare her hand to the record. If he is correct Lisa must discard her entire hand and cannot draw any resources on her next turn. If Jim is incorrect (in this case he is not) he must discard his entire hand - right then - and may not draw resources on his next turn.
(The reason we added the second part is to discourage the use of challenges as a method of seeing other player's hands. )
We explain "The Challenge and Resource Log" at the beginning of every game. It adds a little bit of time, but hardly any and it really adds another layer to the game. It doesn't necessarily STOP someone from cheating, but it does make the penalty a bit ickier than just a tsk-tsk from other players.

Welcome to the site. An upvote for a good suggestion.

Stealing cards due to the robber or a soldier/knight card messes this up though; as it's not public information what was stolen.

i don't see how keeping the log helps you compared to just looking at the "I don't have any" player's hand and showing "yes you do" or "I see, no you don't."

It could be possible in two ways:

Involve house rule of checking hand - each player is checked by the player on his right. Disadvantage of this method is then each player would have knowledge about one of his opponents hand.
After playing monopol, note down every usage of that resource - trade, drawing and spending. Then you will easily find a cheating behaviour in a few next turns.

Both these methods should then give the cheater some penalty, discouraging that player to cheat again.
Anyway, cheating is just killing such gaming - hope that you won't face many cheating players, arguing and giving penalty isn't a nice thing for the game and friendship atmosphere.

As soon as people start cheating, you know they're playing to win and nothing else. Such environments can get pretty unfriendly.

We don't know whether anyone's cheating, we know someone suspects somebody else is cheating. How far is that worth disrupting everybody's game?

In games I play with my friends, we just play with our resource cards revealed. (Development cards are still kept hidden, though.)
We're not exactly tournament-level players. Counting cards is something we're bad at, and we don't tend to find particularly fun, either - so just having everyone display the resources they have at all times effectively mimics everyone at the table having a perfect memory of what cards everyone gains and loses. This does mean that cards stolen via the robber are public knowledge, but honestly we've never noticed it making enough of a difference to matter.
I once played in a game where some players played with open hands while others insisted on playing with their cards hidden - and the winner was one of the open-information players; Secrecy just wasn't enough of an advantage to make a difference.

Things like "lying" and "bluffing" are really the rightful subject of house rules.
The rules of the original games don't encourage lying, but they don't always go out of their way to prevent it either, given their designers' knowledge that different players have different "standards."
In order to prevent such lying in home games, the players should agree on house rules to prevent/penalize it. One such rule could be that if someone is caught in a lie, s/he automatically loses the game, which is a bit harsh. A lesser measure is that if the person lied about not having the card, s/he should not be allowed to play because someone else actually should have that privilege.

The second one isn't really a penalty. Had the person given the card like he was supposed to, he wouldn't have been able to play it anyway. At the least it should be obvious that the person caught with the card should have to give the card to the person who played the monopoly card; this isn't just a house rule, that's what the rules say should happen when you play the monopoly card.

@GendoIkari: Changed "penalty" to "measure" and explained that someone else should have the privilege of playing the card.

There's really no need for all these complicated solutions and rule-sets.
Unless, you are participating in an organized tournament -- in which case, you should notify the judges, because cheating would likely result in disqualification -- you do not need to put up with cheating. When playing a friendly game, there's no reason for anyone to lie and cheat. It throws off the balance of the game and makes it no fun for everyone. Isn't that why we play games to begin with?
I've played hundreds of hours of Catan (and other games) with my friends and if we ever discovered someone was cheating, we'd probably do our best to fairly penalize them for their misdeeds. If they continued to cheat then we'd simply refuse to play with that person and not invite them to future games.
Speaking for myself, if I discovered a cheater, depending on the circumstances, I would probably refuse to play as long as that person was playing.
If that's not an option, then yes, make up some house-rules to deal with the situation. If it is an ongoing problem then implement an immediate-lose rule which forces them out of the game.

Holaymolay, some people just like to cheat. They think of it as the game-within-the-game, to see how much they can get away with without getting caught. It's "perfectly rational" because now they're getting the fun of two games for the price of one! And they're terrible people. See this other question: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/7183/how-can-i-play-games-with-closed-information-with-players-who-cheat


text:
Are you able to build a settlement from a separate ship?
Let's say that I have a boat from island A, after a few turns I move boat to island B, now can I start a settlement on island B? Or do I have to make a full shipping line from Island A to Island B or can I just move one ship to island B and start a settlement?
I have read the Seafarers rules booklet, but I have not been able to find any information on this.

Boats are like roads with a few exceptions:

they must border at least on one side to water.
they require wood and sheep to build.
you can pivot the last ship in a row of ships (but it needs to stay connected).
they are affected by pirates

You can only change from road to ship (or ship to road) through a settlement (or city).
In order to build a settlement on an Island where you have no settlement yet, you need to build a row of ships starting from a settlement at the first island until you get to the second island. You can now continue building ships along the coast, or you can build a settlement. And if you are the first to build on an island, some scenario's reward you with an extra victorypoint.

Ok, sorry I misunderstood the ship "movement" rules, I thought you could just move your ship around anywhere you wanted. Thanks for the clarification @Toon Krijthe

You need to create a full shipping line. If you want to move a ship, you have to place it so that it is attached to another ship, or to a city or settlement.
You can never reach another island with just one ship.

You can reach an island with one ship, if there is only one sea tile between two islands. You can't build a settlement because of the distance rule ;-)

The manual doesn't clearly state if a shipping route needs to be connected to a city, so

If your shipping route reaches a coastline, you can then build a new settlement on that coast, even if it's a new island.

is everything I can find on that topic.
Source Catan: Seafarers Manual


text:
About Farkle Threshold Score
What is the threshold score you would require yourself to have in order to bank with three,four,five dice left? Assume you are trying to maximize the expected value of this one turn (so ignore things like how many points you or your opponents need to win).
Rules

"assuming you are not aggressively playing" is not sufficient to tell us what you are trying to do. For example, the answer will be very different if you are currently beating your opponent by 800 points vs if they are beating you by 800. Are you perhaps asking what to do to maximize the expected value of this one turn, irrespective of everyone's scores?

yes i mean that.

Ok, I edited your question to reflect that.

@BenjaminCosman This is a good edit.  What scoring system are we using?  The us retail version?  I feel as though this game should be solvable.

And do you play with the "hot dice" rule, where if you bank off all 6 dice you can continue with all 6?

@LeppyR64 Sure.

Bank if you have at least this many points:

3 dice: 450
4 dice: 1050
5 dice: 3050

More importantly, you can easily generate complete strategies for any of the common rulesets here. (The rules you describe are that site's "Facebook Farkle Scoring" preset, except I changed "triple farkle penalty" and "minimum deposit" to 0 since you didn't talk about those.)
Remember that in an actual game of Farkle you would have to adapt this strategy based on how well you and your opponent are doing and what the winning threshold is.

Thats a good answer.But can you tell me the threshold scores when triple farkle penalty (-500 points)  and hot dice rule apply and minimum deposit is 300 (like facebook farkle).Thanks.

Here's an analysis of the game of Zilch, whose scoring only differs slightly compared to the scoring you've given:

Three pairs scores 1,500 instead of 750.
You may score 500 points if you roll all 6 dice and have no other scoring combinations
Multiples of the same dice score 100*n^(x-2) instead of 100*n*(x-2), where n is the value of the die and x is the number of dice in the combination.  I.e. 4 twos would score 800 instead of 600, 5 twos would score 1600 instead of 800, etc.
Scoring a "Zilch" (a score of zero) in three consecutive rounds costs 500 points.

The first three rule differences will slightly increase the expected value of a roll.  The fourth rule difference can be ignored by only following the Zilch strategy when you have zero Zilches.


text:
Civilization Board Game - founding cities gives army extra move?
Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game (2010)
Let's say I have just moved an army and a scout together on a tile. Then, in the Starting Phase of the next turn, I found a city with the scout, and the manual states that the army has to immediately move out of the city onto a valid tile where it can end its turn.
Manual, page 13:

If there are any friendly figures in the square where a city
  is being built besides the scout being sacrificed, the player
  immediately moves them to an adjacent square that they can
  legally end their movement in.

But the Movement Phase has not yet begun!

So does this moving out of the tile cost the points that are used in
the Movement Phase? The Movement Phase description doesn't seem to
mention this possibility.
Otherwise, doesn't this add an extra movement point? That seems like
an exploit.
Or does this mean that that army ends its movement prematurely in
this turn, ahead of the movement phase?

Or how should this be handled? Haven't found anything on this in the Errata / FAQs, either.

Those units can still move their full Travel Speed during the Movement Phase.
In the first paragraph of the rules regarding movement on page 19, the rulebook has this to say (emphasis mine):

During this phase, each player, in turn, may move all of their figures, one at a time.

The rulebook doesn't go on to restrict which units constitute "all" units. Given the verbiage here, you should be able to move any units that were displaced when a city was built. The rules are also pretty explicit in that a unit can't split its movement points to perform other actions:

Once a figure has begun its move, it must complete its move before any other figure may move.

So you also wouldn't subtract movement points from those units during the Movement Phase.
The rule you quoted ends by saying that the units have to go where "they can legally end" their movement. This is meant to prevent units from being able to end a turn on an illegal space should the player decide not to move those units during the Movement Phase.


text:
Scythe: Opening Moves Book?
Would it be feasible to create an opening book for Scythe, analogously to chess openings?

It would have 7 factions x 7 starting boards = 49 parts, which would be further subdivided depending on game conditions and opponent replies
It could feature an agreed-upon shorthand notation and simplified board maps
It would be a community effort, so be continuously updated and contain ratings
It could also feature something like chess' endgame quizzes, like "here's a board at a given move, win in 2 moves by getting 40 coins (expansion rules)".

Are there any existing frameworks or tools that can help with this?

As a 1-5 player game an opening moves book would get a lot more complicated for each additional player that is playing. In chess (and other similar games) there is only 1 opponent to worry about but when you have multiple opponents a response move becomes more complicated.

I'm pretty sure 7x7 = 49.

There is one here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OJiFyrhkue3zMUNGgZkCrETycGNog2mgS5_s4mKmIqA/edit
Not sure how competitive it is.

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


text:
Does an action which gives you +2 Advance Civilization require they be used together?
There are several planets which provide +2 economy / diplomacy (e.g., Padraigin-3110). Do those have to be used to advance a single ship 2 spaces in orbit, or can they be used to advance 2 separate ships 1 space each?
Update: Added a picture showing Padraigin-3110.

The text of Padraigin-3110 says "Spend 2 culture to advance +2 diplomacy".

Can you post a picture of Padraign-3110? I'm not sure I understand your question.

Looking through the deck for similar cards to Padraigin-3110, I came across 1 essentially identical card, Nakagawakozi (spend energy to improve economy, rather than spending culture to improve diplomacy, but same general idea). I came across 2 other cards which allow you to regress a ship -2 (Jorg) or advance a ship +2 (Terra-Bettia).
Jorg specifically mentions that you must regress a single ship by -2. Terra-Bettia is a bit more ambiguous, but does mention advancing "a ship" +2, implying that it must be a single ship.
In the absence of any clarifications from the designer / manufacturer, and given there are similar cards to Padraigin which specifically mention the action must be performed on a single ship, while Padraigin does not specifically mention the same, the benefit of Padraigin-3110 seems to be equivalent to rolling two separate dice, each containing the diplomacy symbol. Similarly, taking the action at Nakagawakozi would be equivalent to rolling two economy symbols on the dice. That is, you can advance one ship +2, or two ships +1.

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


text:
Identify this Solitaire variant
I played a variant of Solitaire long ago (20+ years) but don't remember the name of it or the specific rules.
It was played with a single deck of cards, which you held in your hand face down. You drew 4 cards face up, keeping them in that same hand. Cards were removed / discarded through some matching criteria (which I don't remember), and if no cards could be removed, new cards were drawn one at a time. Each time a new card was drawn, the matching criteria were applied again. This repeated until the deck was empty. You won if you were left with no cards in your hand.
I remember it being quite difficult to win, but it was neat in that you didn't need a table or other flat surface. The game was played entirely in your hand(s).

This sounds like a game that I have played and the matching criteria was based on the top most 4 cards. If the suits of the 1st and 4th card matched you would discard the 2nd and 3rd card and check for a new match. If the value of the 1st and 4th card matched you would discard all 4 of the cards.

@Joe W, I take it you don't have a name for it? I used to play it too, but I don't know the name either


text:
Can character abilities and upgrades be used through roadblocks?
Question in spoiler tags

 Roadblocks prevent diseases from spreading during outbreaks, and also hinder movement. Do they also prevent or hinder usage of character abilities or upgrades which allow the character to interact with adjacent cities? For example, the immunologist can vaccinate an adjacent city, and character upgrades allow treat disease or quarantine (when on a military base) in an adjacent city. Do roadblocks affect these or other similar abilities?

Roadblocks have no effect in these scenarios. They do exactly what they say they do, and nothing else. Since they never mention affecting abilities, they don't.


text:
Which city is the one being searched for the virologist?
Question in spoiler tags below

  In July, searches are introduced. The Search for the Virologist indicates that if there is a quarantine marker in the city you are searching, advance the search party one additional space. Elsewhere on the card, though, when instructing how many spaces to advance, it refers to "your city". Is the city you are in the one you are searching, or is the city on the card you discarded the one you are searching?

The actual text of the card can be seen in this image
Relevant text copied below as well

 Take the search action if you are in a faded city with a research station
 Advance 1 space for each card you discard matching the color of your city
 If there is a quarantine marker in the city you are searching, advance the search party 1 additional space per search action.

Frankly, I don't see how you could entertain the second interpretation at all! From this picture: https://boardgamegeek.com/article/20687079#20687079

ADVANCE 3 SPACES IF YOU DISCARD THE CARD MATCHING YOUR CITY

There is clearly a distinction between the [city listed on the] discarded card and the city where the active player's pawn is located. Furthermore, since you are able to discard multiple cards, it doesn't make any sense that the cities on those cards would be "yours".
"Your city" is the city where you are.

I think your answer is technically spot on, but could be improved by the removal of the first sentence which doesn't seem either necessary or particularly nice. (Then I will delete this comment and upvote.)

Yes, "your city" is clearly the city in which your pawn is located. But, the bit about the quarantine marker uses the term "the city you are searching", not "your city". Surely, if the first interpretation were correct, the wording would have been "If there is a quarantine marker in your city, advance 1 extra...", since the term "your city" is used elsewhere on the card to indicate that exact thing?

Further, the wording for advancing 1 space is "Advance 1 space for each card you discard matching the color of your city"; this makes multiple discards make sense. There is only 1 card matching "your city", but there are many matching the color of "your city"


text:
Does completing "Establish a Temple to Ibrundul" count as taking Piety quests?
I came across a situation while playing Lords of Waterdeep with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion.
I had completed the Sanctify a Desecrated Temple plot quest, which provides a white cube whenever I take a Piety quest. Later in the game I completed the Establish a Temple to Ibrandul quest, which as the reward has me take all quests from Cliffwatch Inn.
If any of those quests are Piety quests, do I get a white cube for each of them as a result of the plot quest?
I don't have images, but I imagine there are similar plot quests for when you take the other quest types and this same situation would apply.
My thought is that since both cards use the word take, then the plot quest reward would be triggered and I'd get white cubes for each Piety quest present, but is this the case?

I haven't been able to find an official answer for you but I would say that yes, you're interpreting it correctly. The wording in Lords of Waterdeep is usually quite clear and the keyword is the same on both cards. Due to the first card you get a cube each time you take a Piety quest and the second card instructs you to take a number of quest cards. This means that you will get a cube per Piety quest taken.


text:
Does the Well Stocked improvement apply to epidemic infections?
The Well Stocked infection card improvement says

If there are 2 or more supply cubes on this city when this card is drawn, do not remove any supply cubes.

Does the card drawn from the bottom of the infection deck during the Infect step of an epidemic trigger this ability? Or is it only cards drawn from the top of the deck during the normal Infect phase at the end of a turn?

If the Well Stocked city has 2 supply cubes and is the bottom card of the Infection deck during an Epidemic, you will not remove any cubes.
On page 13 of the rulebook (emphasis mine):

Infect: Draw the bottom card from the  Infection deck. Remove all the Supply cubes  from that city and put them in the stockpile.  (Do not add Plague cubes if the city has no  Supply cubes.)

Well Stocked applies any time that city is drawn from the Infection deck, and step 2 of an Epidemic is a draw effect. The exact wording indicates you won't remove any supplies cubes. Users on BGG agree here and here.
Edit: The BGG threads reference the back page of the manual, which makes this explicit (emphasis mine):

Infection improvements are in effect during:

Game set up
The Infect step during an Epidemic
The Infect step at the end of every player turn

+1 Both linked BGG threads reference the back page of the manual, so I've edited that into your answer.


text:
Choosing same color after Wild (+4) Draw 4
Playing Uno this weekend, one of the players played a Wild+4 but chose the same color that was in play (this led to a successful challenge). I had thought that, regardless of what's in the player's hand, the player could not choose the same color after playing a Wild+4 - it had to change to one of the other 3 colors. A player could choose the same color after playing a regular Wild, though.
Looking at the rules, though, I did not see this restriction; only that the player playing the Wild+4 must not have any cards of the same color in play. Given that my Uno deck is a fairly recent version, I'm wondering if older versions did have that rule? Or maybe it was just a house rule. If so, is that a common house rule? Or maybe it just stemmed from the need to not have the current color in your hand...

These rules appear to be from 2001, and these rules appear to be from 2003. Both sets of rules do not indicate any restrictions on the choice of colour after either wild.
The points from both rules about Wild Draw 4 are:

You play it and choose the colour to continue.
The next player draws 4 and misses their turn.
You can only play this if you don't have a card of the matching colour.
You can break the above rule.
The person drawing 4 may challenge you. If they win, the you draw 4 instead. If they lose, they draw an additional 2. (Note that they still miss their next turn)

Neither set of rules have any limitation on the colour choice.
For further reference, there's this question regarding the history of UNO rules. The 1983 rules found there follow the same draw 4 rules as the more recent rules printings.

The linked question, which has a link to the original rules (or at least, the rules from 1983) indicates no restriction on color choice either - and in fact, explicitly lists choosing the same color as an option. That's my answer! Guess I played wrong back in the day, or just remembered wrong!

@mmathis Right you are, I'll add that as a note to the answer :)

The rule is you must not have any of the current color to be able to play the wild draw 4.  If you chose the current color as the color for the wild, this implies you are choosing a color you don't have any cards in.  You can do it, but it's very rarely a good idea unless you are trying to draw a challenge.

As far as I have seen in the rules, your second point is incorrect - you do not have to have a card of that color in your hand to choose it after a wild

@mmathis Good point.  Updated

I can see that strategy (choosing the same color) being used to prevent a player from playing his/her last card, while at the same time getting rid of 50 points from your own hand. It does beg a challenge though

It seems like deliberately drawing a challenge might be a strategy itself, for instance, to try to trick a player on the edge of going out into having to draw more cards.  Of course once you've done that you might have opened up a levelling game where you know they know you know they know you are trying to draw a challenge...

In a many player game it can be a very sensible tactic. If I'm down to my last two cards, a Wild Draw 4 and a card that can't be played, then by playing the Wild Draw 4 everyone knows my last card isn't the colour currently displayed. By choosing the colour that's currently down, I give no information away about the colour of my final card.

As far as I know, the Wild+4 card has always had the restriction that you cannot play it if you could have played another card of the same color.
However, when I learned Uno, this restriction was true for both Wild and Wild+4, not just Wild+4.
They may have lifted the restriction on the normal Wild card at some point or we may have always played it wrong. In any case, you aren't alone in feeling like you learned it one way only to find the rules say something else.

Doesn't answer the question.

I think that you can place a wild card or wild+4 if u want to but have to change the colour. Otherwise the wild card is Just a pointless card.

This answer contradicts other answers and has no sources backing it up. Can you add something to back up this answer?


text:
Are chain reaction outbreaks considered part of the original outbreak, in regards to "Containment Failure"
The Containment Failure emergency event says to place 2 cubes in each connected city when doing the next outbreak. If one of those connected cities already has 2 or 3 cubes, this triggers a chain reaction outbreak, add usual, but is this considered a separate outbreak? That is, should I place 1 or 2 cubes on each of those connected cities?

Pandemic co-creator Tom Lehmann gave an example (answering another question, admittedly) indicating that further outbreaks add only one cube.

In your Manila/Taipei example, each with three cubes, you will first place 2 cubes in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Osaka; then do one chain reaction outbreak in Manilla, placing cubes in San Francisco, Sydney, Ho Chi Minh City, and Hong Kong, for a total of 10 cubes and 2 outbreaks.

I made a few changes to clarify who Tom Lehmann is, and I copyied out the relevant part of the example so that if the link goes dead, your answer will still be valuable. If I missed anything or misunderstood the point you were trying to make, please feel free to undo my changes.

This seems like a situation where the rules give some room for interpretation. I would say that any chain outbreaks should be treated as separate outbreaks, connecting cities receive 1 cube. This is how I play and we justify this by saying that a real containment failure in one city would likely only effect that city, it would have no bearing on how well other cities can contain their outbreaks.
Of course you could decide how hard you want the game to be and then decide on 1 or 2 cubes.


text:
Can I keep multiple goods of 1 type if I have multiple warehouses?
In Harbour, the rules for the warehouse symbol state:

When shipping goods, a player can keep 1 good of 1 type for each warehouse symbol they own.

If I have 2 warehouse symbols, can I keep 2 goods of 1 type? Or must I keep 1 good each of 2 different types?

@goldPseudo thanks for the new tag. Couldn't see a way to do that on mobile

The tag will be automatically reaped unless someone creates a tag wiki for it, or unless a second question is tagged with it shortly. Please consider doing one of these things.

From the Harbour FAQ on BGG:

When using warehouses, how many goods can you store?
You can keep up to the number of goods you have warehouse symbols. However, you cannot use warehouses to increase the amounts of goods to higher than they were before shipping.
Example: You ship two stone and four wood and have three warehouses. You can save two stone and one wood, one stone and two wood or three wood. You cannot "store" three stone since that is more than was shipped.

Based on this, you are allowed to store multiples of the same type of good, you just can't store more than you currently have (i.e. no making things out of thin air.)


text:
Does the "CDC Planes Grounded" emergency event prevent the First Responder's ability?
The emergency event CDC Planes Grounded prevents players from moving by flight actions, as well as the Airlift event. The rules denote some specific exceptions such as the Dispatcher's ability, but do not mention the First Responder or his ability to move out of turn after an Epidemic. Is that ability prevented by this emergency event?

CDC Planes grounded states

Players cannot move by direct, charter, or shuttle flight (or the event airlift).

The First Responders ability is

• As an action, you may move to any city with a research station.
• Immediately after an Epidemic, you may – out of turn – move to the epidemic city and Treat Disease there (before Infections).

Neither of these abilities are a direct, charter or shuttle flight, and so should not be affected by planes being grounded.
This thread on boardgamegeek comes to the same conclusion.

Clarified by the game designer in that thread


text:
In Terraforming Mars, do special tiles count as tiles you own when placing greenery tiles?
When placing a greenery tile in Terraforming Mars, you have to place it next to a tile you own. Let's say all you own is the "Mining Rights" tile and you are now playing a greenery tile. Do you have to play your greenery tile next to it?

Yes.
Special tiles have your player marker on them, so they are your tiles, just like greenery or city tiles.
From the rules, page 5:

Special tiles: Some cards allow you to place
  special tiles. Any function or placement
  restriction is described on the card. Place the
  tile, and place a player marker on it.

And

Player markers: Each player uses his own color
  to mark TR, ownership of tiles, production
  (see page 6), and to indicate used blue card
  actions (see page 11).

FWIW the only tiles that aren't owned are Ocean tiles.


text:
Seven wonders building a stage
Can you build a stage of your wonder with resources from yellow cards?
Or only with brown and gray cards

You can use any resources, including those from yellow cards.
Paying for a Wonder stage is pretty much the same as paying for a structure on a card. The only difference between resources produced by yellow cards vs those produced by brown and gray cards are that yellow card resources cannot be bought by neighboring players.
From the rules:

The resources of a city are produced by its Wonder board, its brown cards,
  its gray cards, and some yellow cards.
  To build a structure, a player’s city must produce the resources indicated
  on its card.

You're welcome! If this answer was helpful, and a better one doesn’t come along, please use the check mark button to mark it as the correct answer.


text:
Phase 10 discard pile
While playing Phase Ten, is it legal to pick up the top card of the discard pile and then immediately discard that exact card?

Yes. You draw the card, put it into your hand, and then discard any card from your hand (which may be the card you just drew).

Yes. You should rather pick up a card from the pile to get a chance to help you. But if you want to do that yes you can.


text:
Building settlements in Seafarer
Does one have to travel by sea with boats to an island in order to build a settlement? Or can you build a settlement with road or with boat on any turn?

Welcome to BG.SE! I edited your question to remove the second question. SE is a Q&A site where each Question is just a single question. You can definitely ask a second, separate Question with your other inquiry - just click the "Ask Question" in the upper right.

If you are on land, you can build settlements separated by (at least) two roads.
If you want to go to another island, you should build a "road of" boats from a settlement. Until you reach land where you can build a settlement. From the settlement you can build roads again.
You can build boats along the coast as long as they start at a settlement.
You can not alternate between roads and boats without a settlement in between.
There is one exception. If you have two settlements and you build a road from one and a boat-road from the other, they can connect.
To summarize,
you can build a boat on an edge if:

nothing has been built on that edge
you have at least one boat in your stock
you pay a the build cost:

a sheep and a wood
or a card that enables you to build a ship

at least one of the hexes is a water hex
either one of the nodes has a valid connector:

the node contains one of your settlements
the node contains one of your cities.
one of the other edges leading to the node contains one of your boats.
the node does not contain an enemy settlement
the node does not contain an enemy city

you can build a road on an edge if:

nothing has been built on that edge
you have at least one road in your stock
you pay a the build cost:

a wood and a clay
or a card that enables you to build a road

at least one of the hexes is a land hex
either one of the nodes has a valid connector:

the node contains one of your settlements
the node contains one of your cities.
one of the other edges leading to the node contains one of your roads.
the node does not contain an enemy settlement
the node does not contain an enemy city


text:
What happens in Catan junior if you have to pay out a resource from your own pile to another player, but you don’t have that resource?
What happens in Catan junior if you have to pay out a resource from your own pile to another player, but you don’t have that resource?
When you roll a dice and you have to give some to another player as they have lairs next to another island.
Thanks

Quick disclaimer, I've never played this game before but as the rules are only 6 pages long it was worth reading rules and seeing if I could find the answer.
Looking at the rules here I cant find any references to having to give players resources from your own pile.  There doesn't appear to be any stealing like in Normal Catan.
Instead it looks like you might have misinterpreted the following on page 4.

Because you rolled the die, you must give your fellow players
  any newly earned resources from the stockpile.
  Look at the picture below. You are the white player and roll a
  “4.” You and the red player each have a pirates’ lair next to the
  sugar cane island with a “4,” so you each get a molasses tile.
  A treasure cave island is also marked with a “4,” so you must
  give the blue and the orange pirates 1 cutlass tile each.

The stockpile appears to be just a general supply by the board (as described on page 2 under 'resource tiles'.  The way these rules are wrote its implying that the player rolling the die is responsible for giving other players resources they are entitled to. I believe the line "must give the blue and orange pirates" means give them from the stock pile not your own pile.  I think if it was your own pile that would be more explicitly stated and all new resources always come from stock pile.
So in answer to the question what happens if a player cant give a resource they need to I would say that is an impossible situation that should never happen.


text:
How often do you have to move the outbreak marker in a chain reaction?
So if an outbreak occurs, I do move the outbreak marker one forward. If this triggers a chain reaction in one city, I move it forward once more. But what happens if I have several chain reactions? Would I have to move the outbreak marker up to 8 times? The rule book is a bit ambiguous about this.

I added the Pandemic tag as the question is equally valid for it, too. Please revert is you feel otherwise.

You move it once per outbreak, chain reaction or otherwise.
The rules don't seem ambiguous to me:

When a chain reaction outbreak occurs, first move the outbreaks marker
  forward 1 space. Then, place cubes as above, except do not add a cube to
  cities that have already had an outbreak (or a chain reaction outbreak) as
  part of resolving the current Infection card.

You have to do all of this - moving the outbreak marker, and placing cubes - for each city that has a chain reaction outbreak.
Also, it says "when a chain reaction outbreak occurs" - as in, one outbreak. If it meant you only moved the marker one step even when there are many chain reaction outbreaks, it would presumably say "one or more" or otherwise clarify.

+1. Indeed, this means that you can go from no outbreaks to game over very quickly, if you have just a few cities next to each other with 3 cubes each on them.


text:
What is the name of this board game?
I've been trying to find the name of an old and simple board game but I can't seem to be able to. The rules were something in these lines:
2 players
The board has around 10 board squares or holes set in a row
Each player has 4 pieces (I think) that are located in opposite sides of the board.
The initial set up is like this ('1' means player's 1 pieces, '2' player's 2 and _ empty square)
1 1 1 1 _ _ 2 2 2 2

The goal of the game is to move all your pieces to the other side with rules:

You can only move one piece and one square at a time
2 pieces can't be in the same square
If you want to move a piece to a square occupied by another piece you jump over any piece and go to the next empty square

So the game could go like this (Sorry I noticed that I started with player 2 when I was halfway through but shouldn't change anything):
1 1 1 1 _ _ 2 2 2 2

1 1 1 1 _ 2 _ 2 2 2

_ 1 1 1 1 2 _ 2 2 2

2 1 1 1 1 _ _ 2 2 2

2 _ 1 1 1 1 _ 2 2 2

...

Anybody knows what is the name of this game?
Thank you!
Edit This is more or less how a few rounds of the game look like. Each rectangle is one turn. Blue is moving from right to left and red from left to right. Also the game ends when a player gets all the pieces on the other side

Hey ignatus, this reminded me of Mancala board game... is your game it? Or at least similar? also vaguely reminded me of peg solitaire

This looks like the jumping frogs puzzle.
There are several variants.

The number of spaces and pieces can vary.
The number of pieces you can jump over can vary.

As far as I know, this qualifies as a puzzle. But I think you can play this as a game too.

That´s it! I´m pretty sure I saw it as a 2 player game (you could jump over more than one piece) or maybe I was just doing it wrong all along :D. Thank you so much!


text:
Carcassone - placing barn figure in field
Game : Carcassone with expansion "Abbey & Mayor".
Question - theoretically barn can be placed:
A) only if my farmer has already been placed in field?
B) regarding if any farmers already exist in fields?

According to the rules, the barn can be placed in a field as long as that field doesn't already have a barn. Farmers are no concern when placing the barn:

You may place your barn on a field already occupied by farmers. You may not,
  however, place your barn on a field already occupied by another barn. Once
  placed, a barn remains in play until the end of the game.


text:
Which features are scored first in Carcassonne?
I am playing with the The Gold Mines expansion in Carcassonne and I was wondering what the scoring order of features is. Which features do you score first?
I was playing and I placed a piece that completed both my mom's monastery and a road she shared with my brother. Gold was on the piece with the monastery and an adjacent piece and the road went through both those pieces. If the monastery was scored first my mom would get all the gold but if the road was scored first she would have to split it.

According to the Carcassonne Wiki here the rule is :-

When players tie on a feature or when multiple features are scored together, gold is distributed to the involved players one bar at a time, beginning with the active player.

This view is also backed up by the complete annotated rules.  This document also says Rio Grande Games (RGG) and Hans Im Gluck versions both printed the rules slightly differently.

The RGG version of the rules states “all players who score completed features with gold bars
  take one gold bar for each feature they score and that has gold bars.” This seems different from the
  HiG rules, where the rule is to only take one gold piece at a time.


text:
Why does Spell Queller prevent spells from resolving?
Why when a spell get "Spell Quellered" the spell does not resolve, even though it's not written that it "counters" but instead "exiles" the spell? Is there a special ruling or am I missing something? (I'm still kinda new to Magic.) I've been told numerous time that a card effect still resolves (if not countered) even if it's removed from the stack, like for example if I play Stasis Snare on a creature that has a "enter the battlefield" effect that effect will still resolve unless it is "countered."

Spell Queller exiles the spell itself. The other situation you're talking about is removing the source of an ability on the stack, while leaving the ability there on the stack.
Spells and abilities can only resolve if they're on the stack. So when Spell Queller exiles a spell, it's just gone. There's nothing there to resolve anymore.
On the other hand, if your opponent casts a creature with an "enters the battlefield" ability, say Ulrich of the Krallenhorde, we're talking about two objects: Ulrich himself (a creature on the battlefield), and its ability (on the stack). The two are independent. If you actually removed the ability, say by casting Summary Dismissal, then it wouldn't resolve. But if you remove Ulrich, the ability is still there to resolve and give the targeted creature +4/+4.
Same goes for activated abilities, like Thermo-Alchemist's ability to deal one damage to each opponent. If you remove the Thermo-Alchemist, the ability is still there to deal you damage.

I got you. That make sense i was definitely missing something. Great explanation. I learned something. Thank you.


text:
Which adventure should I start in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Card Game?
I've heard I should start with Adventure B, but it's a really hard adventure! Is this really true? Or should I start with the seemingly easier Adventure 1?
To clarify: What is the "official" starting adventure in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous? Or is there an official one?

@Othya - Opinion based questions are fine as long as those opinions are based on "facts, references, or specific expertise"

Paizo has actually admitted that Wrath of the Righteous ended up a little harder than intended. In particular, the B scenarios are considered by some to be harder than the #1 scenarios.
Fortunately, this is addressed in the FAQ:

Resolution: Make one or both of these changes only if you're looking for an easier time with Wrath B scenarios:
On the B and C henchman Tangle Trap, add the line "If defeated, you may immediately attempt to close the location this henchman came from."
Move some or all of the following cards from Set B and/or C to Set 1, and change their set indicators to 1: the barrier Arboreal Blight (B & C), the monster Carrion Golem (B & C), and 1 of the Demonic Horde barriers in B and/or the Demonic Horde barrier currently in C. Then move some or all of the following cards from Set 1 to Set B, and change their set indicators to B: the monster Accursed Priest and the barrier Poisoned Spiked Pit Trap.

Yes, I'm aware of the errata. I'm more asking what the official starting adventure should be?

I believe in all the base sets, the B adventures are recommended but not required. They can be nice in that they give you time to get used to your character and get some deck upgrades. But the WotR B adventure is very hard, and so some may prefer to skip it, if the rewards aren't worth it.


text:
Which tracks on Formula D / Formule Dé has the greatest straight line?
On Formula D/ Formule Dé, one's speed is determined by the dices you use. The Sixth dice, allows one player to move to a maximum of 30 spaces. This is the greatest dice available. Formula D/Formule Dé uses the same "tracks" as one can use any tracks of any given edition, it'd work freely.
I'm wondering which tracks has the longest straight line, in order to use this sixth dice.

All tracks allow it. The question of reasonableness will come down to a matter of opinion.

@L.ScottJohnson I think one can say that a straight line of 45 or more might be reasonable enough, I'm asking for feasability as in not dying instantly, which sadly isn't doable on Monaco nor Nevada. Do you fill it's still too broad? Any tips on how to rephrase it ?

Yeah, I think it's too broad / opinion-based. Rephrasing won't get around that, though. The longer the straights (and the straighter the curves around it), the more usable the 6th die. Other than that, there's not much area for discussion.

If it is too broad, instead of asking where the sixth dice can be used ask for the length of straight you want to have.  Even if as a matter of tactics someone thinks you are too cautious it is still answerable.

It also matters how much of a risk taker you are in games.

@Jontia edited, following your suggestion

I don't actually own Formula D so I am relying on the experts over at BGG. The information before relates to the current incarnation Formula D only, Formula De tracks from earlier releases of the game are not considered.
For the purpose of this question two points on the linked thread stand out...

Baltimore/Buddh
  I particularly like Buddh. The very long straight is the longest on any of the F1 tracks in the Formula D series (F De has several longer ones) and leads into a 1 stopper followed by an in between length to the 2 stopper.

And specifically mentioning 6th gear...

Sebring/Chicago
  - Sebring: A fun, challenging track, but in my experience, you can get runaway leaders on it if they hit the 1-stop corners just right. You can hit 6th gear easily.

Estoril... by far !
But only if you race more than one lap.

Could you edit your answer to include the relevant datum (i.e., the length of the straightaway).


text:
Should black pass in this situation?
Suppose a game of go ends up in the follow position, with black to play. (Assume everything is settled apart from the situation in the centre of the board.)

As black it seems like there's no productive move for me to make. I can't play at the point marked with a square because I'll be captured, and if I play at the triangle point I'm playing into my own territory, which loses a point (assuming Japanese rules). So it seems like I should pass.
But if I do pass, then white will play at the point marked with a square, and I'll have to play on the triangle point anyway. Then both players will pass, and the result will be the same as if I just played at the triangle to start with.
I'm still a beginner (11 kyu on OGS), so I'm wondering how this would normally be handled in a game between stronger players. Would black pass or play at the triangle point, and how would white respond?
I'm interested both in whether there's anything I've missed about this question, and in the etiquette around when to pass. I'd also be interested to learn if the difference between Japanese and Chinese rules changes anything about this situation.

As a beginner I would say you profit still a lot from playing out end positions. While this exact situation is even for a beginner easy to see as lost, in a normal game it won't be as clear cut. If you are playing against another beginner, there are chances they are making a mistake and you can turn it around or in a more complicated situation that you missread the board.

Yet another example of the superiority of area scoring :)

in a game between stronger players, that would be handled by black resigning since they're obviously losing...

@ilkkachu the question is about the situation in the centre of the board. The rest of the board is completely irrelevant to the question and is only shown to make it clear that there's nothing else needing to be resolved.

The marked spaces are what's called dame they are empty spaces that are of no interest to either white or black because the spaces will not effect the outcome of the game and do not need to be filled to determine the winner. In a casual game, I think it is worthwhile to simply ask your opponent if they agree with your own assessment of a group of stones when you're deciding whether to pass or not.
If it was two reasonably experienced players in a situation like this, I think they would likely pass and regard the black stone and marked spaces as unclaimed. Resulting in 24 points for black and 30 points for white under the Japanese scoring system and 36 for black and 43 for white under the Chinese system (feel free to check my math for the Chinese score).
If the players could not agree that the black stone and two marked spaces are of no value, the players could keep going and play it out. Playing more stones will change the final score, but in a situation where the fate of the stones are truly already determined regardless of play, it will not have an impact on the difference between the scores. For example, if black did play a stone at the triangle space and white played at the square, then the Japanese score would be the same and the Chinese score would be 37 for black and 44 for white. Either way the gap between the scores would remain the same.
This article at Sensei Library has a section on dame and neutral spaces. It summarizes the difference between the scoring systems as:
With Territory Scoring:
There are no points in playing Dame
Playing in your own territory reduces your score.
(It covers an empty point.)

With Area Scoring:
Playing a Dame point is worth a point
(it puts a stone of your color on the board).
Playing in your own territory doesn't affect your score.

I see. So with territory scoring we just don't treat the triangle as part of black's territory to start with, since black couldn't keep that space if play continued. That makes sense.

The intersection marked with a triangle is usually called a teire: an intersection within Black's territory, but which Black will have to fill before the end of the game.
The description of what precisely will happen varies depending on whether the game is played face-to-face on a physical go board, or on an internet go server.
Face-to-face with a physical go board
During a face-to-face game, you can expect Black to play at the triangle before passing, and White will reply by playing at the square.
During face-to-face games with physical go board and stones, players typically fill all the dame, even when playing with Japanese rules, because it makes counting easier. Unfilled dame are extremely distracting when counting and can easily be mistaken for territory in the counting phase, when rearranging territories into rectangles. So players always fill dame.
However, when playing with Japanese rules, the dame-filling phase is sometimes played somewhat-separately from the "real" game. For instance, if the game is played with a clock, then players might pause the clock before filling the dame, and they might also fill the dame out of order. Since Black should not play the dame marked with a square before playing at the triangle, and since White would put Black in atari if White played the dame with the square before Black connected at the triangle, Black would probably still play the triangle during the game, before the dame-filling phase, just to avoid any ambituities. And then the players would pause the clock and fill the dame, including the square.
Online play
When playing online with Japanese rules, the players most often don't bother to play dame, because counting is done automatically by the computer, and territories are typically coloured, so neutral points are not too distracting nor confusing.
However, what happens around the triangle intersection will depend on the go server and the counting algorithm used by the go server.
For instance, the go server KGS correctly detects simple teire points like the triangle, when playing with Japanese rules. So, Black would not receive a point for the triangle intersection, even if it is unfilled. If both players know this, because they have played several games on KGS already and are familiar with, and confident in, the scoring algorithm used by the server, then it's very likely that Black will pass without connecting at the triangle. Likewise, White will pass without playing the atari at the square.
However, if playing on a go server that doesn't handle teire points as well as KGS, or if the players are not entirely sure how the go server handles teire points, or if one or both of the players are driven by the habits they got when playing face-to-face games, then it is very likely that Black will play at the triangle; and if Black doesn't play at the triangle first, then White will play the atari at the square, to force Black to connect at the triangle.
So, it's a big if. The triangle point will only remain unfilled if the server correctly detects teire points when playing with Japanese rules, and both players are familiar enough with the server, and not driven by their habits from face-to-face games.


text:
If something is exiled and checked for simultaneously, does the check yield "true"?
I have on my board 3 copies of Biovisionary, which have

At the beginning of the end step, if you control four or more creatures named Biovisionary, you win the game.

Then, I cast Splinter Twin enchanting a Biovisionary. That card states:

Enchanted creature has "Tap: Create a token that's a copy of this creature. That token has haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step." `

I tap the enchanted Biovisionary to clone it and end my turn. Now what?

Whenever you control sources that would put spells or abilities on the stack simultaneously, you control in which order they are placed on the stack. So at the beginning of your end step, you can place these abilities on the stack in such an order that the "You win" effect happens before the "Exile token" effect. From the comprehensive rules:

405.3. If an effect puts two or more objects on the stack at the same time, those controlled by the activeplayer are put on lowest, followed by each other player’s objects in APNAP order (see rule 101.4).
  If a player controls more than one of these objects, that player chooses their relative order on the stack.

(emphasis added to highlight the relevant part)

It might be worthwhile to clarify that Splinter Twin's last sentence ("Exile it at the beginning of the next end step") sets up a delayed triggered ability. Splinter Twin's rulings allude to the existence of that ability. Since both effects in question are triggered abilities (one just delayed), it follows nomal handling like you've described here.

This answer may be misleading. It correctly explains how triggered abilities that trigger simultaneously work, but "effects that happen simultaneously" is a broader and more vaguely defined. It could also include replacement effects, one-shot effects from a single source, and continuous effects, all of which work differently.

@murgatroid99 I think that's a fault of the question title, not the answer. The question title is broader than the actual question. That said, we can't expect the OP to know the correct terminology to use, and so it's up to us to interpret the question title in the right context. This is my way of saying that I think the question title is fine and the answer addresses the actual question.

No matter who deserves the blame, the answer still makes statements about "effects that happen simultaneously" that don't apply to that entire category, and that should be changed.

I noticed your follow up edit and just wanted to clarify: Effects don't get put on the stack. Abilities and spells (also known as "objects", because  they can exist in a zone) do get put on the stack. That said, I'd recommend rolling back your latest edit.

Avoided the word "objects" alltogether. OBJECTions?

These effects are both triggered abilities that you control, so they will happen sequentially in the order of your choice. Players will have an opportunity to respond before and between their resolutions.
All of the relevant rules for this situation are in the Triggered Abilities section of the rules. First, rule 603.1 says

Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[Trigger condition], [effect],” and begin with the word “when,” “whenever,” or “at.” They can also be expressed as “[When/Whenever/At] [trigger event], [effect].”

and rule 603.4 says

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

As you can see, Biovisionary's ability matches this:

At the beginning of the end step, if you control four or more creatures named Biovisionary, you win the game.

In addition, rule 603.7 says

An effect may create a delayed triggered ability that can do something at a later time. A delayed triggered ability will contain “when,” “whenever,” or “at,” although that word won’t usually begin the ability.

And Splinter Twin's ability matches this:

Enchanted creature has "Tap: Create a token that's a copy of this creature. That token has haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step."

As you can see, both abilities have the same trigger event: the beginning of the end step. So, they both trigger at the same time. To determine what to do in that situation, we have to look at rule 603.3b:

If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, each player, in APNAP order, puts triggered abilities he or she controls on the stack in any order he or she chooses. (See rule 101.4.) [...]

So, at the beginning of the end step after you activate Splinter Twin, both abilities trigger, and you choose the order in which they are put on the stack. Then they are resolved sequentially from top to bottom, like any other abilities on the stack.
You will win in this situation if you put the Splinter Twin ability on the stack first, then put the Biovisionary ability on the stack. If you do, the situation will play out like this:

You put the Splinter Twin ability on the stack.
You have 4 copies of the Biovisionary copy (each Biovisionary has the ability independently). As you put each on the stack, you check that you have 4 creatures named Biovisionary. You do, so each ability is successfully put on the stack.
Assuming neither player has any responses, the top ability is a Biovisionary ability. As it starts to resolve, you check again that you have 4 creatures named Biovisionary. You still do, so you win.