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Mono-Green Deck: Responding to Sorceries/Instants?
I'm working on a mono-green overrun deck but I'm having some trouble responding to my opponent's non-creature cards.
Against another creature-heavy deck it does very well, but up against anything with creature removal, control, discard, milling...it just gets stomped and I feel like I really don't have a response to this.
I've played a lot of blue in the past so I'm used to being able to have access to "Counterspell" to handle situations like this.
Does green have a response to sorceries/instants that target you as a player, not your creatures?

If you are not adverse to artifact inclusion, the Witchbane orb makes you as a player hex proof.

Some of the answers here may be helpful: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/14908/what-can-be-played-during-an-opponents-turn

@Pow-Ian That does little good vs. either removal or counterspells, though.  (It does hit the discard, and generally the mill)

@StevenStadnicki which is exactly why it was a suggestion in a comment instead of an answer ;)

Small nitpick: you mention "milling" along side removal/control/discard, but really they have nothing in common. The latter three harm your current or future board position, making it harder for you to quickly kill your opponent. But being milled doesn't slow you down at all. (if you're thinking, "but they might mill my best cards", they're just as likely to mill your worst cards and get you closer to your good ones. In the long run, it averages out to nothing.) And since they're not focusing on the battlefield, it should be easier to kill a mill deck than a creature-heavy deck.

One exception to the "mill decks have poor board position" rule is Phenax plus high toughness creatures, since they can stall out your combat effectiveness while simultaneously milling you. But you shouldn't be asking "how do I defeat mill?" but rather "how do I overcome a stalled board position?"

The format you're playing is very important to answer this question. Playing Standard, for example, limits your options to the most recent few sets, while on the opposite end of the spectrum, playing Vintage or Commander opens up nearly every card ever printed.
Against removal, you can go for creatures with hexproof/shroud (Thrun, the Last Troll/Scythe Tiger), means to grant hexproof/shroud (Asceticism/Aspect of Mongoose), protection (Chameleon Colossus/Tel-Jilad Defiance), regeneration (Experiment One, Fortitude), indestructible (Predator Ooze, Thornling), etc.
Against countermagic, green is probably the best solution (besides perhaps also playing blue for countering the countermagic); there are a number of cards in green which either can't be countered, or make something else uncounterable. For example, Gaea Herald, Mistcutter Hydra, Savage Summoning.
Against discard and mill, green is probably second only to black in terms of re-using the graveyard. Gensis, Eternal Witness, Creeping Renaissance. Green and black are also the two colors of the Golgari guild, where the extremely powerful Dredge mechanic comes from (which involves self-mill).
Green is also quite good at noncreature removal; in fact, the majority of targeted removal in green is noncreatures only.
With a full card pool, you have a lot of options. For example, I have a mono-green Commander deck (Ezuri, Renegade Leader elf tribal) which often plays like a blue deck, thanks to cards like Ezuri or Wirewood Symbiote protecting my creatures (regenerate or return to hand to protect from removal), Gaea's Herald or Cavern of Souls stopping counterspells, Yeva, Nature's Herald letting me take "turns" during my opponents' turns, Survival of the Fittest or Fauna Shaman searching for answers to threats (especially with Masked Admirers creating an engine), Sylvan Library drawing cards, etc.

Against removal, try Hexproof (Ranger's Guile, Sheltering Word) or Indestructible (Mortal's Resolve, Withstand Death).

They way it should be handled is having a strategy that either ignore non creature permanent or that is fast enough to not care.

I don't understand; how does ignoring non-creature permanents protect this deck from instants and sorceries? Can you suggest any cards or strategies? And when killing an opponent "fast enough," how fast is that with a mono-green deck? Can you expand your answer with details and possibly examples?

This is impossible to tell without a format. Modern, std, fun on my kitchen table, all of those have completely different needs. Fast enough in modern might be turn 3 or 4, the deck is named boggles.
It's usually more important to take care of the main aspect of a deck rather than weakening it because something can go wrong. You'll never be able to face every possible situation. Having a better and faster game plan is often the best way to "handle" counter strategies.


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How many tokens do the survivors require in The Séance in Betrayal at House on the Hill?
We have been confused by some phrasing in the "How to Summon the Ghost" section in the Secrets of Survival booklet for haunt 2, "The Scéance", in Betrayal at House on the Hill (2e). Emphasized below:

Each hero can attempt a Knowledge roll or Sanity
  roll of 5+ to conduct a séance. An explorer can
  attempt either one of these rolls during his or her
  turn, but only while that character is in the Pentagram
  Chamber.
Each time one of these rolls succeeds, put a
  Knowledge Roll or Sanity Roll token (as appropriate)
  in the room where the haunt was revealed. When the
  heroes have a number of those tokens equal to half
  the number of players (round down), they've
  completed the séance.

My first inclination is to interpret this as

When the players have a number of tokens (each of which may be Knowledge or Sanity) equal to half the number of players (round down), they've completed the séance.".

but it seems like it could also mean this:

When the players have a number of Knowledge tokens and a number of Sanity tokens both equal to half the number of players (round down), they've completed the séance.".

This is further confused by the "Right Now" section of the rules, which instruct us to:

Set aside a number of Knowledge Roll tokens  (triangular) equal to the number of players. Set aside  an equal
  number of Sanity Roll tokens (triangular)

How could we ever need a number of either token equal to the number of players? Shouldn't it ask us for the a number of tokens "equal to half the number of players (round down)"? The location of tokens doesn't matter, so as soon as players have aquired the required number there's no reason they'd collect any more.
After the game we checked the Traitor's Tome, but it didn't help:

 We thought there might be some way for the traitor to remove or manipulate tokens so that the extras were neccessary but it didn't mention the tokens at all.

How many of which tokens do the survivors require to summon the ghost?

There are two short threads about this on BoardGameGeek: #841127, #622488. They think it means the total number of tokens, but don't explain why you are asked to set aside so many.

The only thing I can think of is that setting aside only half the tokens would give the traitor player a better idea of how many successes were needed (if they had never played the scenario before)

Basically, it's saying you can do either token as you want. The number of either token must equal the given amount (this changes on different haunts).
Let's say you need number of tokens = number of players (6 in this example) to win. You can have 3 knowledge and 3 sanity, 2 knowledge and 4 sanity, or just all 6 knowledge. Those are all valid conditions.
The instruction to set them aside is just to get them out of your storage area for easy access (and as I explained earlier, some tokens could be used more than others).

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Is It Possible To Win 2-Player Agricola Without Taking Wood?
A few months ago I visited a friend who'd recently taken up playing Agricola with her husband.  "We think there should be a bigger handicap for going second," she said, "Otherwise the person who keeps taking the wood always wins."  I thought this was rubbish, and took her on in a 2-player game, letting her take wood first every time while I concentrated on a Major Improvements-dominated strategy.  I can't remember the final scoreline but I'm pretty sure I won the game by double figures of points.
I just played a 2-player game on the excellent boiteajeux.net, where my opponent went first, and started as he meant to go on, by hogging the wood space.  I had some really bad Occupations and Minor Improvements: I played the Pieceworker in the first round, but thereafter never had a really big incentive to play another card.  Opponent took some more wood, and eventually some reed, before playing - uh, oh - the Wet Nurse.
I decided in the face of this obviously unbalanced game not to scrabble for 3 wood or the starting player token (I had no good Minor Improvements to play after all), but to cut my foe mercilessly off food whenever possible.  This certainly slowed the pace of his domination of the game, but he still had enough breathing room always to take 6 wood when it was available.  Eventually he made his move and grew his house from 3 to 5 rooms with a full complement of people, with me still on 2 actions a turn.  I continued to make it hard for him to get easy food grabs, but ultimately he was able to build a lot of fences while my farmyard had, in the end, 2 rooms, 5 fields, 1 pasture... and 7 painfully empty spaces.  The ultimate scoreline was 43-30 in his favour, not exactly a rout but not very close either.
My question then is: is it impossible to win Agricola this way?  Do you have to compete for the wood to go under?  Against my married friend I was able to keep her in check by cutting reed to keep her off room building; but this might not work against a more determined opponent.  Should I have resigned myself to the fact that I needed to "waste" an action by taking Starting Player without having a minor improvement to play?  Or to take 3 wood even though this would give my opponent more opportunities to move ahead in other areas and cement his lead?
Or can I just chalk up my loss to the fact that the Wet Nurse is a bit unfair against a player with no good cards of their own to fight back with?

Out of interest: how did you make your pasture with no wood? Pieceworker conversion? A minor improvement?

Good point - I did cave in and take 3 wood in the final turn, turning it into 4 wood with the Pieceworker, and building one pasture with Renovation & Fences.  I should probably have stuck to my guns and gone completely woodless throughout the game, just to maintain the moral high ground, though!

I'd rephrase the question, because the answer is obvious that "yes", it is possible to win without taking wood. Easy counter-case is one in which your opponent is an idiot, never takes food, and ends the game with a dozen beggar cards. And it's a little unclear in your question, but it sounds like you already answered yourself that it the answer was "yes" in the game you played with your married friend. So what's the question you're really trying to get answered... what a good strategy would be in a game where you don't take any wood?

@Sterno, yes, that does sound like a good idea.  I've played a lot of Agricola games since, and avoided wood in a good few of them with interesting, if not entirely successful results... I'll see about rephrasing the question title when I have a spare moment.

Is the restriction here on one player, or both?  If you never take wood, is the other player allowed to save it up, and use their last action to take it?  Or are you only considering games where one player always aims to take six wood with their first action by hogging the starting player token?

I think I was thinking primarily of games where you refuse to make sacrifices to get wood: e.g., if the other player is starting player, and deprives you of wood wherever possible, all the way through the game.  I don't think anyone in their right mind would generally pass up 9 wood sitting there, or indeed 6 wood without quite a good reason; nor would I ask them to.  I've played a lot of games since I asked this question, so I might have a go at answering it myself shortly!

To your anecdote, Wet Nurse is widely considered imba. See http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/1414/what-are-the-most-busted-cards-in-agricola

@warbaker: Good point - I do find that you can usually "deal with" one broken Occupation played by your opponent, but it's perfectly possible for them just to have multiple unfair things (and you have none) in which case it's hardly worth beating yourself up for not finding a way to win.

Normally I wouldn't like to answer my own question, but I have played a lot of online Agricola since posting this one, with the specific goal of taking as little wood as possible, so I hopefully have some interesting new information to provide by now...
Wood is a really hard commodity to ignore in Agricola, just because it's so versatile.  You need wood for all the below things:

to have space to grow your family quickly
to grow your house to a good size so you can get big points from removation at the end of the game
to build early stables and/or fences to pursue the animal breeding strategy
to build a giant pasture in the late game to avoid losing big points from unused spaces
many, many good Minor Improvements require wood, as does the Well

When it comes down to it, wood just does more than anything else in this game, so much so that I think it's a bit of an insult that the Joinery also exists: wood does all of this AND you can get bonus points from having a surplus of it too?  (Not that anyone ever buys the Joinery, because in practice there's always something else useful you can do with your wood.)
In the light of all this, how can you do well in Agricola without wood?  Well, here's the big things you can do without it:

get a lot of food

None of the efficient food-getting strategies in Agricola requires a single piece of wood.  And while food-gathering is not an end in itself, it does mean that if your opponent is hogging the wood space, you have every opportunity to cut them off from a good food engine, specifically by taking all the clay for the first half of the game.  When your opponent has no good way of feeding his family (Fishing and Day Labourer don't count), then it's academic that he can grow his family - fear of Begging cards may mean he just can't afford to.  Lack of a steady supply of food also limits the number of Occupation cards he can realistically play - after the first they do start inhibiting the ability of a food-poor player to feed his family!
So would I recommend a food-denial strategy as a counter to a player who remorselessly goes after the wood?  Yes and no.  In the first half of the game you can definitely hold your own against the wood-mad player by trying to starve them.  Unfortunately, you have to be an actually terrible player to stumble blindly into a situation where you can't avoid getting Begging cards; so generally I'd say the food-denial strategy can only contain, not crush, an opponent.  It's not hard, though, to engineer a situation where you have a Fireplace, some grain fields and maybe an Oven too and your opponent has nothing but a lot of wood and a heavy reliance on Fishing and Day Labourer.
The problem is that I don't think this position is sustainable all the way to the end of the game.  You can't cut an opponent off from all avenues indefinitely.  I had a great game where opponent dogmatically took all the wood and I dogmatically took all the reed, every time.  Sadly he finished a few points ahead of me: the sad fact is that, even once I buy the Basketmaker's Workshop, a gigantic pile of reed is only worth 5 points and some food, while a gigantic pile of wood enables, at the very least, the building of a giant pasture that uses up all the empty space in your farmyard and ends up being worth 10+ victory points.  Plus, to add insult to injury, they probably go on to buy the stupid Joinery and totally crush you!
As such, my ultimate conclusion is that, no, it's not possible to win Agricola without ever taking wood.  Not without some ridiculous combination of Occupations and Minor Improvements, at any rate.  There are good ways to attack the players who take wood aggressively at the start of the game, but once you've done this you'll want to make a strategic U-turn and compete for it aggressively yourself starting from about round 7 or 8.
Wood is just too useful for too many things, and if you've played a very miserly, explosive-growth-impeding game, you still need 12 wood at the end to build a 3x3 pasture and save yourself from losing double figures of points at the end.  What's the alternative - ploughing 9 fields?  I don't think so.

you need 12 wood to build 3x3 pasture

You have answered your own question, then contradicted it. The question you wanted to ask is it easy/sensible to win Agricola without wood. The answer is no. But it is not impossible. With some good occupations and minors you can do it, even easily, but why bother?
If you can survive without it then fine, work around the wood hog but don't pass up opportunities to pick up a load if it presents itself to you. Including taking SP so you can take 6 sometime.
The issue with wood denial is not so much that it's used for everything but that it's useful through out the game, unlike clay and reed that are far more important at the beginning and stone that is more useful towards the end. Wood gets used for early room and late fences and fills in the gaps around improvements, mostly because it's the cheapest resource it gets used for finer balancing.
So no it's not impossible, just very tricky and you should be able to do it if your opponent is using every first turn to take 3 wood, you should have a good shot.

I find that there isn't enough incentive to keep fighting for starting player, as you probably cant use the majority of your minor improvements in the early stages, and cant afford to waste valuable turns at this time.
We usually adapt the family game rule of adding food to this action space each round, so you can either take the food or use a minor improvement when you take starting player.
This means that the starting player tends to change more often and make it a more balanced / interesting game.

Apologies that this post is not particularly related to your question, although stemmed from my friend the 'wood hogger'!

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Church Warden vs Reed Hut in Round 14
I'm playing an online game of Agricola right now and we've just reached Round 14.
I have a 3-room Wooden Hut with 4 Family Members in it, and a Reed Hut containing my fifth token. I have also played the Church Warden.
Obviously I'd quite like to convert my Reed Hut person into a Family Member for 3 extra points this turn, but what is the interaction with the Church Warden?  I see at least three possibilities:
(1) I can use the Reed Hut person to carry out a Family Growth action at any time, at which point he converts to a newborn.  Would get +3 VP from the Church Warden.
(2) I can only use the Reed Hut person to carry out a Family Growth as my fifth action of the turn (in the unlikely event that Family Growth Without Room is still available then!), at which point he converts to newborn.  Would get +3 VP from the Church Warden.
(3) I can use a Family Member to carry out Family Growth at any time but this will immediately wipe out my Reed Hut person.  I won't get VP from the Church Warden and all I will have achieved is saving myself 1 Food.
Is anyone confident enough to offer a definitive ruling for this corner case?

(This is assuming that Reed Hut guy even counts for the purposes of Church Warden! I think he does because a Guest does, but maybe I shouldn't assume anything...)

What happened in the game? Did the implementation you were playing include scoring, or was it just a board which you can move pieces around on?

Yes, it includes scoring.  Everyone's got a move to go and the FG Without Room space hasn't been taken (but it may well be before my final two moves).  VERY INTERESTINGLY the iOS implementation decided to let me use Reed Hut guy in the order he joined my family - i.e. as my third move.  So I'm not sure it's fully legit, but it seems like I would be able to take 5 moves including Family Growth the way things are going...

The Unofficial Agricola Compendium doesn't mention this combination explicitly, but I think the answer is option 3 from your list.
Option 1 contradicts clarification B from the Reed Hut section, and both options 1 and 2 are contradicted by clarification E:

Reed Hut (K138)
  ...
  B. The occupant of the Reed Hut is placed after your family members [ref]...
  ...
  E. You can move this person into your home with a family growth action later. That family growth action must be taken by another family member. [ref]

Both reference links are from the compendium, but seem to be broken.
For completeness, here's the ruling about newborns and the Church Warden in round 14.

Church Warden (I227)
  ...
  B. A player who only gets a 5th family member in round 14 does not receive the bonus points, unless the new family member takes an action that round because of the Adoptive Parents.

The one thing I couldn't find was whether you'd get Church Warden points by taking an action with the Reed Hut person.  I would say that you can, based on the card's wording, as I think that although the Reed Hut person is not a 'family member', they are a 'person':

At the end of the game, any player who performed actions with at least 5 people in round 14 receives 3 bonus points.

Without getting in touch with the coders of the iOS game I can't be sure how their version works, but your answer seems the only reasonable interpretation of the Compendium and a perfectly sensible approach!


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Should You Take "Your Opponent's" Sheep In A 2-Player Game?
As you may well have guessed by now I play a lot of online Agricola; here's a situation that comes up all the time.
If I'm the second player, and sheep come up as the round one action card, quite often my second action will be to take starting player, take 2 Clay at the beginning of round two, positioning myself to get an early Fireplace and score a sweet 6-8 Food in round four.
Obviously this is a powerful sequences of plays and if left unchecked sets you up quite nicely to expand without food worries in rounds five through seven.  Nevertheless, I'm always quite surprised at the alacrity with which most of my opponents like to take the sheep in response to my building a Fireplace, obviously having to release all but one into the wild.
I feel like I'm continually soundly beating the players who "waste a turn" depriving me of sheep; obviously I'm not overjoyed to be losing a few "free" Food, but equally I'm delighted that my opponent has spent a crucial early turn doing virtually nothing except trying to annoy me.
My question is simply, have I miscalculated the value of the sheep-stealing move?  If you are playing an opponent who aggressively takes 2 Clay and builds a Fireplace hoping to celebrate the first Harvest with an enormous sheep barbecue, would you spend an action taking sheep from under his nose and why?  Can anyone effectively break down the pros and cons of such an action for me?

I don't see a point in taking them before somebody has a pasture to hold them.  Your fireplace doesn't let you take more than one either, so why take the sheep in response to the clay when I can instead wait until you've built fences?

@MonicaCellio - he won't build fences. He would lead the sheep right to the fireplace and convert them to 2 food each.

I've been allowed to cook 4 sheep in a 2er before and still lost the game.  Badly.  I do think in general, your opponents are over-valuing "scattering the woolies" (as one BGGer puts it) if they're just making a knee-jerk response to your First Fireplace.  Assuming you keep one, it's theoretically a 2-point move, but only if you don't cook it later and never take Sheep the rest of the game.  Otherwise you're spending an action (that you would've done anyway later) just to block.  Blocking is necessary in 2ers, but you need to do it in a way that's a net positive in score for you (e.g., if your opponent gets begging card(s) because of it).
I think if you're that worried about your opponent getting 8 food, you're probably already behind.  There are enough ways to get food in a 2er that "stealing" some sheep isn't likely to make up the difference.

It all depends on timing and what that players are able to do. If you can ensure that the other player takes a begging card if you take 'their sheep' then that is at least a 3 point move (with the exception of Mendicant). This is only relevant in a 2 player game where every point you stop your opponent receiving increases your lead by a point.
There are however numerous situations where it wouldn't help as the first stage actions are very valuable. You'de probably be better denying them reed for family growth.

There are certainly situations where it's worth releasing the sheeps, especially in a 2-player game. I would even argue that you can never let your opponent get 8 food that early. If I take the sheep and release all but one, sure it does me no good now, but later it nets me 2 food or 2 points. That forces you to make at least one bad move on for example Day Labourer, and probably have to spend one or two moves in Stage 2 getting food.
In many 3-player games I've seen a huge advantage going to the player who gets the first sheeps, and in that case it's more of a loss for me to spend that move since the third player is the only one that benefits from it.

Mm, I've kind of relented my position on "sheep-stealing" and now do it quite often.  I still think it's foolish to "always" take 4 sheep, but if your opponent's game is likely to take off dramatically if they get it, and if they will have to scrabble a bit for food if they don't, I understand that it can be a lot better than just making a mediocre move of your own.  Bear in mind that "getting 8 food" probably took 3 actions: Clay, Major Improvement, Sheep. That last action is a good one to block if you can, but it might not be game over if you don't.


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Can You Choose To Beg When You Have Enough Food?
Normally, in Agricola, it would be crazy not to spend food on feeding your family - at a cost of 3 VPs per, it is difficult to imagine any situation where a food token could be worth more in the future than sparing you a Begging card now.
However, here's the corner case I'm currently in.  I have in my hand the Mendicant Occupation.  It seems quite likely that I'll go into the first Harvest with only 3 food tokens.  Is it acceptable for me to feed my Family with only 2 of the Food, taking 2 Begging cards (both of which I plan to ditch to the Mendicant later on), and saving 1 Food for the purposes of paying for a second Occupation in Round 5?
I'm pretty sure you can't be forced to convert resources into food to feed your family if you don't want to, but it seems to me that the rules are slightly less clear on whether food must be eaten if you have it.  (I'm playing this game online, so it will be interesting to see if the option to not eat food is even given by the program...)

I'm certain you always have the option to beg if you want to. The rules (p.4) say:

A player who cannot or does not wish to produce the required Food must take a Begging card for each missing Food - players may not give up members of their family to avoid the need to feed them. At the end of the game, players lose 3 points for each begging card.

So your question is really asking what the meaning of "produce" is here. I don't see any evidence that it should mean produce in the sense of "conversion" rather than "hand in the food". Giving the player the choice ("does not wish") would be pretty narrow if you have to hand in food just because it happens to be stored as food tokens (as opposed to, say, raw grain). If you were really trying to utilise the Mendicant under such a rule, you could imagine all sorts of silly shenanigans to try and avoid fish, but keeping grain etc. which are against the flavour of the card.
As you point out, choosing to beg is almost always a terrible idea, but the Mendicant is definitely one place where this is a valid strategy. Even with the discard of two begging cards, the Mendicant is still pretty marginal - although it gives you flexibility, it's only a two food swing (or one food if it's not your first occupation!), after all. The other would be if you felt grabbing starting player or something was so crucial to your strategy that it would compensate for the loss (for example, in turn 13, if it was essential that you renovate a large house before the end of the game).

Good point - I hadn't considered the possibility of "produce" meaning simply "hand over", but that's certainly a reasonable enough interpretation.  As ever with Agricola, I wonder what the original German text is... Looking forward to seeing what happens come the harvest in my online game!


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Which Seven Wonders Leaders Should I Be Hoping To Recruit?
I got to play with the Seven Wonders Leaders expansion for the first time last night, and it certainly adds an extra dimension to the game.  I was able to assemble a lethal combo of Xenophon (2 extra coins every time I built a commercial structure), Hatshepsut (1 coin back for each neighbour I bought resources from each turn) and Midas (+1 victory point per 3 coins at end of game) to finish with 38 coins in my coffers, and a narrow 73-72 point win over the guy who'd amassed 52 points of science alone (gulp)!
If this was Agricola or Race for the Galaxy there would be acres of statistics out there on which leaders are likely to give the biggest boost in the hands of a skilled player.  So I was wondering, if anyone else has drafted the Leaders, which cards should one be looking out for as likely to put your game into overdrive?  Are there any leader combos that are potentially broken or unfair?

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any hard data of the sort that RftG or Dominion players collect.
That said, Bilkis (once per turn, pay 1 to the bank for 1 of any resource) is my pick for best all-around leader. She lets you get away with playing fewer resource cards and avoids enriching your neighbors.
Other choices are more situational:
Imhotep (resource discount for Wonder stages) is great for Giza B or Wonders that have an inconvenient cost.
Hammurabi (resource discount for blue cards) is good unless you're committed to a maximum-science strategy.
The vanilla VP leaders are pretty good for their cost, and since in general you will be happy to pay 1 coin for 1 VP, the largest ones, Cleopatra and Nefertiti, are strongest.
If you can get two leaders that support either science or military, that can be strong. It does sort of commit you to that path, so if you draft 2 military leaders and your neighbor decides to pursue a military strategy, you might find yourself frustrated. Either one, although science moreso, is high-risk/high-reward.
Of the military leaders, Caesar and Hannibal grant shields, which give you a leg up and signal to your neighbors that you're not worth fighting. Alexander and Nero give you bonuses for winning. Pericles is expensive, but can be worth 8 or 10 points if you're going military. Leonidas provides a discount for military, although if you often get a fair number of brown buildings anyway you might not need the discount.
Of the science leaders, Archimedes provides the discount, which (in contrast to military) can be important especially in Age 1 since the science costs require advanced resources. Hypatia and Aristotle make your green cards and sets worth more. Euclid, Ptolemy, and Pythagoras provide science symbols; they're expensive but can be worth lots of points if they fill up a set or give you the 5th card of a kind.

I personally think following are the best combos:
Gizah: 1. Imhotep. 2. Nebuchadnezzar. 3. Amytis
Babylon: 1. Archimedes. 2. Vitrivius. 3. Hypatia.
Olympia: 1. Caligula. 2. Zenobia. 3. Cleopatra.
Rhodes: 1. Hannibal. 2. Alexander. 3. Darius
Halicarnassus: 1. Macenas. 2. Justinian. 3. Solomon.
Alexandria: 1. Phidias. 2. Praxtelites. 3. Berenice.
Ephesus: 1. Croesus. 2. Xenophon. 3. Midas
However, this is just the best picks. For example, all the one coin leaders provide a cash boost for your board. The two cost leaders are varied, each with their own power, but Hannibal is undoubtedly the best by giving you age 1 victory.
Of the three cost leaders, Nefertiti, for 4 points, is better than many people. Alexander demands you to win almost all your wars, Aristotle requires to amass two science sets, Midas needs you to end the game with at least 15 coins, which is difficult and meaningless. Hiram demands you spend over a third of your age 3 picks on guilds, assuming, they each generate you at least 5 or 6 points each. Praxtelites needs you to collect every manufactured resource (glass, cloth, paper), assuming your natural production is not a manufactured source and your neighbours don't already have one. Aspasia gives you two direct points and a peace to prevent you from losing two, so Aspasia is bascially Nefertiti's long-lost twin sister. Unless grabing a vital science crad at the start of age 3, how often can Solomon give you a card worth 5 o r more points? The best age 3 leaders are Phidias and Varro, because resource and commerce cards are cheap and necessary for most people. Caligula can let you build powerful cards for free, such as capitol for 8 points, or contingent to let you win age 3, so he is good. Justinian seems difficult, but if you play him right, he can generate at least 9 points.
Among the 4 coin leaders, 3 beats them all. Archimedes, Bilkis, and Tomyris. Plato, on the other hand, sucks, and so does Amytis, unless you're paying Gizah B or Great Wall of China.
Among the 5 coin leaders, they go to extremes. Caesar is good to recruit for war buffs, and has the same power as militia, but costs 1.6 times as much, so unless I take someone like Macenas or Nero in age 1, I'd never recruit Caesar. The science leaders should only be played at the start of age 3. If one completes a chain, it has earned you at least 8 points. Ramses, on the other hand, gives you free guilds, but it depends on what your neighbors have and whether or not guilds are worth it, compared to military, science, and civilian structures. Hiram and Ramses go hand in hand, but is normally, like Caesar, someone you don't want to recruit. I'd always desire Hannibal or Varro over Caesar or Hiram.
Finally, Pericles is the lonely 6-coiner. He costs a lot, but generates 2 vp for every red card. So, if you lose in age 3 against both neighbors, and wasted so much money on 4 red cards. Your net gain is actually 1+1+3+3+(-1)+(-1)+(2*4)=14 points, which is the equivalent of taking 1,3,5,5.
So therefore, my favorite 5 leaders among all others are Croesus, Hannibal, Justninian, Archimedes, and Bilkis.


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Unleash Unleashed
Looking at preview cards for Return for Ravnica a question about Unleash popped into my mind:

"It can't block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it."  Simple question really: if you cast Rakdos Cackler "leashed", and then it subsequently gets a +1/+1 counter from a different source than its Unleash ability, does it become unable to block?
I love the idea of putting +1/+1 counters on my opponent's creatures to allow myself to alpha strike for a win :)

This makes cards like Common Bond (Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.) a form of control. If your opponent chose not to put unleash on that creature, then clearly they did so because they intended to block with it (otherwise, there's no reason not to). You interrupt their plans with it. Now, it might not seem like a good idea to buff your opponent's creatures, but that last block might be the difference between you winning or them winning. It may take a turn off their clock that they weren't expecting.

It becomes unable to block
According to the official WotC blog:

You can choose to have a creature with unleash enter the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter it. As long as it has one or more +1/+1 counters on it, it can't block—no matter how it got +1/+1 counters.

EDIT: In the Return to Ravnica FAQ you can read the rulings on the mechanic:

702.97. Unleash
702.97a Unleash is a keyword that represents two static abilities. “Unleash” means “You may have this permanent enter the battlefield
  with an additional +1/+1 counter on it” and “This permanent can’t
  block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it.”

The ruling might not be clear enough so they explain it further:

A creature with unleash can’t block if it has any +1/+1 counter on it,
  not just one put on it by the unleash ability.

Interestingly, they also add:

Putting a +1/+1 counter on a creature with unleash that’s already
  blocking won’t remove it from combat. It will continue to block.

You make it sound like that's an official answer... And it's not "RtR official website", it's Wizard's MTG "Features" blog.

@ikegami That is an official answer. It is safe to assume something posted on a Wizard's blog is correct unless and until it is contradicted by something else. They're very careful about this sort of thing.

@ikegami if you think there is a problem with my answer I can edit it to make it clearer. If I replace "Return to Ravnica official website" with "Wizards of the Coast features blog which was wrong once or twice but is otherwise pretty much the only company source of rulings we have until the official rules are updated" would the answer become clearer for the reader?

@ikegami It's such a simple question I don't think you even have to quote any (official) source for it. It clearly says on the card "It can't block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it.".

@ikegami, rahzark, I'm deleting much of this discussion.  You've each said your piece, please vote on the answer and move on.  Thanks!

@rahzark You wrote "interestingly" but that clarification is unsurprising. CR 506.4a is quite explicit: “Once a creature has been declared as an attacking or blocking creature, spells or abilities that would have kept that creature from attacking or blocking don't remove the creature from combat.”

Summary: Does the creature with Unleash have a +1/+1 counter on it? If so, then it can't block. That simple.

The first thing one should do when wondering how an keyword ability works is to look up the abilities it stand for. Unfortunately, the exact rule text of the ability has not been released yet, and no official answer has been given. That means that any answer is going to be opinion.
The reminder text ("It can't block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it") indicates it doesn't matter how it got the +1/+1 counter. (Reminder text is not always 100% accurate.)
The official Wizards blog says it doesn't matter how it got the +1/+1 counter. (They have been wrong before.)
Everyone on the Rules Q&A forum believes it doesn't matter how it got the +1/+1 counter.
All indications point to Unleash being a straightforward static ability that optionally gives a +1/+1 counter, plus a straightforward unrelated static ability that simply checks for +1/+1 counters. If so, it doesn't matter how it got the +1/+1 counter.

That said, the rules have now been released, and the earlier answers have been deemed correct.

702.97a Unleash is a keyword that represents two static abilities. “Unleash” means “You may have this permanent enter the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter on it” and “This permanent can’t block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it.”

Unleash is static ability that optionally gives a +1/+1 counter, plus an unrelated static ability that simply checks for +1/+1 counters. It doesn't matter how it got the +1/+1 counter.


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Pieceworker and Landing Net
This came up in an online game I was playing yesterday and I wasn't confident in what would happen...
I have the Pieceworker Occupation:
Whenever you receive wood, clay, reed, stone or grain on an action space, you can buy one more of the same good for 1 food...
as well as the Landing Net Minor Improvement:
Whenever you receive reed on an action space, you receive an additional 2 food...
Suppose I have no food  in my supply and take the Reed action space. Can I use the additional 2 food gained with the Landing Net to buy an additional Reed with the Pieceworker?

From the compendium

The Pieceworker is used before other cards, so you cannot convert goods that your receive from an occupation or improvement

Surely you could have researched this on BGG the same as I...

that is an unofficial source, but I cannot seem to find this covered in an official FAQ.

It's authoritative, but... well, I tried.

The Compendium is an authoritative enough source for me (though not authoritative enough that people shouldn't be allowed to argue against its rulings, if they disagree with them!)

@thesunneversets - And did you try it online? What did it allow? It would be interesting to know what the online implementation chose here.

@The Chaz - Not sure what point you're trying to make here, although I've noticed you try to make it before. The existence of information on BGG has no bearing on whether or not this question should have been asked. Perhaps you have a specific concern about some questions being too trivial? If so, please bring it up on meta and we can discuss it.

@ire_and_curses - I'm afraid I lost my bottle and deliberately didn't use up my last food buying an extra Wood, so that I could definitely afford the extra Reed I needed to get with my next action.  Too late now I think, but I could ask the Boite a Jeux management perhaps.  Agree with you totally about BGG by the way - I think a policy of "check on BGG first and if you can't find the answer there, ask here" would be the last nail in BG:SE's coffin!

@ire: it must be my math.SE upbringing, wherein motivation/personal effort are encouraged. I'm drafting a meta question, but am realizing that I'm not exactly sure what the problem is. Did the OP research the answer? That would be nice to know in the body, and would have saved me 6-7 minutes (of my valuable time! wink). Are we expecting the developer to visit BG.SE and personally answer the question? I've seen such things on MO, but the sites and topics are quite different...

@user1873 The compendium is as official as you can get http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/9879041#9879041


text:
Would changing the value of Scrabble tiles have a negative effect on the game?
This morning my Facebook friends are up in arms about a proposed re-valuation of Scrabble tiles in line with letter frequency in modern language usage:
Scrabble: Should letter values change?
All of them (admittedly they are mostly more casual gamers than me!) are united in the opinion that any normalisation of the tile values would be tampering with, and probably even breaking, something that isn't broken.
My own viewpoint is that the only real consequence of such a change would be to reduce the swinginess inherent in the game from, e.g. drawing and scoring big points from the Z.  I want to know whether it would be fair of me to tell my friends, "well, by all means argue for keeping the tile values as they are, but be aware that what you're arguing for is keeping the ratio of skill to luck in the game weighted towards luck".
Of course perhaps it's me that's missing the point, and there would be unforeseen negative consequences to gameplay and fun from reassigning the letters with "fairer" values.  Can anyone think of any?

I would think that changing the values of the tiles would need to go hand-in-hand with changing the actual quantity/ratio of the tiles available to ensure balance.

The changing dictionary, especially with regards to the 2-letter words (notably ZA and QI), certainly influences what a "good" scoring of the tiles would be.
A situation to consider is A and U. If you have 3 A tiles, you can play AA, usually for 8+ points because you can put them in front of a wide variety of high-value consonants (BDFHKMPZ), and quickly rebalance your rack. If you have 3 U tiles... good luck. Maybe you can play ULU for 3 if you're lucky. It's probably not correct to have A and U both be worth 1 point.
One thing that surprised me in their proposed scoring was the reduction in the value of C. Like V, C is not in any 2-letter words in the North American dictionary, and is thus much harder to play for good value in closed-off boards. That might be balanced by its prominence in 7-letter words, but I'm skeptical.
It sounds like this evaluation was generated from a computer which knows 100% of legal words, which can definitely shift the balance around quite a bit. Dealing with a V is much easier once you know VAV and VAW, for example, but only enthusiasts know those words. A "human-tuned" set of tile scores is going to be much harder to reason about.
One thing I think is worth calling out is status quo bias. If X, which can easily be dumped and often scores huge plays because of its flexibility in XI/XU/AX/OX/EX, were worth 5 points and it was proposed that it go to 8, experienced Scrabble players would probably say "That's idiotic, you're just giving a windfall to whoever draws it".

The article says that the changing dictionary has changed the values of letters, and this seems like a very good point. For example, the existence of a single word, ZA, listed as entering the language in the mid-late 60s, makes the Z much easier to play. (I wish I had an old dictionary to figure out when the even-more-important QI entered English dictionaries!)
However, there already exists a "Scrabble-inspired" game with different tile values, of course: Words With Friends. (That game seems to have made their letter value choices based on different guidelines than the article; for instance, its G is still more valuable than an M.) Players who are good at Scrabble are still good at Words with Friends; I would not expect to see any differences in win percentages below the master level of play. Ultimately, your luck in your tiles' value is largely outweighed by your luck in drawing tiles that go well together; a good blend of consonants and vowels, for instance, and plenty of the powerful S (which would be the best tile to draw even if it were worth 0).

And let's not forget the Scrabble blank - the best tile to draw, and it IS worth 0!

Both ZA and QI along with 3,300 or so other words were added in the Fourth Edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary in 2006.

@thesunneversets nitpick: because the blank is worth 0, it's not always the best tile to draw. It's the tile that gives you the best chance to play, but there will (nearly) always be a tile that could have given you more points. ;)

I'd be willing to play under the condition that my rack always consisted of 7 blanks. I think I'd win.

Changing values on tiles will not change the final goal. During the game you will still have to place letters with big values to get lots of points and win the game. The letters will change but not the fact that if they get a high value, placing them will help you to win the game.
Now in English those letters seems to be 'Z', 'Q', 'X' and 'J' (referring to Wikipedia, I don't play with the English version) but with the new values it will be other letters. That's all.

Firstly, Words With Friends changed these letters scores:
L, U, N: move from 1 to 2
G from 2 to 3
H and Y from 4 to 3
B, C, M and P from 3 to 4
V from 4 to 5
J from 8 to 10
The rest have stayed the same. Although K and V both score 5 now there is only one K tile and still two V tiles. There are now more than 4 S tiles that regular scrabble gives you. There seem to be a lot of H and Y tiles.
A bingo has gone down from 50 bonus to only 35 which I quite like because it means there is less emphasis on playing one. And I reckon that, and not the scores of the tiles, is the biggest difference between the game and potential tactics.
And of course the bonus square positions have moved.
A lot of scrabble players seem to put emphasis on 2-letter words and frequency of letters appearing in them, which makes 'C' one of the worst tiles as it doesn't appear in any (along with V). It is useful to learn the 3 letter words with 'V' and I used to have a rule to get rid of it quickly even if only on single-letter. 'C' is useful in longer words if you have an open board and bingo opportunities.
Compare that with the 'F' that appears in a lot of short words but isn't that good for longer ones.
Now, does the changing of the scores of the tiles have a major impact in the game? I would say, not noticeably. The positioning of the bonus squares and the lower bingo bonus may have put less emphasis on aiming for a bingo and more on better placement.
How it would have a negative impact would only really be if the game became more dependent on being lucky enough to pick up high-scoring letters rather than low-scoring ones. Or, if the elevation of 'L' and 'N' here to 2 points meant the relative weakness of having a 'Q' for example was not compensated by its higher scoring value when you place it.
I think there are variations of the game that would put less emphasis on being lucky enough to hold a balanced rack (vowels and consonants), and that there were 2 bags, a vowel back and a consonant bag, and the 2 blank tiles put aside. When you draw, you can choose which bag to use, and in a 2-player game each player may choose when to pick up the blank among their letters. As you draw you see what you get before seeing what to draw next.
Then luck of the letter draw would become less of an issue.
And it's no use saying "good players know how to balance their rack". How do I control what I pick up if I bingo? How do I stop myself drawing vowel after vowel or consonant after consonant no matter how I play them?

Did you mean to post this as an answer to http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/8988/how-is-words-with-friends-different-from-scrabble/?

I answered that question too. The question here is really subjective anyway, it might be better worded "what tactical difference would it make".


text:
Help! I'm A Cylon!
A bit of backstory: I've only played the Battlestar Galactica game twice.  The first time I was uproariously drunk, and a bit too delighted at getting to "be" Dr Gaius Baltar; all the inexperienced (and increasingly sloshed) players were humans, and as far as I can remember the human race was crushed systematically and with ease by the competent and sober Cylon menace.
The second time I played the BSG game was a couple of weeks ago.  I hadn't really assimilated any of the rules from the first time round, as you might imagine.  However, this time I got to be Commander Tigh... and a Cylon.
It seems to me that a potential flaw of the game, which is, let's face it, above averagely complicated, is that it's good for inexperienced players in human roles (they can ask each other for advice, and generally play cooperatively) but maybe not so good for inexperienced players in Cylon roles.  It's quite difficult to probe for potential areas of weakness when you have no idea what's going on!
In the event I think I did alright as the Cylon mole, secretly selecting inferior jump destinations and whittling the ship's morale down to 1 before the final jump (after which a hostile planet might well have finished humanity off, though sadly it was not to be).  However, I'm sure I could have done better.  So perhaps more experienced BSG players can answer the following question for me:
Assuming a very minimal knowledge of the game rules, what is an appropriate strategy for a Cylon to adopt to bring down other players who know the rules better?  What are good ways to undermine the fortunes of the Galactica without making it too obvious that you're the traitor?  Additionally, I never felt confident to "show my hand" and go on the full attack towards the end of the game - because I didn't understand what would happen if I did so well enough.  Is this ever a good tactic, and if so when and under what circumstances should it be employed?

Revealing as a Cylon gives you numerous opportunities to ruin the humans' day. From the event itself (ruining their plans for defense, etc.) to the supercrisis card - a reveal can turn the game around quick.

@Ian Darn, I thought that might have been the case, but I couldn't think of a good way to broach the subject without being a bit obvious about where my loyalties lay.  The owner of the game was a bit surprised that the Cylon had stayed lying low for so long, but when he hadn't explained the advantages of not doing so, what did he expect?

To some extent it depends on how many players you've got (which drives how many Cylons/sympathizers you've got), but yeah, if you guys have been playing without reveals/supercrises...I envy your human players. :)

http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/2576/what-is-the-most-damaging-thing-a-cylon-can-do-in-battlestar-galactica-on-a-turn

Since you were the Admiral, you didn't do badly - selecting poor jump destinations is very high-value for the Cylons, and a good reason to stick around longer than usual.  Wasting the nukes, if possible, is also good.

Admiral vs not is obviously a big distinction, but this also depends on details of individual characters. For example, Boomer's Recon ability gives her something clear to do before revealing, while it's a bit harder to see what to do as a cylon with Starbuck's Expert Pilot ability.

There are really three parts to beginner's Cylon strategy: How to sabotage as a human, when to reveal, and how to act as Cylon.
Hanging with Humans: Confusion
While pretending to be human, your job is not to sabotage everything (that gets you caught fast).  The game is already trying to kill the humans; your job is to tip the balance.
Crises
Some simple beginner's rules of thumb:

Sabotage skill checks only when everyone else is playing and the check looks like being close-fought.
Encourage players to overkill important skill checks - it looks like harmless caution (as passing checks by too much is a common beginner mistake in BG) but it's more useful than sabotage.  (If the skill check needs 15 and the humans get 27, that's 8-10 points of skill cards wasted.)
Try and get the humans to attempt every skill check. Experienced humans will pick some to fail on purpose so as to save cards for more important tasks.

Other tactics
If you're a pilot, make minimal use of pilot cards.  Be shot down when you actually have Evasive Action in hand; use attack cards - but fewer than you could.  Every viper shot down helps, and being in sick bay is great - it's a legitimate reason to do nothing useful, and it encourages people to XO you.
If you are or become the Admiral, you're golden.  The most important thing is to minimize jump distance - delay is always good for the Cylons.  Cut back on sabotage; it's more important to hold onto the job than to break every skill check.  When someone starts scouting destinations, hang on until a giveaway jump then get ready to run.
The Reveal
When to run
Judging when to reveal is a fine art, but here are the main things to look for.  Any one of these is a possible cue to reveal; two together is time to go.

A fleet attack has just been drawn.  (You want the humans under pressure when you shift.)
A skill check is sabotaged, and it wasn't you, but could have been.  (When you know there's another Cylon around, you can provide him with more opportunities for sabotage by revealing and pressuring the humans.  And your departure helps confuse suspicions.)
The humans suspect you.  (If you're going to be brigged/executed anyway, it's time to leave, even if the moment isn't optimal.)
Your 'You are a Cylon' card sabotages the humans in some way that's particularly harmful in this situation.
The Golden Moment: Someone XOs you just before your turn.
(Experienced human players will never do this if there's a Cylon not accounted for.  If you get the chance, take it.)

How to run
Obviously, you will use all your spare actions before revealing to do as much damage as possible.  The following actions are almost always worthwhile:

If you have a good one-use power that can hurt the humans, use it in a damaging way.  It's wasted once you reveal.
Use Communications to push civilian ships into raiders.
If you're the admiral, waste nukes.
Brig or execute someone.  The Admiral, if possible.

There's a more detailed analysis of this part elsewhere.
The Enemy: Driving the Nails In
This is the easiest bit for a beginner Cylon.  If in doubt, it's almost never wrong to play your Super Crisis, then keep drawing more Crises.
If Galactica is heavily under fire (or you used the fleet attack super crisis), consider the Cylon fleet instead.  (Especially if you were a pilot.)  But don't get attached to it; use it once at a critical moment for extra firepower, then go back to crisis cards.

I think the most common mistake new players (and even some experienced players) make when playing a cylon is waiting too long to reveal. There's a tendency to wait for that perfect moment when you can really hammer the humans with a timely reveal. But the reality is, those moments don't happen often and precious time is wasted waiting for it. Unless you are the Admiral or President, I think you can usually do more damage as a revealed cylon. This is especially true for inexperienced players. Experienced players understand the subtleties of the game and know how to wreck havok without revealing. However, I often think even experienced players would be more effective if they revealed sooner rather than later.
When I'm playing with someone who is new to the game, my standard advice to them is: if you are a cylon, reveal as soon as possible. It may not be the best strategic move, but new players often don't understand how to play unrevealed cylons well and, as you point out, it's difficult for them to ask questions without giving themselves away. Revealing immediately allows them to play the game much more effectively, because they can openly ask questions and solicit advice. Even though it's humans vs. cylons, most human players are very willing to give the cylons (especially a new player) good advice. I've found that they often enjoy the game more that way because they feel much more involved in what's going on. A new player playing an unrevealed cylon tends to be very passive and not do much at all out of fear of giving themselves away. That's generally not an enjoyable experience.
I think the revealing quickly strategy is even better when it's a group of experienced players playing with one or two new players, and there are enough players for there to be two cylons. If a new player is a cylon, they should just reveal and let the more experienced player lurk in the shadows.
This is general advice only. A lot depends on how much experience the new player has with similar games and how good of a general board gamer they are. However, my personal opinion is that it's generally better to reveal early rather than late.

I don't want to steal any glory from the other answers, but one tip that might not be obvious to everyone the first time around: thoroughly read the rules for revealed Cylon actions before you start the game, so that when you're thinking about revealing, you know what you can do after, and don't have to tip your hand by reaching for the rulebook.

It seems you're asking for an easy Cylon strategy for beginners that don't know the rules or consequences.  I'd do this:

Start playing as a human.
Wait until a "setup" card is drawn (one that places enemy ships on the board).
Use your Cylon reveal.
Spend every turn thereafter drawing crisis cards.

I did feel like the Cylon ships were being dealt with infuriatingly easily by the humans (maybe because we had Starbuck, I don't know).  If I'd known that a Cylon reveal could have ramped up the threat level... next time :)

@thesunneversets: The fleet attacks are definitely the biggest random shift in the gameplay.  Sometimes the humans can deal with everything infuriatingly easily; sometimes they get swamped and die.  Normally Cylons want to reveal during a busy attack, but sometimes it just won't come and you have to reveal and go fetch it.

A friend of mine says:

One of they keys is to help more than you should on less important crisis cards. In this way, you have fewer cards to help when something terrible happens, but nobody can point at you and say you contributed something negative. Also, if you can, play-up the less important crises to other players.


text:
Proper Punishment for Parrot Perdition, in Pirate's Cove
We were playing the Days of Wonder game Pirate's Cove earlier this evening; it's a lot of fun but the rules aren't exactly watertight, and more than once I felt there was considerable ambiguity in how they should be interpreted. Here's one that I remember:

One of our pirates was fortunate enough to draw a Parrot as his starting card. Within the first couple of turns, though, our ships came into conflict. Being a hater of birds, I opened fire on his parrot and shot it clean off the mizzenmast instead of concentrating on sinking the shap. Losing one's parrot is obviously worth a humiliating -2 Fame. But if you had 0 Fame when you lost it, do you go to -2 or stay at 0? The scoring track is circular so it was easy enough to represent a negative score, but was this correct?

While I don't know that game, a good general rule is "if you can go negative, do it". Not doing so is more likely to be inbalanced/unfair than doing so. There may be exceptions of course.

I was confused, for a while, by the title case in your question title. I thought you were referring to something properly called Parrot Perdition, instead of just a term you created to describe your situation. Perhaps you could rephrase your question title like so: "In Pirate's Cove, what if I'm supposed to lose more fame points than I have?".

@Firefeather: Yeah, sorry, I just couldn't stop adding words that started with P to my title!

Heh, yeah, it is quite alliterative, isn't it? :D

There is, unfortunately, no official ruling.  You can attempt to get one by contacting Days of Wonder directly: Question Submission Form.  However, as it's a popular question and no answer has appeared for some time, I wouldn't hold my breath.
As with any rules dispute, I highly suggest the group agree on a strategy for resolution beforehand (for all games).  My group usually does not like to halt the action, so we take a quick vote, go with the majority (or flip a coin on a tie), and then look it up later.
As for my personal opinion, Pirates Cove makes no distinction between Fame and Notoriety, so when even bad press is good press, the concept of being 'less than a nobody' doesn't make much sense.  All the pirates start out as absolute nobodies, and there's no where else to go but up.
A better defense than theme is that many games which take into account the possibility of going negative will often give an in-game way of tracking that, such as a -1 token, card (e.g. dominion's curse cards), or to start the players out with some points to lose.  Since this game did none of those and there are not explicit negative numbers on the fame track, the evidence points towards no negative fame.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


text:
Fleeing the Navy, in Pirate's Cove
We were playing the Days of Wonder game Pirate's Cove earlier this evening; it's a lot of fun but the rules aren't exactly watertight, and more than once I felt there was considerable ambiguity in how they should be interpreted. Here's one that I remember:

If a pirate ship flees or is sent packing from combat, their opponents remaining in the fight get 1 Fame point for seeing them off. At one point two of us sailed to the same island and a third player sprang the Royal Navy on us. The Royal Navy crippled one ship, which was forced to set sail for Pirate's Cove. The question: does the remaining player get a Fame point, on the grounds that they have outlasted an opponent in battle? Our group majority-voted no, because at the time both ships were fighting the Navy together, so it didn't count as seeing off an opponent. But I wasn't so sure...

The remaining opponents get 1 Fame each.
(Quotations are from the rules (English, German))
The Scoring section is somewhat confusing in the English version:

Pirates GAIN fame from each of the following actions

Winning Battles (1 point per player that is defeated or flees after being hit)

The German version (note that the original game was German) translates to:

Winning battles (one point per player whose ship has been destroyed or flees after being hit)

However, the emphasis seems to be on the action of a ship being disabled or a ship fleeing, not in the outcome being called "winning" a battle. The Forced retreat section follows this thinking:

A crippled ship brings all remaining opponents on that island 1 point of fame.

And the German is even clearer:

All opponents remaining on the contested island receive one fame point for a destroyed ship.

The fact that the word "opponents" is plural and that the German still calls it a "contested" ("umkämpften") island both refute the fact that a battle must be completely "won" by dispatching all other opponents.

That's what I argued on the night, but my fellow players weren't contesting any of this: they were contesting whether the other pirate ship counts as an opponent, given that (at least to start with) you're fighting the Navy together.  If three players had defeated the Navy together, and then one pirate ship had fled from the ensuing inter-pirate melee, there would have been no doubt that each of the remaining two would get 1 Fame at that point.

@thesunneversets: That's a good counter-argument. But after the Navy or legendary pirates are defeated, you must fight each other, so they're still your opponent and the island is certainly still contested. Also, thematically, it certainly would make sense for a pirate to gain fame telling the story about how he outlasted that pirate over there when taking on the Royal Navy.

@thesunneversets: Or, looking at the meaning of the word opponents another way, they're all your opponents in the game, even though they may not be in that round of battle.

I agree really.  And I think you should get fame just for lasting longer against those blasted Navymen than the other lily-livered cowards did!

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Boosting Sails, in Pirate's Cove
We were playing the Days of Wonder game Pirate's Cove earlier this evening; it's a lot of fun but the rules aren't exactly watertight, and more than once I felt there was considerable ambiguity in how they should be interpreted. Here's one that I remember:

You play the battle card that gives you a bonus of +6 to your Sails, when your Sails are the weakest aspect of your ship. Does this bonus only extend as far as letting you fire first in combat, i.e. if you get hit on your sails a couple of times are you still out for the count? Or do you have to be hit six extra times to be eliminated? I suspect the answer is the former, but as I've narrowly lost the game at least once because my Sails got speedily knocked down despite receiving the bonus from this card, I'd love to find out that the latter was true!

By the way, after seeing this and your other Pirate's Cove questions, I thought to myself, "those were good questions. I wonder what other questions thesunneversets has asked." Lo and behold, I find that you've asked lots of the questions I've recently enjoyed. So, thank you for your great questions!

Sails aren't strengthened; this doesn't work in the representation of the theme.
Days of Wonder games attempt to do a good job matching the rules to the game's theme. I can see Blow me down! thematically as having an advantageous positioning for the wind. I can also see the Parrot and Mastercraft cards' thematic workings. However, it doesn't make sense that sails would suddenly, and temporarily, become harder to damage in a combat.

I've given several answers so each argument can be evaluated on its own. Each answer is a separate argument for why I believe the Blow me down! card does not make your sails stronger (i.e., doesn't give the sails any more hits before your ship is disabled).

This is my favourite answer I think.  I can imagine a favourable wind giving you a temporary speed boost, but it's harder to imagine a spring-loaded surprise mast with reinforced sails popping up out of nowhere, Monty Python-style!

@thesunneversets: I think it's awesome that this is your favorite answer, because I'm a rules nazi and liked my deck composition answer the best. (Also, that answer is the one that would be most likely to sway my typical gaming companions.) I hadn't expected that you'd like this one the best! It's a good reminder that one approach won't resolve all disagreements about rules for all people.

Sails aren't strengthened; how would you track hits?
Because Blow me down! is a Battle card, it lasts only for the duration of the battle. Damage to any of the ship's sections is represented physically (e.g., moving a ring, turning a card sideways). Likewise, the results of repair/upgrade are represented physically and they require discarding a payment (e.g., gold, the Going on the account event card). If it made your sails temporarily able to take six more hits, how would that be represented without losing track of your sails' real strength?
(Note: This argument is weakened by the fact that the answer, "the same way as you'd track the legendary pirates' hull," is quite a reasonable counter-argument.)

I've given several answers so each argument can be evaluated on its own. Each answer is a separate argument for why I believe the Blow me down! card does not make your sails stronger (i.e., doesn't give the sails any more hits before your ship is disabled).

As you say in your note.  You can mark hits on both Mastercraft Cards and Parrots by tapping them.  You can mark hits on pirate hulls with counters.  There are many ways of tracking hits in Pirate's Cove without moving the rings: all we need here is a bit of creative interpretation!

@thesunneversets: Very true. I think this is the weakest of my arguments. I still included it because (1) Legendary pirates are the only counter-example, and (2) Even in the case of legendary pirates, you're never expected to use stuff like counters to represent hits on an upgradeable part—legendary pirates just return to full strength after battle, AFAIK.

This argument is the one that made me think, "I should probably split these into separate answers." I didn't want other arguments ignored because of this argument's weakness.

It may be relevant to note that, regarding Parrot cards, the rules state: "If a parrot is hurt during battle but survives to victory or flees alive to Pirate’s Cove, it will automatically heal its wound. Put its card back in its initial upward position during the Upgrade phase."

Sails aren't strengthened; the deck composition would be different.
There are already cards that add strength to sections of the ship (Parrot cards and the Mastercraft card). These come with a cost for losing that additional strength; why would Blow me down! strengthen your sails without a cost? Why would a card strengthening only sails be needed in addition to these cards? Wouldn't the rules also make it clear which card takes damage if you had Blow me down! in addition to a Mastercraft on sails, or Squire Trelawney’s Parrot (who is "equipped" to the sails)?
Also, if Blow me down! was intended to absorb hits on the sails, why aren't there similar cards for cannons or crew (or hull, for that matter)? Perhaps a Battle card stating "For the rest of this battle, your cannons and crew each have a bonus of +2".
On the other hand, the Grapple attack card increases your ability to damage a ship, without increasing the strength (against damage) of crew or cannons. I'd say a similar effect is intended for Blow me down!.

I've given several answers so each argument can be evaluated on its own. Each answer is a separate argument for why I believe the Blow me down! card does not make your sails stronger (i.e., doesn't give the sails any more hits before your ship is disabled).

Who knows why the deck is composed as it is?  I can think of all sorts of cards that could be in it, but aren't.  The fact is, this card says it gives a +6 bonus to your Sails.  It doesn't say "for the purposes of determining battle initiative, treat your Sails as though they were 6 higher than they were"... that would be way too clear!

@thesunneversets: LOL. I wish it didn't have to be that wordy (or legalese-like) to be that clear. But if that were the case, we wouldn't have this problem, would we? :) I guess the assumption here is that the deck was composed the way it was for a reason—and my answer explains what I would think the game designer's reasoning would be.

Sails aren't strengthened; it doesn't make sense with the game's RPG-like mechanics.
I haven't played many role playing games (I'm not meaning RPG video games here—I'm referring to stuff like Dungeons and Dragons), but I think I know enough about them for this argument. Pirate's Cove shares several mechanics with RPG gaming, so I'd expect the terminology to have a similar meaning.
The rules describe Blow me down! in this way: "For the rest of this battle, your sail has a bonus of +6." It seems to me that RPGs use terminology like "+6 bonus" to represent an additive benefit to only one specified attribute of a character. For example (and correct me if I'm wrong!), if I had a +2 speed bonus from equipping certain shoes (making me run faster), it wouldn't necessarily mean it's harder for my character to hurt his/her foot or that the shoes are harder to break. Similarly, I'd expect Blow me down! to mean I'm getting a +6 speed or initiative bonus without implying a +6 defense bonus on my sails.

I've given several answers so each argument can be evaluated on its own. Each answer is a separate argument for why I believe the Blow me down! card does not make your sails stronger (i.e., doesn't give the sails any more hits before your ship is disabled).

I don't really agree with this one - in Pirate's Cove, when you increase your Sails score, you increase both your ship's speed and your ship's ability to take damage to the sails and not be crippled.  Why would a temporary boost (without additional clarification on the card) necessarily increase one aspect and not the other?

@thesunneversets: Fair enough, but I'd say that's because moving the ring up is called upgrading and not a bonus. I'm not sure if any RPG systems use the verb upgrade to describe the process, but it seems to be pretty much the same as level up. So I'd say the mechanics still match up.


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Good Introductory Strategies for Steam
I was lucky enough to play my first Martin Wallace game last night - a 5 player game of Steam.  Unfortunately I was tired and couldn't really grasp the intricacies of the game from a quick runthrough of the rules; I decided to not worry about it, play at random and get a feel for the game.
Of course I got trounced: I was way too slow to develop my locomotive, failed to utilise towns to maximise my number of route links, and missed the fact that goods cannot move through a city of their colour on their way to another one.  At least I was only a few points behind the players in 3rd and 4th places (though a long way behind the leaders of the pack).
I really liked the look of Steam (which felt like a kind of cross between Power Grid and Caylus) though, and would happily play it again.  To save me from future embarrassment though, what are some simple strategies I could adopt to give me a fighting chance of a good finish next time?  I've probably suggested some to myself in the list of mistakes I think I made in my first game, but I'm sure people who really know the game can give me some better pointers.  Any takers?

You need to be planning a way to build up to routes of various lengths, up to 5 or 6 long, from the very beginning of the game.  Look at the resources on the board and route them mentally to places that are far away, then fill in where you need to place tracks.  Realize that resources near other cities of the same color are probably going to go away before you complete the longer routes.
You might eventually need Urbanization to help you build the routes you want.
A lot of new players will "land grab" the routes that give immediate gratification but then realize they don't really have a good growth strategy thereafter.  Don't worry if your start is slightly slower than such players, although you definitely need to get some goods delivered early.

This all sounds pretty good to me.  Urbanization was one of those rules that I basically blanked on at the beginning: okay, I can spend money to make a new city, why would I want to make a new city, mightn't other people benefit from it as much as me?  Until you have a picture of how the game works overall, stuff like that just sails overhead.

I haven't played Steam specifically, but I have played Railroad Tycoon - a similar game.  From what I can tell, you're on the right track.  The trick to this game is finding the right balance of train upgrades, number of routes, and location of routes to maximize your score.  Short routes will score points quicker but your total won't be as high.  Long routes score more points but require a larger train.  In my experience, you'll do poorly if you try to optimize one thing (e.g., your train) at the expense of everything else.  As with other games in this style, the key is flexibility.  You need to take what the game gives you.
I'm not sure if Steam has the same end-of-game mechanic, but in Railroad Tycoon there is skill involved in prolonging the game so you can catch up (or ending it early!).  Once a fixed number of towns are empty, the game ends.  You need to keep an eye on the scoring track once people start delivering lots of goods and emptying towns.

I didn't see a way of speeding up or slowing down the game end (a la Caylus), but we were only playing the basic variant, so it's not impossible there is one.  Definitely you're right about early short routes - I built a tiny little route at the game start and used it to transport two goods for 1 point each.  I'd have been much better off getting a "free" locomotive upgrade with one of those moves and having the potential to score at least one extra point every subsequent turn.

@thesun, I did basically the same thing in my first Railroad Tycoon game.  I think you'll get substantially better after a few more games.  There's definitely a power curve for scoring potential - if you stay on par with the other players you'll probably do fine.

I've played the game more than a dozen times (typically with 5 or 6 players) and the outcome seems to always be decided by a combination of the following:  1. Expanding your links asap!  2. Upgrading your locomotive asap!  3. Knowing that you can't play it 'safe' in this game (enter more debt than seems reasonable, take chances, and build for future deliveries)!  If you can balance these 3 aspects while resisting the desire for small gains, you'll stand a chance.  Having said this, I find it's not as easy as said and I still struggle with balancing all things together.


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What Crazy Bridge Bidding Systems Actually Work In Practice?
There's been a lot of talk about bridge bidding in these parts lately.  A lot of people like to play "straight down the line", to the point where they're mortally offended when you suggest something "risky" but actually fairly commonplace, like a weak no trump, falsecarding, or even (apparently!) pre-emptive bidding.
My question is, is it wise to cleave very closely to a standard systems of bidding, that have been refined through the ages and proven themselves time and again?  Or is it well worth it to introduce a bit of craziness into the mix, in the hopes of bamboozling opponents who may be too set in their ways?  It seems obvious to me that putting opponents in situations they haven't encountered millions of times before in the course of playing against standard systems might be a good way of gaining an advantage over them.
If odd bidding systems are a good idea, then what examples of them can you give, and how did they confer an advantage?  I have a couple of anecdotes of my own, but I'll provide them as an answer...

A guy in college would often make highly unusual bids.  His logic seemed pretty solid, "Two opponents to confuse, only one partner"

IMO, the biggest advantage of these odd systems comes from the fact that the opponents are not prepared.
You ought to provide opponents enough time to come up with a defense to your system. If your system is odds-against, you will tend to lose in the long run. In fact, some championships require the system players to also provide a written defence! (I believe this is true of Multi 2D in US National tournaments).
If you are playing without adequate disclosure, you are not playing Bridge.
For some examples, I suppose Multi 2D and the preemptive 2H,2S etc actually started out as "odd" conventions.
I was about to add an answer with StrongPass but you already did that :-)
IMO, system is a minor factor in winning Bridge and odds-against odd systems only tend to work till opponents wise up. I would rather play something "simple enough" rather than waste effort trying to remember an overly complicated system.

Always Play The Nine
The great and not a little anarchic British player Zia Mahmood - and correct me if any of this is wrong, as I'm recounting it from hazy memories - was once saddled with a partner who wasn't the greatest.  After trying and failing to get her to understand the basics of leads and so forth, he finally gave up, and invented a new system.  If she had a nine, she should always play it.  Apparently a middle-of-the-pack lead like this was much less likely to instantly compromise the contract than various of the other options.  Zia's partner was pretty happy to have so many fewer confusing options to deal with, and apparently they were able to do a lot better at the Bridge table for the rest of the evening!
Strong Pass System
I can't claim to be as interesting and funny as Zia Mahmood, but once, a slightly insane friend of mine and I cooked up a strong pass system and played it online.  Sitting in first seat, a pass meant a huge whack of points and was incredibly forcing... all other bids were an increasingly elaborate attempt to build on that.  Yes, it would have all fallen apart if we'd told our hapless opponents what we were playing, but as a one-off joke it was wonderful.  Our crowning glory was managing to go down just a couple of tricks undoubled against a partnership who had 30 points between them - in first and third seats our repeated aggressive bidding (signifying of course that we had nothing at all) completely impeded any ability they had to take control of the bidding, and then their defence was deeply confused by the fact they thought we had completely different hands to the actual truth, at every turn!  I still feel a bit guilty that at the end of that game our opponents congratulated us for some of the most amazing play they'd ever seen at the Bridge table... we were being so naughty, and they were so nice!

Strong pass systems are not new: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_pass. These are known as HUM (highly unusual methods) in WBF rules are only allowed in Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup, with some conditions.

(yeah and +1 for the mention of strong pass).

@Aryabhatta: Yes, I'm under no illusions that we invented the concept.  But I'm pretty sure that our system, as created on the back of a handkerchief by two slightly drunken fools, bore little resemblance to "serious" strong pass systems.  Actually I really like the stuff at the end of your link.  If your opponents are better on declarer play than on defence, a strong pass system that is liable to see them defending a lot more often could be a secret weapon against them!

@thesun: Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you are taking credit!

@thesun: Zia Mahmood is a Pakistani, not a "Brit" (unless you consider that Pakistan was still part of the British Empire when he was born. He WAS educated in the UK and is a "naturalized" US citizen but considers himself Pakistani.

@Tom: Hey, I have an American passport and live in Canada but I grew up there so I'm British through and through!  Zia is a truly international renaissance man, but as his Wikipedia entry states, he's a major part of the London Bridge scene... any right-thinking country would be proud to claim him as (an honorary) one of their own :)

@woodchips I completely agree with you! It would have been interesting to have been asked what the system was, but we genuinely weren't in an environment where anyone cared very much.  We should probably have tried to alert it anyway, I accept that...

I wonder why the rules don't allow asymmetric bidding systems (where bids by one player have different meaning from those of another).  Having one notice-to-intermediate player apply "If in doubt, bid" while partner applies "If in doubt, pass" would seem like it would yield better results than having both players make similar decisions of whether or not to bid.

It's only a "crazy bidding system" if it doesn't work in practice.  Otherwise, any system that works even when the opponents understand it is a good one, and probably better than the 'standard'.  Look up the history of Precision sometime.

Upvoted.  I love Precision!

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