text:
Are gates too slow for constructed play?
Gates are of a cycle of dual lands coming out in Return to Ravnica. There's a gate for each guild (WU, BG, UR, BR, GW), but they always enter the battlefield tapped. These are in stark contrast to the shock lands that reappear in this set (which only enter tapped if you do not pay 2 life), the duals from the core set (which only enter tapped if you do not already have, for example, a swamp or mountain for the dual that taps for R or B (ironically, the gates would allow this to not come in tapped)), and lands from previous sets that came in tapped only you already have a few lands. The Innstrad lands work the same way, even though they aren't always aligned with the guild colors (They have BW, not WU. But they do have BG and UR, very nice.)
So that's the background. Is the entering the battlefield tapped going to be too slow? You're basically sacrificing whatever turn you're at to be turn - 1, which is a pretty hefty price to pay (apparently, it's worth 2 life!) Are these only going to see play in limited to facilitate mana fixing that otherwise isn't available?

Is Pauper considered constructed? If so, then absolutely not.

Never heard of Pauper before. (A quick google tells me it's common only). I should clarify that constructed strictly means DCI sanctioned constructed formats. That being said, the idea of Pauper EDH sounds like a blast (barring of course generals, who are almost exclusively rare or mythic, with a couple uncommons here and there).

Pauper is a very popular format on MTGO, which is where it is mostly played. However, it is still a sanctioned format as there are WotC sponsored tournaments for it there.

Short answer: unconditionally entering the battlefield tapped leaves them at too great a disadvantage with respect to the other options, and these lands are designed for limited play.
More specifically, there's essentially no advantage to using Gates over the corresponding shocklands or core set/Innistrad duals; since there's virtually no land type specific LD, gates are for all practical purposes strictly worse than their corresponding shocklands, because the shocklands can be fetched with Farseek and otherwise have the option of coming into play untapped if you're willing to take the hit.  Likewise, the core/Inn lands are exactly like the Gates except for the possibility of coming into play untapped on turn 2+ (and note that the shocklands 'turn on' the core lands, which is another point in shocklands' favor).
Between these two factors, the only thing that Gatelands have to offer over the other choices is that little word: 'Gate'.  If there were cards that took real advantage of the gate type - say, something like a Rampant Growth/Farseek for Gates - then I think you would actually see them getting some play in ramp decks.  As it is, though, the only cards that interact with Gates are a couple of creatures (none of which is within constructed-stats range) that gain small benefits for gates in play and Gatecreeper Vine, which fetches a gate but - unfortunately - doesn't put it into play.  This means that the land type (at least for now) isn't offering any upside to offset the advantages that the other styles of dual have.
So why do they exist?  Well, pretty much for the reason that you noted; RTR limited is going to need quite a bit of manafixing since there are so many multicolor cards; this means putting fixing down into the common slots.  And while Rarity Is Not Power, WotC has a number of reasons for not having rares 'outclassed' in substantial ways by commons, and they've done very few powerful land cycles at common (or even uncommon) - you can generally expect that any land-based mana fixing that winds up in the common slot is going to be a little bit weak.

Not all decks will be active turn 1, and while there might not be a lot of cards that use Gates at the moment, you can probably intimate from the name "Gatecrash" that they'll have a lot more of a role in the next set. They're being released now because they're being released with their guilds.
Talking of which, all of the Innistrad dual-lands pair with a guild. R2R only features five of the ten guilds.

Essentially, they are budget duel lands to help balance out almost any multicolored deck. Yes, you can't use it the turn you cast it, but you don't always need that extra mana anyways.

But sometimes you do... which is why Shocklands are exceptionally good while Gates are considered below par.

Minor nitpick: Lands are played, not cast. Spells are cast. :-)


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Archetypes in triple Avacyn Restored draft
What good archetypes have you found in triple Avacyn Restored draft? I'm looking for strategies, color combinations and core cards for each deck type.
Maybe you found something that was surprisingly good or bad?

In my experience, Avacyn Restored Limited is less dependent on drafting clear archetypes than Innistrad. In particular:

None of the colors have a super-strong identity associating them with one particular strategy. For example, you could draft small aggressive white beaters, or you could draft Seraph of Dawn and Angelic Wall to try to win on board control.
Many of the colors are short on "playables".
Some of the strongest synergies are in rather basic aggressive and midrange decks.
Most of the "weird" cards turn out to be useless. Don't expect to be able to draft an awesome combo deck like Burning Vengeance or Spiders.

The closest analogy, in my view, is core set draft.

That said, if I had to pick archetypes, I think these would win on power and consistent draftability. Think of them as a mental shorthand for "What's good in this set that I'm likely to actually see?"
White-based aggro (W/R)
This is the classic white weenie strategy, basically, with red as the strongest secondary color due to its own weenies like Lightning Mauler, Kruin Striker, and Fervent Cathar. Only some of the low-cost creatures in the set are actually good, though, while others are filler; one way this deck fails is if you draft too many do-nothing 1/2s. Auras or Equipment can help keep them relevant in the game, but many of these are weak, too. In my experience, you will be outclassed by your opponent's creatures at some point, so it's important to have a way to push that final bit of damage through, whether that's direct damage, buff spells, or even Heirs of Stromkirk.
I also think the format is just slow enough that you usually want to play a big finisher or two if you can manage to pick up a good one: that's right, shove Entreat the Angels into a weenie deck! Herald of War is actually one of the better finishers because it comes down early and grows so quick. I'd be looking to pick up some of the more aggressive midrange Angels as well, like Emancipation Angel and Restoration Angel.
Green-based midrange (G/R)
The core concept of this deck is simple: most of the other decks you encounter can't beat curving out with a good two-drop into Trusted Forcemage into Druid's Familiar. Green has a lot of playable commons and uncommons and probably the highest concentration of really good ones as well (Druid's Familiar and Wolfir Avenger, for instance!), and it easily supports splashing a third color without diluting your deck (Borderland Ranger, Abundant Growth). I like red as the support color here, because it's good to have Pillar of Flame, Thunderbolt, and all the haste cards to mess with your opponent's defensive preparations. Blue is also promising for its soulbond creatures like Tandem Lookouts but seems to lead to grindier decks; generally, I think it's better to just take the blowout when you can get it, and cards like Uncanny Speed go a long way towards getting blowouts all the time.
In addition to soulbond, there's a "power matters" theme with cards like Wandering Wolf; if you pick up multiples of Blessings of Nature (an uncommon), a bunch of cards like Champion of Lambholt and Falkenrath Exterminator suddenly become game-ending combo cards.
Blue-based tempo control (U/?)
Mist Raven is a good card. Playing it feels a lot like playing Snapcaster - Vapor Snag in Standard. Then you start using Ghostly Flicker and Nephalia Smuggler and it's like a whole wave of Vapor Snags. There are no Delvers in this set, though, so you're in for a much grindier game, pecking away for 2 or 4 a turn in the air while you frustrate your opponent with blockers and bounce; a bit like CawBlade without any hands-down awesomely broken cards, really. This deck really benefits from some card draw to generate more lasting card advantage, like the Tandem Lookouts - Windcrafter combo -- ideally using it to find your big finisher or some powerful removal.
If you pull a Deadeye Navigator, then you have a real control game in the form of a soft lock. Or, you know, a Tamiyo, but I suspect you don't need to be told that planeswalkers can totally take over in Limited.

Nice write up, thanks! A few questions: Is it possible to get the white fast enough to win without the angels? Green seems crazy strong. Wolfir Avenger, wow. Have you tried Triumph of Ferocity? It looks like a good fit on paper.
Do you have any favorite targets for all the blinking in blue? I haven't seen a lot of blue ones, maybe in other colors?
What about black, suggestions what to do if I end up starting a few good black cards?

@AndSoYouCode Triumph of Ferocity is awesome in Limited. I haven't played the other stuff enough to make good suggestions. There are some black cards but I feel like it's very fragile.

Seems like a mistake on Gatherer's side, but your Druid's Familiar link resolves to Druids' Repository.

@Jefromi I'm surprised it resolves at all! We have an apostrophe problem.

Pro player Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa recently wrote an interesting article on the subject where he states:

There are no archetypes
This is kind of an exaggeration – obviously there are archetypes – but this is so different than previous draft formats that I think the exaggeration is warranted to get the point across. For most of the past decade, there were very specific archetypes and color combinations that you wanted or didn’t want to be in – in Innistrad, for example, you could be Spider Spawning, Burning Vengeance, GW aggro, BR aggro, but you did not want to be GW control, UB aggro or WR anything, because the cards just weren’t there. In Avacyn Restored, you can be almost any color combination, and you can be control or aggro in any of them. That’s very interesting, because previous picks don’t restrain you as much when it comes to choosing a second color or a strategy, as pretty much anything is fair game.

If we take Paulo's word on the subject, it all comes down to color combinations where pretty much any combination can work.
In the same article he also talks about each color's strengths and highlights the best cards for each color.

I agree with PV (on everything ever; he is my favorite!), but I do think it's useful to point out that he's having a rather terrible season with AVR block, sealed, and draft. That may indicate he has "misread" the format.

@AlexP ahahah, that may well be the case! I just wanted to bring in the thoughts of a pro, and Paulo's article is the closest answer I could find.

Definitely the right idea. I was gonna link to him, too. :)

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When is a backgammon not a backgammon?
So here is the basic idea: My opponent has put one of my checkers on the bar and begins bearing off.  A turn or two later, I get a lucky roll and move off the bar, putting one of my opponent's checkers on the bar.  Assuming I already had my home area covered, I continue to roll until I start bearing off, when my opponent encounters some serious bad luck in the rolling department and isn't able to move his checker off the bar until his last turn.  On my next roll I get lucky again, role doubles, and I'm done.
Since I have borne off all my checkers, and my opponent still has a checker in my home area, is this a backgammon, or has the fact that my opponent has borne off at least one checker make this only a cube?  I was always taught that cube is only when the loser has all their checkers in their home area and have borne off at least one checker, however another answer here, as well as wikipedia seem to indicate otherwise.

A backgammon occurs when you have borne off ALL your checkers, and BOTH of the following are true: 1) Your opponent has at least one checker in your home area and 2) Your opponent has borne off NO checkers.
In this situation, your opponent had ALREADY begun bearing off checkers when he got hit. So the fact that this checker was in your home board has no bearing on "backgammon." (And if he had gotten it out of your home board before you bore off, there would have been no gammon.)
The cube can operate with or without a gammon or backgammon, so you get the value of the cube in this instance. If you're playing "Jacoby Rule," you can't score a gammon or backgammon without the cube's being turned.

A small point, but it's the Jacoby rule that stops you claiming a gammon/backgammon in an uncubed game. (The Crawford rule is in matchplay, you can't double in the first game after your opponent reaches 1 short of victory)

As an aside, once you are in this position and you know you can't get more than 1 point, you might as well offer to double and put the opponent out of their misery to start the next round. (Or just remind your opponent that they can concede.)

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What is the best method to make new Settlers like tiles
I am trying to make some new Settlers tiles and would like to know what is the best method to make Settlers like tiles that are roughly the same size and thickness to standard settlers tiles with a custom printed image.

If you have access to a die-cutting press, as many teachers might, one can buy a hexagon press die.
Google Sizzix/Westminster Bigz Dies  Hexagon and you find several sizes.
They make a block of 6x 3/4" and 1" hexes (suitable for counters), and one of 4x 2" hexes, and one which does 2.5" hexes.
Check your local craft stores and school supply stores.
The presses run from $50 to several hundred dollars, and the dies $20 to $50 apiece, so this is not an inexpensive solution. Nor is it efficient; you'll need to manually line up the graphic. It will, however, allow for leather, magnet, chipboard, and other non-paper samples to be easily made in a regular size.
Using them without a suitable press requires a firm hand, a smooth hard surface, and a rolling pin that can take your weight...

Best is a factor of both cost and volume.  If you're like most hobby board game prototypers, then you're looking for a low cost solution, and you'll be making only a handful of tiles.  For this, the manual process is best.  This involves buying cardboard of the appropriate weight, printing your tiles with an inkjet printer, gluing the paper to the cardboard, and cutting it out with an x-acto knife.
You should be able to find everything you need from your local hobby store (bring a settlers tile to the store to find the kind you need).  You'll want something that's just a tiny bit thinner than the actual settlers tile, because of the paper and glue.  I suggest a spray adhesive, since it's easier to apply evenly.
After printing your image onto the paper, tape it taut, face-down on all four corners to a larger piece of cardboard first, then apply the glue, and finally the cardboard.  Since the cardboard is heavier this will prevent unwanted bubbles in the paper.  Start from the middle and apply even pressure in increasing concentric circles (some people suggest using a spoon, I use my fingers just fine).
If you're wanting multiple tiles, you can obviously do as many as you can fit on the paper at once to save some time.

I completely agree on the spray adhesive, although, make sure to check the can ... some are for temporary adhesion, like post-it-notes, while others are more permenent ... some even comment on how drying time before combining affects long-term adhesion.   I don't, however, recommend a standard x-acto knife.  Although they make more than one model, when most people think 'x-acto' they think of the little blade w/ the pencil-like handle.  What you really want is a mat knife, a snap-blade knife, or a utility knife, which won't tire your hand out as much and the blade won't snap as often.


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One vs Many board games
My group and I enjoy Role-playing games.  However we can't always get the same number of people together week after week in order to finish one campaign.  What would be great is a boardgame that we could finish in one evening that has one person (The GM) against everyone else (4-6 other people).
Is this a recognized style of game?  What would it be called and how could I identify such games?

Why was this closed? Many of the top-voted questions on this site are asking for recommendations for a certain number or type of players. (example example example example)

I voted to reopen.  This isn't an opinion question.  The game either pits one vs many or it doesn't.

I believe this meta discussion might apply to this question as well.

@NealTibrewala - please bring any discussion to meta.  Thanks!

Edited to hopefully fall in line with the proper question format. Please consider reopening.

voting to reopen as edited.

@dpatchery - rewrote your question in order to get at what I thought would solve your question in a SE friendly way.  Feel free to edit if needed.

@all - deleting existing answers on this question as they are items in a no-longer existing poll.

@PatLudwig - Works for me. It's not the real reason but it will get the answers I desire.

A good example of how a "mod" worked with the community to produce a "fair" result.

What's going on here? I thought the new question was "how can I identify these games?" And now the shopping-list answers are being accepted again? I love BG.SE but some of the decisions around here are very confusing.

@gomad - I don't understand why you say shopping list answers are being accepted?

@Pat I think he means "accepted" as in "not deleted" rather than "green check mark".  I thought the same thing.

@dpatchery - Ah, I deleted the existing ones when the question was updated to give it a fresh start.  Normally, I think that the usual methods of dealing with answers that don't address the question can work, namely comments and downvotes.  I don't want to get in the habit of deleting answers that I feel are poor as a standard course of action.

@Pat - dpatchery has it right. Not "accepted", I suppose...tolerated.

@gomad - are you advocating that all list type answers be deleted by the moderators on an ongoing basis?

@Pat - No, emphatically no! I'm not advocating that, I would never advocate that! I thought I was seeing it. I think recommendation questions - particularly with narrow, interesting parameters, are valuable and part of our community.  I'm just trying to get a handle on what's OK in our culture so I can be a good citizen.

One vs. Many is a fairly recent term concerning boardgames.  There aren't any dedicated lists on Boardgamegeek that I was able to find.  However, there is a tag by that name that you can use to find games.
Also, see the list of One Vs. Many games in a GeekList devoted to Cooperative games.
Cooperative Games
Cooperative games are also a type of game you may wish to consider.  It has become very popular in recent years.  Instead of contesting with each other, the players work together to beat "the game".  In many ways, the game system acts as the GM against the players.  The above list is very thorough if you want to see some examples.
Traitor Mechanic
Another related term to look for is boardgames with a Traitor mechanic. A game with a traitor is cooperative except for usually one traitor who works against everyone else.  However the identity of the traitor is not usually initially known.  These sorts of games can be a lot of fun if your group enjoys playing mental tricks on each other.  A geeklist, of games with a hidden traitor mechanic can be helpful in locating those.

The list on boardgamegeek is very helpful. I want a clearly established "bad guy" versus the other players, so the co-op and traitor games don't really fit my needs.

That was really cold, deleting all those answers like that.

@Lance - what would you suggest for a course of action?

The real problem comes from a vague definition of what questions are acceptable.  We allow recommendation questions, but then it seems to be randomly decided which ones remain.  Like the commenter in Meta who mentioned the travel games question, that one was way more broad than this question was.  I'm not sure why the OP needed to change this question from a recommendation question to a information/research question.  I would have been fine with everything becoming community wiki, but I thought he was asking for a good specific niche (unlike something like 'all multiplayer games').

A classic "German style" game with One vs Many mechanics is Scotland Yard.
I haven't played it in years (decades?), but I remember it as a simple, fun game where "Mister X" - played by one player - is chased on a map of London by the other players who have to work together to catch him.

I was just about to provide Scotland Yard as an answer. It was my first Eurogame.

And it doesn't matter which side you are playing, you almost always feel like you are losing (as long as X doesn't make obvious mistakes)

Descent from Fantasy Flight Games (see http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17226/descent-journeys-in-the-dark)
This is exactly the game you describe - one player takes the role of basically the GM, the other players the party and the game plays as a dungeon crawl. There are a lot of scenarios, expansions and even rules for making it more akin to a campaign. Probably an exact fit for what you are looking for (a group of RPG players looking for a boardgame experience that scratches the same gameplay itch.
Another route to consider, however, might be games that do away with the DM/GM entirely in favor of a fully cooperative experience where the players work together to compete against the game itself (with each game taking slightly different approaches to the "GM" like elements.
A few of this increasingly popular genre that come to mind are:
Wizards of Coast's Ravenloft and Wrath of Asharadalon games are both cooperative games with a D&D flavor but are boardgames. They run without a GM.
There are older games that could also fit this style of play at least in some cases. Heroscape (or for that matter Warhammer) could be played with one person controlling a large army facing off against a team of people each controlling smaller armies.

Yes, it's a style of game that is recognized.
Some of the better ones:

Descent (Mentioned in detail by Shannon, so I won't)
Battlestations!
Car Wars (pre-5th ed)
HeroQuest/Advanced Heroquest (Milton Bradly - OOP)
Space Hulk
GW's Inquisitor

Battlestations is tricky, in that it's a board game of tactical shipboard actions, a board game of ship-to-ship or ship-vs-setup, and a role-playing game. It's excellent, and exactly fits the stated need. (If your need isn't well stated...) It's also a silly, Trek-ish but not Trek, setting. It does support campaign play and character development, as well as ship improvements.
Car Wars, like Battlestations, can be run as board game or RPG, and in one-off or campaign mode. At the moment, it's print-n-play, but SJG has the Compendium and some counters and supplements on e23. And there's a lot of fan-stuff out there, too. It's more work than Battlestations, as well.
Milton Bradley's HeroQuest and Advanced HeroQuest, and the spin-off Warhammer Quest, are highly tactical games of dungeon invasion. While out of print, the MB ones had all the rules posted on the HasBro web site for years, and may still. It's pretty doable to do this one up as a Print-n-play, tho' it is a lot of work. Due to it being joint GW and MB, a reprint is highly unlikely for any of them.
Space Hulk may say 2p, but many missions for 1st ed were multi-squad, and suitable for one player per squad. Just add 30% more blips per additional squad, and 20% more space... you will need multiple base boxes, tho'.
Inquisitor is a minis game. Officially in 56mm, the GW 30mm stuff works just fine by halving all ranges. Heck, it works fine just by using 30mm and not halving the ranges. It's most suited for ongoing games, but it's still quite doable for well prepped one-shots of multiple gangs at a storyline encounter.

The game you want is Fury of Dracula. One person plays Dracula who moves around Europe using a really awesome mechanic of hidden cards. One to four players are the vampire hunters who try to find Dracula without getting killed.

I flagged this question for deletion, and wanted to explain why. This is an answer to a different question, perhaps the original question, but not the question as it stands. I understand you're new here, so I wanted to make it clear: This is not a bad answer, but this question was closed because it encouraged a "shopping list" of answers and reopened when it asked, "How can I identify games with this characteristic?"


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Why is chasing the low considered a trap in Omaha Hi/Lo?
In the Omaha Hi/Lo Poker variant you hear advice like do not chase the low. But what is the difference between chasing a low draw and a high draw? Many people are satisfied with their low draw only when they already have a pair, or a draw to win also the highest hand.
I don't see a reason for not chasing the low:

The pot is divided 50/50 between the high- and the low-hand winner
Low draw can be close/open-ended like a high draw, too

This makes the same pot odds and equity for trying to win the high and the low hand, so why the "bad practice"?

Welcome aboard with your question. An upvote to get you started.

The reason that "chasing the low" is discouraged is because too often, you have a shot at only the low side of the pot.
Let's say you have a low hand draw, and a "high" draw to a straight or flush. Very often, you will make the latter, only to be beaten by a higher straight or flush. At the same time, you may fail to make your low because the card that made the straight or flush is "high."
Ideally, you will have a hand that can go "both ways." Something like K-K-2-3 can make both a high and a low hand, especially of the kings are "double suited" with the 2 and 3. But the best starting hand is A-A-2-3, especially if "double suited." That's because the aces can help make the best possible high hand and the best possible low hand.
If YOU don't have these advantages, someone else may, and you don't want to be playing against that "someone else."

Also with chasing the low, if you catch the low, there's still the chance you'll be quartered.  So you're not even guaranteed 1/2 pot if you hit the nut low.

Another reason not to chase the low is that there's no guarantee on the low whatsoever.
Suppose you've got, for instance, A2JQ double-suited - by no means a great hand - but one that you might limp in with. Now, the flop comes 47K rainbow. You might think you're still fine here, because you can always chase the low - but look at what your odds are: you have to not only dodge two straight high cards, you also have to dodge the A, 2, 4 and 7 because any of those hitting is a blank for you too.
There are only 16 cards out of 45 that help you, so the odds you miss your low altogether are (29/45)*(28/44) = 812/1980 = 40% - and even if you do hit, as Chris Persichetti notes in a comment you may still be quartered (since many people will play any A2 too far, and a hand like A3 may still counterfeit and quarter you if you get 23 on the turn and river).
That's not to say that it's never correct to chase - but your pot odds for low are almost always worse than you expect, and there are virtually no implied odds unless you've got multiple people chasing a high; chasing your low heads-up just to chop is usually throwing bad money after questionable.


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Carcassonne: Replacement/Extra player sets.
So far I've found MeeplePeople and BoardGameExtras carrying replacement/extra sets for Carcassonne. I am however missing Mayor, Farm and the Cart(?) from those sets (possibly some expansion I have not played has other tokens as well).
Does anyone know where I can get extra/replacement parts for the full range?

Feel free to answer your own question; if your answer is the best one, it can be upvoted and accepted just like any other. It will also bump the question, and someone else might notice it and provide a better answer.

Yes I know I can accept my own it just wasn't even the correct pieces for myself as I'm a bit mental about it not looking right. Though I'm doing it to get a pink set for the GF not for replacement so I have time.

Did find possible Farm & Cart replacement on BoardGameBits not the correct ones but if it is for replacement it might help someone.

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9-player Advanced Civilization rules
We're playing our yearly Advanced Civilization game this Saturday, and we may have 9 people.  Does anyone have any 9-player rules?
We have all the extension maps.

While I don't know any, you can easily figure it out and try if that works.
Official rules state:
pla  pan  tok
9    -
8    4/5  47
7    4/5  55
6    4    55
5    3w   47
4    2e+  55
3    2w-  47

(players, panels, tokens)
I find it odd it allows 7 and 8 players to play with either 4 or 5 panels without varying the amount of token to use. I read it "you must use it, but we have to provide rules to allow you to play even if you don't have it".
Assumed that, there are two ways to amend it.

pla  pan  tok
9    6    55
8    5    47
7    5    55
6    4    55

the more conservative approach is to just assume they meant the western extra panel to be used and keep the tokens as they were. Problem is you would need a sixth panel to add a ninth player, and it doesn't officially exist (nor unofficially, AFAIK). If you take this route, you'll automatically also get a 10-player version, using 6 panels and 47 tokens.

pla  pan  tok
9    5    47
8    5    55
7    4    47
6    4    55

the optimistic approach assumes they messed up the token amounts trying to allow 7 and 8-player games to work both with 4 and 5 panels, so you fix it as in this table.

They would both need testing; before actually testing them in the field, actually counting territories and population in each panel could help (I didn't, yet).

Btw, what does the image at http://lohoris.net/:  https://i.sstatic.net/8oTDn.gif mean?

@Pacerier it's a visit counter, they were very common in the web 1.0 days, and I grow fond of it.

Check out the Civ Expansion Project.  Allows up to 18 players!

Our group plays regularly with 9 players.  We add a Hittite empire using the orange Asia tokens starting in the small 1'er space in the middle east (Jerusalem?).  This empire uses the Asia AST and has a "start location" for barbarian hordes of the two large 1'er spaces of the Arabian desert.

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Any good way to add a handicap in Dominion?
I play Dominion pretty regularly with one group of friends, but only occasionally with another group. This creates a pretty big experience gap between me and the second group, and I'm afraid they might lose interest in the game if I win the vast majority of the time.
What are some successful handicapping methods you have tried?  Something that still challenges me, but levels out the playing field a bit.

Personally, I don't hold back.  I figure they won't learn if I take it easy on 'em.  Then, when they earn a win on their own it is much more sweet.  That doesn't mean I won't offer advice on their first couple games, or whenever they ask, just that I won't handicap myself in any way.

You are getting a lot of answers with some form of "I haven't tried this, but".  You should consult the Guidelines for Great Subjective Questions and refocus your question to encourage folks to share their actual experiences and not to answer based on conjecture.

Probably the easiest form of handicap would be to subtract a certain number of VP's from your score at the end of the game. That should allow of a pretty fine grained control over you handicap and you can still play exactly the same as you would in your other group.

+1 - this is clearly an easy and efficient way to go about things.  The experienced players can still be happy that they played a good game if their final score would have been enough to win without the handicap; and you have the great advantage that it'll be very easy to tell when the newbies start doing well enough for the handicap to be forgotten.

+1 for simplicity. My only gripe with this solution is that you lose certainty as to the handicap's size. The effects of scoring e.g. -10 points are much different when e.g. the winner scores 50 than when the winner scores 30 (assuming the winner's score is a good metric to estimate the other players' scores as well).

-1 for not being practical. I don't think this is really very effective honestly. I've won a game before w/ a score of -1. I've had close games, and games where someone wins by a landslide. If you're playing w/ Monuments or Bishops scores can be pretty ridiculous, whereas other setups can lead to low score differentials.

@Jon & aslum: Good Point. Maybe instead of a fixed number you subtract something like 5% of the best score?

For all the great ideas here, I think the simplest approach may be best.  I can quietly remove a Province from my score pile at the end of the game (or more/less if its a high/low scoring game).

The problem with this is that you'll need to calculate every game. You need to calculate the most points a player can achieve

As an informal handicap, when I'm playing in a game like this I usually try to make myself take my 2nd strategy - instead of doing the most obvious thing on the board, I come up with something more oddball and see if I can make that work.
Another thing that's not a huge handicap but can help is letting the less experienced players choose the 10 Kingdom cards, so they can pick things that fit into their own comfortable strategies.
I use both these techniques when playing with my wife (she plays every few months while I play 3 times a week at lunch) and thought I still win a lot, she has more fun this way.

I'd upvote this twice if I could. I really think this is the best answer (better then my answer!).

Bonus: it's also fun to make something wacky work out!

I love the idea of playing with your 2nd best strategy. Not only is a handicap that doesn't make the other players fell inferior, but it also gives you a chance to try out new, perhaps more risky strategies you might not have otherwise played out.

The aforementioned "gain a Curse on each shuffle" handicap is pretty harsh, and may not be appropriate for all card sets.  It's conceptually interesting, though.
Consider letting the other players get a number of extra turns at the start.  That'll let them ramp up a little before you jump in.  Alternately, give each other player a special "extra turn" token that lets them take an extra turn at the end of their normal turn.  (Eh, actually, I don't like that idea as much, now that I've written it...)

This is one of my preferred methods as it changes the game the least. A victory point handicap I suppose is the 'best', but it makes it EXTREMELY obvious that you would've won if there was no handicap, which is no fun. If you let the other players take 3 turns before you're first one, the game will change very little, and it hides the fact that there actually was a handicap at the end of the game. :)

I really think this response should be at the top -- letting newbs simply take a couple bonus turns at the start of the game is a great way for them to get a subtle but significant advantage, and helps them grow faster by forcing them to independently evaluate cards instead of parroting more experienced players. Do you mind answer-ifying this one a little more? e.g., starting with the answer's actual suggestion rather than a comment about someone else's suggestion.

Tweaking with the starting deck is a handicap that scales on most Kingdom setups and, in particular, replacing Copper(s) with Silver(s). Before analyzing this, here is why some other handicaps would not work:

Deduct points: it's simple to apply, but not simple to design it, as it's arbitrary. You have to decide before the start of the game, but on what basis are you going to decide it? -1 point? -5 points? -10 points? If you have Colony-kingdoms with trashing and no Curses, 1-5 points would do no difference. On the other hand, in a game with Sea Hag / Ambassador every point would count. It's still a handicap I would recommend if you'd like something quick and dirty.
Insert curses between reshuffles: that's too much of a handicap, I wouldn't enjoy the game in the first place. Moreover, it would make Cursers, like the Witch, lose their power.
Let your opponents open 5/2; still depends on the Kingdom. If Mountebank/Chapel exist, it's indeed a good opener; on the other hand, if Ambassador is in the game, it hurts not to purchase him first turn. What is more, that's the "softest" handicap, as you can easily overcome an opponent's 5/2 opening, if you're more experienced.
Action limiting, extra virtual money per turn, etc, are difficult to monitor and enforce.
Extra turns is something that could work actually, but you have to keep track of them and it lengthens the game a bit. However, they could be a very good equivalent of what I'm proposing below.

As follows, you need something simple. Tweaking with the starting deck is easy to apply and does not alter much the flow of the gameplay. Even so, tweaking with the starting deck is not trivial and should be done with care. Here are some common/proposed handicaps which I feel they wouldn't work in most cases.

Replace your starting Estates with Curses / Give your opponents Duchies instead of Estates. This would have an impact in Remodel/Salvager/Bishop-oriented games; or in Duke games, the extra Duchy could indeed determine the game. But other than these cases, it wouldn't make a difference. A solid play would be able to bridge these differences in little time.
Give your opponents 8 Coppers and 4 Estates; that's worse actually than the original starting deck. Not only you're giving them two extra bad cards, but you're also slowing down their deck cycling. Even just giving them an extra Copper would be bad.

So, it all comes down to: replace some Coppers with Silvers. This has the following advantages:

Even with just a single extra Silver, in lieu of a Copper, your opponent may be able to buy earlier a crucial Gold, or a key 5-cost card and play them before you do. This earlier power shall help them avoid buying unnecessary weak cards (Spy, Councilor, Woodcutter) and get them buying Provinces earlier. It's a serious advantage, which however is not impossible to overcome; if the experience gap is considerable, it will give the experienced player a challenging, but not impossible-to-win game.
I consider this more-or-less equivalent to the extra turns. If you give extra turns to your opponents, they can buy and use earlier some key cards, like Moneylender, Witch or even just the Silver. However, it's much easier to control and it plays faster. Only difference, that they have a few worse cards in their decks.
You can very easy adjust the difficulty level. If you're feeling you need a serious handicap, give them 2 or 3 Silvers, instead of Coppers; if you need a lighter handicap, one Silver would do the job and you'll still see a difference even with one Silver.
Easy to set up, doesn't affect your own deck (barring some earlier curses that might arrive) and doesn't disrupt the flow of the game.

I will often pick a good card that I'd normally want >1 copy of and try to win without it. This is similar to @lilserf's great answer of picking your 2nd strategy, but a little less harsh. Like that answer, it's polite in that it's not at all obvious that I'm taking a handicap. Also, I can choose card(s) that are particularly annoying, either attack cards or cards that tend to make turns take a long time (e.g. King's Court).

Something that's very easy to do and explain is tweaking your starting deck: instead of 7/3 start with 6/4 or maybe 7/4.
I haven't tried this so I can't say how big the handicap will be.
Another thing you can try is simply skipping your first turn. This is probably a lighter handicap.
Update:
I don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier, but of course you can also start by adding one or two Curses in your deck. Or swapping Estates with Curses, to keep the deck size constant.

I like this suggestions, although I don't know how it would play out IRL.

I would +1 but you haven't tried this, who know, this might be a great  answer and maybe its not?

Along the same lines as giving yourself less starting resources, you could allow the other players to start with more... either silvers instead of coppers, or maybe 2 coppers and 2 silvers.

I'd say that just replacing one copper w/ a silver would be a pretty huge advantage. Potential for a first turn gold.

Giving other players a more powerful starting deck would hurt their ability to learn the general strategies of the game.

When playing a series of games we use the following house rule:
Starting w/ the whoever came in first each player picks a kingdom card to remove. Whoever came in last gets to pick 2. Then the last player divvies the randomizer deck up amongst the players, with each player getting an about equal portion of the randomizer deck to pick from, but the last place player getting two portions. Each person picks their randomizers and reveals them at the same time.
Note that we keep the randomizer deck sorted approximately by cost of the cards from low to high.
For example, we're playing a series of 3 player games. Al won, Bob came in second and Carl last.
Al would pick a kingdom, then Bob, then Carl picks two. Those kingdoms are set aside (if we're using the Blackmarket a couple cards from each go into the Blackmarket deck)
Carl decides he wants to pick from the expensive cards, and so takes the bottom half of the deck, Bob wants to pick from the cheap cards and takes the top quarter, leaving a quarter for Al to pick from. Once everyone has picked a card to add in (Carl picking two) they reveal them. This means each game changes a little, but some of the previous stuff is still in play.

We experimented with meta-games involving everybody but the winner getting to pick the cards that went into the next kingdom -- such as, play with the same kingdom, but each runner up player in descending point order throws out one kingdom card from the old set an picks a new kingdom card for the new set. This sometimes had the positive effect of at least forcing the better players to think up new strategies.

I don't know how much open information there is in Dominion, but one thing you could try is offering helpful suggestions to the other players mid-game.  If someone makes an obviously inferior play, you could point it out and suggest something else.  That's what our group does, especially when one person is introducing a new game.

As a general rule, you don't know what another player's hand contains until they actually play.  Having said that, in my group, if we see someone new make a boneheaded move, we'll usually let them change the cards they've played this turn.

I like this, as the best long-term option is leveling up your friends so that you don't need to play with a handicap. I'd additionally suggest that you do a post-mortem: after the game was over explain what your strategy was and why you selected that strategy given the kingdom cards that were available. My guess is most beginning players don't really have a cohesive strategy at all, even at the level of something simple like big money.

This is a bit wacky but it struck me just now and I was quite tickled by it... you could handicap a good player in Dominion by ADDING estates to their deck; they would technically start off with more Victory Points, but their early draws would be terrible.
The experienced players might want to compete over how many extra estates they could put in their deck and still survive, it'd take a brave player to add more than a few!

At the start of the game after seeing the available kingdom cards, allow the junior player(s) to choose a kingdom card the senior player(s) will be disallowed from gaining by any means this game.
For a harsh handicap, ban the senior player(s) from two or even more cards.  This forces you into your "second strategy".

A simple way to handicap yourself a bit might be to replace your initial estates w/ curses. Obviously this won't be a good handicap always (FREX if there is an Ambassador or Chapel in play), but if Upgrade, Remodel, Salvager or the like are in play it could give a pretty decent advantage to the new players.

The easiest thing to do is to just start later. Dominion has a distinct (though slight) first player advantage. So start last, every game. (The rules even say to have the player to the left of whoever last won to go first.)  If that's not enough, just do nothing your first turn, or two turns. This has the advantage of being completely legal under the rules as written and so no changes need to be made to the game at all.
When playing against poorer players, I sometimes handicap myself by not allowing myself to intentionally gain attack cards. Sometimes I also play a slightly worse strategy than I otherwise would play. But in my experience, unless it's overwhelming, just play fast and well -- get more games in, and they'll get better. And if they're really bad, sometimes just play treasure bot to make sure they're all above base-line.

If you want a more significant handicap:
Every time you have to shuffle your deck, you could gain a Curse just prior to shuffling.  This would provide a more continual handicap, rather than one you can just overcome in a few turns (like a weakened starting deck).

This isn't a huge handicap, but...
Consider allowing them to always have a 5/2 split for money the first two turns, and you always have a 4/3 split the first two turns.
Since the 5-cost cards all tend to be powerful, this gives them an advantage sometime during turns 3-5.
One caveat: Don't do this during a game without 2-cost actions.

If I were to choose a handcap, I believe I would either add or replace existing cards in my starting deck with curse cards.  This would be a handicap in both total victory points and in unusable cards in your deck.

Newer or less strategic players tend to favor a higher luck to skill ratio in games.  So, if your play group doesn't mind a house rule, you could across the board have everyone reshuffle their deck every turn.  This changes the game, for sure, but it is fair.
If you want to singly handicap yourself, you need to decide if it's going to be a one time handicap or ongoing.
One-time:

Tweak starting deck (less copper/replace VPs with curses)
Skipping turns
etc.

On-going:

Everything costs you 1 extra
Per-turn action-limit
Curse every-turn
etc.

"So, if your play group doesn't mind a house rule, you could across the board have everyone reshuffle their deck every turn." This wouldn't be fair if either Chancellor or Counting House (and to a lesser extent, Wishing Well) are one of the Kingdom Cards.

IMHO you wouldn't even be playing Dominion anymore. It would basically turn the game into a luck-fest. The point of going through you're whole deck is so you're guaranteed to draw all of you good and bad cards, and this would completely destroy that. Normally Dominion is about 97% skill and maybe 3% luck. This rule would make it more like 30% skill and 70% luck.

All good points, and I fully agree.  However, I still maintain for the OP's question this would balance the game more and still let the others players improve to the point where you're playing 'real' dominion.


text:
Interesting non-zero-sum games
In game theory, a zero-sum or constant-sum game is a game in which there is a single constant payoff that will be divided equally between the players; in order for one player to get a better result, one or more other players have to get worse results. For instance, in many games, there can be one winner and everyone else loses; there is a single "win" available. In others, you might have draws, but a draw could be considered as all of the given players splitting the win equally; for instance, in chess, a win is 1 point, a loss 0, and a draw 0.5 for each player. In some games, like poker, that constant payoff to split is 0; in order for one player to make money, another has to lose money.
A cooperative game is not be zero-sum. There are two possible outcomes; either everyone wins, or everyone loses. Thus, from the perspective of game theory, there is one outcome in which the total payoff for the players is greater than in another outcome. However, this is somewhat trivially non-zero sum; there aren't any interesting decisions that affect how much the total payoff is. Poker played at a casino, likewise, is non-zero sum as you are always losing the rake to the casino; but again, it's not in an interesting way as you don't make any interesting decisions that affect the total value of the game.
Note that all of these non-zero sum games could be made zero-sum if you consider the game itself or the house as a player; then there is one "win" split between the players and the game, or one pool of money split between the players and the casino. This is true of any non-zero-sum game; you can always posit an extra hypothetical player, or consider the interests of the house, whose gain or loss is the negative of the gain or loss of the players of the game. But it's still interesting to consider games as non-zero sum from the perspective of the players themselves.
So, are there any games which are non-zero sum in an interesting way? That is, in which players have to make interesting decisions during the game, that affect the total payoff of the game. For instance, a game in which, depending on the action of the players, the outcome could be that one player gets 10 points, or two players each get 8, or three players all get 7 points would be non-zero sum game; the total value of the game depends on decisions that the players make within the game. A game like Shadows over Camelot, which will randomly be zero-sum or non-zero sum depending on whether there's a traitor, isn't really interesting as the actions of the players don't affect what the possible payoffs are, only a random card chosen at the beginning affects this.
I am only interested in actual fun playable games, not hypothetical mathematical examples, and only interested in how games are actually played in practice, not hypothetical tournament setups that you could play; in almost any game with a variable score, you could institute a system in which your absolute score in the game was used in the tournament results, but that's not the way that most tournaments I've seen are played. I want to know about games or tournament structures that people actually play.
Note that in order for this question to even make sense, there may need to be some kind of external value associated with the game; some metagame that the game is played within, such as a tournament or ranking system, or a gambling game in which the players in an individual game may wind up with more or less money than they started with. If so, please describe how this metagame works, and interacts with the outcome of individual games.

Great question,  I have no answer...  in fact, my brain hurts...
But good question.

Republic of Rome is a potentially negative-sum game.  There are multiple possible endings:

One Senator reaches 35 Influence: the player controlling that Senator wins.
One Senator is proclaimed Consul-For-Life and Rome survives to the end of the turn: The player controlling the Consul-For-Life wins.
A faction rebels and conquers Rome:  That faction wins.

These are the three outright wins.

The deck runs out (effectively the time limit).

The player with the most total influence wins; this is generally regarded as a lesser win than the outright wins above.

Rome falls (four active wars, popular revolt): all players lose

This is a complete defeat, which is supposed to be regarded as worse than another player winning.
There are various tournament approaches to scoring these, but one approach is to score an outright win as +1 per other player (so +5 in a six-player game), and losing in such a game as 0, a max-influence victory as +0.5 per other player (+2.5 in a six-player) and a survival in such a game as +0.5, and all lose as -1 for each player.

There's an old game called Plank that might fit your description. When you play with three players, the player to the left of the winner receives a penalty of two points, and the third player receives a penalty of one point. When the players have played some multiple of three games, the player with the fewest points wins the match. This way, when a player has to choose between stopping one player or the other, he will always stop the player to his right.
I first ran across Plank in Sid Sackson's A Gamut of Games book. He added the rule for  scoring three-player games to solve the king maker problem. Plank was described in The Young Folks' Cyclopaedia of Games and Sports in 1890 (complete rules at the link). I've since seen a commercial version called Hack Attack. I really like the game as a light filler, and I made my own set out of Lego. For me it has a similar feel to Quarto.

Some 3+ player games in which you can play kingmaker are implicitly non-zero-sum.
Take Risk.  Let's say you make a habit of hosing anybody who dares to place in your continent, even if it's not the best move for you.  In a future game, the other players will be less likely to place in your continent.
Thus, you gained an implicit advantage in future games, based on your reputation, even though you lost.
Each game's outcome thus not only yields a zero-sum account of who won and who lost, but also yields reputational factors.

The Grognards tournaments at WBC, which are 10 classic wargames using a scoring system where you get points not just for the win (10), but you also get 2 points for each game that every opponent you beat won.  This rewards players for beating good opponents, thereby keeping them from just finding new or poor players to play.

For a few of our favourite games we maintain a high scores list.  If you come a close second place then the high scores list can give you some compensation for your efforts.  Also, by keeping the list of all-time low scores, we provide a bit of incentive for players who don't have a hope of winning the game.

The way I understand your explanations I'd say many German style games should fit your description. For example in "Settlers of Catan" players gather victory points and the game ends once a player has collected a certain number of them. Since the total pool of victory points is usually far greater than the players are capable of achieving before the game ends - that should constitute a non-zero sum game. One player gaining a victory point does not significantly affect the chances of other players gaining one themself.
Similarly in "Dominion" - while play ends once the 6 points cards are depleted there are other cards that give victory points. Thus even if one player manages to grab more of the 6 point cards it is conceivable that another player wins because of additional 3 and 1 point cards.
That pattern is present in many other games, especially ones that keep all players in the game until the end (a core characteristic of German style games)

This isn't what I'm referring to. Regardless of what the total scores are, in Settlers there's a single winner, or you might look at it as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places; either way, the outcome of the game is fixed regardless of what the actual scores are. I'm looking for a game in which the possible outcomes of the game might depend on something in-game; such as a shared win being worth two wins, instead of half a win each, or a situation in which everyone loses and actually loses points rather than getting 0. As I said, this question may only make sense in the context of a given metagame.

Well you could easily play a Settlers Tournament and instead of giving fixed points for 1st, 2nd etc place equate a player's tournament points to the sum of all his victory points.

I'm not sure I understood your question correctly, but my first thought is a Carcassonne tournament where the players are ranked by total score.  Every game is different due to the random tile draws and the total points available in a given game varies by how people play.  A tournament where multiple games are happening simultaneously leads to interesting decisions.  For example, someone seeking to maximize total points might choose to make a losing move in one game if it means more points overall.
By extension, I think this includes any game with a non-deterministic amount of points (e.g., Scrabble) played more than once.

Are there actually Carcassonne or Scrabble tournaments in which your place in the tournament depends on your score within a game, and not just your score relative to the other players? If there are, that would count; you would be able to make a decision in which you lost the individual game, but wound up with a higher score and thus did better in the tournament. If so, do you have any references for such tournaments?

@Brian, I got the idea from a thread on BGG (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/546467/carcassonne-tournament-i-need-help).  I don't have any reference material for such a tournament, just secondhand knowledge that it exists.

Where in that thread does it say the tournament score is based on your score within the game, and not just your placement relative to the other players?

@Brian, hmm, I guess it doesn't.  I must have inferred it from the emphasis the OP placed on scoring points vs. place order in each game.  I can't think of any other ways to rank multiple Carcassonne games.

Carcassonne is non-zero-sum when multiple players share the same structure: the points are not divided between the players, yet each player receives the same amount of points. Unless off course it's not shared, but conquered.

Battle star galactica with the first expansion (Pegasus something?) should fit the bill. If you play with a Cylon leader the game has more or less three teams, humans, cylons and the leader.
The humans want to get off the planet. The cylons want to destroy them and the cylon leader draws a card to decide which side she wants to win. The tricky part is that even if she wants the humans to win she needs to hurt them a bit first to win herself. For instance destroy a certain number of fighters.
If the humans win but she hasn't destroyed enough then she still loses otherwise she wins with the humans.


text:
Games that play well with a wide range of different numbers of players
Many times, I have limited space to pack games, and don't know how many players there are going to be. I frequently end up in a situation in which we have 5 players, but games that only work with 3 or 4 players, or something of the sort. In these situations, games which are flexible in the number of players they support are useful; one or two such games can cover most situations you end up in.
One problem is that while many games nominally work with a given number of players, they are really best played with a narrower range of players. For instance, there are many multi-player games that have a two-player variant, but the two-player variant is quite different than the multi-player game, and couldn't really be called the same game.
So, what games support a wide range of number of players well? Since there are many games which support 2-4 or 3-5 players, let's limit it to games that support at least 4 different player numbers well, such as 2-5 or 3-6 or any odd number from 7 to 15.
edit to add: Let's limit this to non-party games; party games as a genre tend to be fairly flexible in the number of players, so it's not all that interesting to list each one.

You get a lot of flexibility with a game system like Stonehenge or Icehouse. There are some games that are good for 2 all the way up to party games for 100. The downside is that you have to sift through a lot of weak games to find the good ones. There's an excellent article on Game Systems in the Game Journal.

Once again I can't recommend Dominion enough.
The base set supports 2-4 players and really plays the same for all of those, and if you also get Dominion: Intrigue (or a second copy of Dominion, or just some extra copies of a few of the victory cards) you can play with anywhere from 2-6 players.  4 players is probably the "sweet spot" that the game was balanced around, though.
A few basic rules are adjusted based on the number of players - the amount of available victory points and the game end conditions scale with the number of players.
Game times will be affected most, naturally - in a 6-player game you'll be waiting longer between turns.  The other factor that changes is competition for cards - in a 2-player game you will mostly be able to get whatever cards you want, while a 6-player game will require more adjusting of your strategy on the fly to respond to cards going to other players.
All that said, the core gameplay works very well for any number of players from 2 to 6 without excessive special-case 2-player rules or dummy players.

Actually, Dominion does have special-case 2-player rules, but only in that you use 8 victory cards per pile instead of the usual 12.

Good point, I changed my phrasing.

A minor difference, such as number of victory points or different starting setups, for different players is fine. Major differences, in which you have to have a "ghost" player or an entire trading aspect of the game is removed, are not. So I'd say that with the expansion, Dominion counts.

7 Wonders

Plays 2-7
Doesn't slow down with more players because turns are simultaneous
Bonus: Highly portable

Yeah, big fan of 7 Wonders.  The mechanic of players only interacting with their left-hand and right-hand neighbours is pretty sweet, as you rightly note, for keeping things moving quickly.  (Though it does mean that you have no way of affecting a player on the opposite side of the table from you if they're doing well!)

I agree 7 wonders is a great game but I wouldn't suggest playing it with 2 people.  It uses a dummy player in a 2 player game which isn't the best way to play a 2 player game.

When I have a group of unknown size to bring a game for, I always bring Formula D. It plays up to 10, and while I haven't played that many, I have played 7 and it works just great. There's a little more downtime, but everyone remains interested throughout everyone else's turns because of the risk of collision, and just because you want to follow the race!
I know it seems impossible for a boardgame to create a tense and exciting race, but Formula D manages the trick! The rules are light enough to explain to even a new group in a short time and it has just the right mix of luck and significant choices to make sure that smart play makes the difference and sometimes a big gamble can pay off.

I've played Fluxx in groups from 2 through 10; Zombie Fluxx seems to work even better at the ends of that range.  With too many people, though, you need to have a good conversation going while people wait for the turn to come back around.

In my group if you pay too much attention to the game you're almost guaranteed to lose.  Or have your head explode.

@kristo: In my group, having your head explode is considered a loss...

Citadels (the later editions, or first edition plus expansions) supports 2-8. Once people get the hang of it, it goes pretty quickly. An 8-player game typically takes around an hour.

The 2-players game is totally different. I (also) recommand it to people who are used to the game. I personally love it, but it has nothing in common with the 3-8 players game.

Bohnanza is a very fun multiplayer trading game. It's a bit more fun if you understand the German word plays on the cards but that's far from necessary. The core game is for 3-5 players and there are numerous expansions that add new twists or simply additional cards for more players.
The basic idea is that you grow beans. Every card is a bean of a particular sort. You and only grow two sorts of beans at a time and you have to plant your beans in the order you receive them. So in order to turn a profit you need to plan ahead and trade well. It's a very social game that involves a lot of haggling.

Love this game, and I think that even the base game works up to 6 or 7 players, so it qualifies for the list (just 3-5 wouldn't qualify, if you check the question). edit to add Ah, just checked BGG, and the version that I have is the one that includes the first expansion which works for up to 7.

Bohnanza is my favorite trading game, because of the human element of the player interactions. It's one of the few games where it's the guy who's most liked who is more likely to win, rather than the best strategist. And it's so easy to be nice, or be mean, in this single game.

Can't believe nobody's mentioned Cosmic Encounter yet.  Works very well for 3-6, and the old 'kibitzer' variant from Mayfair adds a 7th moderately well.  (But don't play Cosmic for two.  In two-player Cosmic the objectives change for each player: they become 'go find another player first'.)
Robo-rally works well from 3-8.
Most of the Talisman-esque games work for a wide range too, but they're not exactly small to pack.
Icehouse pieces are small, portable, and support several good multi-player or wide-ranging games:  Volcano/Mega-volcano, IceTowers, IceHouse, Zendo come to mind as good examples.
If you can still find it, Duel of Ages is a team game, is one of the few 3-6 player games which works just as well for 2, and it doesn't matter if the teams aren't balanced.  (In theory you could play it with any number on each team, but in practice more than about 3 players per team is slower without being more fun.)
Played right, Twilight Imperium works for 3-8, but it's definitely strongest with 5-6.  And it's an FF big box game, so it's not small to pack.

I can't believe you mentioned Talisman in the same answer as Cosmic Encounter. It makes my heart cry a little :-(

@scraimer: Well, yes.  I admit I winced while I typed it.  But it is an answer to the question.  And I couldn't think of a good term for that whole Runebound/Prophecy category of games.  (I could have just said "Prophecy", but while I think it's a better game, it's not as good an answer to the question.)

I've never played Cosmic with 6 people, but the complexity starts to get pretty crazy. You have to keep track of everyone's situation to really be successful, and that starts getting really hard when you hit 6. If you're group is fine with that, it's game on though. :D

There's always Settlers of Catan, with a 5-6 player expansion pack on hand. That covers 3 up to 6 fairly well.
Carcassonne is good with 2-5, and the Inns and Cathedrals expansion takes it up to 6.
I'm also a big fan of Scotland Yard which can adapt reasonably well to 2-6 players (although ideally with 3-6):

2 players: one player is Mr X, the
other takes 4 detectives 3 players:
one player is Mr X, two players take
2 detectives each 4,5 and 6 players:
one player is Mr X, the rest take 1
detective each

Scotland Yard is quite a bit of fun too.

Small World is for 2-5 players and is very entertaining for each size. There are four different boards that come with the game (2 physical boards printed front and back) with the larger player groups having more spaces and fewer turns on the turn counter.

Small World is expandable to 6 and even 7 players, in theory. The "Necromancer Island" official expansion gives one of the players the role of the antagonist on the island in the middle of the board. There's also a fan-made revision of the game that allows constructing 6-player boards, using hex-tiles. I've never tried to combine the two for a 7-player game, but I understand there are rules for it somewhere.

I'm not sure if this would qualify as a party game, but Pit starts to work well at 3-4 players and works up to at least 10 players.
You might need to use different cards than the original, though, which does not always have support for very many players (depending on the edition). What I have done with great success is take three decks of regular playing cards and use as many numbers as there are players, with nine cards of each number (necessarily selecting across all three decks).

I've found Pit rather dull with less than 5 players. Do you do anything different to keep it interesting?

Not really. I may have a high tolerance for dullness.

I mostly just remember games where after a few trades everyone was done at the same time. What I like about the full version is the chaos, confusion, and noise, which seemed to be lacking with fewer people. That said, I think it's a great game for this question. As it's not turn-based it works wonderfully with lots of people.

Struggle of Empires is a good game that supports 2-7, though I think you need at least 4.

at least 4, best with 6, and kinda silly with odd numbers

The Icehouse Game System can handle variable amounts of players.  There is a list of N-player games at the Icehouse Game Wiki.  It may not be the most strategic game, but I've played a lot of Martian Coasters (2-5 Players).  It scales well up to 5 players.  There are tons of other games that support many different amounts of players so there is much to choose from in this game system.

For word games, I like playing Taboo in large or small groups. It's fairly flexible because you can pair off, or have varied sized teams.

Civilization (base or Advanced) plays well with 5-7 players, not a very broad range but better than nothing. Yes, 6-7 is ideal, but playing in 5 people is still good enough to be almost the complete game.
Hacker plays well with 4-6 people. You may like it or not, since there are a few design flaws - I find it mostly fun anyway.

I think Civ with 4 on the Western expansion is a decent game.  Plays fast too (for Civ :))

It depends on your requirements. Uno may be a terrible or a brilliant choice, depending on what you want. There's little strategy: it's something to do with your hands while you chat with a bunch of friends. That means the gameplay tends to be fast, so turns come around fairly quickly. And, playing in a large bunch, there's always the chance that the +4 cards go around the table, and someone ends up picking up 16 cards, which is always sweet (when it's not you). When the +2s go around, the pick ups can go into the twenties.
If you're looking for clever strategy games, you don't want Uno.
Uno works well with 5-9ish people, and perhaps more, and also works well with 2 people (though that's an entirely different game, really). I find it awkward with three or four people.

Uno basically auto-plays, there's no strategy, almost no tactics... where's the fun? None.

As I said, it depends on what you're looking for. I like the phrase "auto-plays", though.

Arkham Horror
The game supports 1-8.  I've played 1-6 and all work well.  With 3 or less you may want each player to control 2 characters, but that isn't necessary.
I suspect that with 7-8 there will be a fair amount of downtime between turns.  However, if the group enjoys the game and gets into it I don't think the problem is insurmountable.  I find that reading the event cards aloud really brings everyone into the game.

If your looking for a game that plays well with a lot of people, I would suggest Apples to Apples.  It's word association game, and it lets you play up to 10 people.  I've played it with more then ten people myself, although I do have the expansions to the game which adds a lot more cards.  It's not very strategic though, and a party game at heart.
Also, check out the related question Recommendations for 6-player board game.  On that post I recommended Citadels, a really good game that plays well with larger crowds, but only up to 8 people.

I'm not looking for games that work with a lot of people, I'm looking for games which are flexible in the number of people. So, say, Diplomacy plays with 7, but you need exactly that many. Apples to Apples is certainly flexible enough, as is Citadels.

Battlestar Galactica with the Pegasus expansion supports 3-7 players, and works well anywhere in that range. This is one of my all-time favorite games. It's a cooperative game using a traitor mechanic.

It's an excellent game, but I'm not sure it's the right answer, because 3-player games are so prone to random mid-game shifts depending on who the Cylon is.  While Galactica allows 3-7, it's much stronger with 4-6.

Actually, I think 3 plays pretty well. I think 4 is the worst number in the base game because it's 3 against 1 and pretty tough for the Cylon. However with the expansion, 4-player is OK if someone plays a Cylon Leader. I've played a few 7-player games and I feel that's pretty balanced.

I have played Le Havre with 3, 4 and 5 players, and although the dynamics of the game change, the game is designed to deal with the differing number of players effectively in the way that the end of round 'feeding' phase determines how much food is required. The more the players, the less food required, ensuring that that the game is well balanced regardless of the player numbers.
Excellent consideration has gone into this game to deal with the problem of some games being best for a certain number of users.

There's a great book called Super Party Games that describes a bunch of games that can be played by groups of 10 or more. I generated a set of puzzles for one of the games described in the book. Each player is given a sheet of paper that they tie to their forehead where they can't see it. On each sheet of paper are three letters, and you have to arrange yourselves to spell out a secret quote without telling anybody what letters are on their heads. You can download the puzzles and print out one of the puzzles for your group size. There are currently puzzles from 4 to 95 people, although I've never tried it with a group larger than 13.

Spot-It
Spot-It supports 2 through 8 on paper, but I've played it with many more players than that. The best part about Spot-It is that there are so many different modes of play, and you can even come up with new ones. We came up with a mode called two-fisted bomb mode which is similar to the mode in the instructions only each player has two cards they have to get rid of until one person is left holding everything.

I've recently create an online application match it to generate spot it like cards deck

A little bit amazed that no one has mentioned Agricola yet.  This (my favourite game, not coincidentally) plays supremely well with any number from 1 to 5, by dint of having a different, carefully thought-out board setup for each of those different numbers.  In addition, the Occupation cards subdivide into ones appropriate only for solo or 2-person play, for 3+ players, and for 4-5 players; thus, effects that would be silly for two players (auctioning things off, to pluck an example out of the air) can be limited only to numbers of players that accommodate them well.
A lot of games are accidentally good for both small and large numbers of players.  Agricola's designers have spent a lot of time making sure it's good for different-sized groups - and the pretty decent solo option has got to be the icing on the cake.  It really is an amazing feat of game design, regularly coming near the top of all-time-best-boardgame lists: if you haven't tried it yet, what are you waiting for?

Shadow Hunters plays 4-8 well.
However, I would also suggest that a deck of regular paying cards can service a wide variety of needs.  Rummy variants for 2, Specially designed 3 player games like Ninety-Nine for 3-players, Hearts/Spades/Bridge for 4, Specially designed 5 player games like Rook, etc.
Pagat has a list of games by # of Players, which can be useful.

Don't forget Sheepshead for specially designed 5-player games!

Racing Demon / Pounce / Nertz / Nerts
An excellent (if very hectic) game that I used to play often in large family groups is "Racing Demon" or "Pounce", although Wikipedia suggests that it's more commonly known in North America as "Nertz".  As long as you have one pack of cards per player, and those decks have distinct backs, it certainly works well with 3 to 7 people, although as you add more players the number of limbs rushing to place cards down in the centre of the table increases - how you feel about that additional chaos probably dictates the maximum number of players. :)  The rules of the game are at pagat.com.  Essentially, you have to run through the cards in your deck solitaire-style while trying to keep an eye out for opportunities to move your cards onto the piles in the common area.

Les Mousquetaires du Roy ("The Musketeers of the King" in old French, "Roy" being now spelled "Roi"), that just came out last year is good for that. The story is based on Alexandre Dumas' novel The Three Musketeers.
In the game, a players takes the part of Milady de Winter, the ennemy  of the heroes. All the other players are a team and incarnate the musketeers: Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan.
When played with:

5 players, each one has a character.
4 players, somenone takes Milady and the three others each take a musketeer. The musketeeres have a slightly longer turn.
3 players, someone takes Milady and the two others each take two musketeers.
2 players, one plays Milady and the other one plays all the musketeers.

Note that the game can be played differently, for Milady is a character that can be simulated by random actions. The game loses a bit of fun though. Theoretically, you can play the game alone.
Note also that there is a fifth musketeer in the box, Tréville, which is the captain, that can be played by an extra player. The pieces needed are included in the box, but the rules for the character can be found online.
Conclusion: this game is supposed to be for 2-5 players, but you can practically play it with 1-6 players.
I tested it with different number of people including alone, it's not the same game, but all of them are equally interresting.

The card game "Split" or "Speed" scales very well with slight modifications. Be creative about the arrangement of the shared cards and add more decks of cards and players to your hearts content. The only limiting factor is arranging the shared cards such that everyone can reach them.


text:
7+ Players in Carcassonne - Problematic?
I currently have the Carcassonne base set plus Inns & Cathedrals which expands the game to 6 players. I've found that I can buy extra sets of Meeples in different colors which would effectively add additional players. Are there any potential downsides to doing this? Should I also get additional expansions to maintain some sort of "tiles per player" ratio?

You might want to consider getting another expansion or two -- with the base set plus Inns & Cathedrals, you'll have 90 tiles (72 core + 18 expansion) to play with.  Assuming seven players, you'll have 12-13 tiles per person to play with.
Traders & Builders will give you an extra 24 tiles to play with, including some really funky shapes for finishing those hard-to-finish cities.
If you want to keep the game shorter, you can just use the two sets listed.

I have played with eight players using Inns & Cathedrals and Traders & Builders.  Technically the game works fine, but the waiting between goes was horrendous.
Another thing to consider is that as the number of players increases, the game changes from being focused on clever placement of tiles to being more focused on negotiation skills.  In my experience this also adds to the game length, as everyone wants to make a suggestion for every tile drawn.

An easy way to expand it without complicating it further with expansions (if that is what you want) is to simply add another base set into the bag at the point of 6+ players.
There are also a few promo expansions that just add a couple of tiles. Of course if you prefer expanding and adding more to the rules then expansions will suit just fine.


text:
Are the utilities worth buying?
In Monopoly, there are two utilities. They cost 150, and rent is 4x the dice roll if one utility is owned, or 10x the dice value if both are owned.

Are the utilities something I want to purchase if possible? Or are they junk? How valuable are they compared to the other properties on the board?

The utilities are decent "fire and forget" properties, which pay for themselves quickly.  Think of them as equivalent to owning two railroads, but paying a bit better because you can't improve them further.  They don't have the same explosive-growth potential of railroads or properties, but they're cheaper.  You're not going to bankrupt anyone with them, but they can be decent money-makers over the course of the game.  They're better in the early game for fast and easy income, but later on they're more valuable simply as squares you can land safely on; everyone has become too rich to care much about such small rents.
A few comparisions:
Number of Utilities:

Cost $150, pays $28 (average roll of 7), pays for itself after ~6 rents.
Cost $300, pays $70 (average roll of 7), pays for itself after ~5 rents.

Number of Railroads:

Cost $200, pays $25, pays for itself after 8 rents.
Cost $400, pays $50, pays for itself after 8 rents.
Cost $600, pays $100, pays for itself after 6 rents.
Cost $800, pays $200, pays for itself after 4 rents.

Owning the light blue properties as a monopoly (much harder to get than just a utility or two!):

0 houses: Cost $320, pays ~13, pays for itself after ~24 rents.
1 house: Cost $470, pays ~$33, pays for itself after ~15 rents.
2 houses: Cost $620, pays ~$93, pays for itself after ~7 rents.
3 houses: Cost $770, pays ~$280, pays for itself after ~4 rents.

Edit: Someone has done a lot more math than I have: http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml.

That page is quite intimidating. What did they discover about the value of utilities?

The page doesn't directly answer the question, but from what I can see, it agrees with me: the utilities make more money than the dark purple, light blue, and light purple properties (on a per-opponent-roll basis) for up to one house on the property.  After that, it makes less money-per-roll, but by that time you've invested a fair chunk of money in those properties.  It supports my general argument that the utilities are easier to make profitable on the short term, and pay for themselves faster, than most other properties. The "expected rolls to recoup cost" table is closest to what I said.

The issue with this answer is that it doesn't take into account the probability of landing on the properties in question, and therefore does not give a useful indication of how long it will take to recoup the investment.  Owning 3 or 4 railroads is vastly better than owning 2 utilities because there are more spaces for an opponent to land on.  Additionally, the chance/community chest cards for railroads are far more favorably.

Utilities are worth buying, especially early in the game (before the house building phase starts. Their main drawback is that unlike the color groups, they can't be upgraded further.
Consider Electric Co., which sells for $150, and is sitting between St. Charles Place (cost:$140) and Virginia Ave. (cost: $160). But the average rent on Electric is $28 (4 x 7, the average die roll), versus $10 for St. Charles and $12 for Virginia. Only if the purchase of one or the other maroon completes the monopoly is Electric Co. worth less.
Likewise, the two utilities together cost $300, but an average rent of $70 (10x 7, the average die roll). That's more than the $50 you can collect on Boardwalk, which costs $400.
Two utilities are even worth more than two railroads ($50 rent at a cost of $400). It's the third, and particularly the fourth railroad that really adds value to them.

Utilities pay an average of $70 only if you own both of them.  Boardwalk pays 100 if you own both Boardwalk & Park Place.

No one talks about the ability to borrow money later on with theses properties without suffering the cost of dismantling improvements at half their value.  It can be argued that utilities only cost $150 given that you could always mortgage them later on and get $150 back of your original $300.

@MartinCharette: Boardwalk pays $100 only if you also own Park Place, total cost $350. If you own Boardwalk, Park Place pays $70, like the utilities, but costs $350, versus $300 for both utilities. Your point about the "true cost" of the utilities being $150 illustrates this fact.

Point taken,  I stand corrected.

No, they are not worth buying.
Based on the work done by Truman Collins (linked to by Paul Marshall in his answer), Tim Darling devised a strategy that pretty clearly states to never buy utilities.
It takes too many dice rolls by your opponents to recoup your investment and there are way more interesting things you can do with your money.

It really depends on how much money and other properties you have in hand in relation to how many properties your opponents have in hand.  If you have a small amount of properties in hand and lots of money with no other immediate avenues to invest it, then by all means buy it.  If you have lots of properties and therefore low on cash that you used up to buy them, then by all means let the thing go to auction and watch your opponents overpay for it.  Remember you can always mortgage it at a lower cost than dismantling houses and hotels on other colored properties later on.

Ýou can't build houses or hotels on the utilities, so why the comment on dismanteling them...

When comparing all other investment possibilities with your limited amount of money supply assuming that you are playing with the real rules (No Money for Free Parking non-sense), the railroads & the utilities have one slight advantage over the other properties is that you can mortgage them later on if you need money without suffering the considereble loss of dismantling the houses & hotels which is what you would have to do to borrow money on any other property.


text:
Are there good two player rules for resource trading in Settlers of Catan?
I've tried playing two-player Settlers, where each player controls one set of pieces, and each time a player builds they need to play a piece of the same type for one of the two uncontrolled colors (so there are two non-player nations in play).
What I would like to add to this is for the uncontrolled nations to have resource cards and some mechanic for them to allow trading with the players in the game.
Are there any two-player rules that support this?

Just to be clear, you want to play with two human players, and have a third and/or fourth neutral player to trade with?  Or am I missing something here?

Yes, Exactly right.

While I've never tried it out, there is a variant set of rules here that uses the white player as a neutral third party.  It looks a little interesting, but the rules in the link only allow the neutral player to build roads, and nothing else.  Building roads for the neutral player is determined by highest dice roll.
It does allow for trading with the neutral player using a special trading chart.  The chart may or may not need to be tweaked to your liking.

There is a two player option developed Nick Barko where players can only trade with the bank and played on a smaller board.  You remove 2 roads, 1 settlement and 1 city from each player.  You also reduce the size the development card deck by removing a few cards.  There are six ports on the map in this variant, encouraging players to build ports.
Trading in Catan helps both players involved in a deal get the resources they need.  Players who refuse to trade with the other players on the board often don't do as well I've noticed.  Thus, each deal two players work out, can bring them closer to victory over the other players.  With just two players, this effect is lost since they only have each other to trade with.  If you use a proxy player, it's doesn't really act as a party with it's own self interest since it's controlled by the two other players.

If you have two human players (A & B) and a neutral player X played by A & B. The solution is easy.  If A wants to trade with X, let B handle the trading.

"I cut and you choose."

There is an official 2 player Settlers version introduced in the Traders and Barbarians expansion. This has 2 neutral players placed, who build something whenever a player does which you can use to block in your opponents. You can use trade chips to force a 2 for 2 trade with your opponent, which costs 2 trade chips if you are in the lead, or 1 if you are behind. You can these chips from building on the desert, on a coast, disbanding a solider or from initial setup.
http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/21616/error/expired/klaus2player-pdf

I've played two person Catan quite a few times.  The best way I've found is to play with four players and each person controls two colors.  The rules are that you can only trade 1:1 from hand to hand, but you can trade as much as you want with your opponent.  Turns go back and forth between you and your opponent and between your hands.  For example: you right hand, his left hand, you left hand, his right hand and then repeat.  The final rule is you need a combined amount of 18 victory points between both hands.

I suggested a way to play with 2 players that hinges largely on a trading dynamic with the shared neutral player here
How do you make Settlers of Catan work well for 2 players? (Problems and play-tested solution described, alternatives requested)
The idea is that you trade 1 for 1, then 2 for 1, then 3 for 1, and so on, randomly drawing from the neutral hand, making it progressively more expensive to get what you want.  The second key is that you can use this mechanic to stack the neutral player with resource power and force a win for him (thus a draw for the two human players).  This creates an atmosphere of tension as you each keep trying to gain position but not too quickly in the eyes of your opponent until it's a clear shot to run away to victory (otherwise he will pile into the neutral player and force a draw).


text:
Where can I find reviews of board games?
Before buying a board game, I would like to read some detailed reviews.  It's also hard to tell if the review is just a paid announcement from the publisher.
Is there any website that is "the reference" for those?

I'd like to see more answers to this question. BGG is the obvious answer, but there are TONS of other places to find board game reviews. It'd be great if everyone posted their favorite ones.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about reviewing review sites not gaming.

BoardGameGeek can be a great resource, but it can be a bit hard to figure out where everything is.
First, you can search for games by name, if you know what game you're looking for. Or you can use the "Browse" feature to find games by category or mechanic.
Once you've found a game, you find yourself on a page that's stuffed full of information, somewhat haphazardly laid out. At the top, there is the name of the game, a picture, and some basic information on number of players, suggested age range, and so on. This can be useful to determine if it will work well for your group.
You then see a description of the game, followed by some places it might be for sale, followed by some additional information. Keep on looking as you go down, you eventually come to the Forums. Click on the "Reviews" link, and you will see a list of all of the reviews for that game. Look through these; they tend to be fairly detailed, explaining the mechanics of the game and how they work.
That's not all that BGG has to offer, though. If you keep looking further down the page, you come to the Statistics section. This is where statistics about people's ratings and the game's ranking are collected. One of the links is to "Personal comments." This will give you a list of many short comments that people have made on the games, organized by their rating. I find this invaluable for getting a quick feel of why some people liked the game, and some didn't; I usually try to check out a few of the comments with a 10 rating, a few with a 7 rating, and a few with lower ratings, to get a sense of how different people see the game. Only a few people leave long, detailed reviews, but there are usually hundreds of people who leave comments.

This is repeated but you provide a very good review than other answers.

I won't add another answer stating BGG, but something to add to this great overview is BGG's advanced search allows you to tailor a search extremely specifically. Looking for a 4-6 player game that takes 90 minutes and features set collection and worker placement? Here's 50

BoardGame Review is a blog that provides useful board game reviews.

BoardGameGeek has lots of user reviews and ratings of board games.  It's a little hard to navigate sometimes, but there's a lot of valuable information there.

Dice Tower Reviews goes over a mind-boggling variety of games.  They have a great youtube channel worth subscribing too.  I'd also suggest Downtime Town for great, ludicrous, and nuanced reviews - the Scottsman who reviews there is a total nut.  Sadly, hasn't been updated lately.

Board Games with Scott is an excellent review site that provides video reviews of games and attempts to describe whether the game in question is a good match for the type of game you'd like to own.  There are quite a few reviews available, but he isn't necessarily going to cover every single game on the market.  Scott has been reviewing fewer games lately, but the reviews that continue to come out are always of very high quality.

I write for MTV Geek, Wired GeekDad, and The Geek Collective.  None of the sites are as comprehensive as BGG (in fact, all of my reviews are cross-posted to their linked items list).  You cannot go wrong with BGG but if you really do want other sites, those are great places to check out!
MTV Geek
The Geek Collective
Wired GeekDad

Amazon has user reviews for the vast majority of their products, and they also sell board games.  Some of the most well-written reviews I've seen for games has been on their Amazon page.

BGG will let you know what the gamers think, but Amazon picks up enough non-serious gamer reviews that it is great to help you know what your family and other less serious game players will think. They provide complementary points of view.

It's not really an online resource, but Games Magazine does game reviews, too.  (board games, video games, etc.).  Even if you don't pick up the subscription, in the December issue each year they have a 'best games of the year' feature.

There is also a long-running German board game magazine called Spielbox. As of (I think) last year, they are also publishing an English version. I've only received one issue, but it is chalk full of reviews for new games. The translations can be... interesting, but it is quite readable.
A VERY interesting resource.

I'm a fan of Ogre Cave.  They're good, down-to earth guys with an active community of commenters.  There's RPG stuff there too, but there's plenty of boardgame reviews too.

The best collection of reviews I have seen are on a site called Games from Pevans. It contains a summary table plus a detailed review. It seems completely impartial and well written with lots of details and pictures.