text:
What is this fantasy style card game?
A few years ago I was with a group of people. Someone brought a fantasy style card game. I can't remember much, but the main thing I can remember is that you could equip your own armor, weapons and tools. You had to put your cards on the table so that the weapon in your right hand goes to the one side of your armor and the off hand tool/weapon goes on the other side. I think there was other stuff like a helmet that goes above and pants that go under the chest peace and every weapon/armor/tool had his own perks. With all that you had to fight other cards with monsters or something on it.
I've been searching for a long time, but I think it wasn't a popular card game.

Maybe Munchkin? (I know you said it might not be popular, but just in case...)

"every card had his own perks" - definitely Munchkin

This absolutely sounds like Munchkin or one of the many versions of it by Steve Jackson, and if so it definitely IS a popular game. Equipment cards, monsters, curses and some form of class cards are common to all the versions, many equipment have special restrictions or buffs on top of the basic number bonus, and you use them (and potentially help from other players) to fight monsters with the goal of getting to level 10 first.

Sounds like the New Zealand TCG Flesh and Blood (https://fabtcg.com/)
4 Armor slots with different effects are used.
If you've seen the playmat, the Head is above the Chest and Arms with the Feet below that

You also play a hero with a dedicated weapon while drawing hands from your Deck.
Hope this helps!:)
Edit: The game came out in October 2019, so if you're remembering an event earlier than that, you can rule out this answer

Sounds interesting, but based on that playmate the weapons aren't on either side of the armor as the question specifies. (Doesn't mean this is wrong, could just be them being taught a differnt card layout without a mat)


text:
How would multiple mana doublers stack?
If I have zendikar resurgent, mirari's wake, and mana reflection on the field, how would they stack?

If you have all of those together and you tap a land for mana, Mana Reflection doubles the amount of mana produced by the land's ability, and then Zendikar Resurgent and Mirari's Wake each have an ability that produces 1 more mana, for a total of 4 mana with most simple lands.
Mana Reflection's ability says

If you tap a permanent for mana, it produces twice as much of that mana instead.

This directly modifies the mana produced by the land's ability.
On the other hand, Zendikar Resurgent and Mirari's Wake both have abilities that say

Whenever you tap a land for mana, add one mana of any type that land produced.

These are triggered abilities that triggers from activating and resolving the land's ability. These abilities produce mana separately from the land's ability, so they are not modified by Mana Reflection.

Mana reflection stacks multiplicatively with itself, though, so one land with two mana reflections produces 4 mana

There's also a comparison to be made to Anointed Procession (replacement effect) and Panharmonicon (triggered ability).

I'm not following that comparison. Those cards just do different things. Annointed Procession has a replacement effect that modifies token creation, and Panharmonicon has an effect (of unclear kind) that modifies triggered abilities triggering. The fact that Anointed Procession is multiplicative and Panharmonicon is additive is not the same kind of difference as in these question; that depends more on the technical details of the events each one is modifying.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Permanent to let a creature tap for two mana?
I know there are cards like Gemhide Sliver which let slivers tap for mana. Convoke lets all creatures do this once. Paradise mantle gives a creature this ability. But these examples only let the creature(s) tap for one mana.
Is there a permanent that lets creature/creatures tap for two mana rather than one?
I know there are creatures that can tap for 2 or more mana (like Incubation Druid and Gyre Engineer) but I want to give a creature the ability rather than have a creature with the ability.

Convoke doesn't actually allow you to tap creatures for mana. It allows you to substitute tapping a creature for paying the mana. Cards that care about you adding mana, or tapping permanents for mana, will not "see" creatures tapped for Convoke.

A few cards do allow creatures to be tapped for 2 mana, each with its own restrictions:

Grand Architect has the ability "Tap an untapped blue creature you control: Add {C}{C}. Spend this mana only to cast artifact spells or activate abilities of artifacts."

Joraga Treespeaker has the ability "Elves you control have '{T}: Add {G}{G}.'" as long as it has at least 5 level counters.

Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro has the ability "Shamans you control have '{T}: Add {G}{G}.'"

FWIW: There are ways around these restrictions, but they require additional cards.

Murgatroid99 gave excellent answers for what you specifically asked for.  However, another route is to increase the mana generated by the mana source.  Say for example, your creature is equipped with Paradise Mantle (there are lots of ways for creatures to generate mana.  That's just one.)  Then

Nyxbloom Ancient will cause it to generate 3X mana.

Leyline of Abundance will cause it to generate an additional {G}.

Mana Reflection will cause it generate 2X mana.

Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy will cause it to generate an additional mana.

Alternatively, you could turn the creature into a land, and use any of a number of techniques for increasing the mana generated by a land.

Ashaya, Soul of the Wild turns all creatures into lands.
Song of the Dryads turns any one creature into a land.

You could combine Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy with standard mana-dorks, or turn all your creatures into mana-dorks using Song of Freyalise. Mana Reflection works with creatures, too.

Song of Freyalise on its own will not allow a creature to tap for two mana though.

@bautista this is why the sentence is structured as it is - two parts, obviously being connected.

@Erik the structure is actually really ambiguous

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


text:
How many Empire Cards can I play on my turn?
I drew one Empire card and played it. Then I wanted to play the other 2 I had in my hand.
Is that allowed?

According to the rules, you get two empire cards at the start. You can get additional empire cards if you land on a empire square, but these must be played immediately:

Take the top Empire card and do what it says. Once you’ve played it,
  return the card to the bottom of the pile.

There is no mention on when to use them. But on the wikihow page, there is a more expanded section on empire cards:

8 Give everyone two empire cards and one tower. Everyone starts the
  game with two Empire cards. Look at them, but don’t share them you’re
  your fellow players. Wait until your turn to use them.

This implies you can use them both onto your turn, not specifying when, so yes, you can play them right after you played the one you got from the empire square.


text:
Harry Potter Dobble legend/key
I bought Dobble - Harry Potter edition to play at work, and inside there's a key to some of the symbols; but not all. Some of the guys who play don't know all the names of the items/characters, which causes some contentious issues when they match on "train" instead of Hogwarts Express or "boy with blonde hair" rather than Draco Malfoy.
Does anyone know of a single-page PDF or equivelant which has all the symbols with the character/object names next to them for reference?
P.S. I couldn't find a suitable tag.


text:
How to find Enchantments or Artifacts that have multiple effects?
I've tried the Gatherer and Advanced Google Search and cannot find a good way to find cards of the type I'm hoping to find.
I'm looking for enchantments or artifacts that have multiple effects possible when conditions are met.
For example, Jeskai Ascendancy has 2 separate effects when you cast a noncreature spell.
A better example is Waste Not that triggers for creatures, lands or any spell if a 'discard' action happens.
I'm not sure there is a good way to search for this type of card, so if anyone has suggestions, I would gladly welcome them.

If you can elaborate on why you are looking it will help us evaluate the relevance of corner cases (like Bridge From Below, which technically has two triggered abilities, but probably isn't what you are looking for).

Scryfall may also be of help, it also supports regex and is much easier to use than gatherer IMO: (t:enchantment OR t:artifact) o:/((When|At).+?){2,}/

As a starting point, the following Gatherer search finds all of the cards with multiple triggered abilities that have the exact same trigger condition: text=m/(\b(When(ever)?|At)\b[^,]+),.+?\1,/. This uses Gatherer's regular expression search functionality to find cards with "When...", "Whenever..." or "At..." matching up to the first comma, and then the exact same text later on the card. This has a couple of false-positive matches of cards with commas in their name (like Brimaz, King of Oreskos). It also matches cards with multiple triggered abilities with the same trigger condition and different "intervening if" clauses (like Duergar Hedge-Mage).
It's a lot more complicated to find cards like Waste Not with trigger conditions that are similar but not identical, because it is unclear how that "similarity" would be rigorously defined in general.

Gatherer Advanced search supports RegEx expressions by using the format m/[expression]/
The following expression might be a good place to start:

m/\bWhen\b.*?\n\bWhen\b/

Breaking this down:
m/ begins the regular expression
\b defines the beginning of a boundary (a series of characters to find in a row)
When describes the boundary. The literal string to search for is "When". Keep in mind this is case sensitive.
\b defines the end of the boundary.
. look for a non-newline character
* look for any number of the previous token (a non-newline character)
? look for the last token (any number of non-newline characters) reluctantly. IE, take as few as possible.
\n look for exactly one newline character
\b defines the beginning of a boundary (a series of characters to find in a row)
When describes the boundary. The literal string to search for is "When". Keep in mind this is case sensitive.
\b defines the end of the boundary.
/ ends the regular expression.
This, for example, finds all cards with text in the form of

When[some text]
When[more text]

Here is what that string finds, as an example.
RegEx supports 'this or that' type expressions, so you could do something like (this syntax is probably not correct) [\bWhenever\b|\bWhen\b|\bAt\b].*?[\bWhenever\b|\bWhen\b|\bAt\b]
RegEx is truly expansive and powerful. The sister site Stack Exchange might be a good place to help getting a perfect RegEx expression that combines all the possible phrases and combinations you want.
This can, of course be combined with the type filter to search for only Artifacts and Enchantments.
I'm generally not extremely good at RegEx, but there is a wealth of information. Here is a pretty good place to start.

\b defines a word boundary, so putting it after "When" skips any trigger condition written with the word "Whenever". Also as you can see from may answer, the period regex matches newlines on Gatherer.

Yes, while there could be special rules in certain implementations, all of my experience with regex in general are that dot matches absolutely any character (including newlines, although a single dot may not match an entire newline depending on the newline convention for the environment).

For most regular expression implementations the "multiline" option determines whether or not the dot matches newline characters.

Cool, this got me reading up on a bit more history.  I was under the assumption that when the dot didn't match the newline it was because lines were being fed in one at a time, but it is way more complicated than that.  Also for precedent reasons, it sounds like the "singleline" option controls this, while the "multiline" option controls the anchors.

These 36 cards make a good place to start
I found them using Gatherer's regular expression tool as mentioned by the other answers.  My search string was "Whenever.*Whenever" which finds any card in which 'Whenever' appears twice in its text box.  This isn't a perfect search (it misses Clash of Realities, which almost certainly should be included, and it includes several silver bordered cards and other cards that probably shouldn't be included), but it makes for a good starting point.
I used "Whenever" instead of "When" because When is typically used for triggers that can only happen once - usually enters/leaves the battlefield triggers of the card in question. Some of those might be cards that you're interested in, but most of them won't be, and including them adds a great many false positives to dig through.


text:
What happens when you can't move a piece on your turn
Most of the times, I can't leave a terrirtory because it's being defended. Therefor I'm not able to move.
So, what happens when you can't move an army on your turn? Do you allow your opponent the next move?

It sounds like you have some misunderstanding of the rules, since the situation you describe can never occur (at least at the beginning of your turn). Whenever an enemy attacks one of your territories, the battle is always fully resolved immediately until either the attacker or defender has lost all their troops. Thus by the time your turn starts, every territory that still has any of your troops in it will NEVER have any enemy troops in it as well. Next, at the beginning of your turn, you always receive some reinforcements. Thus after placing reinforcements you will always have at least one territory which has more than a single troop in it. You are only required to leave one troop behind to 'defend' each territory, so at this point there are always some spare troops you can use to make at least one attack on your turn.
After one or more attacks, you may find that all your territories have only one troop left at which point yes you must end your turn.


text:
Rulebook for a game
I have been searching for a rulebook to the game Kingdomquest by Dr. Wood but am unable to find it. Can anyone send me a link to the same?

Have you tried https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28861/kingdom-quest?

This is the exact game! Thank you. But on the site I don't see any relevant link mentioning any rulebook as such.


text:
Are double rolls added when you land on the utilities?
If you own both utilities and your opponent throws 1/2/3 doubles do they pay 10 times the total on all the throws or just the last throw.

Just the last throw, as shown on the deed card:

If one "Utility" is owned rent is 4 times amount shown on dice. If both "Utilities" are owned rent is 10 times amount shown on dice.

"amount shown on dice", not "amount of all rolls this turn."
This is further reinforced on the Wiki:

If ONE Utility is owned, rent is 4x the number on the dice which landed the player on the utility, but if BOTH Utilities are owned, rent is 10x the amount shown on the dice.

(and with the analysis that the rent paid if both are owned averages to $70 , also given on that wiki page).

Exception : If your last throw landed you on a Chance square, and the card directed you to  "Advance token to nearest utility", the last throw of the dice is meaningless. The card will direct you to"... throw dice [again] and pay [the] owner 10 times the amount thrown.", regardless if the owner owns one or both utilities.

Well, that's clear, sure. One needn't include "If a game effect gives explicit overriding instructions, those instructions take precedence." with every answer.

It is not in the rules. But on this page:

Utilities are the only properties without fixed rents, as rent depends
  on the dice roll which landed the token on the property.

They only mention the dice roll, that landed the token on the property. So the rolls are not added.


text:
Using opponent's first sequence spaces
My question is for the case of two teams where two sequences are needed to win the game. Say team Blue built a sequence and team Green hasn't.
The rules say:

If you are playing the game which requires two SEQUENCES to win, you may use any one of the spaces from your first SEQUENCE as part of your second.

So does this mean team Blue can place chips over the first sequence chips, but team Green CANNOT place chips over team Blue's first sequence. Right?

You can never "place chips over" other chips.

That's right, you cannot use your opponent's sequence space.
But what it also mean is that a player/team can use a chip (of their own) already in play as part of a SEQUENCE, to complete another SEQUENCE. So if you e.g. have a horizontal SEQUENCE you can use any of these chips to complete e.g. a vertical SEQUENCE.
So no one can place a chip on top of another chip that has already been placed on the board.

Set-Up
  ... Once a marker chip has been played, it cannot be removed by an opponent except when using a one-eyed Jack as explained below...

And by the normal rules you cannot remove chips from a already completed SEQUENCE.

The Jacks
  ... You cannot remove a marker chip that is already part of a completed SEQUENCE.
  Once a SEQUENCE is achieved by a player or a team, it cannot be broken...

SEQUENCE Rules


text:
Play card before previous player has finished its turn
Is it a legal play when:

player 1 , plays a green draw 2 card
player 3, plays a green 4 card before player 2 can play their yellow draw 2 card

Per the rule book, your question doesn't make sense.  Are you playing with a house rule that allows you to play another draw 2 instead of having to draw 2?

If you look at the rules:

Draw Two – When a person places this card, the next player will have
  to pick up two cards and forfeit his/her turn. It can only be played
  on a card that matches by color, or on another Draw Two. If turned up
  at the beginning of play, the first player draws two cards and gets
  skipped.

You can not play a second draw-2. Although this seems to be a common house rule.
Then again, it is nice to wait until the player has drawn the two cards before playing the next card.

Actually you need to wait for the player to draw two cards before you can take your turn since it is possible that the player may need to draw all prior draw actions need to be completed.


text:
Sacrificing a creature you don't own but you control
I use a Thief of Sanity and exile a Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger from my opponent's deck. I cast Kroxa, but then of course would have to sacrifice it because it wasn't escaped. Would it go back into my opponent's graveyard or mine? Am I able to escape it without the correct mana still?

I believe that since @Swong is a new contributor, the question can be left here. Moreover (and much more important than the previous argument),the game dynamics that is presented here is, in my opinion, very different too, because Swong asks if it is possible to use the escape ability when a card is in exile,in order to understand properly a situation like that one. All this does not concern the other question, the one to which Doppelgreener refers as a duplicate.

@ManoFromBerlin: Closing a duplicate question isn't a punishment - it's just the appropriate way to keep work from being duplicated while still answering the question (since anyone can view the linked question), so there's no reason to avoid doing it for a new user. And both questions are about sacrifice - even though the other question is sacrificing for a different reason, they're close enough and the answers there apply word-for-word here so there's no reason to leave this open.

(The second question is different, but it would be nice to have that as it's own question with an appropriate title that would let users find it, rather than buried in a duplicate question about sacrifice.)

To prevent the original application from being "buried",as congruent with the linked one, it would be sufficient to adequately edit its title and highlighting the Escape ability, rather than highlighting that it is a duplicate. I would like to know if @Swong agrees with what is claimed, and on the duplication of his question ... In any case, Miles Budnek has done well to answer the question, to clarify how to behave in a similar situation, especially concerning the Escape ability: what is not found in the linked question.

Kroxa will be put into its owner's graveyard.

400.3. If an object would go to any library, graveyard, or hand other than its owner’s, it goes to its owner’s corresponding zone.

So if you cast your opponent's Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger using your Thief of Sanity you will have to sacrifice it, since it wasn't cast using escape, and it will be put into your opponent's graveyard.

Additionally, even if Kroxa was put into your graveyard, you would have to pay {B}{B}{R}{R} to escape it.

400.7. An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence. There are nine exceptions to this rule:

None of the exceptions are relevant in this case.  That means that as soon as you cast Kroxa using the Thief of Sanity's ability the Thief's ability loses track of Kroxa and its effect that allows you to spend mana of any type to cast the Kroxa no longer applies.


text:
Is it possible for a board wipe to happen after first strike damage but before regular damage?
What happens if someone attacks with a bunch of 5/5 or smaller creatures and you block with Child of Alara and then cast Flaming Sword on one of the 5/5 making it a 6/5 first strike that would kill your Child of Alara on purpose during the first strike step of combat damage.
Would it die and wipe the board before the second step of combat? Or would regular combat damage still occur since the combat damage step had been entered?

Similar/helpful, but I don’t think it’s a duplicate: https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/11196/do-things-on-the-stack-or-state-based-effects-resolve-between-first-strike-and-n?rq=1

I missed that the question doesn't actually involve a player casting a spell after first strike damage was done... now I do think it's a duplicate of the linked question. But I don't want to automatically close it as such.

Yes, players get priority between first strike and regular damage steps; so they can cast spells, and state-based actions will be checked, and triggered abilities will resolve.
First strike and double strike create an additional combat damage step; pretty much just like the normal one. And players get priority after damage is done during the combat damage step. So in your example, you would be able to prevent any regular combat damage from being done by destroying creatures after first strike damage was done.

Combat Damage Step

[…]
510.4. Fourth, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

And

510.4. If at least one attacking or blocking creature has first strike (see rule 702.7) or double strike (see rule 702.4) as the combat damage step begins, the only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are those with first strike or double strike. After that step, instead of proceeding to the end of combat step, the phase gets a second combat damage step.

This really isn't casting a spell.  It's a triggered ability.  Closer to this question, imo: https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/q/32184/10354


text:
Can I begin a turn when there is only 1 card remaining in the player deck?
If my role (let's say the Scientist) has 4 cards of the same color but was not able to get to a research station.  And, let's say a different player (the Operations guy) lands on the same city as the Scientist and in his last action he builds a research facility in that city. The Scientist is now in the city with the research facility, but just as it is now the Scientist's turn, there is only 1 card remaining in the player deck.
Did the team run out of time?
Technically, as the player's turn begins with actions, the Scientist can cure the last disease before having to draw the 2 cards which would result in the game ending--except that the cure had been placed on the board ending the game in a win.
So, can a turn begin when there is only 1 card in the player deck, or must there be 2?

Great answers to both Toon and Scott, although I have to admit I feel stupid.  I need to re-read the rules--I don't recall the rules quoted in the replies, but maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.   Thank you.

The game ends when you have to draw cards and there are not enough.

If, as you are about to draw, there are fewer than 2 cards left in the
Player Deck, the game ends and your team has lost! (Do not reshuffle
the discards to form a new deck.)

But you perform your actions first:

Each player turn is divided into 3 parts:

Do 4 actions.

Draw 2 Player cards.

Infect cities.

Reference to the rules.
So even if the deck is empty, if you win the game before the draw phase, you win.

You win when you find the fourth cure. You win immediately, regardless of how many cards are left in the deck.
From the rules (emphasis added):
Overview:

The players lose if:

not enough player cards are left when needed (your team runs out of time).

Draw Cards section:

If, as you are about to draw, there are fewer than 2 cards left
in the Player Deck, the game ends and your team has lost!
(Do not reshuffle the discards to form a new deck.)

Game End section:

The players win as soon as cures to all 4 diseases are discovered.
Once all diseases are cured, the game ends and players
win immediately, no matter how many cubes are on the board.

and again:

There are 3 ways for the game to end and the players to lose:

if a player cannot draw 2 Player cards after doing his actions.


text:
What are the origins and evolutionary track of the Dominion game?
Where did Dominion originate from? And how did the game evolve?
I didn't find any source explaining the "origins" or "evolution", rather than just history of Dominion.
Boardgamegeek only tells us comments regarding the secret history of Dominion.
Even the Reddit page  does not tell uswhere the game originated or how it evolved.
Book and article suggestions would also be helpful.

Wouldn't its origins and evolution be necessarily part of its history? What are you looking to find out that you have been unable to discover? What do you mean its origins and evolutionary track in particular?

Why the downvotes?

Questions stand to get downvoted if they're not clear.

I didn't downvote or vote-to-close, but I think the first comment sums up the issue that people are having... you said you want origins/evolution "rather than just history", but history IS origins; it isn't clear what the different you mean is. Even my answer, which you accepted, is about the history of Dominion.

Origin + evolution = history. How a thing started, plus how and why it changed over time is what makes up its history, it sounds like you are asking for the same thing by a different name. It's possible that there is a language barrier here, but you are also unlikely to find any massive information like a book on the history of a not particularly common (compare with poker or monopoly) game.

I don't think you will be able to find an actual published book on the subject, but the creator of Dominion, Donald X Vaccarino, has written multiple articles about the subject. They are published on boardgamegeek.com as well as forum.dominionstrategy.com. The main one is here, entitled "The Secret History of Dominion".
Another post goes through the different cards in the base set and discusses the history of those cards.
You can find all or most of Donald X's various writings on Dominion history collected in "The Bible of Donald X.". This includes an article for each expansion, discussing the history of the cards in that expansion.


text:
Card game about collecting farms
The game involves collecting farms or ranches, cattle or sheep, jackaroo or something along those lines.  I played it in the 90's with an older couple, that's not to say it was from the 90's though. I'm pretty sure it was an Australian company that produced it.
I thought it was called "Squatter", but that's the board game not a card game.

You question doesn't have much detail at the moment so might get closed for lack of detail.  You can help by give more detail.  Was this played with a standard deck of cards or one produced for the game?   Were you collecting cards or some other tokens?  Did the game have a board?  Do you remember what you did on a turn or how you win?   The more details you can recall the more likely someone is to recognise the game you want to find.

Your description certainly reminds me of Squatter, which is like Monopoly but with farms, pasture improvements and sheep, instead of streets and houses. As in Monopoly, there are cards involved even though it is primarily a board game—are you positive you aren’t misremembering the role of the cards in the game?


text:
Trying to remember card game I played a few years back
I still remember the rules pretty well, the name escapes me though. The cards look a lot like Phase 10, so I'm hoping my grandma didn't just make it up.

Each player is dealt a hand of 6(?) cards
Each player is also dealt a stack of 30 cards that is face down except for the top card which can be flipped
And the remaining cards become the draw pile.
The goal is to get rid of your whole stack of 30, by placing your cards on one of 4 spots around the draw pile.
Each spot around the pile your trying to place cards in order of 1-12, once it reaches 12 the spot is restarted.
You are forced to always place a card, and if no spot on either of the 4 piles is available, you have 4 rows by you that you can stack. You can take cards from it on your turn, but only in the order they're placed so you had to be careful.
There were a couple of Free cards that you could place anywhere.

Even though it sounds complicated written out it was played pretty simply, and was a lot of fun. Hoping to find it again through some help on here, thank you!

Welcome to Board and Card games. Great first question. Lots of details.

This looks like Skip-Bo or Spite and Malice:

Each player is dealt a stockpile of 30 cards. The winner will be
whoever manages to empty their stockpile first. Cards are played onto
four shared building piles in numerical sequence from 1 to 12. On each
turn, a player draws until they have five cards in their hand, and
then plays cards from: their hand, a top card of their discard piles,
or their stockpile. At the end of their turn, a player must discard
onto one of their four personal discard piles. Strategy involves the
organizing of cards into the discard piles, care in not setting up the
next players for good plays, knowing when to play from which option,
and especially the timing of playing a valuable "Skip-bo" wildcard.
Skip-bo is based on Traditional Card Games: Spite and Malice.

Yeah, OP has pro verbatim spat out Skip-Bo's rulebook. Quite amazing, honestly.


text:
Can I steal another player's tower of power stash cards with 5 of a kind?
Tower of Power from the Barking Kittens extension allows you to hold 8 stash cards (separated from the deck before the game starts) and protects you against other players who want to steal cards from your hand (favor, 2 of a kind, and 3 of a kind), they need to take cards from your stash cards in your tower of power instead.
What happens if I use 5 of a kind to get the tower of power card from the discard pile? Can I steal the tower of power with all its remaining stash cards?

Welcome to board and card games. Great first question!

Thank you! I've always loved the idea of discussing this kind of edge cases with other fans in the community :)

You are welcome. We can use some new blood ;-)

This is subtle but it is hidden in the rules:
In order to play the card, you need to wear the Tower of Power Crown:

To play this card, wear the Tower of Power Crown. Then take the Stash Cards, and without looking, put them inside on top of your head.

But if you wear the crown, you need to wear the crown for the rest of the game:

You may never move Stash Cards from the Tower of Power Crown into your
own hand. It only protects you from stealing stealers who want to
steal cards from you. Continue wearing the Tower of Power for the
rest of the game.

So if you retrieve the card from the discard pile after it is played (and not noped) then you can't play it anymore because you can't wear the crown.
You could play it if you already have the crown, but it does nothing because the stash is also empty.
So there is no way you can gain any benefit from playing the card a second time in the same game. So you better use your five of a kind to find a useful card.
By the way, the crown is awesome:

Thanks! And yep, showing the tower of power to newcomers is priceless, the best way to show my exploding kittens pride :D


text:
In Bridge can you ask for an "undo" if you make the wrong bid and do the opposition have to agree it?
Suppose your partner opens 1D and there is no interference bid. You reply 2S but realise that you should have bid 1S.
Can you ask to take it back? And are the opponents obliged to allow you?

See https://paloaltobridge.org/mistaken-bid-vs-mistaken-information/

It depends.  On online vs. face to face (vs. screens), on whether there is a Director or Arbiter, on your intent, on regulations.  But the Law, as I'm sure is in the Johnson comment, is Law 25 (duplicate Laws quoted here, rubber laws similar):
LAW 25 - LEGAL AND ILLEGAL CHANGES OF CALL
A. Unintended Call

If a call is made by a player that was not intended and if it is discovered before partner makes a call, it may be substituted with the intended call. The second (intended) call stands and is subject to the appropriate Law, but the lead restrictions in Law 26 do not apply.
If the player’s original intent was to make the call selected or voiced, that call stands. A change of call may be allowed because of a mechanical error or a slip of the tongue, but not because of a loss of concentration regarding the intent of the action.
A player is allowed to replace an unintended call if the conditions described in A1 above are met, no matter how the error came to the player’s attention.
No substitution of call may be made when partner has made a subsequent call.
If the auction ends before it reaches the player’s partner no substitution may occur after the end of the auction period (see Law 17D).
If a substitution is allowed the LHO may withdraw a call made over the first call. Information from the withdrawn call is authorized to this side and unauthorized to the opponents.

B. Call Intended

A substituted call not permitted by A may be accepted by the offender’s LHO. (It is accepted if LHO calls intentionally over it.) The first call is then withdrawn, the second call stands and the auction continues (Law 26 may apply).
Except as in B1, a substitution not permitted by A is cancelled. The original call stands and the auction continues (Law 26 may apply).
Law 16C applies to any call withdrawn or cancelled.

I've bolded the most important items for a player.  Law 26 is "call withdrawn, lead restrictions".
If you intended to bid 1S and 2S came out, you can change it.  If you bid 2S and then remember you don't play Strong Jump Shifts with this partner, you're out of luck (and likely making overtricks).
In a controlled game (duplicate with a Director, or rubber with an Arbiter), if you believe you're in a L25A situation, you call and let the Director or Arbiter decide.  If it's a game without control, you ask and see if the opponents will let you (the Rubber Laws still use the term "without pause for thought", and "thought" is the important word there).  Likely they will, unless you show that you try to undo intended bids, and then they will dry up.
Note that this law is considered first in situations where the unintended bid is illegal - for instance 1D-(1S)-1H.  If you intended to bid 2H and 1H came out, Law 25 applies; otherwise it is an insufficient bid (no matter if you didn't intend to bid insufficiently or didn't see 1S or...) and that Law (27) applies instead (currently, the only real difference is that your LHO can accept 1H and bid 1S "raising" partner).


text:
MtG Arena - Dina and lifelink
On the board I had Dina, Soul Steeper and another creature with lifelink. My opponent had huge advantage on the board, but was at 1 life. He attacked with everything. I expected to lose dozens of lives, but trigger Dina by blocking one guy with lifelink creature, and cause opponent to go to 0, resulting in draw. Instead, I had just lost outright.
Why?

I believe your confusion is around triggered abilities and the stack.
In your scenario all combat damage is assigned and resolved, and state based actions are handled first.  (i.e. life totals are checked).
If you survive, then all triggers are placed on the stack.
But you didn't survive combat, so Dina's triggered ability did not get on the stack.
Bottom line, you have to survive combat damage in order for Dina's triggered ability to get placed on the stack.

"800.4a When a player leaves the game, all objects (see rule 109) owned by that player leave the game and any effects which give that player control of any objects or players end. Then, if that player controlled any objects on the stack not represented by cards, those objects cease to exist."
Door to Nothingness is the ultimate counterspell.

For two-player games, it's simpler than that: once a player loses the game, the game ends, and nothing happens after the end of the game.

@Zags Section 8 the CR (the 8xx rules) apply specifically to multiplayer games, and since Arena only supports one on one games, we know this was not one of those.(not to mention an uninvolved 3rd player would have been who OP expected to win if he had expected himself and his opponent to both lose/draw)

I am aware that the rule is specifically for multiplayer; I mention it because I believe it is the best illustration of the relevant principle.

I think what you are trying to do would work pre-6th Edition rules. Back then you had until the end of turn to life-gain yourself back from 0

The key is that triggered abilities do not do anything at the moment they trigger:

603.2. Whenever a game event or game state matches a triggered ability’s trigger event, that ability automatically triggers. The ability doesn’t do anything at this point.

603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority.

Because of lifelink, you gained some life at the same time you lost a bunch. This caused Dina's ability to trigger, but it triggering doesn't do anything to stop you from losing; it would have to go on the stack and then wait until both players pass priority before it resolves and does anything. By this time, you have already lost the game due to being at 0 or fewer life.


text:
How to collect garbage with an empty hand?
In exploding kittens there’s one card left in the pile an exploding kitten. player one has no cards left in their hand after playing an attack card. player two plays a garbage collection card. player one has no card to put into the garbage collection do they forfeit the game?

When making a title you need to describe your question not just put the name of the game in.

As you can see from the rules:

Garbage Collection 1 Card
Every player who has cards (including the player who played this card)
must choose 1 card from their hand to secretly insert into the Draw
Pile. Then, shuffle the entire Draw Pile.

You only have to put a card on the deck if you have any in your hands.
So player two plays garbage collection and everybody who is able puts a card on the deck and it is shuffled. Then player two still has to finish their turn.


text:
Can a property card ever end up in the bank?
In the Monopoly Deal card game, in addition to money cards or action cards, can I use a property card as money to my bank? Or do property cards always get played in their own area?
If another player charges rent and I have to give her a property card, can she use that as a property card or does it go to her bank?

Can you clarify what you are asking? It doesn't make sense to me.

Guessing the original meaning when it isn't clear is perilous. It should be left to the original poster to edit and clarify.

@L.ScottJohnson I play the card game so I believe I understand what was originally intended; the OP believes (mistakenly) that a player can play a property card into their bank pile, like they can with an action card. If you could, then his question about what happens when the property goes to another player as payment makes sense. Since you actually can't, then that follow-up is moot. But that belongs in an answer, not in a comment :). I stand by my edit and no, we don't normally restrict clarifying edits to the OP.

@BradC, We don't restrict editing for clarity, obviously, but editing to change the meaning of the post (the game, the mechanism, the basis and point of the question, etc.) is best left to the OP.

No, property can never end up in the bank.
According to the printed rules, you can only play money and/or action cards into your bank, property always goes on the table in your "property collection":

PLAY UP TO 3 CARDS from your hand, onto the table in front of you. You don't have to play any cards if you don't want to. Play your 3 cards in any combination of the following: A, B, and/or C, in any order:

(A) Put money/action cards into your own bank

Players can charge each other for rent, birthdays etc. Build up a 'Bank' pile in front of you, using Money cards and/or Action cards.

(B) Put down properties into your own collection

Lay Property cards down in front of you to build up your Property sets.

(C) Play action cards into the center

So what about when property is used to pay rent to another player? Further down is the relevant rule:

IMPORTANT! HOW TO PAY OTHER PLAYERS

(4 other rules)
If you pay with property cards, they must go into the other player's property collection.

So the situation you describe, where you are paying rent using property from your bank can never arise. Property can be used to pay rent, but moves from your property collection to your opponent's.


text:
Are games like Alquerque solved? Are they fair games with perfect play?
I'm very curious about games similar to alquerque, where all but one slots are filled.
Take the picture below. This appears to me (and maybe I'm wrong) that this gives an opening advantage to the second player. The moment the first player moves a piece to the center, it gets inevitably captured by the second player.
So, out of curiosity, do we know if Alquerque is a fair game with perfect play (meaning, both players with perfect play can force a draw), or if it is biased towards the first or the second player?
I don't find much in terms of game theory and research on this.

Don't know the answer to your question, but it's certainly solvable considering that checkers is more complex from a search-space standpoint and is considered weakly solved.

Part of the issue here is that there is not just one game under question. "Alquerque" is the name given to several variations of the game (use of Sultans, rules on Sultans, whether captures are mandatory, whether backtracking is allowed, etc.) So any "solve" would be for just one variation. But, as it is simpler than draughts (in most variations), it is solvable. To date, it has not been solved (cf: it is not on the list of solved games at Wikipedia)

While I cannot find a formal proof, Alfonso X's "Libro de los Juegos" offers an anecdotal report that the solution to the game is a tie:

if both players known how to play it, they can both tie the game.

Alfonso X was king of Castile in the 1200's.  One of his projects was a book on games called "Libro de los Juegos", which was a Castilian translation of an Arabic book on games.  This book is the earliest (surviving) description of Alquerque.  The above quote is from an English translation of this book (in this translation, the game is referred to as "Twelve Mans Morris").  The book also makes your point about the first player having a disadvantage in non-optimal play:

he one who plays first has a disadvantage because he is forced to play in that empty space


text:
Would Steam/Age of Steam benefit from a non-constrained set of tiles
Steam and Age of Steam provide a finite set of tiles, and the rules explicitly mention that if a certain type of tile runs out then it is effectively unavailable anymore -- unless a tile comes back after being replaced by another one.
This rule seems quite artificial, as in real life there shouldn't be any problems creating any kind of track as the train line is being built. The original designer Martin Wallace himself wrote that this constraint was artificial and tried to create a "friendly" set of tiles.
I do agree that it is currently part of the game and I sometimes use it myself to get rid of some particular tiles so that my opponents may not use them.
Some expansion maps (e.g., Sun) were designed with the limited set of tracks in mind, as an important aspect of that map.
However for most maps I sometimes wonder if we could just forget this limitation, provided that there's a way to create missing tiles as needed.
So what do you think? What would be the pros and cons of relaxing this rule. Also, how would you implement an "infinite" supply of tiles?

Very interesting, I've never had a problem running out of tracks in either game.  Haven't played a ton, maybe a dozen games total.  Another dozen of Railroad Tycoon.

Laminate your boards, play with dry erase markers instead of tiles. Cuts the component count down a lot.
PS: Be sure to document the legal types of tiles, unless you are also allowing arbitrary tiles as part of this change. I always hated finding out which tiles didn't exist just in time to need them :(

One step towards implementing a wider set of tiles, without adding pieces, would be to allow players to swap tiles on the board if it doesn't change their top face. In a small but significant fraction of situations, the tile you need exists as the unused bottom side of a tile already on the table. Within the rules, I have encountered at least one scenario in which the game outcome was changed by my being able to "waste" money upgrading an apparently random tile on the board just to recover the other side of that tile for the move I actually want/need to make.

Steam only I assume. Good trick though!

Yes, I believe I was playing Steam when that happened, but why Steam only? The Age of Steam sets I have played with had double-sided tiles as well.

I've played AoS 2nd and 3rd ed, and they only had single-sided tiles, so I assumed the double-sided tiles were a Steam-only thing... Maybe a different edition?

This can happen in Age of Steam with the town disks on towns with 4 exits, since those consume complex track tiles.  There can be multiple complex track tiles that are different but functionally identical for a town.

I like this idea.
The ability to run out of tracks is not a key mechanic of (Age of) Steam, and adds some undesirable randomness, so I think it's expendable.
The only thing to be careful about is not to place track piece types that never existed in the first place.
Honestly, there are way too many straight and curved pieces anyway, at least in Age of Steam.  Just take a permanent marker and draw new tracks on existing pieces as you need them.  "Build sidewalks where people walk."

Defacing tiles... shudder :-P

Some (at least one) AoS map designer is adamant about limiting the track tiles to the original set.  Also, I would call the effect chaos, not randomness.  The track tiles that a player selects is, in most cases, intentional and not random.

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

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How can I play Somnium in real life?
The computer game Civilization IV allowed large scale user customisation. One of the largest and most detailed of these game mods is the community-based Fall From Heaven II.
Within the mod, it is possible to play a card game called Somnium against your AI opponents. A game in progess looks like this:

The game is simple but addictive, and the cards are beautiful.
Does a real-life implementation of this game exist? Ideally, I'm looking for a deck of cards with the same artwork and numbering as the computer version, but I'm also interested to know if the game mechanics are implemented anywhere else, perhaps under a different name.

I don't know that it doesn't exist, but there isn't anything on BoardGameGeek under that name, so I doubt it exists under that name (given both the expansiveness of BGG and that Civ is one of the most popular video games in that community, I'd expect it to be added if it did).

Ok, so I did a little research about the game. Here are the results. Hope this helps. Sorry about the long post.
Simple online Flash version - no original artwork
Here you can play simple Flash version against AI, but I guess that's not really what you are looking for. However, If you get your hands on 8 suited card deck (for example here or here). You can even make your own 8 suits deck combining standard card deck and jumbo version with the identical back. Just an idea.
Games with similiar mechanics
If you're looking for a game with similiar feel, user called Ooops mentioned on BGG that it reminds him of the game Can't Stop (you can try the game online on BGArena):

The developers have even designed their own card game from scratch, (...). Called Somnium, it features amazing art and
a push-your-luck gameplay in the vein of "Can't stop".

Original artwork
I've looked through forum discussion about the cards artwork in Somnium.
User Psychic_Llamas said that

the artist for the somnium cards is actually using the art for a deck
of Tarot cards. she is planning on releasing the deck in 2010 i
believe.

In the same discussion you can find a link to the ZIP file with JPEG Cards (the graphics are small unfortunately, 160x240px) from the FFH2, with "numbering". You can also find there a PDF file with card graphics (low quality). I guess you could print those and glue them on cards from one or two standard decks with the identical back. Or you could glue backs as well. On the other hand, you don't need to glue them, you could simply use card sleeves. Many options here.
However, I don't know how much of the original art is available online, but you definitely should have a look at both artist websites.

Stephanie Pui-Mun Law (Tarot section?) (Some other link)
Jason Engle's Gallery (probably in Illustration?)

As game designer stated in the mentioned forum discussion:

There are a few pics from Jason Engle in there. But most of them are
from the amazing Stephanie Pui-Law.

Cards are in much better quality, however they don't have Somnium numbering and game-relevant info, frames etc. You would need to do that yourself, apply it on the artwork, and then back to the printing aptions.
Purchase the deck
What you can also find on the Stephanie Pui-Mun Law website is information about buying Tarot deck in question. I would strongly suggest to look here first, as it is the best answer to your question I can get. You can buy this Tarot deck on Amazon.com.
I guess  you could buy a deck and glue necessary numberings on them?
About the game
This doesn't answer your question, but can give some insight about the game for those users who know nothing about it (as did I until I saw game's artwork in your post).
Credits

Game Designer: Derek "Kael" Paxton
Original programmer: Stéphane "Sto" Nadry
Art: Stephanie Pui-Mun Law and Jason Engle

Brief game explanation
Borrowed from the tarotforum.com:

In a popular mod for the fourth installation of the Civilization game
series, Fall From Heaven II, there is a funny on-the-side minigame,
Somnium, which is played with a deck of 54 cards; 3-7 in ten suits
(Angels, Devils, Pentacles, Staves, Suns, Moons, Towers, Dragons,
Swords and Cups) as well as three "Fool" cards and a "Death" card. The
objective of the game is to gather cards so that your set of
highest-of-each-suit sum beats that of your opponent, and you and your
opponent each takes one turn at a time at drawing cards; You turn one
card at a time and can "bank" the cards at any time, but if you hit
the "Death" card or turn up two of the same suit, all drawn cards are
discarded. The "Fool" cards allow you to steal a card from the
opponent. o You can win a minor diplomacy bonus towards leaders by
besting them in a tournament game, but will suffer a likewise relation
penalty by losing such a game.

Origins
Part of an interview with the game designer, Derek "Kael" Paxton:

Soren: I enjoyed trying out Somnium, the card-based, diplomatic
mini-game you recently added. Because the game encourages thinking
about probability, I would like to try a version of it where all drawn
cards are shown, including the ones underneath the top “banked” cards.
Considering that humans are so bad at estimating probability, I don’t
think that revealing more information would hurt the game. (To mix
things up, you could also remove five randoms cards each game.) Why
did you decide to build Somnium, and how was it designed?
Derek: Fall is a huge mixture of options that tie together in a
variety of ways.  I wanted Somnium to be the opposite, only one
decision, but a lot of complexity in it.  I didn’t want there to be a
right or wrong answer but instead to simplify the risk/reward mechanic
down to one yes-or-no choice.
I thought about showing the “banked” cards but, in the end, it got cut
because I wanted the interface to stay simple, and I wanted the player
to be running off of instinct and laboring over the choice.  If we let
all the banked cards show, the player who drew the 3 of swords could
see all the other swords cards banked and would know that he should
draw again.  I wanted to avoid that certainty.
As to why it was designed, we like doing things no one else has done,
things people don’t expect from modders.  Functionally, it offers a
nice break in long games if you want to jump in and play a few games
against the AI or play while your waiting for other players in a
multiplayer game.

This is the sort of post I wish I could +2

Great answer, thank you. I'll look into purchasing the Tarot deck.

@PatLudwig, I don't know, I would axe the About the game section and onward.

Kael (the lead behind Fall from Heaven and Somnium) went to work with Stardock and they recently implemented a modified version of Somnium as an iOS game. They also released a PDF with high-resolution images for the cards on their website - though these are not the cards that Stephanie drew.
These points, and some further details are provided by Kael himself in this post.
Game website: http://www.deadmansdrawgame.com/

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
What cooperative board games are there that I could safely play with my wife?
My wife loves board games, but dislikes very competitive games, and is completely uninterested in aggressive "beat up the other guy" games. We recently discovered Pandemic, where each player works together to try and halt the spread of a number of deadly diseases. We really liked it.
What other games are there that are cooperative in nature?

Just do not try Risk! We have got anger almost at every game. Because of that we haven't played it more than 2 years now :-)

Yep! Monopoly is our big family no-no. ;)

@Pawka, Risk is the perfect way to end a marriage.

@Gamecat, @Pawka Risk isn't competitive enough for me, I play Diplomacy and Republic of Rome - both with even more backstabbing.

@Richard Gadsen: Most marriages don't last long enough to finish a game of Diplomacy.

There's a lewd joke opportunity here, but I just can't quite put my finger on it ...

BTW, Well done for finding a wife that loves board games!

Flagged for wiki conversion. See: http://meta.boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/66/recommend-a-game-questions

@Jon Hadley - Happy for you to flag it, but I don't think this (or any other question) should be wikified unless there is community consensus. At the moment, your proposal has 0 votes.

@ire_and_curses Agreed :)

My parents threw out Risk early on to save their marriage, and I know a Navy guy who threw his copy to the waves to stave off mutiny.

Thanks for the Pandemic recommendation. I'm getting it as a gift.

There is a term for this: WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) -- WAF is very important in my board game purchase decisions, as well.

Please guys, stop suggesting competitive games "but hey you may play it cooperative if you want ;D ;D ;D". NO THEY CAN'T. THEY SUCK IF YOU DO THAT. Couldn't you stick to the topic and suggest games that are actually, you know, cooperative?

Flash Point: Fire Rescue; Zombicide.

Arkham Horror is almost completely cooperative.
It is the players against a Great Old One(GOO) of Cthulhu mythos.  Players need to work together to arm themselves and find clues that will enable them to seal gates that open from other realms.  There is a large number of expansions, but the basic game is very enjoyable.
Generally, the expansions make the game harder and should be avoided until you can regularly beat the GOO in the base game.
See Is it possible to play 2-player, 2-character Arkham Horror successfully? for a question about the viability of a popular 2 player variant for Arkham Horror.

I own this game. I found it to be fun the first few times, after the third or fourth play-through the game seemed to drag on and on... It also takes a long time to set up and the rules are VERY involved. Love the premise and it definitely is worth checking into, but for me it wasn't the relaxed, casual gaming I tend to enjoy.

@Sandra - I have played this game with about 8 people.  A couple of them definitely had reactions like yours.  The rest were all eager to play again to see a different permutation.  The game is different every time.  Luckily there are plenty of games out there for everyone to enjoy.

out of curiosity, how is it almost completely cooperative? :)

@crazy - in Theory it is completely cooperative.  Ideally the group would work together to always increase their odds at staving off the awaking of the Great Old One.  In practice, it isn't always easy to give up your best weapon/item/spell "for the good of the group"

ok, so it is totally cooperative in the sense that you all have the same goal and its impossible to win without the rest of the group. Some players don't play as cooperatively as others at times. :D

@crazy - another problem that crops up among folks that aren't used to sharing is that there are often more things that need doing than you have investigators so prioritizing is a must.  It then becomes harmful to be the second character to decide to take on the same task.  For example collect the last few remaining clues) which prevents either character from obtaining the needed 5 to seal a gate.

@GordonGustafson - For completeness sake, there is a mission card in the Dunwich Horror expansion that allows one player to win at the expense of the other investigators, Joining the Winning Team

Forbidden Island is another cooperative game created by the same guy that made Pandemic.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65244/forbidden-island

We noticed this in the local game shop a few days ago, and the clerk strongly recommended it.  It doesn't fit in our budget at the moment, but may soon.

I love forbidden island because its very customable, and pretty cheap. You can change so many things, from the roles to the shape of the island to the effects of the cards. I played with 5 other people who almost hated boardgames (we changed the rules a bit, but it can work with 6 players) and they loved it so much we played it 3 times in a row. They were scared of the complexity, but soon they were knew every single corner case and knew the rules better than I did. :D

I wouldn't recommend Forbidden Island if you already have Pandemic because they're almost the same game. The rules and gameplay are very similar.

My wife and I played and loved Shadows Over Camelot for years before Pandemic existed.
There are many cooperative games around now, and some are on my radar:

Space Alert looks cool and I love a couple of the designer's other games
Defenders of the Realm looks like it takes the lessons learned in co-op gaming and goes back to my beloved fantasy theme, too

Shadows over Camelot is a wonderful game, but it doesn't play well with fewer than 5 people.

FX_ is right.  Space Alert is also excellent... but it's not a 2-player game; it's strong with 4 but suffers badly with each player less than that.

Well, that's a reason for me to wait on Space Alert. I do a lot of 2 and 3 player gaming.

Space Alert is kind of fun but it's not really a boardgame, more an incredibly difficult multiplayer logic puzzle.  Its one I'd definitely recommend trying before you buy!

You can usually play space alert with fewer than 4 by having each player control more than one crewmen. If one player is very experienced, they can control 3 and try to maximize the learning opportunities of the other player so they can play as equals in the future. Shadows over Camelot can also be made slightly more suitable for lower numbers of players: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/2309/how-can-i-make-shadows-over-camelot-play-better-with-3-or-4-players :D

There's also the Little Duckling fan expansion for Space Alert. I have it, but we've always played with 4 or 5 people so I haven't tried it yet.

The Lord of the Rings is a cooperative board game that I like. The one thing to watch out for (as with many other cooperative games) is that a few enthusiasts take over the whole running of the game, and others just passively do as they are told.
It has an extension that converts it to a one-against-many game, Lord of the Rings: Sauron. So don't get that extension if you're looking for the cooperative experience.

Another good cooperative game might be Ghost Stories.

Ghost Stories is a cooperative game in which the players try to defeat the spirit of Wu-Feng, the lord of hell, and his legions of ghosts before they haunt a town and recover the ashes that will allow him to return to life. Each Player represents a taoist monk ghost hunter who is working together with the others to fight off waves of spirits and other beings mostly inspired by eastern mythology.Blockquote

I've heard its REALLY hard to win, is that true?

@CJD: Every game I've heard of where the players won, we've realized was played incorrectly in retrospect.  I've tried at least five times and lost every time.  Ghost Stories and I have decided that it's time for me to see other games.  Frankly, I think our separation may become permanent.  Sure, it looks pretty and promises you a fun time, but you'll soon realize that it's an emotionally abusive relationship.

@GordonGustafson assurely not for the faint of heart but it's often close games so that's not "too" frustrating

I have the perfect game for you guys: Last Night On Earth. I've played dozens of board games, and I really don't go back to any of them anymore except for this one. It is a co-op game, as long as you have more than 3 players. The reason for this is that you have Heroes and Zombies and someone has to be zombies. However, this is why it's not a highly competitive game: as much as Heroes may want to win, the chances of that happening are unlikely. Ok, I know this sounds ridiculous: "why would I want to play a game which one side almost always wins?!." The answer is simple, Last Night on Earth's charm lies in recreating B zombie movie cliches and playing through impossible odds. You are encouraged to create your own rules and try new things.

Now all he needs is a second wife and it's game on :)

Last Night on Earth is a reasonably good game, but I think All Things Zombie (from Lock 'N Load Publishing) is even better, if what you want is a tense "players against the Zombie menace" theme. You can play with anywhere from 1 to 8 players, and it helps to have one player control the zombie "state machine", but that's not at all necessary: it's a task that can be shared amongst the players. Don't be put off by the fact that it's (currently) published by a wargame company: it's very, very good.

I have only played Last Night On Earth a few times but I felt that the rules were quite complex and, as you commented, the zombies (almost) always win.

Really?! I played this quite a few times a few years back (a friend in school had it) and our zombies almost always lost... Huh. Must've been playing them wrong.

Try Carcassonne. You can be competitive if you want, but there's no need. Beautiful maps you can create. And if needed you can play with more people. It's quite easy to explain.

Many of the Carcassonne expansions add a significant edge of competition to the game, but the base game lends itself to strong cooperation (or, at least, it makes competition difficult).

@Jaeger you have never played base carcassonne, if you say it leads to strong cooperation. It is one of the very tactical one AGAINST the other 1 on 1 games. Remember which cards are out, try figure out the evil plots of the opponent, try to lock his pieces, etc

While I agree it doesn't lead to cooperation, if you are playing with your wife you can leave that part of the game out and simply play a friendly game of Carcassonne which is still entertaining.

@Peter I have Carcassonne on my shelf, and in fact looked at the box (albeit up-side-down) to double-check the spelling in my original comment. The games I've played don't tend to get especially confrontational, and this is in a group of friends who take Settlers of Catan very seriously. One can play it confrontationally or not; my games tend to ignore the other players and focus on building features that already have my own followers.

Carcassone can be played as competitively or cooperatively as the players choose. Some players choose to finish others' castles; I prefer to place a tile so that you'll never be able to finish your castle, road and cloister, while also stealing a farm from you. The choice is yours.

I don't get it. If you play Carcassonne "cooperatively", you're doing no more than a solitaire. A real cooperative game is many players VS. some event, not many players just slacking off.

Lo'oris, it depends in your definition of cooperative games. Remember that different people play different games for different purposes.
In Carcassone everyone can "win", or a couple among players, or any number of players. The game does not require a sum-zero approach. Some people play to maximize points, that's great. Some people play to mess with others, again great. Some people want to create huge castles, again that's fantastic...

Two-player Carcassonne doesn't have to be strongly competitive, but it takes effort to prevent it: every point you score is directly against your one opponent. If she starts a city and you don't either try to get into it, close it off early, or work to make it impossible to complete you're giving her points, which is the same as taking them away from yourself. It's only when a third person is added that it stops being a zero-sum game.

Carcassonne is not a cooperative game. Saying you can use the game's components to not compete but build beautiful maps may be entirely true, but then you're not playing the game, you're building a beautiful map with the game's components (which may, in itself, be fun and what you're looking to do). I can make exactly the same claim for something like "Advanced Squad Leader" or any other game. Nice bits put to other use doesn't make the game itself a cooperative game. I think this is a misleading answer.

My wife has a strong dislike for Carcassonne because it's too competitive, and she likes most boardgames!  So I guess I'm throwing my voice in with everyone else who thinks this is a tenuous answer to the OP's question.

My wife and I played a lot of Carcassonne before the kids came and gobbled up our game time. Traditionally, we played two games. One "mean" game where we do our best to foil eachothers plans, and one "nice" game where we try for mutually high scores and no breaks in the map. It worked out quite well for us!

I play a lot of cooperative games.
The two that we currently play are:
Castle Ravenloft - Based on the old D&D theme.  Fun and simpler to play.
Red November - Gnomish Submarine that continually gets less seaworthy.
Also some great quick card games:
The Isle of Dr. Necreaux, Space Hulk (as mentioned above)
All games are co-op and "all win or all lose".

I don't know the others, but Red November is great. If you add the custom rule "when you drink rhum, you actually have to do it in real life" it becomes even more... interesting. Please notice that while it is a cooperative game, there actually is a rare case where it becomes competitive (escaping during the last 10 minutes).

Unfortunately, my wife doesn't drink, but I will add this to the guys game night rules.  As an odd aside, I just two minutes ago set the game up to teach my wife to play.  I'll let you know how it goes...

One way to ease the competitive pressure is to play silly games so that the players don't take them too seriously. Cheapass Games are a good choice, with Kill Dr. Lucky being my favourite.
I also like dexterity games for the same reason. Some have a bit of strategy, but nobody takes them too seriously. I like Pitch Car, Villa Paletti, Bausack, and Polarity.

Knizia's Lord of the Rings game is the only truly cooperative game I know of. The players are playing against the board so to speak.
Many people like it because of the "working together to reach a goal" without a human adversary element (most other coop games feature one player to be the 'bad guy').

I like Advanced Civilization just because it can be played mostly cooperative. Unfortunately it is out of print, but you still can get it used.
The goal of the game is to build a civilization. There can be little conflicts between players, but these can be settled peacefully. The only problem is with the calamities. (Calamities are part of the trading system so you can trade calamities to other players). But most of the time this can be settled too.

Sounds interesting. Could you add a link to the game?

@ire_and_curses - If you want a game about building a civilization that you can play without constantly battling each other, you should try Through the Ages, one of the games I love by the designer of Space Alert.

For some reason, people didn't appreciate it when I played it as if it were a wargame the first time I played (they were all experienced players) ... of course, they then all coorperated in beating me back to Crete.

Neither Advanced Civilization, nor Civilization (upon which it's based) are cooperative games; also, neither do they really offer a non-confrontational experience. There is lots of opportunity for direct confrontation, direct, and indirect stabbiness. I really don't see any way that suggesting these games is reasonable to the original poster's point.

But Civ stood out before cooperative board games were in vogue for offering a not-so-in-your-face world domination of sorts, yet a serious board game. It was world superiority without world conquest. I agree they aren't actually cooperative. They were serious, but competitive in ways that more closely reflect confrontation levels more reflective of what average consumers feel comfortable with, which may still hit the OPs actual intention, if not his wording per se.

If you're a little more flexible on the definition of 'board game', the recent Space Hulk card game is fast-paced and easy to learn, while being completely cooperative (players VS the deck).

Have you considered games that are more like puzzles? They can still be competitive, but it's more of a race than a fist fight. The best example I can think of is Ricochet Robots.
A similar category is deduction games like Mastermind and its relatives Black Box and Zone X.
For another kind of puzzle game, see if you can track down Situation 4. It's a competitive jigsaw puzzle. (I'm not kidding.) This is mostly aimed at kids, but I find the idea hilarious.

Not a two-player game, but don't miss Space Alert.  It's a high-pressure game of cooperation and coordination (4-5 players cooperate to defend their spaceship).  The challenge comes from the need to coordinate actions under tight time pressure.  (If one player fires the main starboard gun four moves in a row to fend off a threat, someone else had better have thought to go down to engineering and divert power to recharge it... or come order resolution, it's going to go 'pffft' instead of 'zap'.)
It's like playing RoboRally while trying not to bump into the other players... but with no time to talk over all your moves in advance.
Has a group scoring system too; you're encouraged to keep track of the group's triumphs and deaths for future comparison.  Level of difficulty is higly customisable; more so than in Pandemic.

After thinking about my recommendation for Through the Ages, it occurs to me that you and your wife might be well served by a wide variety of eurogames. Many euros have very low player interaction, and while not exactly cooperative, they certainly avoid the "beat up the other guy" problem. In fact, many of the best-regarded euros have been accused of being "multiplayer solitaire", an accusation which might turn out to be a ringing endorsement in this case.
The interaction between players in many games comes down to denial-of-choice or denial-of-resources. For example, in Puerto Rico, if you choose the Craftsman role all players will produce goods, but you'll get an extra for choosing the role. And in Agricola, if you go fishing no other player can get food from fishing that turn. In both cases, you've denied the other player the opportunity of making that choice.
Those are three of the best games in the world (don't just take my word for it, ask BGG), and big favorites at my family's table, which often includes just my wife and me. I answered originally with some strictly cooperative games, but thought you might enjoy the low player interactivity of these exemplary eurogames, too.

Thanks. We're massive Agricola fans, so your other recommendations sound interesting.

In that case, also consider Puerto Rico's baby brother card game, San Juan.

@Tynam - I've never played San Juan. I was told by multiple sources, "Try Race for the Galaxy if you want Puerto Rico: The Card Game." I ended up hating Race for the Galaxy. So maybe it's time to think about San Juan again.

I love it, but if you really hated Race, try before you buy with San Juan - it is a different game, but it's got some elements in common.  (Race was originally intended to be the Puerto Rico card game, but design moved on.)  "Simpler Puerto Rico without tiles or shipping" is the best I can describe San Juan.

Excellent question.  This answer is bucking the trend somewhat from the other answers here, but what about a game like Pair Go? Obviously, you'd have to be interested in a traditional strategy game like Go, first.  Also, since Go is a metaphor for war, I don't know if Go counts as a 'beat up the other guy' game for your wife.
Pair Go would involve you & your wife playing the same side of a Go game against another couple.
The dynamics get interesting, at least for me, because I never seem to know what my wife is thinking ;-)
Actually, that may be a metaphor for my entire marriage...

I don't think this addresses the point, because your suggestion is not a two-player suggestion, really; it's a four-player suggestion.

Maze is a chess-like game that is cooperative. It's basically a puzzle where each player moves the pieces on his side of the board. The publisher specializes in cooperative games, but most of them are for kids.

3-High, a recent game using Treehouse pyramids, is fully cooperative: 2-4 players are trying to reach a goal together before running out of cards in the deck.  It was one of the more pleasant gaming experiences I've shared with my wife, though replay value is a bit low.

If you're willing to print out and assemble a free print-and-play game, consider Space Monster ( http://www.invisible-city.com/play/507/space-monster ).  Elevator pitch: Alien – The boardgame.
Neat features: The alien's special powers, immunities, and weaknesses are different every game.  Many player roles, so your "crew" is different every game.  Modular board, so the space ship is different every time.  The alien doesn't have hit points, but a health deck that controls how it reacts and behaves after it gets wounded.  Can be played co-op, co-op with possible traitor, and one-vs-many.
Takes 1 to 5 (6?) players.

Try Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the 2000 Edition - sadly, this is now out of print and you have to get it from Ebay, but, it's a great co-op game with multiple players as good, and one player as evil.  Sadly, the later Buffy game is pretty lame.  But the 2000 one is a ton of fun - particularly if you're a Buffy fan.

He said he wants to play it with his wife: i.e. just 2 players.

Indeed, it can also be played as a 2-player.  Although, there, not so co-operative.

Someone introduced us to Forbidden Island the other day.  Easy to learn entertaining race against the system to recover items then escape as the waters rise and tiles disappear.  Not without some flaws though: our first game was over in failure almost as soon as it began due to some unlucky turn-ups, and sometimes it's so obvious what each player/character needs to do the game feels like it's running on rails.

In its defense I've never seen a cooperative game where bad luck can't screw you over in the beginning. We always play a variant where each player gets 4 actions instead of 3, but you raise the initial water level up 1. This gives you more choices, more interesting turns, faster gameplay, all while keeping the game balanced. :D

I personally love A Touch of Evil: it's another take on the a bunch of heroes working together against the big bad. You have slightly different character cards and each person plays one and goes around, picking up cards, items and fighting flunkies and you eventually get together to fight the big bad. I'm not sure how well it would work with only two people, but at least you don't need someone to play the bad guy.

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


text:
What is a good strategy for using the Doomsday card?
Doomsday - The card text reads as follows:

Pay half your life, rounded up: Put your graveyard on top of your library, then remove all but five cards of your library from the game. Put the rest on top of your library in any order.

I have never managed to do anything useful with this card. Ever!
What could I do to use it successfully?

There are some very powerful combos around the card; here's an example: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/legacy-archives/509058-deck-doomsday-fetchland-tendrils

For half your life, you get to stack your deck and set yourself up for a number of combos.  There's a combo going around that involves Shelldock Isle/ Doomsday/ Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to pop out the Emrakul for free.
In addition, cards such as Serra Avatar, Beacon of Destruction, and other cards that shuffle back into your library afterwards can be used to stall running out of cards.  Platinum Angel can help keep you from losing the game.
That said, it's a pretty hard card to build around.

This is a quite heavy article on the subject : http://sites.google.com/site/emidln/doomsdaystacks
It describes the uses of the card in competitive legacy play, with several "win now" stacks.
The idea is to float some mana, for instance 1U with this stack and Sensei Top (SDT) in play :

[Top]
Brainstorm
Lion's Eye Diamond (LED)
Lion's Eye Diamond
Ill-Gotten Gains (IGG)
Tendrils of Agony
[Bottom]

How it Works:

Tap SDT to draw into Brainstorm (1U floating).
Play Brainstorm (1 floating) to draw into SDT, LED, LED. Put back 2 random cards.
Play LED, LED, SDT. Break LEDs for UUU and BBB.
Pay B to rearrange the top3 using SDT putting IGG on top.
Tap SDT to draw into IGG.
Play IGG (floating U) returning LED, LED, Brainstorm.
Play LED, LED, Brainstorm (breaking both LED for BBBBBB) to draw SDT.
Play SDT.
Pay B to rearrange the top3 using SDT putting Tendrils of Agony on top.
Tap SDT to draw Tendrils of Agony.
Play Tendrils of Agony and kill with the storm triggers

Can you at least summarize the strategy here?  Giving a link to an answer is fine, but having the information here is necessary as well.  Thanks!

Doomsday + Mind's Desire + Beacon of Destruction is a quick win-the-game combo.  You wouldn't want to be casting Doomsday unless its text basically says "win the game"... if you set it up right, though, it DOES.

While this smells nice, you also need an impressive nine mana for it to work, five of them colored! Moreover, doomsday puts five cards in your library, and since you can have at most 3 beacons, it's quite risky.

@Lo'oris - I believe the five cards you choose are something like Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, Black Lotus, Mind's Desire, Beacon of Destruction.  Pay U to Ancestral into Ritual and Lotus, then it basically costs you 1 more mana to cast Beacon of Destruction at least 4 times with Mind's Desire... I think that's roughly how it works.

oh, I didn't notice you arrange those cards as you wish... I assumed you shuffled them. (I also meant 4 beacons of course, not 3). Well, then it's a nice combo, with just the (huge) problem that it's a "win or die" and very vulnerable.

Note that Mind's Desire is not legacy legal, and for Vintage is far from optimal due to the mana cost.

Doomsday + Laboratory Maniac + draw
Get the Manic on the field, play doomsday, then draw yourself to a win.

The problem with any strategy that begins with "get Laboratory Maniac" on the field is that you have to keep him on the field as you're drawing your last card. I guess there's Chromatic Sphere (card draw as a mana ability) to help with that, but it's still rather fragile.

@alex p i guess he did say successfully.  I was thinking fun.


text:
A reference of practical tsumego?
There are insanely many tsumego in existence, but many of them are very artificial and would never occur in real games. While any tsumego helps to improve, specifically learning shapes likely to be encountered in actual games would be of great benefit. I'm especially thinking of fast games with little time to actually read.
Are there any collections of problems that are likely to occur in real games, or at least close to it?

Life and Death by James Davies is part of the Elementary Go series, and has a systematic treatment of common shapes.  It has saved me more reading time than I can count.

Get Strong at Life and Death starts with a section on standard shapes. The second part of the book contains problems arising from joseki and joseki variations.  This is an advanced book - aimed at dan-level players.

I'll second TimK's suggestion of  Life and Death, particularly for developing a general approach, and also throw in a few others I've found useful:

The Korean Problem Academy is an excellent collection of progressively more difficult problems.  The books themselves are the best way to go if you can find them, as they have no answer key but generally can be solved relatively quickly and with patterns that show up in actual games.
Rescue and Capture by Yang YiLun is not really about L&D per se, but there's a strong related element in finding tesuji to rescue or capture groups.  You can still find this book over on Yutopian.
SmartGo has a wide mix of problems, many of which fit with what you are looking for.

For speed games in particular I'm partial to the advice that you should find the level of problem that you can solve "almost instantly" since what you are doing is training speed reading and pattern recognition.  This means that you may end up doing problems that are "below you rank," but that's an excellent way to be able to actually see and solve the problems in game.


text:
Why are Chinese stones half-convex?
Unlike regular ishi that come in full-convex shape, Chinese stones are flat on one side. I found those stones difficult to work with, as they are not easy to pick up from the board. Granted, they lay more solid on get shifted out of place less easily.
Is this the only reason, though? Why do only Chinese people use this kind of stones? Is use of those stones in decline, possibly?

From the manufacturing standpoint, a few thousand years ago it was easier to produce stones that were convex on both sides. Before the Tang dynasty, because of this, all the stones were convex on both sides (just like ishi stones).
During the Ming dynasty, crafting skills progressed and stones could be shaped with 1 flat side and 1 convex (good for stability).
Japan imported the game of Go during the Tang dynasty (at that time the stones were all convex on both sides) and since Japanese are attached to their traditions, it stayed like this until now. (Which doesn't mean that the quality is inferior, it's just to stick with the tradition.)
With the years it also became fashionable.
For some people, Japanese stones make a better sound on the board, are easier to manipulate or are just pleasing to the eye. For others, Chinese stones are more stable and can be used on both sides to make temporary moves.
source: http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/265925385.html
PS: To answer your last question, the use of those stones is absolutely not in decline.

Nice explanation. Lead me to a followup question: http://go.stackexchange.com/questions/160

@mafu: Is that link anything to do with Stack Exchange? It looks totally different and apparently redirects to https://www.golinks.io/signin.php?loggedout&redirect=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.golinks.io%252Fquestions%252F160 !

@PJTraill At the time of writing, it directed to another question on the same website. I don't know why it now directs to an external website.

I've just asked about it in MSO https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/347087/39590

@mafu: Do you still know what your follow-up question was? Something still in this community? (Number 160 here is something totally different!)

@PJTraill I can't recall at all. If I'm not mistaken, only a few of the best questions were selected to be merged into BGSE.

One nice property of half-convex stones is that there are two distinct ways to put them on the board. This is often used to play out variations.


text:
What games are suitable for a large number of people with only a pack of playing cards?
What card games work well with a large number of players (say 6+ players) and only require a standard pack of playing cards?  I'm particularly interested in games where the rules can be explained fairly quickly, but there is still a reasonable level of tactics.  Also it would be preferable if the game can be played in a single room.
One game per answer please.

Are games that require two standard card packs okay?

Yes that would be fine.  I was looking for card games that can be played on the fly with a random collection of people.  Probably finding a pack of cards per player would be asking too much, but I think most people have a couple of decks of cards in their house.

Eleusis
This is one of my favourite card games. You have to use inductive reasoning to figure out the dealer's secret rule. It's actually better with a large group because you learn more from other players' mistakes while waiting for your turn to come around.
It can be a bit intimidating for new players, so you might want to start with a small group playing Eleusis Express to get the hang of it.

Wow - the express version looks great for a group of new players.  Thanks for the suggestion.

And it's unlike Mao in that the rules don't persist, so there's no expectation that people know the rules already and therefore each player is on even footing.

The best large-group card game that I know of is Up and Down the River, which Wikipedia knows as Oh, Hell. I find the rules given by Wikipedia to be confusing, though, and found a better set here at eHow. (Note that both of these rulesets differ slightly from the version I'm familiar with, as there are endless variants of most of these games.)

This was the card game to play at lunch back in High School.  We called it "Prediction".  Our scoring was a bit different, but we regularly had multiple games of 3-10 players going.

What we called it in college can't be repeated in polite company, though the name I know it by most commonly is "Oh Hell." The rules on Pagat http://www.pagat.com/exact/ohhell.html describe in the variants section our scoring method (if I remember correctly, it's been a while), with each player earning 10 points per trick bid if they make their bid, or losing 10 times the difference  between their bid and their tricks if they're over or under.

I love this game, but I think it only plays well with 4 players.  Any more then the suits get diluted and becomes more of guessing game then a strategy game.

@Chris: With 6+ players we always used two decks, which alleviates this problem.

@JSBangs: Sounds good.  Curious how do you determine who wins the trick if the two of same card is played?

@Chris, the first of two cards of equal value played takes the trick. There are other variations, too, which are listed in the Wikipedia article.

If you have enough players (8+) you can play werewolf with playing cards:

Clubs 2-9 == Wolves
Hearts 2-9 == Villagers
Jack of clubs == Hunter
Jack of diamonds == Thief
Queen of hearts == Cupid
Queen of spades == Witch
King of diamonds == Seer
Ace of Spades == Mayor marker

It's a wonderful game, extremely simple both to explain and to play, with heavy diplomacy, bluff and bluff-detection as your only weapons. And, well, a good hearing helps in case someone is careless ^^

Many poker variants, including the very popular Texas Hold'em, can support a large number of players. In Texas Hold'em, each player is dealt only two cards of their own, there are 5 community cards, and 3 burn cards, meaning that you could in theory support 22 players if you deal out all of the cards, though generally you play with 10 or fewer players on a table, maybe up to 12 or so.
It does require something to bet with—chips, pennies, stones, dried beans, or any other form of counter—so it can't be played with just a deck of cards, but usually it's pretty easy to find some kind of betting counters. If you don't like gambling, you can play it as a tournament, in which each person gets a fixed number of chips and the last player left with chips wins.

Personally, I really don't like playing money-betting games without using real money. Even if the amount of money is ridicously low that's fine, but when it's zero it completely fucks up the gameplay.

@Lo'oris That's why I recommend playing it in a tournament format if not for money. That way winning or losing the tournament is at least at stake (or coming in second or third). Yes, some people might not take it as seriously as others, but that's true regardless of what game you play; if you have players who don't hope to win or care about winning, that can throw off any multiplayer game.

You can find lists of card games for different numbers of players at pagat.com. In particular, Looking for Friends (找朋友) looks interesting, though I haven't tried it. It's described as a trick-taking game that works well with large groups.

Hearts (yes, similar to the Microsoft game) works surprisingly well with 8 people and 2 packs: I've not tried with more, but there's no theoretical reason why not .  Racing Demon (one pack per person) is also good, if a little raucous with high numbers.

Mao can work well with large numbers of players, or you can open a few more decks and get several different games going in the same room. It's also an intriguing game to watch, for those who don't understand how to play.

Creights is a very engaging, Uno-like party game played with a standard deck.  It is about 70% luck and 30% skill, in my estimation.
It scales easily to about 7-8 players, but requires two decks shuffled together with 5/6+ players.  It doesn't require those two decks to have the same backs, but make sure to remove a couple of 5s from the deck if you play with two decks.

Liar is simple, requires some tactics to have a chance to win and can be played by all ages.

Good suggestion - we know a similar game by the name cheat (+1)


text:
Palafico round in Perudo
We played a game of Perudo the other day and ran into a situation during a palafico round.
Assume there are three players left.  Player A has just lost their 4th die, Player B also has only one die left, and Player C has a few left.  A opens with a bid of two aces.  Can B then bid two twos?  How about three twos?
The rules state that during a palafico round aces are not wild, but it doesn't seem to clarify whether a bid in non-wild aces is still worth double.

Good question! I agree that the rules aren't completely clear here. We play this by treating the aces in a palafico round exactly as if they were normal numbers. So in your example both two twos and three twos would be valid bids by B.
Think about the purpose of the doubling rule for wild aces. In a normal bid, when you say five threes, you are making an estimate about the number of threes plus the number of aces. But when you bid on aces, you are bidding on aces alone. The doubling rule exists to make these bids comparable.
But during a palafico round, aces are not wild; they're just ordinary numbers. It thus doesn't make any sense to require the doubling rule, because in this round, no bids benefit from additional aces. In other words, all bids are made on equal terms.

This sounds like a sensible interpretation.  I guess the key thing is to agree the rule clearly before the game (or even at the start of the first palafico round would be sufficient).


text:
Agricola Online
Does anyone know of any online (or iPhone, iPad, PC, Xbox, PS2, or PS3 for that matter!) versions of Agricola - or know if any are in the works?

play-agricola.com
14 playable boards, images directly from the game.  All expansions, and the site owners appear to have a hot line to the designer.

An iPad/iPhone-version is coming this winter:
http://ipadboardgames.org/2011/schedule-of-upcoming-games/
Edit:
The iOS app is out:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/agricola/id561521557?mt=8

http://boiteajeux.net
Added Agricola on 28/07/11. Very well made. Board and card scans are from the French edition, but tool tips are in English.

That is excellent, best I've seen so far!  Just did a quick solo game and got 64 points...

This site was AWESOME: http://www.agricolaonline.com/
Until the guy had to take it down.
play-agricola.com was around before agricola online, but its interface is pretty atrocious and you still have to manually reload all the bits and everything.  I'd rather not play or just play the physical game than use play-agricola.com.

You can now also play online on Board Game Arena (BGA): https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=agricola
Currently in beta but will probably be released soon.