text:
When do trading deals become too unbalancing?
I've played a few games of Settlers of Catan with friends and seen some deals emerge in the trading that don't seem quite right to me.  When do deals that extend beyond the current trade become unbalancing?
For example:  Player A is planning to build a road that will block either Player B or Player C from longest road.  So Player A sets up a bidding war between B and C to control this future behavior.  B and C offer deals like:

Any time I have two of (favored resource) I will give one to you
I will never attack you with the robber

At what point do deals like these cause the balance of the game to shift too far where it's not fun or as good to play?  Balance seems to be the key in all games, and I just want to make sure deals like these don't kill it for the rest of the players.

This sounds like it's a style difference. Perhaps you should discuss this with the group and tell them why it makes you uncomfortable. If you don't think the other players are approachable in this way, it's time to find a new group.

As ICodeForCoffee said in the "bribing off the Robber" question:

According to the rules of Catan, players can't trade unless they're both exchanging resources.

This would seem to be the same issue with the agreement to give extra resources to other players.  They could form an alliance to trade the resources, but not just give the extras "in the future" for a favor.

it is fairly trivial to work around the 'both players must receive a resource' rule as long as both players have at least 1 resource.

@ColinD I believe the latest rules make it much more explicit - you aren't allowed to trade 2 wood for 1 wood, for example.

The rules are explicit about trade (such as giving free resources).  They make no mention about promises of future actions (such as not using the robber against someone).  There are plenty of deals that can be made that seem collusive but are totally allowed under the rules of Catan.

Deals in Catan are not binding.  There's no game rule to enforce the future promise.  Also, since the two players in question obviously established an alliance, your best bet is to ally with the fourth player.
In general, these and other types of trades are a good thing rules-wise because players farther behind allying for mutual benefit helps balance out unfair randomness in the game (assuming rational play, of course).

Deals can be "unbalanced" as long as they are "within the rules." That is, either party can offer to trade RESOURCES at 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 in "domestic trade."
What you cannot do is to involve a "non-resource" consideration such as action. I can't offer two resources for one resource and an "action" (e.g. refrain from putting the robber on me) even if the deal may actually be "balanced."
And the other thing is that you may trade only resoures currently IN HAND. You can't offer to trade, say two resources in hand for one resource now and one resource "when you get it."

I'm pretty experienced with groups that have a similar play-style to yours.
The main deals that strike my groups as unfair are those which are 'kingmakers.' That is, a player is threatening to hand the game to someone else unless a third party gives him something.


text:
What game do these dice belong to?
I can't for the life of me can't remember where these dice came from, but I remember liking the game (it was from my childhood). Does anyone recognize where these came from?

Hi!  Welcome to the site.  Can you give us more information about the game?

Those are from Cosmic Wimpout, at http://www.cosmicwimpout.com/, and yes, that's a great game.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How can I play Arkham Horror remotely?
Having recently moved quite a long distance away from a friend who owns Arkham Horror, we have decided to continue playing games via telepresence (supplied by google+ hangouts).
My first go at playing remotely had me opening pages in tabs on the Arkham Horror wiki and tracking everything manually in a text editor.
Do there exist any software or web tools to reduce lookup times and unify all character bookkeeping into a single interface?

Short Answer: No?
Longer Answer: Not that I've used at least. The only Arkham-management-eqsue software I've used is the Arkham toolkit for iOS, but that only helps manage the location/OW decks and isn't really for distance play.
That said, there is a program/system called VASSAL that people can make modules for that allow network play of various games. I've never used VASSAL myself, but I know that it can be used to play rather complicated competitive games online, and a quick search reveals that there is a VASSAL module for Arkham plus every expansion here that got updated a few weeks ago. I see a note on the page that all of the common item cards are blank to make sure people own a copy, so I don't know what other modifications if any the modules would need after downloading to get it into a completely easily playable state. That may be your best chance at a good online method of playing Arkham. If you give it a shot, reply with your experiences in some fashion; it would be useful info to have here.

Short update: I've finished a few games in vassal (4 players all controlled by myself) and found it completely acceptable for the purpose. It can be well used as a remote tracker for a real game, and is quite acceptable as a table-substitute. It would be almost impossible to play if one doesn't have experience with the real game though, due to the sheer complexity of pieces. The AH wiki is a decent-enough lookup for the common items that I've mostly memorized anyways. I'll post a real answer once I've tested this with real remote play.

VASSAL is an excellent tool for remote play
This evening I played remotely using vassal, the arkahm horror wiki, and google video. I can state that the tracking mechanics of VASSAL (with all expansions installed) offers just the right amount of support to provide for remote play over webcam.
The webcam, positioned a laptop's height above the board facing so that the text is readable on the webcam, provides an excellent view of the board and associated tokens. Monster tokens should be inserted into plastic holders and be upright instead of flat, for more effective visibility.
A character should be maintained within VASSAL, with item cards being taken from decks in the real board with a quick "choose from deck" within vassal. It is fast and can be done while other players are taking their turns. While it is necessary for monster details to be read out, playing via webcam and vassal is far better than not playing at all and something that I will do again. In fact, it is better than actual play within VASSAL, due to the feeling of actually sitting at the board and the ease at which players at the tables handle cards and deal with the physical interactions required of the board.

What do you mean by 'it is necessary for monster details to be read out'? Are you talking about text on the back of monsters because it's too small? If so, there is a zoom button in the top toolbar that may help the text become legible.

No, it's that the camera does not present monster details in any useful level of detail, and it's entirely too much work simulating monsters on the local board.

Ultimately Vassal mods are very easy to modify :)
just unrar that sucker and change all the pictures with photoshop that don't have text on them.
Started working on that myself last night. Then I quit after my... tenth? card... or 8th. I might finish that sometime but it would only be for personal use as I just don't want to drag out the box when I try to play on the computer.
In theory I suppose one could use the vassal mod for playing without having the boardgame. but it IS a ton of work.

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


text:
How do you configure the people playing Werewolves to not give each other away?
Werewolves, if you're not aware, is a group game played with hidden roles. It's also best played with a fairly large group -- 10, 15 or more.
During various stages of the night, people need to do certain things. However, both noise and movement can give certain things away. (Reaching across a table, or walking across a room, to flip a card, etc.)
One solution we've come up with is to play very loud music during those times. This helps to mask a lot of the secret play.
Unless, however, you're in a very large space, too, you can often feel the person near you move regardless of how loud the music is.
So, does anyone have any good ideas to such issues with this game? I realize it's also up to the players to "play fair" -- otherwise there's no point. But you also don't want to be accidentally handed the answer.
Thanks!

Wait a minute? Do you allow players to stand up during the night phase?

@Powertieke With a large group it may be necessary for someone to move around in order to indicate to the moderator who they are choosing.

I played this recently and the group I played with had established the practice of having everyone repeatedly smack their hand on the table while heads are down during the night phase. The table smacking creates enough noise and vibration to mask movements. The only caveat is that people need to remember to keep smacking while they point with the other hand. :)

Amusing. :) I suppose you can also get the people who have been taken out to make noise, walk around, and generally help confuse the "sleepers."

Also stamping is good

We put our hands over our ears and hum.

Drumming on the table (sound + movement) is what I'm used to too.

Seat people far enough away so that they can't feel each other move.  Either get people on the floor  or in individual chairs.  If you have kitchen chairs and enough space this can be done.
Another option is to have the judge walk around the room and point at people for the werewolves.  Their werewolves can nod their heads on who they want their next victim to be.  This way the judge is the only one doing the pointing movement.  If you have everyone drumming their hands as Todd suggested, you should have a fairly easy way to have the werewolves secretly select victims without giving each other away.

This is what I've seen - the judge/moderator walks around, making sure to do some business near everyone, and does all the necessary actions for the Werewolves during this time.

This is a good suggestion for when there's enough space and no table. (Just getting seating positions for 15+ people is hard enough, much less chairs.) :)

I played it with a dozen people spread all over the room this way, some even standing... but yes, you need a certain amount of space for the moderator to walk around.

A good moderator can get all the work done with almost no noise. Hand signals can work wonders.

One way to exploit this, is that you can move on another turn (for example a wolf can move on the seers turn).
But there is a vital role for the game master. I have seen games ruined by adressing the witch as he while there was only male player alive.
A good game master messes with several cards if a role has to be shown. Talks in a random direction (not to the player she talks to). And walks around the table touching several players (if they are seated close to eachother).
This is a fun part of the game. People give themself away by small hints. And you can take advantage of it. I was once (as a wolf) trusted by another player because I was sitting next to him.

Agreed about the small hints. It's not fun when it's an obvious hint, though. The psychological aspects are the best. :)

You might want to consider that people "giving themselves away" is part of the game, and an important source of clues for others. Advanced players will even sometimes "wrongly" emit noises or make gestures to confuse others into thinking they are what they're not.
My policy is that players who draw unwanted attention to themselves, be it werewolves pointing to their next victim, or simply flipping their card for checking what they should have in memory, should suffer the consequences (if their opponents pay attention...). The game is fast enough that this will serve as a lesson for next round.
The only player that should care about not giving clues away is the Moderator. I try to take great care not to talk to people directly, sliding the head around all directions while speaking so that it's not easy to triangulate werewolves or the Seer, etc.

I love acting a bit Seer-y then smiling smugly during the werewolf part of the night phase. It's got me killed and protected the seer so many times :)

We always sit in a circle (or circle-ish) so the moderator can stand in the middle and twirl to see everyones eyes. We have silent nights. Moderator asks werewolves to open their eyes and all agree on a kill by pointing to a single player. Misc noises can always be heard by people coughing or the dog making noise. You're never really sure if the noise is cause for alarm. Nobody ever gets out of their chair though during this time except for dead people, who can help add noises.

Use an ipad (Curse of Pandora).

Interesting. I'll have to check that out. I don't think it would be quite the same game (fun cards and lack of electronics being a nice trait of Werewolves), but it might help. Thanks. :)

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


text:
How does Infect resolve in M:TG?
I'm making a poison deck and want to check the Infect rules.
If a 2/2 creature with Infect is blocked by a vanilla 3/3 creature, what happens?
I know the 3/3 gets two -1/-1 counters instead of damage, but does it do 3 or 1 damage to my 2/2 infect creature?
Can anyone give reference to official rules on when the counters come into play?

Related: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/883/how-does-infect-interact-with-lifelink

This is a question about Infect, not poison.

Oops, I capitalized infect in the question/previous comment when I shouldn't have, and now I can't change enough characters to get another suggested edit. :(

One thing for future readers to note: infect isn't a spell or ability, so it doesn't actually resolve.

if a 2/2 poison creature is blocked by a normal 3/3 creature what happens ?
I know the 3/3/ gets two -1/-1 counters instead of damage but does it do 3 or 1 damage to my 2/2 poison creature ?
can anyone give reference to official rules on when the counters come into play?

From the comprehensive rules, all damage is dealt simultaneously.:

510.2. Second, all combat damage that's been assigned is dealt simultaneously. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack. No player has the chance to cast spells or activate abilities between the time combat damage is assigned and the time it's dealt. This is a change from previous rules.

A creature with infect deals damage like this, according to rule 119.3d & e and 702.88c:

119.3d Damage dealt to a creature by a source with wither and/or infect causes that many -1/-1 counters to be put on that creature.
119.3e Damage dealt to a creature by a source with neither wither nor infect causes that much damage to be marked on that creature.
702.88c Damage dealt to a creature by a source with infect isn't marked on that creature. Rather, it causes that many -1/-1 counters to be put on that creature. See rule 119.3.

Therefore, since damage is done simultaneously and the counters come into play at the same time damage is dealt, your 2/2 creature with infect will be dealt 3 damage, and the 3/3 creature will get two -1/-1 counters during the combat damage step. Your creature with infect will therefore die.

However, if your infect creature had First Strike, it would only be dealt 1 damage and survive.

@Pithlit That would be correct, since there would be two Combat Damage Steps as per rule 702.7, and the 3/3 creature without first strike or double strike would not assign damage during the first step.

DForck's answer is correct.  The only way for the 2/2 poison creature to receive only 1 damage from the 3/3 blocker is if it has First Strike as well as Infect: then, in the first strike combat damage step, 2 points of infected damage is dealt, putting two -1/-1 counters on the 3/3; and then during normal combat damage, the now 1/1 creature deals its damage.
Infect means that a creature "deals its damage [to creatures] as -1/-1 counters".  It doesn't change the speed of the damage in any way; it doesn't alter the damage from being damage in any way (so, for instance, a creature with Infect and Lifelink will gain its controller the same amount of life as the number of -1/-1 counters dealt).  It's just plain old ordinary damage, albeit in a slightly modified form.

Combat damage happens at the same time for both sides, so if you attack with a 2/2 with wither (or whatever the new one is that does poison), and they block with a 3/3, your creature does its 2 damage to the blocking creature the same time the blocking creature does its 3 damage to your attacking creature.  The attacking creature dies with the 3 damage but the 3/3, after combat, is now a 1/1.

The "new one that does poison" is called Infect.

@thesunneversets, thanks, I haven't played much with sets after Alara.


text:
In Seven Wonders can you use the "Play card from Discard Piles" ability to play an age III card?
In Seven Wonders one of the the wonder abilities allows you to look through discarded cards and pick one to build for free. If you use this in your very last turn can you pick a card from Age III, i.e. can you pick one that has only just been discarded?
I guess similarly could you use it in the last turn of Age II to pick up an Age II card but that is not nearly as powerful.

When you take the last turn, each player first discards a card and then plays a card.  At this point when playing the wonder, you have access to the cards that were discarded for that reason.
You also have access to all cards previously discarded, as well as the cards discarded that round.

OK that was what I thought thanks for clarifying, good answer!

I'm not sure if I understand your last sentence correctly. In the rules it says that you can choose a card from the discard pile at the end of the round you built the wonder. So you can even choose those cards players discarded for money in the same round.

@unor Major oversight of the rules by me.  Fixed the answer.  Thank you

On page 9 of the rules, the Clarification for Halicarnassus makes this clear. You can play any card previously discarded, or any cards discarded the turn this wonder stage is built.

Clarification: this special action is taken at the end of the turn in which the stage is built. If players discard cards on that turn (for example, during the 6th turn of an age), the player can also choose from among those cards.


text:
What is a good board game to use for a programming competition
We recently had a programming competition where each team had to write an A.I. for the board game Broadside. It was perfect because the rules were simple enough that the teams had to concentrate on the basic idea of when and how to attack, and not on handling a number of esoteric rules. At the same time, it had really good gameplay rules so that the smarter A.I. had a strong advantage.
So, any suggestions for games that would be a good one for a programming competition? A perfect game would have:

Lack of existing readily available AI's
Handles 6+ players
Simple easily understood rules (no or few edge cases)
Enough depth so that the better AI has a strong advantage

Hmm. Chess and Go have pretty simple rules. But the smarter AI tends to have a strong advantage. I assume you don't want to go down that route. Can you elaborate on your requirements (why are those unsuitable candidates)?

I don't want to use a game where there are a lot of good AIs out on the web. If it was chess or go it becomes a contest to see who can Google the best open source AI. I also would prefer one that can have 6+ players a board so we can do the play-off quicker.

Would you prefer games that have little to no randomness, or does that matter?

Randomness doesn't matter as long as a better designed A.I. will win. In other words writing an A.I. for "Deal or No Deal" would be totally random. But one for Risk would be fine where the dice and cards have a big impact. (Risk is out because the map is too weird for a 9 hour programming contest.)

Why was this considered not constructive?

If you read the paragraph under the close reason/closers, you will find the description.  SE tends to work well when there are only a limited number of potential answers to the question. While this isn't a good question for the site, it would be good in chat.

Robo Rally (rules) could be interesting. Amusingly, the game itself is programming a robot, one of several (up to 8) on a game board.
Each player gets 9 random instruction cards per round and chooses 5 to play.  Then all the robots' moves are evaluated simultaneously (more or less).  Your robot can get pushed around or damaged by other robots as well as by conveyor belts and other board elements.  First robot to hit all the checkpoints in order wins.
You should have a few knobs to tweak here to make the challenge easier or harder:

Do the players know the board in advance, or does their AI have to deal with it dynamically?
The damage rules could be left out for simplicity, or left in for more complexity

It's possible this is too complex, but it's pretty well suited for this kind of contest, I think.
It's also an excellent board game to play in person, especially with other programmers.

It's perfect - just the level of complexity wanted, up to 8 players, etc. Unfortunately there are a number of open source versions out there with an A.I. player. Bummer because this would have been perfect :(

Oh hey, I didn't think of that.  Maybe you could tweak the rules somehow to make those ineffective...

That's a really good suggestion. There are some changes that would make any existing AI useless. Of course, I have to hope I don't create poor game play in that case. But this is worth thinking about. Any suggestions on how to change it?

Main problem is the complexity of the boards themselves -- getting that info into a form the AI can readily use is more work than the AI itself...

We used Robo Rally - details at http://blogs.windwardreports.com/davidt/2011/08/code-wars-live-blog.html thank you for an excellent suggestion.

Arimaa
Since it's been designed to be hard to implement an AI for, Arima is the ideal choice for a serious (non-recreational) competition. And, if it can beat the best human, it's a ten-thousand dollar prize. Further, the designer WANTS people to try. It also uses chess pieces and a chess board, so graphics are a non-issue, as stock graphics or even standard symbol font characters can be used.
For free rules, and information on the Arimaa Challenge, go to
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/

Interesting. My worry here is that there are AIs out there so the winner migh just be the best at google. Otherwise it would be really good.

Just a matter of comparing the source code to eliminate that...

@aramis: And what if someone has the same algorithm as an open source version? If you disallow it, you've placed arbitrary restrictions on solutions - and forced everyone to be aware of all the existing AIs in order to not infringe. If you allow it, well, it'll work if and only if everyone's honest - or as long as the winners are all better than all existing AIs.

What about Saboteur?
It is for 2-10 players, very simple rules, the randomness is limited by the "tiles", but allows for quite some AI options.

How about Blockus?  It's simple, expandable to any number of players, even to 3d, and has interesting choices on representations of the pieces.  It also allows for varying board shapes and sizes in the AI world.  And it's pretty to watch running.

World Cup Tournament Football
The rules are straightforward and very simple, and success in this game is dependent upon figuring out how your opponents are playing without being able to see which teams your opponents "have". An unskilled AI can tip its hand early in the game in much the same way an unskilled rummy player will reveal their goals to a skilled opponent: they can deduce which teams you've got if you are not careful about how you play your cards.
An additional advantage is that teams can be evenly divided among 6, 8, or 12 AI, depending on how you want to distribute the teams ... you could modify the bonuses given to each team to make teams more or less even so that random draw of teams has less or more impact, or even group teams into specific packs and have each AI play from different positions, similar to a duplicate bridge tournament (maybe even down to distributing cards identically for each run).
Formula Dé
The rules are relatively straightforward, and while the distance you move is largely controlled by dice, there's a good bit of strategy involved with respect to the best path to take, how to approach turns and such. An AI that does not judge turns and relative positions of cars will be significantly handicapped. With the advanced rules, if you allow "players" to determine the number of Wear Points assigned to each component, there should be additional variance between AIs.

Formula De has an official Java implementation already.

I was thinking of Formula De too. I've not seen the Java implementation before though.

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/170270/formula-de-online tells you how to get it from http://formulede.online.free.fr/

@aramis, that's not necessarily a bad thing. If an existing implementation isn't open-source, it can be used as a point of comparison or even as an opponent; if it is, then it's basically the same situation as with Arimaa.

Wizard
It's a card game for 3-6 people. The rules are relatively simple. First you try and predict how many tricks you'll take in a round. And then you play to make it so. If you hit the mark you get points proportional to the number of tricks you made. If you're off in either direction you loose points proportional to the number you're off by.
From what I could gather there is only an IPhone version out there that has AI play.
Cluedo/Clue
Also very simple rules and you could even have two leagues: One with movement and one without movement. There are definitely algorithms out there but I don't know how accessible they are...

RA
Ra has simple mechanics, but interesting AI since it's a competitive auction.

Based on the comments perhaps this should just stand as "reasons why Diplomacy is not a good suggestion", summarized as:

the AI would be too hard to code
AI for diplomacy already exists

Original answer:
How about Diplomacy?  6+ players, I've never heard of any AI, rules are deterministic, and room for AI to really achieve and show difference between programmers seems ample.

Diplomacy relies too much on negotiations, treaties, and other hard to implement elements, especially given the conditionals in most treaties. It wouldn't end up playing like diplomacy, even tho it might look like it, unless someone had the backing of the Jeopardy bot team...

@aramis good point. I could see the details of how to code up treaties and negotiations as being too difficult in practice. It would be like a multi-dimensional prisonsers' dilemma problem times 1000.

Diplomacy AI does exist. See http://www.daide.org.uk/wiki/Main_Page

lol - hilarious edit Adam

@Ryan, just trying to stem the legitimate tide of down votes while simultaneously embracing the SE concept of editing answers that are out-of-date.

But if you insist on fixing your own questions, how are you going to get the peer pressure badge?? :)


text:
Does Cremate counter Flashback, Scavenge, and their ilk?
I'm looking at the card Cremate:

Cremate - {B}

Instant - common RTR

Exile target card from a graveyard.

Draw a card.

Now, can I use this to respond to a flashback or scavenge?
According to the comp rules, the first thing you do when casting a spell (in the case of flashback) is:

601.2a The player announces that he or she is casting the spell. That card (or that copy of a card) moves from where it is to the stack.

Because it moves on to the stack, is it still in the graveyard for me to exile? And even if it was, would the effect be countered?
But if you can't use it to counter flashback and such, it seems to detract from its usefulness at instant speed.

Whenever one has a question involving keyword abilities, one should start by finding out what abilities they represent.

702.33a Flashback appears on some instants and sorceries. It represents two static abilities: one that functions while the card is in a player’s graveyard and another that functions while the card is on the stack. “Flashback [cost]” means “You may cast this card from your graveyard by paying [cost] rather than paying its mana cost” and “If the flashback cost was paid, exile this card instead of putting it anywhere else any time it would leave the stack.” Casting a spell using its flashback ability follows the rules for paying alternative costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2e–g.

One can't cast Cremate in response to Flashback since Flashback doesn't go on the stack. It's a static ability that allows you to cast the card from somewhere it couldn't normally be cast.
If one casts Cremate in response to someone casting a card from a graveyard, Cremate won't be able to target the card just cast. By the time the card in the graveyard is cast, it's no longer in the graveyard; it's on the stack, where it's not a valid target for Cremate.

702.96a Scavenge is an activated ability that functions only while the card with scavenge is in a graveyard. “Scavenge [cost]” means “[Cost], Exile this card from your graveyard: Put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the power of the card you exiled on target creature. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.”

If one casts Cremate in response to someone activating Scavenge, Cremate won't be able to target the card with Scavenge. Part of the cost of activating Scavenge involves exiling the card. By the time the ability is activated, the card is no longer in the graveyard; it's in exile where it's not a valid target for Cremate.

But if you can't use it to counter flashback and such, it seems to detract from its usefulness at instant speed.

Yes, but keep in mind that Scavenge and Sorceries with Flashback (as opposed to Instants with Flashback) can only be used "any time you could cast a sorcery” (in your main phase when the stack is empty). If you initiate the Cremate, if it's outside of his turn, or if it's outside of his main phases, he can't Scavenge or cast the Sorcery. Scavange and Flashback is often quite expensive, so cost could also affect when one can take advantage of it. End of Combat Damage step would be a good time to cast it.
Yes, it could take a bit of planning to use Cremate, but that's not too much to ask from a one mana cantrip.

60% of existing cards with Flashback aren't instants.

Also note this common case: to flash something back with Snapcaster, your opponent must first resolve the Snapcaster, then resolve his trigger (granting flashback to the card in your graveyard). When your opponent puts Snapcaster's trigger on the stack, you can respond by exiling its target.

@AlexP That makes much more sense. A friend (and frequent winner of 60+ member tournaments) suggested Cremate to me as a budget Snap-counter alternative to Deathrite Shaman. Now I see why. I might not know exactly which one he's going to use with snap, but I'll probably have an idea.

@corsiKa You can know exactly which one he's going to use with Snapcaster. Like this: Wait for the Snapcaster itself to resolve. Once he comes into play, his controller puts his ETB ability on the stack, which includes declaring a target for it. The ability has not resolved yet, so the target spell card does not have flashback. Now you cast your graveyard-hate Instant targeting the same graveyard card. Your hate resolves first, exiling the card. His Snapcaster ability has no valid target, so it fizzles.

Technically, if you initiate the Cremate, even if it is opponents main phase, he can't cast it if it is a sorcery (since the stack is not empty). So anytime the opponent passes priority is a fine time to Cremate a sorcery.

@tengfred, hum? I know; I specifically mentioned that.

Ah, I see, I parsed it so the first comma became a "then". My bad.

@corsiKa The opponent needs to tell you which card they are using Snapcaster to give flashback to, they have to target it with Snapcaster, you can respond to this and remove it from the graveyard before it actually gets flashback, making snapcaster's effect fizzle.

Now, can I use this to respond to a flashback or scavange? No. Flashback and Scavenge both remove the card from the graveyard, where you would "target" the card with your spell. Without a valid target, you cannot cast Cremate.

702.32a Flashback appears on some instants and sorceries. It represents two static abilities: one that functions while the card is in a player’s graveyard ... . “Flashback [cost]” means “You may cast this card from your graveyard by paying [cost] rather than paying its mana cost” ... . Casting a spell using its flashback ability follows the rules for paying alternative costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2e–g.

601.2. To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. ...

702.95a Scavenge is an activated ability that functions only while the card with scavenge is in a graveyard. “Scavenge [cost]” means “[Cost], Exile this card from your graveyard: Put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the power of the card you exiled on target creature. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.”

Because it moves on to the stack, is it still in the graveyard for me to exile? And even if it was, would the effect be countered? No. Cards and other objects cannot be in two places at the same time. If the card is on the stack, it is not in the graveyard for you to exile.
If the card was in the graveyard, and for instance, Scavenge read like this (which it doesn't):

Scavenge [cost] means "[Cost]: Exile this card from your graveyard. Put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the power of this card on target creature. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery."

The card would use Last Know Information, and the effect wouldn't be countered.

Last Known Information - Information about an object that’s no longer in the zone it’s expected to be in, or information about a player that’s no longer in the game. This information captures that object’s last existence in that zone or that player’s last existence in the game. See rules 112.7a, 608.2b, 608.2g, and 800.4g.

If perhaps the ability were worded similar to Standstill, with an "if you do," then the effect would be countered because Scavenge didn't exile the card.

Scavenge [cost] means "[Cost]: Exile this card from your graveyard. If you do, put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the power of this card on target creature. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery."


text:
Can a king capture an opposing queen?
A Beginner's Scenario:  I castle kingside prior to ever being in check. Then, my son positions his queen and on a subsequent turn, takes out the middle pawn of three (see diagram below), thus exposing my king, and declares "checkmate".  Is this a legal move on his part? Or, may I take out his queen with my king?

In the position above capturing his queen with your king is not only legal but the only legal move you have. Unless it was your queen on g2 he's just blundered his queen away and is about to go further material behind as you threaten both his bishop on c4 and a skewer on a8. He can temporarily avoid both with Ba2 but you attack his bishop or knight and he has to surrender one.

A player may LEGALLY move his queen anywhere on the board that the queen can reach on its move, unless that move exposes the player's own king to check (e.g. if the queen is "pinned" in front of the king by an opposing piece).
Legal moves ordinarily include moving the queen next to the opposing (your) king, which puts that king in check, given the possible movement of the queen on the FOLLOWING move. It also puts the other player's queen into potential jeopardy.
If your king is in check, you must try to move out of check. Often, that means moving the king, but in this case, it doesn't work, because the queen controls all the squares AROUND your king, meaning he'd still be in check if he moved.
Hence, your only possible recourse is to TRY to capture the opposing queen. If it's unguarded, you may be home "free."
But if the queen is GUARDED, meaning your nephew can take your king after he takes the queen, your king is in "checkmate" and you have lost the game. I infer from your nephew's declaration of "checkmate" that the queen is guarded. (It's possible that he's wrong, so I'd need to see the chessboard or a written record of the game.)

"...meaning your nephew can take your king..." - I've never understood why chess doesn't last one move longer, with the aim being to capture the opponent's king.  It would be much easier to explain that way.

@tttppp:That's just the convention. The game ends when the king is "hopelessly" lost, not when he is taken.

@tttppp actually if you can "prove" a checkmate in x-moves a game is won. You don't have to play it out, displaying each and every move is enough. (You can't lose by time if you displayed it - given you still have to display it in regular game time).

@tttppp: If one were to allowed to expose one's own king to capture, what should happen if all of a player's moves would do so?  The fact that a draw is declared in any situation where a player's king isn't in immediate danger, but any move would leave him so, is a crucial element of endgame strategy.  If there were a rule allowing players to leave their king in check, it would have to be coupled with a rule to establish the aforementioned draw scenario.  It's simpler to just say that moves that leave the king in check are forbidden.

Yes you can capture the Queen, unless capturing the Queen would put the King under check again. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess#Check

Concise. Great answer

It's definitely legal, and it's checkmate if the Queen is guarded, since the King won't be able to capture it then.  If there is nothing protecting the Queen, then the King can just capture it.

When someone has announced check/checkmate, it immediately brings to mind how to get out of check. When in check, each of the following is a legal way to get out of check:

Taking the piece that checks
Moving the king to a position where it is not in check
Moving a piece between the checking piece (rook, bishop, or queen) and the king
Of course, a condition is that your king is no longer in check after the move. So, taking a checking piece is legal, and common.

Can you capture the piece that is checking you?  In this case yes you can Kg1xQq2 there are no pieces protecting the Black Queen make this move very legal
Can the White King move out of check? In this case no. There is no place he can move without being captured, Unless he captures the Queen. See provision #1.
Can White interpose a piece? No the piece checking him is directly in front of his King leaving no intervening squares. A piece could be placed to block the action of the Black Queen. In this case White's only legal move is to capture the Black Queen which is unguarded. If you can't follow one of these provisions you are in checkmate.
http://www.chessvariants.org/d.chess/matefaq.html

Your son made a legal move, but it was not checkmate you can capture it with your king your only legal move.

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


text:
What do I need to get (re)started in Warmachine?
I got into Warmachine a while ago, then fell out of it. I'm looking to get back into it, but I'm not sure what books I would now need. I have a couple of the original books, but I don't have the Mk2 book. It seems that I could just start over with that.
Any suggestions?

You neet Warmachine MKII rulebook and the MKII cards for your models.
Depending on how many models you already have you can buy the single cards from the PP online Sore or your faction card Deck.

Another option besides getting the Mk2 cards is getting the new War Room app, which lets you view the cards in a digital manner.  Also has look-up options for specific rules which can come in very handy.  The app is free, but the full set of cards can cost additional $$.

Just keep in mind that if you don't have physical cards, you need to be prepared to hand your opponent your phone/tablet so they can find out what your models do.

Privateer Press has since stopped releasing expansion books, and newly designed models/units no longer come with physical cards. Older models/units that are still new-in-the-box still come with cards, but those cards are (probably) outdated since Mk3 included rebalancing across almost all models. In order to get back in the game, there are two official options:

War Room 2 app
The card database

The War Room 2 app is free to download, however you must buy faction decks in order to unlock the cards for that faction. The app is great for list building, and you can start a battle with a list which allows you to track damage to models, how many models are left in a unit, and other useful stuff.
The card database is great for players, like myself, who prefer to use physical cards at the table. Each card is guaranteed to have the latest updates in the database. You can select which cards you want to print, and how many copies, and the site will create a PDF with 4 cards per page for you to download. You can then print them out yourself, cut them out, and put them into card sleeves like you used to.
Privateer Press has gone this route because the game is now developed and balanced through their Community Integrated Development (CID) process. This allows the community to actively play new and existing models that are still in the final stages of development and/or (re)balancing. Any revisions to rules for existing models will include updates to their cards, which is why it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Privateer Press to include cards with new models.
There's also an unofficial source for model rules, and that is Warmachine University. It's a wiki and the community that updates it does a pretty good job of listing all of the rules of a model/unit, and includes plenty of commentary on the effectiveness, weaknesses, and synergies. I find it a great place to get an initial impression on models I'm not really familiar with.
Another thing that is a different with Warmachine in Mk3 is the fact that you can now pre-measure anything at any time. With this change, there are now different products available for measuring sticks that range between half-inch all the way through 14 inches. As long as you have a good tape measure, you don't need measuring sticks... but it certainly makes it easier to measure threat ranges. This was the most surprising change for me when I got back into the game myself.


text:
How do continuous effects interact with "enters the battlefield" triggers?
At what point do creatures entering the battlefield begin to be affected by enchantments and abilities of creatures already on the battlefield?
For example, Mentor of the Meek's ability triggers when creatures of power 2 or less enter the battlefield.
If I play a 2/2 creature while Honor of the Pure is in play does the Mentor's ability trigger?
Similarly if I play a 2/2 human creature while Mayor of Avabruck is in play (face up) does the Mentor's ability trigger? (It clearly has no effect if the card is transformed (face down) and the Mentor's ability would trigger.)

If I play a 2/2 creature while Honor of the Pure is in play does the Mentor's ability trigger?

No.

Similarly if I play a 2/2 human creature while Mayor of Avabruck is in play (face up) does the Mentor's ability trigger?

No.

603.6b Continuous effects that modify characteristics of a permanent do so the moment the permanent is on the battlefield (and not before then). The permanent is never on the battlefield with its unmodified characteristics. Continuous effects don’t apply before the permanent is on the battlefield, however (see rule 603.6d).

Note the ramifications if there is a continuous effect that reduced the power of creatures. You could draw a card if you played a 3/3 creature and Night of Souls' Betrayal was in play.

Then "enters the battlefield" implies "on the battlefield"?

@Stephen Not sure what you mean. "Enters the Battlefield" is the trigger, continuous effects modify the card the moment it enters the battlefield and before the trigger checks attributes.


text:
How can I find games based on Caesar's campaigns in Gaul and Britannia?
I like Caesar's Gallic War by Worthington games.
How can I locate similarly themed games that focus on Caesar's campaigns in Gaul and Britannia?

Folks, if you want to discuss the closing further please open a question on meta.

Meta question opened.

I've edited and reopened this question.  Pietro, it would be great if you could edit in specifically what attracted you to this theme and the aspects of Caesar's Gallic War that appeals to you.

One great way to find similarly themed games is to consult the GeekLists on BoardGameGeek.

Find your game on Boardgamegeek
Scroll to the bottom, look for the "GeekList" section
Check out GeekLists that sound interesting.

For Caesar's Gallic War, I found this GeekList, Bellum Gallicum (58-51 BC) - Caesar Against the Gauls which appears to be a well curated list of 20 games dealing with Caesar and the Gauls.


text:
Robo Rally - Alternative rules for option cards?
Robo Rally is a fun game but the option cards totally break it if a person just sits on the wrench and hammer and collects them all.
Has anyone tried a house rule to discourage this behaviour?  How did it work out?

This uses the online PDF from http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/roborally.pdf
You aren't allowed to "sit" anywhere.
First: You have to play cards. If you time-out, the player to the right plays random cards to fill out your non-locked registers. (p. 4) Locked registers WILL be played.
Second:
All movement Cards used but not locked are discarded, as are unused. (p. 4, 8) New ones will be drawn.
Third:
You only get one draw of an option card per turn, and only if you END the turn (and thus also Register 5's phase) on it. Crossing it during the turn doesn't get you the card. (p. 8)
fourth:
The odds are not good in 3p or more that you'll get the cards needed to return to your start space.
Camping on a repair spot is thus not as easy as it may seem. Especially since you retain only locked cards. If one gets consistently lucky enough to have the ability to return to start spot with cards alone, it's great. If one is using terrain, it's skill, more than luck.
In short, I suspect the problem isn't the option cards, but a misread of the rules.
If there was no misread, one simple solution is to use a 1 per space limit; put a (custom) player token on each upgrade spot, and when you draw an option card, put that token on it. When it's lost, put the token on an upgrade slot where you don't have one.
I've never felt it needed, and the people I've known who did usually were making one of three mistakes:
1) retaining unused programming cards, thus being able to plan multiple turns ahead
2) retaining used programming cards. This makes it a VERY different game.
3) allowing repairs and upgrades each register phase, rather than only at the end of the turn. This makes camping on a spot far more worthwhile.

While the rules are not clear in the manual it is quite easy to spin in place or move turn around move back to stay on top of the hammer/wrench. And if you know someone may try to push you, you have more ability to keep your longest to perform move for your last so you know you'll push the other person off of the option marker.

I've seldom seen someone get 5 rotation cards two hands in a row.

Actually, camping on most repair sites is dirt simple (at least in the '90's version of the game I own).  They're almost always next to one or two walls; just point yourself at the wall and grind into it with your move forward or move backward cards.

There are TONS of ways to stay in the same spot... a U-Turn and a few moves; 5 turns; 3 turns, a move one and back up 1 just to name a few.

I someone is able to somehow null out their 5 moves to collect options - kill them!  Your robot has a laser for a reason :)
Also, most hammer and wrench spaces are hard to get to - if they sit and waste many turns collecting options you should be able to beat them in the race.

The best way to discourage this behavior is to remember it's a race, and start racing.
Grabbing early options is actually a very good strategy -- it maximizes the use you'll get out of them during the game.  But once you've got a few loaded up, get your butt moving.  Every turn your opponents spend option camping is a turn you get to advance without them messing with you.  Unless the cards royally screw you (you don't get any move cards for a few turns, or somebody lucks into a devastating option combo), the head start they're spotting you can be very tough to beat.

It's a lot easier to camp a "Toy Spot" than some of the other answers are making out. To combat this, we institute a limit of 3 options. If you would get a 4th you must choose and discard one of your options BEFORE you draw a new one. This reduces the camping to a good extent, but doesn't stop it either.
And of course, if someone is camping constantly, coming over and shoving them into a pit, or shooting the crap out of them can be the simplest method to solve the problem. Or just go tag all the flags and win while they're collecting toys.

It's not in the current set of rules, but to avoid option hoarding my play group always said that you only get a new option card if you go to a different repair bay slot (you can use your archive token as an indicator of this).  So, you can go back and forth between two double wrenches to collect them.

I agree that it's all too easy to rotate and get several option cards - usually other players are not close enough to 'just blast them either'.
So I've decided on a simple house rule that says you must move off the hammer-wrench before you can go back on to get another card - i don't mind so much if someone can go 'back 1' and 'forward 1' again, as these card combo's are much less frequent than rotate left & right.
It works well, simple and effective.

While option cards can be handy, most of them aren't going to buy you a full turn, so I'd recommend the simple strategy of:

If they're behind you, just keep going and build up that lead.
If they're in front of you, and it's not terribly out of your way, just line up with them and drill 'em full of laser holes as you go by - if they're grinding the wall, you might even manage to push them away and make them spend a turn or two course-correcting.

I don't really see a problem with too many option cards. With solid planning I usually need about 2-3 complete Turns to get to the next Flag, if the other players aren't actively blocking me. So if we both start, you take 2 turns to your Repair-Shop I'm already at the first flag. If you stay there for 5 more turns (and manage to just collect your option cards, without people shooting at you and without a stroke of bad cards or someone pushing you) - fine you than have 5 RANDOM option cards. I will at this time probably be at Flag 3 - where as you have to go to Flag 1.
Sure if you are lucky, maybe you get the right cards to get amazingly fast or to kill everyone else. But on small maps the racer will already be at Flag 3 of 4 or 5 and will win the game before you can get him. On a Big map he is probably too far away for you to actually get him properly with your option cards. And if you get too strong, all it takes is 3 Players ganging up on you and shooting you and your cards to hell...


text:
How can I identify games that would work better on the computer?
What are the things that the electronic version can do to enhance gameplay? Conversely, what could the board game version do to overcome this view? Feel free to use examples if it would help clarify your answer.

Brandon - welcome to the site!  Here we prefer questions that have distinct answers and shy away from subjective questions that have a potentially endless list of answers.  I've hastily edited your question to hopefully prevent such a list.

Computerized board and card games can have an advantage when it enables automation of what would otherwise be mundane or tedious tasks:

Shuffling cards in Dominion is a good example; eliminating shuffling applies to lots of classic card games that have wide on-line audiences like hearts, spades, etc.
Computer versions also work well if they can abstract away math that is part of the game, but not really a part of the strategy. Think about a game where anyone at the table would be comfortable helping someone get the calculation right; a benign example would be calculating the 10% income tax in monopoly or figuring out the price to unmortgage a property.
Some players don't like the uncertainty involved in games with lots of dice rolling or probability calculations because they're not comfortable enough doing them in their heads to enjoy playing in person. Obvious examples include gambling games like poker or war simulations like Axis and Allies, both of which have active and thriving on-line communities.

Attributes that make a game ill-suited to being played on a computer:

A high degree of player interaction, especially if characterized by collaboration. Examples would be Arkham Horror (highly collaborative) or Pictionary (lots of in person interaction)
Games where access to the internet completely ruins them: Trivial Pursuit and Scattegories come to mind, as does Balderdash.
Games where a significant fraction of the enjoyment comes from the atmosphere created by playing, like Arkham Horror or Betrayal at the House on the Hill.
Games where players need to take in a lot of information at once. As Edward Tufte likes to point out, the resolution of the physical world is still much greater than the resolution of a screen and most board games take up much more real estate when played than a typical monitor size. I've never played, but looking at all the pieces in the box, Twilight Imperium seems like a potential example, and even playing Axis and Allies on the computer can suffer from a hindered ability to "see the whole board".

FWIW, I've played several different computer versions of Trivial Pursuit, and I don't think internet access ruins them any more than having that access ruins the board game; it's just a matter of how you choose to play the game. (It is, however, much easier to cheat if you have a computer available while you're playing the game on a console or computer.)

For what it's worth, I rather enjoy playing Arkham via the Vassal module over the internet with a friend. We just hop on voice chat and the interaction and atmosphere don't suffer that much - the real problem is the size of the board! Possibly relevant: both in person and online, we read encounter cards to each other. (And of course, I'd say Arkham benefits even more than Dominion from lack of shuffling. With a couple expansions, the item decks get pretty awful.)

I tend to like Dominion more online than face to face.  The game has a ton of shuffling, and hence you can play much faster online.  Also, I am a bit biased, but online implementations often give access to game logs, which you can then crunch and compute interesting statistics from.  For example, my Dominion stats site and my Race for the Galaxy stats site both produce interesting stats from game logs.
I tend to think strategic games that don't have a political element to them work better online than off.  But I can't imagine playing something like BSG without being face to face.

Well, many a game's playing experience could benefit from a port to a PC. Usually those would be eurogames with little discussion at the table but quite a lot of math.
The computer can do a lot of heavy lifting and tedious tasks, making the game more dynamic, with less turn downtime and setup time. The shuffling in card games was already mentioned. But this could get even better.
Let's use an example: Imagine a digitalised version of Power Grid. Wouldn't it be easier if the game offered you direct info on how much it costs to buy a "house" in a city? It's simple addition, but the number of operations you have to make in memory makes it a chore. Everyone can do it, and they will do it, but it takes time and makes your turn longer. The game could tell you how much of a certain resource could be bought by your enemies before it's your time to buy, letting you plan spending money. It could show you how much cash the other players have. It could show you how many cities you can sustain using some or all of your power plants.
All this information is open, and quite easy to acquire; it's right there on the board. But processing it in our heads takes time, making turns longer. Wouldn't it be great if you could play two games of Power Grid in the time you used to play only one?
On the other hand, there are types of games that won't get better when digitalized, and those mostly include thematic and interaction based games. All the evil laughter when backstabbing your friends in Munchkin or Discworld is priceless and can't be done in a PC version. If you talk and laugh a lot at the table, its a good indicator that the game won't be very good when digitalized.


text:
Can I create my own version of Monopoly and distribute it ?
Can I create my own version of Monopoly and distribute it online or physically ?
I see that there were patents filed in 1923 . Can I create an improvement on the existing game and sell it online ?
If there is any law/copyright protecting this, is it per country/continent ?

Related meta discussion.

You would likely be more concerned with copyright law rather than patent law in this case, especially given that as you have noticed, the patents have expired.
There is something of a precedent for what you want to do. In 1975, Ralph Anspach made a game called Anti-Monopoly (which, by the way, is a pretty interesting game - we owned it, and at the time, as a kid, I had no idea how significant this was). After a little less than ten years of litigation, Anspach won the right to continue publishing his game. However, Parker Brothers ended up with the trademark, licensing it to Anspach, whose game is still in print.
You will probably need to be aware of how copyright law works where you live and where you plan to distribute the game. (If you're thinking about online distribution, then that may mean laws where your customers live, not just where you live or where the servers are.) If you are planning on making money from this, you should consult with a lawyer to ensure that what you're doing is consistent with applicable laws; advice you get on this site is no substitute for professional advice.

There are several elements to a game... and most but not all are protectable.
Exactly which varies widely from country to country.
Some games that are explicitly legal reworks in the US are proven infringements in France, for example.
You need to look at where you're writing at, and intending to sell to.
Even where it's legal, plagiarism is still generally considered unethical; make it different enough to be worthwhile.
In the US, the literal text is protected by copyright, as is the board art (and by derivation, the layout of spaces). The Title is a trademark, as are certain artistic elements. The Chance and Community Chest cards are trademark and copyright. The specific property names and the rent and prices are pretty much copyright. The process of play was Patent, but the patent is long expired. And, given later reforms, the flow of play is no longer protectable.
However, remember: I'm not a lawyer, and I'm surely not YOUR lawyer - engage a good Intellectual Properties lawyer before publishing a derivative. Find out what your local rights are, and how far your can go.

+1 for the bit about not being your lawyer.  Copyright/patent/trademark law varies enough that it's worth consulting a professional.

@Joe it's also worth noting that some US states have additional IP law, such as Texas' "Trade Secret Law" (actually a collection of favorable decisions in case law, not statute nor regulation). Canada, the UK, Australia, all differ. France goes well beyond them.

There are a number of Monopoly "knock-offs." I believe, for example, that Playboy created one called "Speculation" set in Chicago.
Game CONCEPTS are not copyrightable. What IS copyrightable is "text" regarding rules, properties, etc. Basically, if you apply the grade school test, "write it in your own words," you're probably ok.
Most gamers have played the game, so you won't get any mileage out of the game itself. What MIGHT appeal is a local version aimed at specific audiences. Perhaps one set in Bombay (Mumbai) for Indians or Hong Kong (for Chinese), using local street names, currencies, etc. Or one in cyberspace for "techies." The currency amounts are the things that are most "out of date" in the original Monopoly game.

You may or may not be ok with "write it in your own words". Monoply has created quite a few of its own knockoffs which have their own copyrights. And laws are tricky and judges tend to side with the better lawyer rather than the law sometimes.  The better question to ask yourself is "IS it worth the fight I could get into?"

@Chad: Basically, the new version has to be "different" enough from the old, so they can't be confused, however defined. New "knockoffs" do expand the reach, but not infinitely. Apparently, the questioner is a foreigner who wants to create a "local" version outside the US where these issues probably don't apply. That's what I was encouraging him to do.

While it is true that "concepts" are not copyrightable, the bigger lawyer wins anyway, especially in cases like this one.

As I understand it, not only are game concepts not copyrightable, neither are game mechanics. If you create a property buying game that uses a board with X number of spaces (the same as monopoly) and the players use a 6 sided die to determine how many spaces they go, and when they land on a property they have the option to buy it using money, etc etc etc. There is nothing copyrightable there. It is a concept and mechanics. Be careful with game terms that might have been invented by the game creator.


text:
How is retreating through obstacles handled in Memoir '44?
My opponent makes an attack roll and gets two flags, causing my infantry unit to retreat two hexes. The only viable path for retreat is through barbed wire directly behind the unit.
Do I:

lose one soldier from that unit, because they can't retreat for the second hex (per the "infantry units must stop" barbed wire rules)?
simply stop the unit on the barbed wire after a one-hex retreat?
some other thing that I'm too much of a M'44 noob to have encountered?

As long as the terrain isn't Impassable, you can retreat through terrain without penalty.
From the Retreat rules, page 10 (emphasis mine):

The player controlling the unit decides which hex his unit retreats onto using the following rules:
A unit must always retreat toward its controlling player’s side of the board.
Terrain has no effect on retreat moves, therefore a retreating unit may move through a forest or village without stopping. However, impassable terrain may not be moved through during a retreat move.
A unit may not retreat onto, or through, a hex already containing another unit (regardless if friend or foe).
If a unit cannot retreat; is forced to retreat off the limits of the battlefield; or would be pushed back onto a sea hex, one figure must be removed from the unit for each retreat move that cannot be completed.
Some obstacles will allow certain units to ignore the first flag rolled against them.

Since the Barbed Wire terrain type isn't impassable, you can retreat through the Barbed Wire without stopping.
In your case the answer would be 3: some other thing.  Specifically, you would retreat twice from the two flags and keep all of your units, assuming you can satisfy all other retreat conditions.


text:
In Monopoly, Does It Make Sense NOT to Buy a "Second" Property in a Color Group?
Most Monopoly players would want to buy at least ONE property in a color group, for defensive purposes.  Money is usually tight though, so it often pays to "cut corners" somewhere.
Could this "corner" cutting come in declining to buy a SECOND property in a group in which you are not interested?  (That is, as opposed to buy it now and mortgage it later for half price.) Does it matter whether or not "house rules" say that it will be put up for auction?  Does it matter whether or not someone else also owns a property in the group, so it is effectively a "third?" And is this as true for railroads as for "color" monopolies?

I think the properties are underpriced in monopoly, so my strategy has always been, buy EVERY property you land on, even if it means mortgaging everything you have (well, except the utilities, don't buy those).  This plus my aggressive trading has won me a reputation with my board-game friends as being too good at Monopoly... so they won't play it with me anymore (and the rare occasions they do, no one will trade with me, for any reason, ever) :(

it's not a "house rule" to auction the property

@BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft - why would you not buy the utilities?

@warren: The "official" rules say that a property will be auctioned--unless a "house rule" says otherwise. Sometimes a "house rule" will establish a minimum, or other parameters for an auction, rather than ruling it out altogether.

@warren: They're simply not worth the investment.  Whereas the railroads can give you lots of quick cash at the start ($200 when someone lands on any one of four squares, evenly spread out across the board), especially with lots of players; and properties can give you lots of cash later on, when you can afford houses/hotels, utilities do neither.

@TomAu: The standard rules are so finely tuned, the only house rule I concede (when playing with my kids) is a flat $200 for landing on Free Parking ($500 for pre-teens; still only $200 for teens and up). I have pictures of my youngest daughter the first time she won straight-up against her older siblings and myself, playing standard rules; a glow to last a lifetime almost.

According to Kaz Darzinskis' Winning Monopoly:

Buy from the bank any property that
  will give you ownership of two
  properties in any monopoly group,
  unless you already own a killer
  monopoly.

(I believe he refers to a killer monopoly as being the New York group and up, though it's been a long time since I read the book and could be wrong.)
The theory here is that if you do not already have a strong monopoly, angling to get a weak monopoly to bootstrap your future endeavors is not a waste of time.  If an opponent gets the third of the color group, then you have a much stronger trade platform with that opponent rather than if the power is dispersed amongst three players.
Darzinskis frames purchasing the third of a group as having "veto power" over trades in that color group, and gives the following rule:

Buy the third remaining property of a
  color group owned by two different
  opponents when those same opponents
  share complete ownership of one other
  killer monopoly.

If you can devalue the trade pieces between the two players who could come together and form a strong monopoly, it's obviously in your best interest to prevent that from happening.  If not, then it's safe to let it go up for auction.
Railroads and Utilities are special cases, as they cannot be developed and so the upsides for monopolizing them are lessened.  As such, having only one of a group will, on average, return more than the face value over the game, so there should not be a reason to not buy them.


text:
In Diplomacy, Is the "Three Emperor's Alliance" a Good Strategy For Russia?
Russia, which gets an extra piece, is in some ways the most powerful country in Diplomacy. It is also one of the most vulnerable, insofar as it is surrounded by four potentially hostile countries. (Only Germany and Austria-Hungary is in such bad shape in this regard, an important fact for this question.)
The Three Emperors' Alliance between Russia, Germany and Austria was originally started by GERMANY's Bismarck (in real life). But as the strongest of the three, perhaps Russia could be the greatest beneficiary?
The idea is to use the weaker Teutonic powers to knock out the stronger enemies, England and Turkey. Russia gets Norway and Edinburgh in the north, Rumania and two, maybe three Turkish supply centers in the south. And in any event, secures both flanks.
Then Russia might ally with one Teutonic power against the other, or possibly with France and Italy against the two Teutonics. If they were playing a "short" game, where any three countries with a total of 18+ supply centers can declare themselves co-winners, they'd have the game won right there.
How would this compare with more "traditional" strategies, like the "juggernaut" of allying with Turkey?
I've never played Russia "on my own" but once "inherited" a Russian game from someone who had to leave early and had an alliance with Turkey.

An ARG alliance would seem to heavily favor Russia, so you might offend Austria and Germany even asking for it.  The main reason is that such an alliance requires both Germany and Austria to turn their backs on Russia and move their forces away from him.  On the other hand, Russia's forces and builds remain in positions that could quite easily be turned against his allies when the time is right.
There are also limited opportunities for the three to apply joint pressure.  Italy is unlikely to work with Austria and Russia knowing that he is probably next, and Turkey can be a tough nut to crack without Italy's help.  Similarly, Germany can't provide much help to Russia in breaking into England.
The best way to pull it off is probably to try to keep the alliance hidden.  Have Germany focus on working with France against England, and portray a neutral stance against Russia.  Similarly, have Austria focus on the good old Juggernaut threat and get Italy to commit against Turkey while making a show of aggression against Russia.  Don't let the alliance become obvious until you've been able to weaken the corners.  Even then, it would seem much harder for Germany to now turn on France rather than just continuing with his "false" ally and moving against Russia instead.

So "execution" is the key, right? Good point.

This alliance can work long-term if Russia is comfortable with a northern expansion vector.
Short-term, Austria and Russia can conquer Turkey, divide the spoils and fortify.  Park fleets in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean seas and you're done.  Russia keeps only enough hardware in the south to prevent a stab, in parity with Austria.  If Austria gets in trouble he will ask you to build Fleet Sevastopol to reinforce.
In the north, conquer England and go from there.  Make sure Germany is OK with a Fleet St. Petersburg South Coast, or Army Warsaw, build on an as-needed basis.  Russia must own Sweden.  I usually try to get Denmark, Sweden, Skagerrak and Baltic Sea to be an agreed DMZ (except with cause).
Without some arrangement like this, the deal can't work long-term because Russia has no viable expansion vector except through his allies.
And as usual, never leave your homeland empty unless you also have armies parked near your neighbors' centers.  No matter how loyal your ally seems, don't give him that temptation.

The main issue with this alliance is its impracticality at the start of the game.
The board can be divided into two spheres: the West, and the East. The West sphere encompasses England, Germany, and France. And the East sphere encompasses Russia, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary. (Italy is not part of either sphere by default.)
At the beginning of the game, each Great Power must control its sphere. That in mind, this is where the problem of this alliance arises . . . It involves Powers in different spheres! That might not seem like an issue, but it is.
Powers in different spheres cannot effectively cooperate, making alliances unworkable at the start. To illustrate, imagine England and Turkey trying to coordinate their units in 1901. Nothing would ever be jointly accomplished by them because they are too far apart to interact. The same is true of this alliance. The Powers involved are so far part, that they can never jointly cooperate.
Even if this alliance was formed at the start of the game, its consequences would far outweigh its rewards. Think about it like this: the more Powers there are in an alliance, the fewer resources each obtains. (More allies means that each Power must settle for a smaller share of the earnings.)
All in all, three-way alliances do not work.

I feel like these are just generalities. Neighbors in different spheres absolutely can cooperate, and the idea that three-way alliances do not work in any case is ridiculous.

This answer is factually inaccurate.  Powers in different spheres absolutely can cooperate to mutual benefit in the early game, including limited to Russia invading England with France and/or Germany, as well as Russia and France co-invading Germany.

England and Turkey do not usually ally or coordinate early game because they have only a single mutual neighbor (Russia) and it is challenging for England to take an overly aggressive stance against Russia since they are one of the slowest powers in the opening.  That said, England and Turkey can still ally in the opening, and if they do successfully, they will deprive Russia of any first year builds.

There are elements of this alliance that can work short-term.  Neither Austria nor Russia has much interest in invading Germany in the early game due to the wall of empty territories in between (Prussia, Silesia, Bohemia, Tyrollia).  Thus, mutual non-aggression between the three largely reduces to mutual non-agreession between Russia and Austria-Hungary.
The issue with the alliance is long term.  Russia needs a place to go.  If Russia and Austria-Hungary have defeated the Ottomans, the south is a challenging expansion front for Russia as the Mediterranean deadlocks easily and Austria-Hungary will be in the way.  Thus, Russia has only three viable expansion routes left: going North through Scandinavia, or betraying one of it's allies.  Both Germany and Austria-Hungary should be wary of Russia mid-game, as it's much easier for Russia to attack through one of them rather to commit all of their builds to northern fleets.  This has the additional positional challenge of Russia having the backing of the Eastern edge of the map, making it fairly defensible compared to the central powers if it came down to a fight.
I would say it's rare in general to have a mutually adjacent trio of countries have a viable long-term alliance, as they all eventually run into this problem where one (if not two) country's best route of expansion ends up being through one of their allies.  Turkey + Austria-Hungary + Italy: Turkey will have strong incentive to invade Austria-Hungary.  England + France + Germany: England (if not also France) will have strong incentive to cut Germany out.  England + Russia + Germany is probably the most stable mutually adjacent trio, but only because England and Russia have pretty weak adjacency; even then, Germany will have to expand very carefully to not cut off either Russia or England.
That is not to say this alliance (or any one of these alliances) is impossible; with sufficient trust and coordination, any alliance can work.  However, the alliances that formed in actual history during W.W. I (England + France + Russia, or Germany + Austria-Hungary + Turkey) are far more realistic trios in Diplomacy as well.

The idea is not bad, but those probably aren't the right countries, barring "personalities." Spoiler alert: a three way alliance of Russia, Germany and Italy makes much more sense.
The reason is that Russia's winning territorial combinations usually include Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, and either (or both) of Turkey and Germany, plus some others such as the Nordic countries to get to 18. Note that Austria-Hungary is part of most scenarios, and Germany is part of many. Because of that, both countries will fear what happens when you get rid of the other two countries. It's barely possible that you will cooperate with Germany against France, and Austria Hungary against Italy, but that's not believable.
Substitute Italy for Austria-Hungary, and you have a believable, workable scenario. With Italy's help, you may be able to take out Turkey, then Austria-Hungary in turn or vice-versa. Then the three of you go after Britain and France (or whoever has gotten the better of those two countries' struggles.


text:
In Poker, What is the Significance of "Betting on the Come"
An example appears to be betting when you have only four of  straight or flush (with more cards coming), meaning that you can't (yet) beat say, a pair.
Is this a "value" bet of some sort (perhaps depending on the number players)? Is this mainly a bluff? Or could there be some "strategic" reason for making such a move, perhaps for future hands?

Search this site, and https://poker.stackexchange.com/ for "pot odds" and "implied odds". Also, "semi-bluff"

It can be a bluff or it can be a calculation.  If you have QJ and the board shows 10 9 3 then you have 2 overcards to the board and an open ended straight draw.  If you have 4 cards to a flush you are probably favored nearly 2 to 1 to an over pair even.
If you sense weakness in your opponent you might be able to scare them off of a hand like two 5's, that while leading as it stands, could be behind if you even have a 10 or 9.
Your opponent could also have a single ace or of the suit that has 2 on the board you do not want that over card pair or another card towards his flush to come.  So you can bet to scare him off now.
Generally betting the come you really want to take the hand down right there.  But you do not want to commit yourself to playing a hand out if the next card doesnt come in your favor.

Congrats on your first answer. An upvote for you.

QJo, on a rainbow 10 9 3 board against any random hand, is 60% to win.  If your opponent is holding either a 10 or 9, you are ~45% to win.

NOTE: Pot odds (including implied odds) is a very good thing to consider when deciding to bet or not.

Betting with a drawing hand is a significant and strategic bet.
Also known as semi-bluffing, you both disguise the hand you have, as well as place your opponent(s) into a position of determining if they will continue.
While holding a 56off, and weak or no action in front of you, a board of Jc 4d 3s offers an ideal semi-bluff opportunity.  A bet or raise here could force any pair less than jacks to fold.  J 10 or worse may pause, and possibly not commit any more money to the pot because of your bet, giving you a chance to draw out on 4th and 5th street if you decide not to commit any more money to the pot.  Your semi-bluff will possibly place him into a calling mode, rather than a betting mode, leaving you in the drivers seat.
As far as odds go, you are behind in this J 10o scenario - you'll win only ~ 34% of the time if it comes to a showdown - but, aggressive betting on 4th and 5th street, can get someone to fold, even with the best hand.
In Chad's straight only scenario, with the turn coming, you are a little better than a coin flip to win in a showdown at the river.

It is only a value bet if you have a made hand, you think you are ahead, and you want a call.   Some times you will over bet to make it look fishy to get a call.
If you have outs (especially outs to the nuts) you might bet for:

build pot equity
fold equity
disguise your hand
pot control

Bet out (first to enter the pot) a 1/2 pot bet is ironically also for pot control.  Say you don't hit the turn they are more likely to check the turn if you had bet the flop. If they don't hit you will likely get 2 cards. If they hit they will bet and you better know where you are.


text:
What is the Purpose of a "Ducking" Play In Bridge?
Sometimes I will have Axx in a key suit, opposite dummy's holdings of Kxxxx. In such situations, I was taught to make a "ducking" play by playing a low card from both sides, instead of playing an A or K, and letting the opponents win with a Q or J or some other card.
One advantage of this is that I save my A and K for later rounds. So is the ducking play like a "hold up?" Or is it used for a "throw in" situation where I want to put an opponent on lead?
What are the benefits of ducking? Are there times when this would be a bad play?

Ducking can be used for multiple purposes (not necessarily all on same hand, of course).
Some uses of ducking

Entry creation: This IMO is the primary use. Sometimes you duck in your side suit to make sure you have enough entries to establish the suit and cash it. Notice that the primary use of hold-up is to prevent opponents from having entries to cash a suit.

Example:
xxx
xx
AKxxxx
xx

AKx
AKx
xx
Axxxx

You are in 3NT, playing rubber bridge. Opponents lead a spade.
You have 5 tricks outside of diamonds and need at least 4 from the diamond suit. You have to hope diamonds break 3-2.
If you play diamonds from the top, on a 3-2 break, you will lose the third round, and establish the suit, but you will not have a way to cash them.
But if you duck the first round of the suit, then you have lost a trick while you hold a small diamond in your hand. Now once you get back in, you can play a diamond to dummy and play AK drawing the opponents diamonds and are in dummy to cash the rest of the suit.

Avoidance: You duck a suit making sure an opponent who cannot harm you will win the trick.

Example:
AQx
AKxxxx
xx
xx

9xx
xx
AKQJT9
AK

You are play rubber bridge and have gotten to a diamond small slam.
LHO leads the spade 7.
You have 11 top tricks, and the 12th can either come from either the spade finesse, or by establishing a long heart.
If you play the SQ at trick 1, RHO might with the K and knock out your spade A, thus removing your option of establishing the long heart too.
The correct play is a low spade from trick 1. The 9 in your hand ensure that your RHO has to win it, who cannot attack spades without giving your the 12 trick.
This play also lets you combine your chances.
Say RHO plays back a club. Now you can draw trumps, play AK of hearts and ruff a heart.
If hearts prove to be 4-1, you can fall back on the spade finesse.

Timing: You might duck to rectify the count of a squeeze, at a time it is convenient to you, etc.

A common example (for defence) which is cited for this is the following:
South is playing 6NT.
        KQJ
        AKJ
        AKQx
        Qxx
xxx           Axxx
xx            xxxxx
JT98          xx
JT98          xx
        xxx
        Qxx
        xxx
        AKxx

Say West leads a spade and East should hold up. Declarer wins and play a spade. East should hold up again. Now if declarer plays another spade, East can cash two tricks. If declarer abandons spades, no matter what he does he cannot avoid losing two tricks.
If east takes either the first or second spade, declarer's count is rectified and West gets squeezed in the minors.
As with almost every play, there are times where it would be a bad play. For instance, you duck and realize you just gave away the setting trick :-)

If you give away the setting trick by ducking, then you have to take your top cards and hope for the best, right? Because if the opponent's "secondaries" don't drop, you'll go down anyway.

@TomAu: Depends on the hand. There might be squeeze, where you should cash none, or some end play where you cash exactly one or two etc.  I suggest you concentrate on when you can apply ducking, rather than when you cannot.

Don't forget throw-ins and other associated (end)plays.

@PieterGeerkens: Yes, that too. I will add an example some time. Thanks!

Another advantage of ducking the first round is that it prevents the opponents from signaling to each other.  Suppose you have Axx opposite Kxxxx, and you play the Ace, then the King, then another.  One defender will win and his partner will discard; the discard will be a signal to help the winner know exactly what suit to play next.  But if you begin right away by ducking a trick, one opponent will win but his partner had to follow suit.  They haven't had a chance to make a useful signal yet; they don't know how many cards you hold in this suit, and the opponent who wins may lead back the wrong suit and end up helping you.
In general, when playing against strong players, it's good to give them their tricks early, before they've had a chance to figure out everyone's cards. Every time you show out of a suit or an opponent shows out of a suit and discards, it helps expert opps visualize the rest of the hand.

Welcome to the site. An upvote for a helpful answer.

The purpose of "ducking" is so that you can "run" the remaining tricks in your suit, or in your hand. I don't like the term, because I'm confused by it.
Say you have Kxx of a suit, and dummy has Axxxx of the suit. One way of establishing it is to play your two top cards, and then give up "duck" a trick to the master card in a presumed 3-2 split. IF dummy regains the lead, it can win two more long tricks.
The problem is that dummy may have responded with as little as the A and a side queen, or the A and two jacks, and have no more entry.
Another way to establish the suit (against a 3-2 split) is to lose the first trick by playing low from both hands, win the second trick in the suit in your hand (when you regain the lead), which is a form of "unblocking," and win the third trick in dummy with your ace. Then run the remaining two tricks. Thus, the ace serves a dual function as a winner AND an entry.
So the issue is not WHETHER you duck, but WHEN you duck (on the first trick or the third). If your opponents are going to win a trick ANYWAY, then give it to them "early" to save an entry.
Another example with a safety play. Dummy has AKQxx of a suit, you have xxx (or even xx). As responder, dummy's nine points in the suit means no other entry. You need four tricks in the suit to make your contract. You can take the three toppers in dummy, and hope that opposing cards drop 3-2 (or 3-3). To guard against one opponent with four cards in the suit, you make the "safety play" of losing the first trick by playing low from hand and dummy. When you regain the lead, your three toppers "clear" the suit, and the remaining long card scores your fourth trick.
Another commentator also pointed out that you duck to "rectify the count" for a squeeze, which allows you to "run" the remaining tricks.
The same person also pointed out that you shouldn't duck if it represents the setting trick (except, perhaps in duplicate, where you accept "down one" to prevent "down more than one.") Then you might try a finesses, squeeze, pseudo-squeeze or "drop," play, even against the odds, as your best hope.


text:
What is the purpose of "underruffing" in bridge?
Sometimes declarer will lead a long suit from one hand, for a "ruffing finesse" in order to ruff with a void in the other. If the intervening opponent ruffs with say, the 9, the declarer might "overruff" to win the trick (and capture the opposing trump). If this opponent ruffs with the "master" trump, declarer might discard from a side suit instead.
If the declarer had ONLY trumps left, he would have to "discard" a trump (underruff) if the opponent ruffs with the master trump.
But there are times when the declare will "underruff" even when he can "overruff," or at least has a side suit card to discard. Why would that be? Would it be to "throw in" an opponent? Or might that side suit card have "strategic" value, such as for "transportation" to the other hand? How would that outweigh the value of the "wasted" trump?

Is the question mainly about underruffing be declarer? or do you want to consider underruffing by defenders too?

@Aryabhata: Either. I'd like to hear your experienced opinion.

I have updated the answer with a few more examples.

Here are some situations where underruffing might be required.
1) Execute a Throw In
Consider the following situation, where spades are trump and south is the declarer. The lead is with West and he leads a diamond.
    -
    xxx
    -
    -

-         KQT
-         -
AKQ       -
-         -
    AJ9
    -
    -
    -

South holding the AJ9 of trumps needs two of the last three tricks.
West is on lead and leads a diamond and east holding the KQT of trumps ruffs with the Q.
Now South must underruff with the 9, forcing East to lead from the KT into the AJ.
If South overruffs with the A, then South has to lead from the J9 into KT, losing two tricks.
2) To avoid a Squeeze
On defense sometimes the defender is forced to underruff (discard a trump) to avoid being squeezed. This might well apply to declarer (but is probably unlikely).
For an example for defense, consider the following example:
          Txx
          KJxx
          xx
          KJxx

x                  xxxx
T9x                Qxx
KQJTxx             xx
T9x                Qxxx

          AKQJx
          Axx
          Axx
          Ax

You are East. South is declarer in small slam in spades after West preempts in diamonds (and showing 0-7 points in your system, just for the sake of this problem).
West leads the DK which declarer ducks and west continues with the diamond J which declarer wins the A. At this point declarer has 11 tricks, and knows you hold both the HQ and CQ.
Now declarer plays AK of trump, and then ruffs a diamond in dummy with the T.
At this point, you must now underruff! If you throw a heart, declarer can draw trumps throwing 2 clubs and 1 heart from from dummy, play A, K of hearts and drop your HQ, setting up the HJ.
If you throw a club, declarer can play AK of clubs, and ruff a club, dropping your Q, with the HK as entry to the good CJ.
So you underruff with a trump. Now declarer can draw trumps, but since you discard after dummy, you can just follow his discards and avoid being squeezed.
3) Executing a Trump coup
Then there might be trump coup situations where declarer/defender is trying to shorten the trump holding (to avoid being on lead at the wrong time) and might choose to underruff.
For an example on defense:
           xxx
           Qxx
           xxxx
           Kxx
Txxxx              -
xxx                Jxxx
Txx                QJx
xx                 QJxxxx

          AKQJ9
          AKx
          AKx
          Ax

You are west. South is declarer in a small slam in spades. You lead a heart which declarer wins in hand. He plays the trump ace, and gets the bad news.
It looks like declarer now has two unavoidable losers, a trump and a diamond, but declarer tries his best.
He plays one more round of trumps, cashes his hearts, and plays the A and K of clubs to reach this position.
           x
           -
           xxxx
           x
Txx
-                   Immaterial
Txx
-

          QJ9
          -
          AKx
          -

Declare now plays a club and ruffs it with the Q.
At this point, you must underruff!
If you throw a diamond, declarer can play diamond A,K and low diamond. You are left with nothing but trumps and are forced to ruff that (basically ruffing your partners trick), and then lead from the Tx into declarers J9, allowing declarer to make the small slam!
But, if you underruff, now when declarer plays diamond A, K and low, your partner can win it, and then your T becomes the setting trick.
So underruffing is not unheard of, and is sometimes required. There are probably more situations than described above, but I believe they(including 2 and 3 above) tend to appear rarely.

Another case when declaring is when you need an entry from one hand to the other and you choose to underruff to retain that entry.

@MarkB: True! Reminds me of a hand played by Benito Garozzo. I might add that later...

The first answer is good but I also want to point out a situation where it doesn't matter if you duck now or later:

your partner and one opponent are out of trump
the other opponent has 2 trump remaining that are in sequence
or close to it, (i.e. 8-9)
your hand is right after the opponent with 2 trump and you have 1
trump above the sequence and several trumps below it

Under these conditions, you already know that your opponent will win one of his trumps and lose the other. So in some cases you may not be sacrificing anything by underruffing - just timing when you want the loss to occur.
With this timing option may want to lose earlier rather than later to set up running a long side suit without interference or some other sequence that requires you play a lot of cards in a row with appropriate transportation (not getting stuck in your hand).

Both sides vulnerable, East (Watson) opened a (British) "medium" (14-16) 1NT. This was followed by alternating bids of 2S 3S and 4S by South and North, the rest passes.
          K94
          AT753
          T764
          K

873                52
Q964               K82
8                  A2
J9753              AQJ532

          AQJT6
          J
          K9
          QT864

After the defenders got the first two (diamond tricks), West led a club to North's King. South returned a diamond from dummy and ruffed high in hand, with West (Holmes) electing to discard a low trump.
Here is a hand where it was necessary to "discard" a trump on a high ruff. because West needed all the remaining cards in his side suits (hearts and clubs) to prevent South from ruffing out his winners, and then earning tricks with "long" cards.
The discard of a trump was not a waste, because if South drew trumps, they would no longer be available for ruffing out West's side suits. Since West had only few (three) and low trumps anyway, side suit protection was more important, especially opposite East's 1NT bid.

Avoid link rot; include key points from linked sites in your answer.

@ForgetIwaseverhere: Done. I did originally (last two paragraphs), but perhaps not enough.


text:
In bridge, what are some exceptions to "second hand low?"
Most beginners are taught to play "second hand low." That is, play a low card if one is led to them, to give the partner a chance to take the trick. This is particularly to avoid situations where second hand plays, say, a king, and it is taken by partner's singleton ace.
Like all rules, it has some exceptions.  One is, play second hand high and grab the trick if you see a way to defeat the contract; e.g. running a suit in no trump. Another might be, if you let the opponents take a trick, it will be their game-winning trick (based on what you see on the board and infer from the bidding and play).
Are these valid exceptions to "second hand low?" What are other exceptions to the rule?"

The crocodile coup (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_coup) is one!

The going up to cash your winners is a good reason.

Another common reason to play second hand high is to deny an entry.
Here is an example.
South below is in 3NT, you are West and you lead a heart.
         AJT9x
         xxx
         xxx
         xx

Kxx              Qxx
QJTx             xx
xx               QJTx
Jxxx             xxxx
         xx
         AKxx
         AKxx
         AKQ

During the bidding East/West know that South has no more than two spades (say the bidding goes 2C-2S-2NT-3NT starting with 2C by South, and East/West remaining silent).
South has 8 top tricks and needs one more.
South wins your heart Q with the K and leads a spade. At this point, you must play the K!
If you play low, declarer will play the 9. If East wins, declarer will make many overtricks (by repeating the diamond finesse). So East will have to duck this, but declarer will make his contract.
If you play the K, declarer can setup dummy's diamonds, but will not have an entry to cash them, and will only be able to make 8 tricks.

Another reason to play second hand high is to prevent declarer from ducking a trick to a safe hand.
As an example:
         xxx
         xxx
         Kxx
         xxxx

AQxxx            Tx
Qx               JTx
xxx              QJTx
Jxx              xxxx
         KJx
         AK9xx
         Axx
         AK

South is in 3NT and you are East.
Partner leads a low spade, and declarer wins your T with the J. (If he ducks this, he is down immediately).
Now declarer plays a diamond to dummy's K and plays a heart. At this point, you must play the heart J or T. If you play low, declarer will stick in the 9, losing the trick to the safe hand, which cannot continue spades without losing a trick and a tempo.
If declarer ducks your heart J, then you can push a spade through and beat the contract. So declarer will have to play the A or K, and partner will have to continue the good defence by dropping the heart Q! (else declarer can next play a low heart).
Since declarer has no more entries to the dummy, your Tx is safe from being finessed with the K9, and declarer will go down ultimately.

Another 'rule' new players are often given is to 'always cover an honor', i.e. if declarer is leading a queen towards dummy's ace, you are generally better off covering the queen with your king to prevent the finesse. After all, your partner may have the jack.
Similarly to the 'play low rule', there are also exceptions to this, e.g. when attacking entries as in Arybhara's answer.

Perhaps this is better suited as a comment? It does not directly answer the question of when to violate second hand low, which is applicable only when a low card is led.

@Aryabhata you would play second hand high if I led an ace? ;) on a more serious note 'high' and 'low' are fuzzy, honors are not

Well you can actually play second hand high on the A by unblocking :-). Yes High and Low are fuzzy, but the rule you mention is not usually considered an exception to the rule of second hand low, but it is a different rule altogether. That is the point I was trying to make. According to the site rules, relevant, but not really answering the question type of answers are better suited as comments. Of course, I suppose one can view the rule you state as an exception to second hand low.