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Interaction between Carcassonne: Bridges, Castles, and Bazaars and other expansions
Last night we played with the Bridges, Castles, and Bazaars expansion for Carcassonne.  We also played with a few other expansions, but ran into several situations where we weren't sure of the rules.  Previously, for unfamiliar expansions, we have used the annotated rules by Matthew Harper, but they don't go as far as this expansion.
Does anyone know of a list of interaction rules for this expansion?
Edit to give examples: We weren't sure about the effect of builders in a bazaar round, from which tiles dragons can eat knights in castles (if at all), whether the castles can be used over two tile cities where the tiles aren't simple curves. Also whether the bazaar breaks the road and how to do bazaars near the end of the game when there's not enough tiles left (these last two aren't to do with interaction with other expansions).
Edit to give another example: Also do castles count as cities for the purposes of scoring the king?
Note: I'm fairly certain I've missed off lots of combinations here, but the annotated rules has cleared up all the questions we've had with previous expansions.  I'm really after a reference like it for this expansion.

Can you give an example, please? I just bought that expansion yesterday, and read through the rules, and I couldn't think of anything confusing, but I haven't played it yet, so I could be missing something.

I just wanted to add, Bazaars really fizzle with only two people. I can't wait to try it with more.

For future visitors: This is an old question. The annotated rules have been updated a lot since 2010. Most likely it is the best place for any and all answers about interaction between Carcassonne expansions.

What you are looking for is the Rules to the Big Box 3 set.  I believe it answers all of your questions.

Builders in a Bazaar round:

After all tiles have been bought, the players place their purchased tiles, place followers, etc. using the normal rules,
  beginning with the player to the left of the active player

Not exactly on point, but "using the normal rules" strongly indicates that the builder bonus is active.

Does Bazaar break the road

Of course, just like anything else.  The road needs to be continuous without breaks of any kind.

Not enough tiles in a Bazaar round

Too few tiles: if a player places a bazaar and there are not enough face-down tiles for all players, no tile auction
  occurs. The players ignore the bazaar on the tile and the tile is played as normal.

Thanks - this is the only answer to give a published set of rules (other than the rules that come in the expansion).  I'm actually quite surprised that the makers have written comprehensive rules - most of their efforts have been half-hearted at best ;-)

Some Ideas
Admittedly I haven't tried the expansion yet, but here is my take on the specific issues you mentioned:
Builders in bazaar round: Just as bazaars gotten during bazaar round don't count as bazaars because it's not normal tile placement, the builder shouldn't do anything special, either.
Dragon with castle: I would force the follower to stay on the tile where he was before the city was converted, but I look forward to a more authoritative answer.
Non-oval castles: The rules specify "consisting of only two semi-circular city segments".
Bazaar road: It looks to me like it breaks it just as much as the Cloister from I & C, which must break the road, unlike the other Cloister in the Bazaar pic.

Bazaar near end of game: No idea on this one.

Wow, there's a lot of questions in there.  For starters, I agree with everything in Andrew's answer.  As for the two questions not yet answered:

The rules say that a football town can be converted to a castle, meaning it's not a town anymore.  Also, the scoring rules state (emphasis mine): "a castle next to a field scores 4 points (instead of 3 like a city)."  I think that means a castle is clearly different from a town.  So you don't get the king tile if you convert the first town to a castle, and castles should not be counted when scoring the king.
A bazaar round when there aren't enough tiles left is an opportunity for a player to buy an extra turn when he wouldn't otherwise get one.  I'm totally in favor of that.

These are just my opinions - I don't have that expansion so I don't know how it plays out in practice.  I too would like to see a more authoritative answer.


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Cupboard size for storing board games
We're currently in the process of furnishing the 'games' room* in our house and we're planning to get some storage units to go along one wall.  I'm interested to know if anyone has recommendations as to the size of cupboards we should look to get.  In particular are there standard game box sizes, or is there a largest game box size we should try to cater for?
I imagine there are some games that are ridiculously large, but it would be nice to be able to store all our games in one place.
* Also known as the 'craft' room by my significant other

If you are looking to buy a shelving unit, Ikea's Expedit bookcase is fantastic for board games.  It's available in a wide variety of sizes and most game boxes stack well inside.  The modular design also allows you to put drawers or doors on any section you want.  We store larger odd-sized game boxes on top of the bookcase.

We've ended up getting some storage units that look quite like these.  Thanks for the suggestion.

tip: I made some storage boxes for it myself out of quality hardboard and some screws. Fit snugly inside to hold CDs.

When we moved into our house, there was a hand-made storage unit in the basement that I ended up commandeering for all my board games because of its near-perfect size.
The interior storage area of each shelf is 9 1/2" tall, 14" deep, and 48" wide.   If you make the interior dimensions a little deeper and wider, you should be able to affix doors to the front.
The storage unit has no doors, so a few games hang out by a quarter- to half-inch, but otherwise, the dimensions are spot on, assuming you don't mind stacking games on top of each other.
Almost all of the games I have are no wider than 14", and 1" or 2" tall, which makes things nice and consistent.
To give you an idea of what it can hold, I'm able to fit the following games onto two shelves horizontally except where noted as being rotated 90 degrees with an asterisk:
Shelf 1:  Carcassonne *, Puerto Rico, Risk, Axis & Allies, Dungeon, Hunt for Red October, Horus Heresy, two Munchkin games *, Boggle (Horus Heresy and Axis & Allies are stacked on top of each other with no more room; that should give you an idea as to how many "big-box" games you can stack on top of each other)
Shelf 2:  Chaos in the Old World, Lord of the Rings, Mastermind, Power Grid, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Scrabble, Monopoly, Upwords
Fireball Island and Battle Masters have to sit on top because they're too darn big.
Hope that helps!

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Game end in Shark
In Shark I think the game ends in one of two ways.  Either one company reaches 15 points, or one pile of counters runs out.  In the first case what happens if a company would reach 16 points?  In the second case does the game end immediately after placing the counter, or does it continue until that colour is rolled again?

Didn't figure to have to dig my copy of Shark out of the garage for this site!
Here are the end of game rules.

The game is over as soon as

a company's share price indicator reaches 15,000 on the value scale, or
all of the building in a particular colour have been used, or
all of the shares have been sold

The bonus that is due in the last round and any share profits or losses need to be resolved.  The players multiply their shares by the current share price and ad their cash to the amount.  The player with the most money has won the game.

EDIT - Addition
The game Shark has gone thru a couple revisions.   The original Flying Turtles version has a couple rules differences.

The big on is the "Rule of 7" - adding to a group of 7 or more does not increase the share price.  This will make it much harder to get to 15,000 (you need a minimum of 3 building groups to get there).
Furthermore, the rules clearly state that 15,000 is the maximum share price, so even if you still manage to arrange to shoot to 16,000 or higher, you will be limited to 15,000.

I, (and the folks over on the 'geek) would recommend that you add these rules to your game.

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Alternative major improvements for Agricola
Are there any (official/unofficial) alternatives to the major improvements in Agricola?

Also the Biogas plant major improvement that was a Spiel 2011 promotional card from Lookout games


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How does the Outrider work in Agricola?
At the weekend I was playing Agricola and played the occupation Outrider.  The rule for the outrider is "Whenever you use the most recent Round card with one of your people, you receive 1 additional grain".
In round three "Sow and/or Bake" was turned over, and so I wanted to pick that card and sow the grain I would receive from it immediately.  I wasn't sure about the legality of this move and so I asked for general consensus on it.  Everyone agreed that I couldn't play the move, and so I didn't, but I'm still interested to know whether our ruling was correct.
I'm looking for an answer which either cites a rule that we didn't find or an official clarification about this situation.  Failing either of those, I would be interested if there is a similar situation that has a definitive answer that might suggest a ruling here.  Cheers!

The Agricola Compendium is a superb resource for this kind of rules question. In this case, it has your answer:

You receive the grain before you've taken the action. For example, if you use a sowing action, you can immediately sow the grain from the Outrider.

It sounds like you're interested in the principle behind the answer. I'd love to explain it, but I can't. The Agricola rules are generally very good about consistency of terminology - if something says "an oven" it means any of the cards with "Oven" in the name and no others. If something says "receive wood on an action space" (Pieceworker), that's different to "take wood that is on an action space" (Mushroom Collector). But sadly, one area where they're not so consistent is precise details of timing like this.
I'd love to be able to say things like in Magic: the Gathering, something like "Some cards have the pattern "Whenever [player] [takes action], [effect]." In this case, the [effect] happens at the start of the [action]." But that doesn't seem consistent with the rules on cards like Compulsory Education, Merchant. And it's unclear whether if the Wood Distributor has put some wood on a Major Improvement space, and you take it with a Clay Worker to get an additional clay, do you get the clay in time? I don't think Agricola has specific timing rules to allow you to state the answer with complete confidence in cases like this.


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San Juan variant to balance prices
San Juan is a admittedly a game with a good deal of luck involved.  However the luck element seems to be emphasised when we play, as some of the cards seem significantly better than other cards of the same value.  For example, given the choice we would always pick a smithy over an archive, a poor house over a crane or a prefecture over a carpenter.
Does anyone know or have experience of a variant that attempts to balance the cost-to-quality ratio of the buildings?  Or is our perception wrong - are the buildings priced appropriately?

Have you played with the San Juan expansion buildings from the Treasure Chest set?  While I agree that there are some cards that are simply better than others, the expansion tries to fix this.
For example, Park is a 3-cost building that gives you a discount of 6 instead of 3 if you overbuild it with a Crane, which might make the crane more enticing.
The Residence allows you to score points extra points for each set of 3 buildings with the same building cost.  This could convince you to build some of the less-desired buildings to get the bonus.
And personally, I like the Carpenter -- I've had a few games where I bought a ton of purple buildings, and was able to refill my hand quickly.  It could have been a few lucky draws, but the Carpenter is at least decent in my opinion.

While there is luck in the game, it is possible to minimize it.  I find that not building if you don't have a good choice is sometimes good.  If everyone else builds and has no cards left, you can usually try for another card and build quickly before they can do their own build.  Usually someone who always builds no matter what is stuck with too many low point buildings.  I've often won the game with only 10 or 11 cards, so you can let yourself get behind by 1 or 2 and still be okay.
Also, with 4 players, you know 4 out of 5 phases will be chosen, so you don't have to worry if a phase is skipped as much.  This means Produce and Trade cards are a bit better.
On average, the winning score in the games I play is above 32.  A score of 40 happens every 4 games or so, and I think we've had a high of 48.
If you want to remove as much luck as possible and if playing with only the original set, I would suggest the following rules:

When building, allow one to build any building they wish, regardless if it is in the hand or not.
If built on the same turn, you may exceed the card limits for specific buildings.

3 people want to play Guild Hall at the same time, they all get to.  After that, it can't be played.
2 Wells have been played.  A 3rd player wants to play it, so the 4th player must either play it now or not at all.

This takes the luck of the draw out of the game and focuses your play on a well designed schedule of building.  You have to balance high point buildings with buildings that get you cards in your hand.  I find that focusing on getting cards for the first 6 builds and then switching to high point buildings after that works best (even in the regular game.)
You would also have to tailor your strategy to how you think your opponents will select their phases.  If they have the Aqueduct and Market Stand, they may choose Produce and Trade more often.  If they have the Prefector, they may choose Consular more often.  You can attempt to piggy-back your buildings on what they might choose.
Here's the best way to accomplish this variant:

Organize all cards so that you have 2 of each face up, left out of the draw pile.
Use 3 or 4 of the production buildings, depending on number of players.
With more than 2 players, when the face up stack runs out, attempt to replace it.
Favor production buildings when burying cards in the Chapel.

I've played this variant with 2 players a few times and it is quite fun.  You really get a sense of which card combinations work best together.  This helps when playing normal because you can spot good combinations more often if you've tried them.  The average score with this variant is over 40.

Thanks!  This is a really interesting suggestion.  It looks like you can use something else as money and goods with this version?  That would leave the cards free to be used as buildings.

You could.  Only the count of cards in  your hand and chapel and which production buildings have resources matter.  Usually we just shuffle unneeded cards around to cover production buildings and to hold in our hand.  Also, I suspect a near perfect build order could be found, but the randomness of the phases still exists.


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What is a winning strategy for Italy with Diplomacy
Italy is almost the worst country to start with. But that makes it a nice challenge.
What is your winning strategy with Italy?

Back in high school, when I played crazy quantities of Diplomacy, I used to really enjoy playing Italy.  Sadly, all of my clever Italy ploys have vanished from my mind – Hopefully you'l get smart answers from the community.

This question falls on multiple points in questions to avoid asking, and I've voted to close it as too broad. It is polling for peoples' strategies, and more suitable for a discussion forum. Every answer is valid, so long as it is someone's strategy (and presumably sometimes works well). There also appears to be no actual problem to solve here: the asker considers starting with Italy a good challenge, and doesn't necessarily need our help, so this more resembles an exercise for social fun.

Whatever you do, avoid the "Fleet Rome" rules variant.  Worst idea ever.

The Diplomacy Archive has a large number of strategies for Italy and all the other countries.
It also has some articles by Allan B. Calhamer (the inventor of Diplomacy).

Make sure EVERYONE knows that Italy is the weakest country, by reminding them of it constantly, both during the game and every time the subject of Diplomacy comes up in conversation generally.  Hopefully this will lull them into a false sense of security, so that you can actually get somewhere with your beleaguered green armies.  Certainly if anyone starts picking on you, you are entitled to complain loudly: "C'mon! Everyone knows that Italy doesn't stand a chance of winning this game! Stop hassling me!"
Of course, this meta-strategy can easily backfire: if you become just too annoying and whiny, people may start attacking you just in the hope of shutting you up!  But generally I think it's perfectly reasonable, given the common knowledge that Italy is far from the strongest position in the game, to present yourself as an underdog and no real threat... until you've rallied your forces sufficiently to strike.  It's all part of the fun of the game!

You absolutely need to have some dirt on Austria;  it will be very difficult for Italy to do well in the face of a hostile Austria.  Even if you join a coalition against Austria early on, you'll find that most of the SCs wind up falling into Turkish hands, rather than yours, leaving you with little better in the way of options.

I'm a big fan of the Lepanto opening:
Spring 1901: Rom - Nap, Nap - Ion
Fall 1901: Nap - Ion - Tun
Build F Nap
Spring 1902: Ion - Eme, Nap - Ion

Setting up a fall 1902 convoy into the heart of Turkey.
The main weakness is that this leaves your defenses entirely the responsibility of your northern army, and so requires that you use diplomacy to keep your neighbors from attacking you.

My "problem" is that this leaves Italy open to a double cross from Austria-Hungary. Hence I prefer to eliminate this threat at the outset. But Lepanto is my second choice. Possibly my first, if I trusted Austria-Hungary more than the others.

erm.. every strategy requires you to use Diplomacy. Its called that for a very good reason :)

One winning strategy is to make an early alliance, preferably with Austria and then knock out Turkey and turn on France.
You'll probably have to backstab Austria at some point - certainly, I've never got to 18 without Trieste - but that's the usual backstab timing question.

Don't worry about "backstabbing" Austria. Try to follow the real life World War I strategy of making peace with France, and ally with Russia against Austria and Turkey. If necessary, let Turkey in the initial alliance against Austria, then convince Russia to side with you against Turkey, who would otherwise be stronger than Russia.
Trieste is HUGE for Italy. You will have a line of four connected supply centers (Naples, Rome, Venice, Trieste). Five, if you say that Tunis is "connected" by sea with the others (I'd call it 4 1/2).
If France won't make peace and Austria will, ally with England and/or Germany against France. Hopefully, you'll end up with Marseilles and Spain. But they aren't connect to homeland supply bases like Trieste, Serbia, etc. would be.
The other problem is that while Russia is a natural ally with you against Turkey, she isn't against England.

The last time I played Austria against an Italy that backstabbed me in Spring 1901 - Italy was first out, in Fall 1904, and I finished fourth in a seven player game. Diplomacy is never about what supply centres you take when - it is about who you can convince to help you out in return for future considerations. Think Survivor without the $1,000,000.

@PieterGeerkens: I think I saw this comment on another one of my posts, and my recollection was that of congratulating you for a brilliant result (under the circumstances).

I am a big proponent of playing as Italy. Here's how I do it:

no diplomacy for the first year!
A Ven - Pied & A Rome - Ven!
Attack Marseilles and Trieste! (also grab Tunis)

If you get both SC's, try to ally with Eng/Germ/Russ.
If you fail to get allies, promise to vacate one and focus on the other. It is easier to ally with Austria than France in my opinion at this point, because it is harder for Austria to not care and attack you all out.
France can swing south and make it hurt.
Ideally, you want to get a Fleet in to the English Channel by 1904! This way you own the EAST.
Do not ally with Turkey unless he becomes a land power, because his fleets are dangerous.
Good luck!

Some interesting approaches - and some not so good. no vote.


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18xx Companies able to buy other companies, what will be the impact
One of the fun parts of the 18xx games, is that its fairly easy to create your own (local) version. I like to create a dutch version (yes there have been two already but with limited availability). One of the main features in dutch history is that it stared with lots of small companies that merged into one at the end (although there are some new companies started the last couple of years).
1856 deals with the same situation, and they solved it with cash and loans (companies that couldn't pay their loan are merged into the national railway, which is fine but I like a different.
In 1870 companies can buy their own shares. But what if companies are allowed to buy shares of other companies. Would that be a workable solution. And how do the companies get enough cash to buy the shares.
The question is, is it a workable solution to allow (and even encourage) companies to buy other companies. Maybe only if the shares are in the lower part of the stock table.
Possible extensions could be:

use of station markers of the owned company (or at least be able to pass through them)
loan trains (only once per operation round so that a single train can't be run more than once).
completely eat the company if 100% of the shares are owned. (including cash, trains and station markers).

Possible problems could be:

two companies owing a third company
circular ownership (A owns B, B owns A) which can be solved by selling at least 50%(including the president share) at once.

I'd love to see a proper set of Merger & Acquisitions rules for 18xx.
I suspect I would start with something like this:

Companies may buy each other's shares with company cash.
Companies may not buy more than 20% of another company without making a takeover bid.
To make a takeover bid, a company must have enough cash to pay current market-price for all the shares it doesn't hold.  It first buys all shares of the target company that are not owned by players or other companies.  If that gets them >50%, then the takeover is successful.
If it doesn't get them >50%, then they offer current market price to the other shareholders.  If enough accept to get to >50%, then success, otherwise, they can raise the offer until they succeed, run out of cash, or give up.
Any remaining shares are then forcibly bought at the highest price reached in the takeover auction.
Once the company has been taken over, the new company has then eaten it.  It can issue the share certificates of the takenover company as additional shares, diluting its own shareholdings.

That's a hostile takeover system.
A merger would go more like this:

If two companies each own 20% of each other and both presidents want them to merge, then they should announce this.  They need >50% of the shares to vote in favour.  Shares owned by each other automatically vote yes.
There is now one, bigger company with all the station markers and trains.  If there are rules on the maximum number of trains a company can own, then this company can own twice as many.  Share certificates now represent half as large a percentage as previously.
The two Presidents' shares are combined into a single certificate, so that shareholding isn't diluted.  The new President will have to exchange some of his previous shares to get the shareholding right (ie Pres share is normally 20%, the President's certificate they had before is now only 10%, so they will have to hand over two other certificates to balance it out: if they don't have that many, then they can buy them from the company; it certainly owns at least 20% of itself).  If both of the Presidents of the pre-merger companies have the same shareholding in newco, then they have to agree when they announce the merger.
Any remaining shares that remain with the company after forced purchases by the new President and making change to the old President are now available to be bought on the open market.
The new share price is the average of the share prices of the two old companies.

Thanks, this way we can work something out as a team effort.

Check out question 2:10 at The 18xx Rule Differences List: http://www.fwtwr.com/18xx/rules_difference_list/single_list.htm
From my own stalled attempts at 18xx design, possible other implications: in full-capitalization games, a player who funds a company can then use that company's profits to keep a chain of companies going. Partial-capitalization games affect the available capital to work with but also encourage further buying weirdness. Also, in my early playtests, companies ended up snapping up all the available stock on the market, leaving nothing for players to buy (which resulted in even more convoluted acquisition rules).
That list is super-helpful in opening your eyes to variants you've never thought about, along many axes of rule choices.

There is a prototype from Deep Thought Games named 1817 that has playtested rules for what you are looking for - plus a selection of really interesting stock market rules.
I haven't yet played it myself, but I have ordered all the wooden tokens for making station markers and wooden cubes for loan markers.


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Arkham Horror - Tips for making the game more dynamic and fun when you play with more than 5 players?
I'm new to this game, but I recently hosted a play with friends. With 8 people the game was very slow and difficult to play. What would you recommend to make the game a little more dynamic and fun when played with more than 5 players?
One particular thing that a friend of mine recommended is not reading the encounter cards directly, but rather ask someone else to read the card for you, and ask them not to tell you what happens if you fail/pass the check until you've made it.
Do you have any other suggestions?

Arkham Horror is an interesting game in that it lies partway between a traditional board game and a full-on role-playing experience. The atmosphere of the game and the shared imagination of the players is much more important than in games like Agricola or Ticket to Ride, which are dominated by the rules mechanics. It also takes quite a long time to play.
With more players, it's critical to keep people enthused and involved. This requires active work, by you, if you're the host! Here are the main things I think about.

Set the atmosphere. I like to dim the lights and play horror movie soundtracks. It's obvious, cliched - and fun!
Identify with your characters. We always read out our investigator's back-stories and special rules. And if your players actually talk and act in character, then the game comes alive! If you can provide props or dress up, so much the better. If your players feel like they can relate to and care about their protagonist, they will be much more involved in the game. Staying in character also gives players something to think about when it's not their turn.
Identify with shared goals. If your players feel that they are working together for a common goal, then other player's turns immediately feel more interesting. If the players have the nervous sense that this move is important, then they will certainly pay attention! You want to make them feel that they and their teammates are playing for high stakes.
Know your rules. Nothing kills a game like being bogged down searching for rules clarifications, or having long protracted arguments about ambiguous phrasing. Make sure you have a good grasp of the rules, and if necessary enforce rules decisions to keep the game moving.
Keep the game moving. Some people like to carefully think through every permutation. Some people love calculating attack modifiers. Some people don't care, and want to just CHARGE at the nearest big looking monster. Some people just want to do random cool stuff, infuriating the other players. Striking the right balance between personalities, and gently nudging people along is very necessary. It's similar to chairing a meeting. Do it well, and no one will notice, but everyone will feel the experience "went well".
Read all the cards out yourself. I recommend doing all the reading yourself. It's much faster than passing cards around, and you can add tension and atmosphere by reading dramatically. Your idea of not reading the whole card out is a good one, but does depend on the situation. Remember that some cards in Arkham are optional tests, while others are mandatory. In the optional cases, your player is going to want to know what the risk/reward stakes are. In the mandatory case, it's more fun to drag out the suspense...!
Apply house rules to improve the game. Game designer Richard Launius has provided some excellent house rules which are well worth reading. These can adjust the speed and/or difficulty of the game as needed.
Take breaks. If your players are getting tired or bored, take a break, make some drinks, or agree to resume some other time. Don't turn finishing the game into a death march.
Actively manage the game. This is the critical one. If you're hosting a large number of players, you need to run the game. This is quite a lot of work, but rewarding. Remember that the aim of the game is for everyone to have fun. Even if you are playing an investigator, you still have the extra responsibility for the game experience itself. The ideal game will be tense, nerve-wracking, involve some hardship and sacrifice, but ultimately a positive experience. You want your players to go away feeling they had an adventure, and did well, whether or not they ultimately win. Consider bending the rules where necessary to achieve this.

Thanks! This is very useful indeed. I also like Role playing games so bringing some RPG elements to Arkham Horror seems like a great idea!

When I play I assign roles to each player, the upkeep phase is quite a daunting thing especially when you have rumors in play.
If each person has a little task to worry about then it'll move things along faster and no one is waiting for one person to figure out everything that needs to happen on the upkeep.
Also I second the "reading the cards to yourself".  It kind of loses some of the flavor of the game, but some corners need to be cut.


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Which property group colour gives the best ROI , undeveloped or fully developed, in Monopoly?
Everybody always goes for the dark blues in Monopoly (Mayfair and Park Lane in the UK edition), but I'm convinced that the cheaper colour groups offer a better return on investment, partly because you can fully develop them quicker, and partly because you can own more squares, thereby giving you more "hits" and a steadier income. But is there any analysis to support (or refute) this view?

btw - "fully developed" is not always the best. Most most properties, 3 houses is the point at which rent pays more than it cost to improve the property.

My understanding is that the best three property groups are light blue (Angel Islington, Euston Road, Pentonville Road), orange (Bow Street, Marlborough Street, Vine Street), and dark blue (Park Lane, Mayfair). Light blue is good because the buildings are very cheap but give excellent returns. Orange is good because the likelihood of landing there is substantially higher, due to forced starting from Jail (gets you on a 6, 8 or 9). Finally, the dark blues are a good choice because eventually someone will draw the Advance to Mayfair card.
There is a much more detailed analysis here. The names are from the American set, but the calculations are the same.

Your source specifically mentions "The best return on investment to be found is from putting a third house on New York Avenue." (Most Expensive Orange) I would bet that Orange is therefor the best as a group for ROI.

Sweet. I remember reading a similar study on how Orange has the highest probability that someone will pay rent there and, for individual properties, I think it was Illinois.

Yes, and the main reason Illinois has the highest probability is because of the Chance card "Advance to Illinois".

anecdotally, the most frequent time to hit the Chance card "Go Back 3 Spaces" is the square just after Free Parking which takes you back to New York

@ghoppe The main reason Illinois is the most likely is because it's 14 squares after jail. The most likely die roll is 7, but that's only 1/6. However after 2 rolls, the most likely is 14. This is still only 11.3% (assuming only dice from jail) but it's higher than any other property. If you have reds, Illinois should always be the first to be developed.

@glowcoder The definition of "main reason" is debatable I guess. Remember that if a player throws doubles, that's going to reduce the odds of a 7 getting out of jail. There are 16 chance cards so the odds of getting "Advance to Illinois" is 1/16. We would have to calculate the odds of going to jail, moving out of jail with a total of 14 in the next two rolls and compare that to the odds of landing on Chance and drawing the Advance to Illinois card. Which one is the greater contributor? I suppose we can agree they both are factors.

@ghoppe I have to disagree on their magnitude: St. Chuck, Reading, and Boardwalk also have teleport cards, but they are not statistically the most likely to land on. Obviously something sets Illinois apart from them. GO in fact has two teleports, as it's in both card piles. And you don't need two 7's to get to Illinois from jail. As I stated, any two rolls from the jail space give you a 11.3% chance to land on Illinois.

continued... Having 3 chance spaces out of 40 on the board, and a 1/16 chance to draw that chance card, that tells me that each roll has a 3/(16*40) chance, or 0.46% chance, to teleport the player to Illinois. This means that for it to be a greater factor, you would have to start from Jail about 1/24 times. In other words, you'd start from jail about twice as often as the average square. Considering that it has two entry squares (itself and go to jail) PLUS two other methods of being sent there, it's obvious it carries that weight.

There are two main features in the calculation. The first is to compare the sum of the (hotel) rents with the cost of building. Since the second "set" in each row charges higher rents without higher building costs, we will compare only the four second sets. The rents appear first, then the costs:

Boardwalk Park Place (dark blue):  $3500 ÷ $2000 = 1.75
Atlantic, Ventnor, Marvin (yellow): $3500 ÷ $2250 ≈ 1.56
St. James, Tennesee, New York (orange): $2900 ÷ $1500 ≈ 1.93
Oriental, Vermont, Connecticut (light blue): $1700 ÷ $750 ≈ 2.27

On this measures, the "light blues" are the most remunerative investment.
The other thing to note is that because of the "Go to Jail" square, one half of the board is much more "traveled" than the other. (Specifically the second and third rows.) This consideration seems to tip the balance in favor of the "orange" properties.

Every time I've played, I have gone for the light blues.

@drm65: Not a bad idea.

The best Return on Investment for a color group tends to come from the red properties with at least 3 houses on each.
The thinking on this is fairly simple. The most likely roll of the dice is a seven. Which means that a player's rolls should average out to be a multiple of seven over time. Taking into account the monopoly board there are only 3 properties a person will land on if they rolled nothing but sevens all around the board. The first property is a purple which even built up doesn't make you much, the second property is the first red property which costs a bit to build up but is well worth the investment and the third is a green property which cost way to much to build all the way up.
The relative investment required to build up the red properties is fairly cheap and as you are building on them people tend to land on these a lot especially if they are just getting out of jail since a multiple of 2 sevens takes them straight from jail to the most expensive of these properties.
As Reds are the only color group that are in the way of the average roll of the dice, both from go and jail, they represent the highest grossing properties in the entire game.

Do you have any quantitative analysis to back up this answer?

Going from "the average roll tends to 7 over time" to "the average distribution of landings matches what would happen if you rolled 7 each time" is completely wrong.

Personally i love ALL SETS. The Blue light is cheap and easier tradeable. Is so fast that when you collect all with 750 extra dollas you gain 600 dollars. Is no K.O but slow much the opponent.
The orange is the best from my. With extra 900 dollars (after the set complete) is the some from light blue, and later you can raised to 1000. In fact the jail bonus is great. The only negative of the set ? Much harder to collect the full set.
the first set is fine from me. Cannot win alone, but if you get both is a nice money bonus i mean only i hit you taken your money back. (total cost only 620)
THe 2nd best from my is the last one. In fact is only 2 cards and if you are lucky and collect both with total cost of 1750 can ONKO opponent. In fact is the only set that is dander with 2 house.(light blue rage) With 3 is on orange rage
From yellow or red i love both but slighly more official i thing is the red one. Is more change to hit from jail.
Clearly the worst from me is the Green one. Too expensive, too slow. 900 dollars from buying (no one collect the green) and other 1800 from hitting the orange rake? i mean 1000 is Allready huge damage.
Train is VERY GOOD cards from me. Is cheap (200 each and in practise 100 if you sell it). With 3+ copy is a good money bonus. i can easy pass the other 2 cards.(propable and the green one).
I have small experience from a computers game from 4 total players

This is not an answer to the question, which explicitly states need for analysis, not opinions or limited personal experience.

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


text:
Common Mahjong wait patterns
In endgame, you typically have a hand in tenpai that is waiting for 1 more tile to be complete. Usually, it is better if you are able to wait for multiple tiles so your chance to finish are increased. From the rules, some typical wait patterns are derived. For instance, if you got 3 sets and a pair and an incomplete 23, you're waiting for either 1 or 4 to complete a chii (street).
Experienced players know that certain patterns lead to especially high chances to finish. What are the most common patterns to know and strive for?

I found a basic answer on my question over here:

Try to go out waiting for multiple
  tiles (not just one). Imagine that you
  have three complete sets and two
  pairs. Imagine that one pair is 2
  Bams, and you draw a 3 Bam from the
  wall -- which tile do you discard now?
  In this situation, many experienced
  players will discard a 2 Bam, keeping
  2-3. A two-way incomplete chow call is
  better than a two-pair call.
Learn to
  shape the hand into calling patterns
  that give you multiple chances to win,
  such as the following:
Tiles in hand     Call for

2223              134
2224              34
2223344           2345
2223334           2345
2223456           14736
22234 RR          25 R
23456             147**
34567             258**
45678             369**

Highly skilled players of
  un-American mah-jongg (since American
  style alone does not use "chows") know
  these patterns by heart. More complex
  call shapes are mostly extensions of
  these. Although the American game does
  not use chows, the strategy of having
  a multiple-tile call still applies to
  that game as well.
Of special interest
  is the complexity of the pure hand. If
  you're working on a pure hand, it can
  often be difficult to tell what all
  the tiles are that can complete the
  hand. For instance:
  1-2-3-4-5-5-5-6-6-6-7-8-9 (5 chances);
  1-2-3-4-5-5-5-5-6-6--7-8-9 (5
  chances); 2-3-4-4-4-5-5-5-6-6-6-7-8 (7
  chances); and of course
  1-1-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-9-9 (9 chances).

Edit: Additional links with a lot more waits

http://saki.wikia.com/wiki/Mahjong_waits
http://saki.wikia.com/wiki/Complex_waits
http://www.reachmahjong.com/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=52599

Especially the latter is, from my beginner eyes, insanely exhaustive.

Update January 2023:
There is a Mahjong Waits Infographic which shows common patterns:

Links: PNG | PDF | Author's post (Reddit)
Original answer
As an additional resource, I created a tool for finding the waits needed to complete a hand: https://mahjong-trainer.netlify.app
It generates random tenpai hands, so you indicate the waits and the site will tell you the correct answer. And after some tries you'll start to spot some wait patterns.
Screenshot:

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


text:
Beginner Power Grid strategy
Tonight I'll be playing Power Grid for the second time with my game group. It's the second time for all of us.
What key strategy or tactic should I focus on to give me the best chance of winning?

Here is an earlier discussion of How to chose a power plant for a beginner

There really isn't a set strategy here, but a number of tips I've found useful from playing Power Grid, and I hope they can help you, too:

Look at what everyone is buying -- if you're playing 3rd in a 5 player game, and the first two players bought coal plants, consider going with a different fuel source, as coal could get expensive quickly if everyone is buying it.  Pay attention to how quickly fuel sources will replenish at the end of the turn as well.
If you are first to buy resources, consider buying the maximum amount.  It may cost you a little extra to buy them, but anyone else needing those resources is going to have to pay that much more.  Feel free to put the squeeze on people this way.
Don't overpay for Enrvironmental plants -- the environmental plants (the wind plants) are definitely a good buy, and everyone knows that.  If you get lucky and can buy one at the end of the round for face value, go for it.  If the #37 shows up and it gets bid up to $60 or $70 quickly, think very hard about how much you'll be saving if you buy it.  They're good, but don't overpay for them.
Beware the East coast -- there are lots of cheap connections in the East coast, which is great for expanding quickly, but if you buy lots of houses quickly, you'll be in first position, which means you'll be going last lots of the time.  Also, with cheap connections, people might crowd around you and block you in, meaning you may have to expand two or three hubs away, and pay some steep connection costs.  I personally like moving into the East coast during phase 2.
Nuclear plants are great later on -- early on, nuclear fuel is very expensive.  Within a few turns, however, the fuel can get down to $7 or $8 for a single piece.  Compared to how much coal and oil may end up costing, nuclear plants are good for mid- to -late game.
Time when you buy cities -- sometimes there may be a good plant on the table coming up, and you want first shot at it.  If everyone else is buying cities, consider staying at a lesser amount of cities so you have a better chance at going first.
Don't buy plants for the sake of buying plants -- If a good plant comes up, feel free to bid on it, but don't feel like you have to bid every turn.  Try to buy as few plants as possible.
Have a long-term strategy -- if the game will end when someone has built their 14th house, figure out what combination of plants will best get you to 14, such as a 4/4/6 setup, 4/5/5 setup, 3/5/6 setup, whatever.  There are some fantastic plants mid-game that you can use for the rest of the game.

If I think of anything else, I'll add them here.

Very nice, good summary!

Thanks for the great answer! I was the victor last night. ;~)

@wdypdx22 - that's what I like to hear!  Glad I could help.

The advice for no6 is good, but the reasoning is a little wrong. It's not that you want first shot by going first - everyone can bid on whatever the first person goes for. You want to go last, so that there's more chance that it will have come down into the current market by your turn. And you get to be last in the power plant market by having the least cities.

The best advice I can offer is
don't buy a city unless you can fire it up
This is especially important in the early game, when turn order hinges on a single city. If you do, then all you are doing is sacrificing turn order. Even if it makes no difference because you have the highest value plant, it may make a difference next turn.
When bartering for a power plant, consider a few things

how much will you save in terms of raw materials by having this plant
even if you are the only person buying garbage, coal, oil etc, how long is that really likely to last
how much is it worth to your opponents

Try to think as long term as you can with all of your decisions. If you base your decisions on the current status, it will change within a round or two and your decision may quickly look unwise.
Green powerplants
I rarely have found these to be worth it. At cost price they can be, but often they are a hindrance and quickly replaced anyway. It of course depends on how much other resources are costing, but do not overbid as it will cost you in the long term.

I love making people overspend for Green Power Plants.

@Lance: how do you do that without overbidding yourself and risking get stuck with it?

@Chris, you have to take some chances, it's easier to pull off the more players there are.  While your bid may only raise it one electro, if you make it seem like it's a worthwhile investment, then it may motivate others to bid higher on it.

1 for most important rule for beginners to realise.  Underused cities are a massive disadvantage in Power Grid.

Try to minimize the number of plants you buy.
Aim to end up with enough plants to power the endgame # of houses

Don't buy more than one four plant unless it's great deal

Look carefully at the resource costs and double buy if it looks like a resource is in demand
A simple strategy is to alternate being first and being last
Don't think that $1 doesn't matter
Don't always take the cheapest cities, sometimes you need to block others
Place your first houses where the connections are cheap
Try to bid up other power plants, carefully
Hide your money, don't let others make accurate calculations

Last night was only my second time at PowerGrid. Keeping in mind that $1 is significant, and hiding my money, definitely played a role in my victory. Although, it did cause some consternation at one point when an opponent wanted to know about the size of my bankroll.

In a game when the amount you start with and spend is public, I think playing with hidden money is stupid. You're just encouraging everyone to play with a pad of paper so they can keep track. Keeping your money public knowledge is a house rule where I live.

Everything that can be tracked using paper, should be visible or  askable anytimes. Otherwise it would have been blind pulled.

A belated -1 for "hide your money". Given that it's possible for everyone to deduce how much you have, that it's an end of game tiebreaker, and that the rules don't actually say whether it's supposed to be hidden or public, I think it's far better to just make it public. If you do think that it should be hidden information, that's a rule to make, not something to decide to do on your own as a tactic. You do not want to find yourself with potential tiebreakers on the last turn of the game having an argument between a player hiding money and a player trying to decide what to do.

@Jefromi, I think it's a silly rule also, but that is the way the game is played.  In Power Grid, money is allowed to be secret.  In my last game, I used my smartphone calculator to keep track of the opponent I was most concerned with.

@LanceRoberts I checked the rules before commenting: they don't say whether it's public or private. (I think the designer at some point said that he preferred private, but you can play how you want, but I can't find the reference.) In any case, again, that choice is a rule choice. If your play group decides that it's private information, obviously, keep it private. But ask first; if the group decides it's public, or simply assumes it is since the rules don't say otherwise, hiding it is unacceptable.

@Jefromi, here's the official FAQ on it.

So yes, a recommendation, and given that it's not actually in the rules, if you accept the recommendation, the play group definitely needs to be made aware of it as a rule. It's not a strategy tip ("...to give me the best chance of winning..."), unless you think that the OP might reveal his money anyway after telling everyone they can hide it.

@LanceRoberts With regards to money being secret, the FAQ you posted literally says, "The rules are not explicit on this point".  Maybe it's a language barrier thing, but that says about as clearly clearly as you can that there is not in fact a "correct" way to play with regard to money being public vs secret.

I would add a single advice:
Plan your turn before the auctions start.
I usually plan my turn backwards:

How many cities can I connect to with the money I have?
How much will I (likely) need to pay for resources for my current plants?
Now how much is there left for auctions? (counting both the plant price and its resources for at least 1 turn)

After this initial calculation I can adjust the numbers:

If I don't have enough to pay for resources, build 1 fewer city unless there's an obvious new plant that would use cheaper resources or replace an expensive one.
Only bid on power plants that help reach at least the new number of cities, ideally more.
Sometimes it can be worth throwing this plan out the window if there is a really juicy plant, especially if you can get it at face value and you won't have to replace it for a long time, or even ever.

I recognise that this could potentially engender some analysis paralysis, so unless everybody does it, please be nice and move on quickly, keep it fun! Or practice to do it faster; I'm slow at mental calcs so I just split the money on my lap.

Regarding some previous comments about hiding your money.  Your cash is the ONLY thing that is private.  The rules allow this, and it is a critical aspect of the game.  Not knowing if someone can win or not on the next turn makes it exciting, sees if you were paying attention, makes you guess, second guess, triple guess.  If I was the one who could win this turn I would never in a million years want that advertised. Long story short - do keep your money private, any rule otherwise I believe is just silly and frankly a little juvenile.

Depends on the group -- in many groups keeping your money hidden (though the rules state it can be hidden) will just annoy the other players, slow down the game (as they calculate how much you have) and result in you not being invited back for another game...

Honestly, I think it's juvenile to keep it private. You're effectively saying "nanana you don't know how much I have, you have to guess, or keep track on paper". In any case, should you prefer hidden money, that's a rule, not something an individual player can decide. You need to decide on it with your play group, so it's not a strategy tip for a beginning player.

If you have a very expensive plant that only powers one or two cities, consider not powering them as the fuel cost may exceed the extra money you will get in bureaucracy.
The game is pretty close because of the auto handicapping done by puting the leading player in the worse position when buying plants, resources, houses so  very much hangs on the last turn. Even if you played badly, your chances of being in contention ae high.  Consider ditching the balanced play strategy here, as playing a fast one can make you the winner faster than anyone else thinks.
If you see a juicy plant that looks like it will be up for bidding soon, don't make plans including it, unles you know all the other cheaper plants are already discarded. Chances are high that as new plants are drawn your desired plant, will get farther and farther from the auction or even be discarded alltogether.

Here's another tip: don't be afraid to pay a little more for a plant you really need. I have lost many a game by not spending enough money on plants in the midgame. I often have the money and the ability to build the cities but not the power capacity.
Also, if there are two desirable plants with the same capacity in the current market, the first one will often go for less than the second one, so bid that first one up a bit more. Of course, take fuel costs into consideration when bidding.

My advice isn't too different from the accepted answer, but there's a few points I want to emphasize that can be confusing for beginners and should be kept in mind.
Divide your thinking into roughly the three phases.
First off, your goal in phase 1 is to save money. To accomplish this,

expand slowly but not lethargically -- don't lose 10s but don't expand too much for expansion sake (the marginal benefits for powering on each new city are moderately low and get lower).
don't get tricked by the shiny new plants. First, you pay too much if you fight a lot in the auctions. Second, better power plants mean that you move up on the leaderboard -- which in turn means higher expenses for resources and later expansion.
do keep track of the resource market. If you are competing for resources, buy up as long as you can still do everything else you wanted on the turn. If you are not competing, keep track of that.
figure out your price point for green power plants and never go over it (think about how many rounds you're going to keep that single-city wind turbine and how much it will save in resources and don't pay more than that). Also realize that going green helps other people buy resources more cheaply.
In the first part of the game, don't ever fight over buying nuclear power plants. They are too expensive for the value due to the resource situation right now. Also, garbage is largely a bad deal unless other resources are highly competitive -- but since  you're not expanding aggressively, that expensive is felt by someone else (unless 3 players are going for the same type).

In phase 2,

expand more aggressively but try not to become 1st place. This gives you better chances of getting good deals on better power plants. Here, you're making a trade off between expansibility and position on that board.
consider nuclear or trash but only if you don't see a lot of competition. Again, price in the fuel cost when considering nuclear.
in phase 2, it's somewhat acceptable to make bids that are not perfect for you but might convince someone else to genuinely overbid.

In phase 3,

stop worrying about place on the board and worry about expanding to win.
still keep track of power plant value but especially keep track of what others need. In many cases, someone will need a 7 or 6 to have a chance at powering up and winning, keep this in mind when betting.

N.b. -- the phases here are how far into the game you are -- not necessarily the game's phases


text:
Power plants in Power Grid
I've played Power Grid once so far. What is a good beginner's strategy in the initial accumulation of power plants?

Some mix of the following:

Buy the biggest one you can afford  - Remembering that you have to afford fuel as well.
Try to get a plant that has dual fuel sources
Don't buy a coal only plant if 2 other people already have coal fired plants.
Don't get into bidding wars with more experienced players

If the above isn't working out, switch tactics - save your money and get the cheapest one you can this turn and get a better plant next turn.

And by afford, we mean, have money left for fuel and cities.

@Michiel definitely, you need to be able to eyeball your likely turn.  It's a hard skill to develop, and the first turn for a newbie is likely to be rough.  Aiming a bit low on the power plant to allow for some room to screw up is probably a good idea.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with "buy the biggest one". During the first two auctions in a standard game (US/DE), the highest plants will be #06 and #07; not the ideal ones to begin with due to high turn order and expensive fuel costs. Sure, in the late game higher plants are usually better, but not always.

Assuming you're playing with 3 or 4 players, use the 1-2-3-4-5-6-6 strategy. That is, first power plant should power 1 city, second 2, etc. Then you'll grow your capacity in a measured pace, and you'll end up with a capacity of exactly 17. A bad strategy would be: 1-1-3-4-4-5-... because that will make it very hard to reach 17.
Also, by not buying top-of-the-line power plants, you'll probably never be in first place and having to pay most for fuel.

Part of it will depend on your long term strategy; buying a low power plant puts you up first for the cheap resources and the prime places on the board. While more expensive and efficient power plants can give you a leg up in accumulating cash early in the game.
Personally I prefer to start with a relatively inexpensive power plant (as low and cheap as feasible - never more than 2x than the initial value is my rule of thumb to start out) until I've seen the board locations and then focus on keeping my power plants close to the number of cities I actually own. With the auction system don't be afraid to let one go if it gets too expensive - the green power plants can be a real bonus if you aren't paying an arm and a leg for them.

I don't mind to, in the first turn, buying a cheap plant with a lot of storage space (say, three coal).
The cheap plant will help you in the turn order.
Now I stock up on cheap resources (cheap because we are in the start of the game) so later my one-coal plant can run for 6 turns. This has the additional bonus that resources become more expensive for the other players.
If you can get a city where you can connect to the next city for free, the money saved allows you to stock up nicely.

Four is thought to be one of the best ones to start with.
You'll be assured of going first or second (though I'd avoid three), and you can buy a full boat of coal that will tide you over until turn 3.

Do not waste your money on plants up to plant number 13, you'll ned to change them soon. Later ones are better. And also you don't have many cities at the begining. Later I'm trying to get plants which could electrify as many cities as possible. These plants waste a lot of resources, but you will not need to change them until the end of game.

Very hard to say really. It depends on so many factors. The best strategy is to have the power plants that use the resources that your competitors do not use. This then makes the cost of goods cheap to buy, and therefore cheap to fire up.


text:
Do my own villages/cities interrupt my "longest road" in Catan?
In a monthly game night, my friend interprets the rules to say that if I have a village or city on my road, it reduces the "longest road" length. I interpret the rules as saying that my village/city on my road does not impact the road length.
Which is the correct interpretation?

You are correct.
Your own cities do not affect your status towards the "Longest Road" You can view the official rules here, from pg. 9 (emphasis is mine).

You can break an opponent’s road by building a settlement
  on an open intersection along his road!

On page 8, in the example, Emily has the longest road card with 7 segments.  She has two houses within those 7 segments.
This was also answered directly in the online FAQ as pointed out by @shemmon.

To affect the road length, the village/city must be from another player.
And it only limits the counting of the road through that village/city.  You can count up to the village/city that is not yours.
Also, here's a more official 'no:'
https://www.catan.com/faq/4607-longest-road-do-my-own-settlements-interrupt-my-continuous-road


text:
Do you still collect a noble if the day ends?
If there is one noble left in line and you play "fled to England" to discard it (thus, ending the day) do you collect a noble from the new day?

I concur with Pat's answer - I have my copy of the rules in front of me, so can quote chapter and verse!

Play continues in this manner until there are no nobles left in line
  at the start of someone's turn.  That day is then over and a new day
  begins. ... The player to the left of the person who started the
  previous day is the first player for the new day.

Essentially, emptying the line of nobles does not end the day, nor is the line immediately refilled with nobles.  The day ends at the start of the next player's turn, and as Pat says, a new player will be selected to be start player and thus the first to collect a noble.

No,
My recollection is that when the day ends, the current players turn is over.  The next player is the player to the left of the person who started the last day.  That player will fill the line with nobles and take their full turn.
Unfortunately I cannot locate my copy right now and the rules don't appear to be online, so I can't give you a direct rules citation at this time.


text:
What are the requirements for progress?
I've lost galactic progress map for Twilight Imperium 2 edition. So now we can only play till one person obviously dominates all the others, which takes a lot of time. Each progress step requirements are not written in the rulebook.
If anyone has this edition of the game, can you please tell me, what the requirements are?

Galactic Progression Chart: If you view the original size it should be big enough to read, and maybe even print off as a replacement.


text:
Which is resolved first, new obstacles or new crossfire level in Shadowrun Crossfire?
In Shadowrun: Crossfire, you draw a new Crossfire card after each round. On it are events, which have to be resolved. If you play the Extraction mission, each round new obstacles are revealed, which may have flipped actions that have to be resolved. Which comes first, a new Crossfire card or new obstacles? The order influences the results in some situations.

I think that you've got your order of play mixed up a little bit. Let's review what the order of a round is:

Draw a new Crossfire card.
Each runner takes a turn, beginning with the starting
  runner. Play continues clockwise until everyone has taken a turn. The starting runner remains the same throughout the game.
The round is over. Repeat steps 1–3 until the game ends. (Rulebook, pg. 12)

Missions go over the course of a number of Scenes. The Extraction mission has the following rules for ending a Scene:

Mission Progress Track and Ending a Scene: At the end of the Client’s turn, advance the mission-progress marker to the next round down on the track and follow the instructions for that step (see Obstacles and Crossfire, above, for obstacle placement). (Rulebook, pg. 20)

So a scene ends, and obstacles are drawn, immediately at the end of a Client's turn, which will happen during Step 2 of a round, and then will be followed by Step 3 when any end of round effects are resolved. A Crossfire card is then drawn during Step 1 of a round. So there will never be a conflict between new obstacles and new Crossfire cards because they happen during different steps of a round.
Also, if you end a turn with no obstacles (and therefore remove a Crossfire card), the Shadowrun: Crossfire FAQ clarifies that you do not draw a new Crossfire card immediately, so again there will never be a conflict between a Crossfire event and obstacles.

Q: I’ve just ended a turn with no obstacles in play, so I remove the current Crossfire card from play. Now I draw another one, right?
A: No. You only draw a new Crossfire card at the start of a round of play. Depending on when you removed the current Crossfire card, it might still be several turns before you draw a new one.


text:
Hero Quest - Adaptation to remove 'Evil Wizard'
I'm just wondering if anyone has come across an adaptation to the rules of Hero Quest for a version where you don't need an evil wizard? I'm wanting to try and play 2 player co-operative games and almost have a more random monster appearance like Warhammer Quest etc, but not quite sure if it'll work.

Boy do I love Hero Quest -- that's the game that started it all for me.
I've tried playing Hero Quest without Zargon a couple of times, and it's tricky but doable.
You basically need one person playing both a hero and Zargon, and trying to move the monsters as impartially as possible.  For example, if you enter a room with two Fimir, and its their turn to act, don't have them run off afraid, or have them move up and then not attack.  Either the hero/Zargon, or the entire group, need to come up with what you think the monsters would do.
You can either come up with a strict attack order (monsters will go for the Wizard first, Elf second for example) or dice off to see which way the monster will go.
You might have to re-write or re-copy the scenarios with the treasure notes and secret doors and traps written down elsewhere, so you can't cheat and say "Well this treasure chest is trapped because I read it right here" or "Hey, there's a secret door here, I just read about it".  Alternately you can put the traps and secret doors on the board, but you need to roll some target value to even be aware that it's there.
There's a site called BowserBag.com that has some interesting links, including a PDF for play without Zargon, found here.

Thanks for the link. Doesn't really detail much about playing without Zargon but some of the other rules are interesting. I'm liking the idea of copying down the instructions without revealing secrets, or even creating a number/room map and coming up with some cards to determine which room you enter randomly each time you play.

I asked this ages ago, before I got into D&D. Interestingly the D&D games like the CastleRavenloft board game have a mechanic where monsters generally move towards the nearest creature, on the turn of the person who revealed it. It is completely random however, the map and the monsters revealed based on icons that are on the tiles.


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Thornwatch - How does paying for Hero Actions work?
Reading the Thornwatch rules, I'm struggling to be clear about how hero actions are paid for and how much they cost.
There are two types of non-scenario based Hero Actions, "tracker" card ones every hero gets automatically and "action card" ones you slot onto your hero and then power by stacking cards underneath.
To pay costs, you discard cards up to that value. However, action cards need to be "powered" to use, by tucking other cards underneath them.
On a test run-through, I ended up with three related questions.
Do you also have to pay costs for "action cards" that you have powered? (e.g. you stack three "Brawn" cards under the action cards, and then have to also discard three brawn cards to use it?)
When you have used a "deck power", does it remain slotted onto your card to be re-used or do it and its "powering" cards get discarded?
Can you slot a card, power it, and use its action all on the same turn?

Appreciate this is a basic question, but having read the rules a couple more times, I think I understand this properly now, but I would appreciate confirmation.

There are two types of powers - tracker powers and action cards. In order to use either you must pay for them either with slotted cards or discarded cards. See page 14 / 15 of the rules.

If you have stacked power cards under an Action Cards, then when you activate that Action Card the Action Card and all the stacked cards that are powering it are discarded. You do not pay a second time with cards from your hand.
When using an Action Card that you had slotted on your Tracker, it and all stacked cards powering it are discarded. You don't get to keep the Action Card to re-use again later.
Yes you can slot, power then use an Action card in one turn, on the understanding that you can only Act once a turn. In this case I don't think there is a difference between stacking cards to power the Action Card or simply discarding straight from your hand to power the Action Card.

Brilliant, worked a lot of this out after re-reading the rules (the bit about discard is sort of buried in a paragraph), but amazing to have a proper answer finally.

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


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What considerations are important for initial placements in Kingdom Builder?
I've only played Kingdom Builder a few times.  What should I be looking for when placing my first couple settlements?  Are there synergies between the scoring rules and bonus abilities to consider?  How much should I avoid being adjacent to multiple terrains?

The first turn is basically a trade-off between getting the best bonus tile (given the scoring goals in play) and minimising the risk of getting trapped, by avoiding placing in a large area of one terrain and making as few adjacencies as possible. It's often possible to do this in such a way that the bonus tile you claim guarantees you another tile next turn, regardless of your card draw.

Place according to the 3 endgame win cards. But generally keep your options open for expansion by starting with small areas you can fill up quick.


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Is the Mystery Train expansion for Ticket to Ride available in sizes matching the 1910 expansion?
I have a set of Mystery Train expansion cards that I printed and laminated myself (they're not the most pleasant to play with, but they work). Since I got the 1910 expansion for Ticket to Ride, I haven't really used the Mystery Train expansion because the cards' sizes don't match. The destination tickets from Mystery Train are included, but I'm looking for the character cards (Engineer, Tycoon, Inspector, Station Agent, and the blank character card).
Is there a professionally-printed version or a printable PDF for the full-size cards?

I thought the 1910 expansion included the Mystery Train expansion?

@Lance, my copy of 1910 included it.  Perhaps the OP has an older printing?

@Lance @Kristo I have the Mystery Train destination tickets but not the character cards (like Engineer); my copy of the 1910 expansion is the version that came in a tin, not in a box.

Yeah, the destination tickets is all that came in my tin.

@Lance, thanks! I'll clarify that in the question, then.

I found this in my digging through the web (posted Friday, May 7, 2010 4:48 pm):

The other day I was following some links and clicked on the URL for the Mystery Train expansion: http://www.daysofwonder.com/tickettoride/en/mystery/
I noticed that the page for this was no longer valid (though it had been live just a few months ago)
Curious about this, I wrote Customer Support at Days of Wonder, and they replied:

Thank you for your request.
Support for this expansion has been discontinued.
Best Regards,
Yann Corno - Customer Service -  Days of Wonder - Come out and play!

Now, luckily, I had archived the old Mystery Train pages before they disappeared. My mirror of that site can be found here: http://www.tannerworld.com/mysterytrain/

There are statements on two other pages on BoardGameGeek (1 and 2) that say there's no such thing available.
One workaround would be to resize the cards (and fix the images so they look okay at the new scale), but distributing the modified PDF could be copyright infringement.


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Proper use of Dominion card Upgrade
In what situations is Upgrade (Intrigue) useful? I have never seen anyone buy Upgrade in the games I've played where it was available. Whenever I play with Upgrade and Swindler, I always give Upgrade to my opponents in exchange for their 5-cost cards. They never know what to do with it... What are we doing wrong? How can we make use of this card?

Don't forget you can turn a card you don't need anymore into something else.  Sometimes towards the end of a game if I'm short on Gold, I'll start upgrading powerful cards into whatever victory cards I can get my hands.  I've eeked out some hilarious victories.

You can use Upgrade to gradually improve your deck while also carrying out a larger strategy.  Because Upgrade is non-terminal (that +1 Action) you can turn your Estates into Silver or middling 4-cost cards into more powerful 5-cost cards while still playing your other Actions.
It is tricky, I won't deny that, but it can have some value.  I don't see it as the core of your strategy, though.

+1  The +Card and +Action are really what make this card worth it.  It can slowly improve a deck without slowing down your main game strategy.

But is losing the use of an action you planned to have from the beginning in favor of gaining one which costs only 1 more and is not usable until a few turns later worth it? Perhaps getting rid of estates early on for silver, and getting rid of early cards like coppersmith for something that helps in late game might be decent...

I wouldn't use Upgrade to kill a 4-cost action that was part of my strategy into a 5-cost action, no.   But once I had Upgrade, if I get stuck sometime with 4 coins, I might buy a middling 4-cost action expressly intending to eventually Upgrade it to the card I REALLY wanted.

I also use upgrade to clean out curses... Probably never would use it to destroy an action card (well, maybe coppersmith...)

Upgrade is quite strong by itself for two reasons:

You can use it to trash 0-cost cards that you no longer want in your deck (coppers and curses). Trashing curses is obvious, but regarding copper: do not underestimate the power of having a really small deck!
You can use it to turn your Estates into Silver (always a good choice) or, even better, into a highly contested 3-cost card in a 3 or 4 player game (think Village in a pool where it is the only action-gaining card).

These reasons are enough for Upgrade to be something you want to have in your deck, and not only in one copy. There are also, in my experience, two factors stemming from the kingdom card pool that "modify" Upgrade's usefulness:

If the pool is very strongly combo-oriented (lots of cards with +actions and +cards plus cards with +gold and/or +buy), Upgrade may be too slow. For example, in a pool with Festival/Smithy/Village/Nobles/Throne Room I don't think you 'd have the time to do enough with Upgrade before combos start exploding left and right.
If the pool has no +buy actions, Upgrade is stronger. It's the only way you will have to gain a second card in your turn. In this case, lots of Upgrades (3-4) can serve to turn your initial turn buys (2-4 cost) to 5-6 cost cards.

And finally, don't forget that if you have too many Upgrades you can always use one to turn another into a Gold.

In addition to the +1 Card and +1 Action, Upgrade is one of only two "gain a card costing X more" (note: I'm ignoring Forge here) cards that has the word exactly on it (the other is Cornucopia's Remake).
Meaning that if you Upgrade a Copper or Curse, you get nothing back (assuming you didn't play a Bridge before it).  With Remodel and Expand, you must gain another card costing up to 2 or 3 more, even if the cost is lower than that of the card you trashed.

There are two key points here:

Your deck starts out bad.
Many cards are much better in the early game than later.

You can use upgrade to solve both problems. Getting rid of your starting copper (and likely estates) will improve your deck. So will trashing that first-turn buy that's just too weak to get you to provinces later. It's a non-terminal action, so it gives you a way to trash these cards without wasting turns, as you tend to do with something like chapel or steward. And do remember: it's an upgrade. You're not just removing a weak link, you're replacing it with something to strengthen your deck.
There are some great special cases, too, like upgrading four-cost actions to duchies in the end game, and trashing curses.

You can buy many Upgrade as early as possible in the game. This is a really good starting strategy. By many, I mean as much as 5 or 6 cards. It will clean your deck so quickly from all the Copper and Estate, you will be able to upgrade your Upgrade into Gold and reach the Province much faster than you can imagine.
And don't forget to upgrade your Estate to Great Hall (instead of Silver) if both are on the table!

Upgrade allows you to thin your deck with a non terminal action.  Being able to get rid of coppers and curses is almost always helpful.
You an also trade out poorly performing or obsolete cards for better cards.  Heck, upgrade an Upgrade to a gold :)
I love being able to thin my deck and will almost always grab 1-2 of these if there are no better deck thinning options available.

The biggest advantage of Upgrade is it helps to clean the junk (coppers, estates, and curses especially) out of your deck fast. And then, when you don't need them, turn the upgrades into gold or other 6 cost cards. Here as an example of game of how to use them effectively:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201106/18/game-20110618-132616-55486cf0.html

Link is borked!


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Does each stable in a pasture double the number of animals allowed?
I popped round to visit some friends earlier this week and a 4-player game of Agricola sprang up, as often happens.  One of the players hadn't played before so we ran through the rules for her benefit.  While stables were being explained, I "helpfully" chimed in with the fact that, if you have 2 stables in a two-space pasture, each one doubles the capacity of the pasture - so you end up with a pasture capable of holding 16 of one type of animal.
My host who was explaining the game was unimpressed. "Actually that's not true - it would only hold 8 animals."
I said I was sure I was right, and he said no, they'd looked this up in the rules specifically.  I immediately started leafing through the rulebook in search of justification for my position, and thought I'd found it.  "I think you're misreading this rule that says you can only have one stable per farmyard space.  That doesn't mean you can only have on stable per pasture."
"No," he retorted wearily, "you can have more than one stable per pasture, but nowhere does it say that that keeps redoubling the number of animals.  All it says is that a pasture with a stable in it has double capacity.  Anyway that's the way we play it and that's the end of it."
And it did seem as though he had a point, the rules didn't seem nearly as explicit on this subject as I had imagined them to be.  In addition, it's actually really unlikely that you'd need a pasture holding 16+ of one type of animal in Agricola, so it wasn't something there was any point in having a big fight over.
Still, on the principle of the thing: which of us was right and which wrong on this point?  Is there anywhere in the rules, or in an external authoritative ruling, that clarifies how multi-stable pastures work?

Each stable doubles the capacity of the pasture.
While not usually a great move, there are situations where this could be useful.
From the rules, top right on page 9: (Emphasis is mine)

Each stable costs 2 Wood and can be placed on a fenced or empty unfenced farmyard space.
  A fenced stable doubles the holding capacity of a pasture. Each farmyard space can hold 1
  stable. Each space within a pasture may have its own stable: the pasture’s capacity is then
  multiplied by 4, 8, etc.


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Hand Order In Agricola (and Bohnanza)
We played with Agricola: The Goodies for the first time last night, and while it was very silly, it didn't have the negative impact on gameplay that I'd feared.  However, the Occupation cards from the L-deck created all sorts of rules questions for us that we weren't quite equipped to answer.  But that's where this site comes in!
The Bean Farmer occupation reads:

Once you have player the Bean Farmer,
  no opponent can change the order of
  the cards in their hand; they may only
  play the card that is at the front.
  (If the first card is an Occupation, for example, they cannot play a Minor
  Improvement.)

My question is, is there a canonical interpretation of the "front" of your hand?  If you are holding your cards in a fan, where the rightmost card is the only one with its full face showing, is that the front?
Obviously the intent of this card is to force the opponents to play Bohnanza-style, but this just adds complexity to the issue: when I play Bohnanza, I consider my "first bean" to be the card at the far left of my fan!
In the event we ruled that each player could decide what constituted the "front" of their hand, but this may be open to abuse.  Is there a definitive "front" and "back" of your hand in Agricola?  And incidentally, have I been playing Bohnanza wrong all these years?

The Bohnanza rulebook on page 3 states that the "first card" in each player's hand is the one that is fully visible when fanned. Rulebook here.

I'd say that if there was an argument, the "front" of your hand would be the card that you can completely see when it's fanned.


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Winning Race for the Galaxy Without 6-cost Developments?
My brother-in-law bought me Race For The Galaxy for Christmas so I've been playing a few games recently.  Obviously we are nowhere near mastering it; but what I've been seeing in all of our scorelines so far is someone getting a ton of points off one or other of the 6-point developments, and running away with the victory.
Personally I've been desperate to make a Produce-Consume strategy work, but so far I've had no luck at all.  It just seems as though having the right 6-cost development and building as many things as possible mentioned on that card completely trumps getting an "engine".
A few questions therefore occur.
(1) Are 6-cost developments really this good?  If I don't see a good one early, should I be Exploring +5 in a frantic attempt to find one?
(2) If I'm just being generally incompetent, and I expect I am, what are some efficient strategies for competing with someone whose 6-cost development is going to earn them ~10 extra points at the end of the game, when I don't have one of my own?
(3) What's the best way to get a really good Produce-Consume strategy working for you?  I expect it only seems slow and clunky to me right now because I'm doing it wrong.
Please help me to zoom ahead from last place in this Race!

I don't want to make this sound too much like an argument from authority, but I've won the WBC RftG tournament 3 years in a row.  I also mantain the Race for the Galaxy Statistics page, which has some interesting play data on cards from 160,000 games played.
(1) 6 devs are usually important for winning, but not required for doing so.  I build at least one 6 dev in more than 80% of the games that I play.

On the other hand, calling explore +5 early game isn't really a good move unless your whole hand is bad.  It's better to establish card flow so that you can keep most of the (somewhat fewer) cards that you see, instead of repeatedly exploring, which will leave you poor.  Repeatedly calling explore +5s leaves you too far on the quality over quantity spectrum.  It's not very useful to have great cards that you can't afford to build.  6 devs, especially multiple 6 devs, aren't great to have very early in the game, because they soak up valuable hand space that you need to get your card engine going.

(2) Produce/consume is indeed the most viable way to win the game without building a 6 dev.
First, basic strategy.  Early game you want to get card flow.  The best way to do this is to settle a windfall world and trade off it.  The second best way is to settle a production world, produce on it, and then trade.  Windfall settle/trade is better than Production world settle/produce/trade because it is a turn faster.  This is pretty general opening advice for any strategy.
(3) The key to a produce/consume strategy is to build production worlds early.  So ideally you want to settle/trade a windfall, and then call some mix of settle, trade, and produce.  You want to avoid calling develop, which mostly fills up your tableau without increasing your production capacity, until you have at least 2 production worlds and a windfall.  After this, you might want to dev once to put down an efficient consumer card.   Mining Conglomerate, Diversified Economy and Consumer Markets are the best non-6 cost devs for consumption in the base game.  Free Trade Association and Mining League are good 6-cost consumers.  But you can likely use an opponent's develop, or settle worlds with consumption powers instead.  Galactic Trendsetters, Tourist World, and Old Earth are the best worlds for consumption in the base game.  You want to call trade rather than consume 2xVP until you can get at least 6 VP per consume 2xVP.  Also important with a consume/produce engine is the ability to draw cards so that your engine doesn't stall as you are produce/consuming.  It's especially good to have cards that draw on produce.  This makes cards like Lost Species Ark World, Mining World, Comet Zone, and Gem World particularly good production worlds in the base game, as you can see at the graph on the base game rftgstats page.
Addendum: How does this change for expansions?
Produce/consume itself becomes marginally weaker in the expansions.  With the card stats by game version animated graph, you can can see Galactic Trendsetters hastily moving left (less often played) and down (less winning when played), which is a bread and butter produce/consume world.  This is due to two factors.

The addition of goals, which give an extra point source that is mostly rewarded for building.  P/C itself sometimes misses early builds to set up production capability.
The second is the introduction of the card Improved Logistics, which lets players settle twice in a single settle phase.  This card lets opponents quickly end the game, before a produce/consume player can get many cycles in.

However, the card Alien Toy Shop by itself is a 4 VP/cycle engine, which helps P/C a bit.
Still, the fundamentals for produce/consume are the same, but the fraction of times you want to produce/consume should decrease with the introduction of the first expansion.
The expansions also introduce another viable way to win without building a 6 dev, the tableau rush.  Since you can now get a substantial amount of points from goals, especially with the aid of improved logistics, you can grab a couple of goals and end the game really quickly with a middling score in the 30s.  But remember, the game is not about scoring big, it's about scoring more than your opponents.

Argument from Authority works if you can back it up!

Wow, there's backing your argument up and then there's backing it up.  That's an amazing, almost bewildering amount of play data you've got there!  It does look as though 6 devs are among the strongest cards in the game, but hopefully by taking heed of some of your Produce/Consume strategy tips I'll be able to sharpen up my game to the point where someone else having a good one doesn't just crush me...

Awesome info.  How does this advice change with the expansions?

I tried to Produce/Consume a bit smarter in a 2-player game last night but my wife still completely crushed me with Galactic Federation and 2 develop phases a turn (totally fair, as I did exactly the same to her a few games ago).  It wasn't even close, though in all fairness I think I'm still making terrible play decisions.  Beating, or at least being competitive against, the Galactic Federation juggernaut is my goal!

Galactic Federation is the strongest card in the base game, and it's possibly the best counter to Produce/Consume as well.  Don't feel bad about losing to it.

As I read the first half of Rob's post, I was thinking, "But what about Improved Logistics with a military tableau?" ... and then he brings it up in the addendum.
Nice read, Rob.  Thanks!

I've only played the base set but the biggest victories that I've seen were Military and 6 devs. Five 6 devs (especially the one that gives you points for each 6 dev) gave me 54 points. Military is nice to get some early windfalls out as noted above to trade off. I won today by playing Earth's Lost Colony (my starter), settling Destroyed World (an otherwise worthless one cost Rare windfall) and Tourist World. After I had those three out, I just produced/consumed and the game was over in 4 turns. Interested to see how expansions affect gameplay.

I'd like to
Give a highlight even though all was covered nicely by rrenaud:

First, this is a race; your score depends on the opponents too! This means that if you are far in the game with no 6-cost devs it may have already been a winning decision
To be realistic, you will need to have consumption and prestige/goals if playing with expansions to compensate for the lack of 6 developments.
Identify the factors that will allow for the previous: cards that consume high, cards that will give you a flow of new cards every round.
Last, relying on only expensive military planets statistically fails, because their score will just match up with the opponent's 6 development while not giving the crucial powers.

After playing many many times, I've seen and won games without 6-cost developments, but I have to say that's very unlikely.


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How Has The Fluxx Core Game Changed Over The Years?
While researching Fluxx for a different question, I came across this chronology for editions of the game in Wikipedia:

Fluxx 2.0 (new card layout, use of color, bridge-sized cards)
Fluxx 2.1 (reprint of 2.0 with minor changes)
Fluxx 3.0 (many cards removed and added, to improve balance)
Fluxx 3.1 (two cards removed, one card added)
Fluxx 4.0 (card number increased to 100, all color, introduction of Meta rule and creepers)

I am now officially intrigued by the way Fluxx has evolved since its earliest incarnations.  Can anyone provide a rundown?  In particular:

What were the differences been Fluxx 2 and Fluxx 3?  What unbalanced cards or combinations existed in 2.0 and 2.1?
What were the minor (but clearly vitally important) changes to the lineup between 3.0 and 3.1?

random comment: fluxx seems to be the only game where every 'expansion' or variant is WAY better than the original. zombie fluxx, martian fluxx, and eco fluxx all rank higher on BGG...

@Crazy: That IS an interesting observation!  I reckon it's because, when it comes down to it, Fluxx is like "bread", and the expansions are like "sandwiches".  Bread is a good start for making a delicious snack, but you wouldn't want to live on it alone ;)

The Fluxx Wiki has lists of the composition of the various decks linked off this page.
Here's my attempts at answering your specific questions:
Cards in v2 not in v3:

Doughnuts

The Eye

The Pyramid

Taxes

Coffee & Doughnuts

Death & Taxes

The Great Seal

The Mind's Eye

Money (No Taxes)

Pilfer the Trash

Trash Hand Limit

Trash Keeper Limit

Brain Bonus

Final Card Random

Government Cover Up

Hand Limit 3

Money Bonus

Secret Data

Tax Bonus

Time Bonus

New cards in v3:

Sleep

Baked Goods

Bed Time

Dreamland

Hearts & Minds

Rocket Science

Squishy Chocolate

Winning the Lottery

Empty the Trash

Go Fish

I Need a Goal

Jackpot

Let's Do That Again!

Let's Simplify

No Limits

Rotate Hands

Double Agenda

Reverse Order

First Play Random

No-Hand Bonus

Poor Bonus

Rich Bonus

Inflation/X = X + 1

The Looney Labs newsletter from Nov 14, 2002 explains the changes in v3.0 this way:

1.) What will be different? Roughly half of the cards in the deck have changed in some way, but in many cases the revisions are so minor that only a few people will notice them. Over 25% of the cards have been radically changed or are completely different.
2.) Can you be more specific about what's changing? The 4 "Bonus" rules have been replaced with a trio of stronger ones, called the Rich bonus, the Poor Bonus, and the No-Hand Bonus. The 3 new rules which we made into promos for Origins 2002 (X=X+1, Double Agenda, and Reverse Order) have all been added. Those annoying "hide a Keeper" rules are all going away, and we're getting rid of 4 rather wimpy Actions and putting in 7 better ones. We thinned the Keepers down a bit, increased the number of Goals, and made sure no Keeper was useful for only 1 thing. The 5 Keepers being dropped are the Eye, the Pyramid, Coffee, Donuts, and Taxes, but in their place we're adding 2 totally new ones: Sleep and Dreams. Changing the Keeper mix required us to drop a number of Goals that no longer made sense, but of course others were needed for the new Keepers. A couple of Goals also got renamed. Other minor changes included replacing the artwork for War (as I described a few weeks ago) and for Chocolate (since we've learned that a certain powerful Chocolate Corporation has strong attitudes about their trademark on a little slip of paper sticking out of a piece of candy). Final Card Random has been changed to First Play Random (it works better), the blank card has been eliminated (it's obsolete), and the rules insert will be larger (featuring the cartoon shown here). The tuckbox will be the same size, but it will look a bit different; the 6-pack display carton will change only slightly. To sum up: it's way better than before.

Looking further at the v3.x page, I think these are the minor changes:

The chocolate keeper has a kiss in 3.0 and a bar in 3.1
The 3.0 "The Sun & the Moon" goal is called "Night & Day" in 3.1
The "Go Fish" and "I Need a Goal" actions are only in 3.0
The "Jackpot" action is only in 3.1
The 3.0 "X = X + 1" rule is called "Inflation" in 3.1
The 3.1 Fluxx packaging included another card to "Join the Fluxx Fan Club"

A full and excellent answer, so thank you!  I'll go away and mull on the implications of all this for a while...

I only just saw this comment. To some extent you can mix Fluxx revisions. Fluxx v1 has different cards - shape and color of back, I think. I'm not sure there's a lot of value in mixing Fluxx 2 with Fluxx 3 necessarily though - you'd get a lot of duplicates. I think that from Fluxx 2 on, you can mix expansions with any base Fluxx version though I haven't tried.


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How to resolve spawning two monsters on one tile in Castle Ravenloft
Castle Ravenloft is a new game, but already it's struck a chord with me.  I enjoy playing it.
One problem with it being a new game is that the rules and errata haven't quite been fleshed out .
What happens when you spawn two monsters on one tile?

First:
On each tile, there is a skull pile on the floor.  When the first monster is placed on the tile, it is placed on the skull tile.
Each subsequent monster placed on that tile is placed as close to the skull pile as possible, so any square adjacent to it.
I believe this is stated in the rulebook, but I don't have it in fromt of me, so I will add the page number later.
Second:
I'm not sure that there is a huge need for house rules.  I think that the rules are succinct and well written.  I think that it can be easy to put too much thought into this game, and if you let go of the need to make it "D&D", you will find that the rules work quite nicely without customization 'needed'.
I really enjoy this game and take it out whenever I can.

From page 11 of the Castle Ravenloft™ game's rulebook, and again in Wrath of Ashardalon™'s one (which is the second title that uses the D&D® Adventure System):

✦ If the tactic requires the Monster to move to a new tile, place the Monster on the new tile’s bone pile if that square is empty. Whenever possible, Monsters move from tile to
  tile by following the bone pile. If the bone pile square is occupied, place the Monster anywhere on the tile.

Emphasis mine.
In Wrath of Ashardalon™, scorches performs the same function of piles of bones in Castle Ravenloft™. (I wonder if they're going to use spider swarms or webs to mark special squares on the upcoming Legend of Drizzt™).


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Extra Adventures for Castle Ravenloft
Where can I find other adventures for Castle Ravenloft? So far I've only found the two bonus adventures that WotC released.

BoardGameGeek Castle RavenLoft has quite a few used-made scenarios and extra characters.
The most are listed in the Variants forum, although you may look around in there a bit and find some others under "rules" maybe.
One of my favorites is "Crypts And Creepers", although it's more of an 'expansion', not just another scenario.
WotC is also having a "Build your own scenario" competition, so you should see more available on-line when that happens also.
Here's a link I just found that has most of the user-created adventures listed and ranked:
BGG Castle RavenLoft Adventure Database

I don't see the individual adventures, just the list that ranks them.

The first post is the current rankings, the links to the adventures are posted below that.

Update: link for "official" 2 bonus adventures is Link