Are the boats you build in Stone Age visible to other players? In Stone Age, when you build a boat you receive a Civilization card. This card gives you an immediate bonus, as well as some form of additional points to be calculated at the end of the game.  I've always played that when these cards are purchased, they are placed face down on the player's individual board.
I recently saw a game played where the cards are placed face-up in front of each player.  This changed the dynamic of the game as players could immediately see which cards where more beneficial to certain people.

What is the correct placement for these cards and are other players allowed to look at previous cards you've purchased?

You're playing it right. From the rules (page 6):

  Each player places their [Civilization] cards face-down on the corresponding space of their player board.

In other words, no one can see which cards you have. The only exceptions to this rule are the one-use tool cards. They are kept open until they are used.

One-use tool cards


Is The Next Act Begins a valid first mythos card during setup? Can the "The Next Act Begins!" Mythos card be a valid first mythos to draw during the game setup? There is no rule prohibiting it, but it would result in no gate emerging at the start of the game.

If a mythos card with no gate is drawn during step 14 of
  Game Setup, discard it and draw again until you draw a
  mythos card that depicts a gate.

Source: Arkham Horror Core FAQ or Complete Arkham Horror FAQ, "Rule Changes and Clarifications" (page 2 in both sources)


Will spells that exile enchantments also exile enchantment artifacts? Does a spell which says "exile target enchantment" such as Erase work on enchantment artifacts? I can not seem to find an answer for this, can you help?

Yes, any card that can exile an enchantment can exile an enchantment artifact. This is because an enchantment artifact is both an enchantment as well as an artifact.

  205.2b Some objects have more than one card type (for example, an artifact creature). Such objects satisfy the criteria for any effect that applies to any of their card types.

There's also this nugget of information buried in the Basic Rulebook, to help illustrate this relationship to new players.

  Artifact creatures are both artifacts and creatures. [...]  An artifact creature can be affected by anything that affects artifacts, as well as anything that affects creatures.

Trivia: The quoted piece of information was present in the M14 Basic Rulebook, but you won't find it anywhere in the M15 Basic Rulebook.

Examples

Erase can exile Whip of Erebos, because Whip of Erebos is an enchantment, and Erase targets enchantments. Being an artifact does not make this any less true.

Dryad Arbor would be affected by Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, because Dryad Arbor is a land.

Dryad Arbor would also be affected by Anger of the Gods, because Dryad Arbor is a creature.

A Darksteel Citadel enchanted with Ensoul Artifact with an Enchanted Evening in play would be would be affected by anything that affects enchantments, creatures, artifacts, or lands.


Goryo's Vengeance and Veil of Secrecy Can I cast Goryo's Vengeance and use Veil of Secrecy's arcane ability, to target the creature I returned with Goryo's Vengeance?

If this is possible, at what point has my opponent priority or what can he counter?

No, you can not

From the Comprehensive Rules (Ixalan (September 29, 2017))

Splice is a static ability that functions while a card is in your hand.
“Splice onto [subtype] [cost]” means “You may reveal this card from your hand as you cast a [subtype] spell. If you do, copy this card’s text box onto that spell and pay [cost] as an additional cost to cast that spell.” Paying a card’s splice cost follows the rules for paying additional costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2c

Seeing as the card is still in the graveyard, it's not a legal target for the Veil, and all spells you cast needs all its costs paid and legal targets (If it does indeed target anything.) before you can cast it.

source


Can my opponent and I decide on a victory condition to avoid a draw? Say I'm playing against a player and we finish game 2 with 5 minutes left in the round. If we draw, both of us will be knocked down, and most likely neither will be eligible for prizes.

I know bribery is against the rules, but could we agree (before the match starts) to something along the lines of "If we draw, whoever has fewer life points will concede so at least one of us can have a chance at prizes"?

As I understand it the answer will come down to if this is defined as collusion, but I'm having a hard time determining how Wizards defines it.

Bribery and Collusion do not really factor into this.  If there is no agreement (or offer) to exchange something of value for a particular match result, there is no bribery.  "Collusion" is not inherently illegal in the absence of bribery (No rule says I can't concede to my friends because they're my friends.)

You are running afoul of 'Unsporting Conduct - Improperly Determining a Winner'.  Entering into (or offering) an agreement with your opponent to choose the winner of the match by any means not included in the rules of the game is a disqualification.


Technically highest 7 Wonders score I was wondering what is the technically highest score one can achieve in Seven Wonders (with Cities and Leaders) in a 3+ player game, considering all players are working with the performer.

Has anyone heard of an algorithm that calculates that, or some information about it? I've tried get out my head around it but there are SO MANY parameters that I'm almost tempted to brute-force this solution.

Any ideas or information?

I believe I can get to 231 using the restrictions of the OP, being a 3 player game and only the Leaders and Cities expansions.

Wonders used are Byzantium (A) West, Babylon (B) You, and Roma (B) East.

A summary of the points are:

Military - 16 - from an Age II Stables

Coins - 27 - finish with 82 coins from neighbours purchasing from you, Gambling House&Den and coins from chaining through Vitruvius Leader

Wonder - 3 - from first stage on Babylon (B)

Civilian - 6 - from Age III Senate

Science - 110 - 5 sets, 11 greens + Spy Ring to copy the 12th, Multis from Babylon Stage 3 and Scientists Guild and 1 more symbol using Courtesans Guild to copy West's Leader

Guilds - 27 - all from Gamers Guild (coins)

Leaders - 42 - 15 from Aristotle for 5 sets and 27 from Midas (coins).

The full log of what is played each turn and how the money flows is in the picture below. Hopefully there are no mistakes, however happy to get corrections and/or improvements.

Enjoy! Brett.


Will Irencrag Pyromancer's ability trigger when it's killed by Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted? An opponent kills my Irencrag Pyromancer with Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted's minus ability ("Destroy target creature. It's controller draws 2 cards.") on their turn. Would I get a trigger on Irencrag Pyromancer for drawing my second card this turn before it is destroyed, or is it destroyed first, and only then I would draw my two cards?

You perform instructions in an ability in the order in which they are written. So, in this scenario, the creature is destroyed then you draw the cards. Creatures that are destroyed die immediately, so the Pyromancer is already dead by the time you draw the cards and its triggered ability will not trigger.

Rules section 608 describes how to resolve spells and abilities, and rule 608.2c says

The controller of the spell or ability follows its instructions in the order written. However, replacement effects may modify these actions. In some cases, later text on the card may modify the meaning of earlier text (for example, “Destroy target creature. It can’t be regenerated” or “Counter target spell. If that spell is countered this way, put it on top of its owner’s library instead of into its owner’s graveyard.”) Don’t just apply effects step by step without thinking in these cases—read the whole text and apply the rules of English to the text.


Keeper Action Card Reuse in Mansions of Madness Some Keeper Action cards in MoM specifically state "This card can be used only once per Keeper turn." Other specifically state that a card may be used a number of times - once per monster on the board, or some such.

But most of the cards are not specific. Does this mean they can be used multiple times per Keeper turn by default?

For example - the Raise Dead card allows the Keeper to spend 1 Threat to place a corpse token or spend 2 Threat to replace a corpse with a Zombie.

Can I as Keeper spend 3 Threat to place the corpse and replace it with the Zombie?
If so, can I keep doing that as long as I have enough Threat to spend? (Subject to the limited number of Zombie figures, of course)

Yes,

Unless restricted by the card, the Keeper is only restricted by his available threat in terms of using the same Keeper Action multiple times.

See this errata by the designer on BoardGameGeek.  It's obvious that the errata is meant to limit the usage.  If the default was once/turn, there would be no need for the errata.


Is the Chancellor + Harbinger combo a viable Dominion strategy? From what I can see, the Chancellor (base set; allows you to immediately move your deck into your discard pile) coupled with an extra action and the Harbinger (Dominion Update Pack; allows you to take any card from the discard pile and put it into your hand) could make a pretty fantastic combo, giving you any card from your deck (as well as giving any reason to use the Chancellor). Is this a viable strategy?

This doesn't work as you are thinking:

Harbinger has you draw a card before you look through your discard pile. This means that when you play Harbinger, the first thing you do is draw a card, which requires you shuffle your discard pile and make a new draw deck. So having played Chancellor first actually makes Harbinger worthless!
Harbinger doesn't put the card into your hand like you said, it puts it on top of your deck.
Because Chancellor is a terminal action, and would need to be played before Harbinger, this requires that you first play a Village or another action that gives +2 Actions.
Even if it did work as you were thinking; the end result would be the 1 best card in your deck gets to get played sooner in the shuffle rather than later; or maybe played multiple times within 1 shuffle. This same thing is accomplished with both Scheme and Scavenger by themselves; instead of requiring a multiple card combo.
A minor point, but as Chancellor was removed from the second edition of Dominion, which is where Harbinger comes from; these 2 cards don't both exist in the same "Dominion world". Of course in casual play they are still both available; but it's likely that online play and tournaments won't have them both.


Can the Diplomat power be used against a player without an active race? Tonight I gained Diplomatic Sorcerers, two of the other 3 players were in decline so had no active race.  A reading of the rules implied to us that the Diplomatic power could not be used against those two players as they had no active race.

We were wrong.  Consulting the Day's of Wonder FAQ I learned:

Q: Is a race with the Diplomat power allowed to nominate a player, who has just declined or who has not yet had a turn (and therefore has no active race) as an ally?
A: Yes indeed, the only restriction in the choice of an ally is that you cannot choose a player if you just attacked his active race.


Can one draw their commander to the command zone, and would that be a draw? Let us assume my commander somehow makes it to the top of my library (for example by the effect of Nephalia Academy) and when forced to draw it I instead want to put it in the command zone (for any reason).
From the rules:

  903.9. If a commander would be exiled from anywhere or put into its owner’s hand, graveyard, or library from anywhere, its owner may put it into the command zone instead.

This seems to imply that one can, instead of putting ones commander in the hand, put the commander in the command zone from the library by a draw effect. Now this creates some questions for me:

Is the card drawn known to the player during the draw, or only after the draw?
Subsequently, if the top card is only presumed to be the commander, but is actually not, can the player be aware of this while drawing the card?
Does the replacement of the destination replace the whole draw effect, or just a part of it? Is the card still drawn, even though it didn't go to the hand?
Or, in other words: At which point during the draw action does the replacement of the destination occur?

P.S: This question can also be read as How does a draw work?, as rule 120 doesn't seem to cover details such as in the above questions.

Yes, you can replace drawing your commander by moving it to the command zone instead.

J. Sallé's answer already covers all the details about why drawing counts as putting the card into your hand from anywhere, which is what 903.9 lets you replace.

The answer hinges on the question of whether or not you can know that a card is your commander even when it is in a hidden zone. I found a post from the EDH Rules Committee saying that yes, it does:

  Been following this one with some interest to see what people thought. Here's my thinking in writing the rule, and the outcome of discussing it with some of the MTG rules gurus (who don't set the rules for EDH per se, but do realize what does/doesn't work within the rules).

  Generalness was explicitly made a property and not a characteristic because, among other things, characteristics can be copied and overwritten by effects and we don't want Generalness being either copied or overwritten.

  paperwarrior's point about properties not being defined in the CR is correct. Technically, the closest term to what we want is 'status'... which is things like tapped, flipped,or facedown. Most players however, especially casual players like much of the EDH playerbase, aren't familiar with the magic definition of status... so using that term wouldn't be productive. That's the model we use for Generalness... similar to statuses it's a feature of the cardboard itself. Status flags can only be changed/copied explicitly by effects (so a copy of a tapped creature doesn't become tapped as a result), and statuses can be preserved across zone changes if the rules say so (which they do in the case of Generalness).

  So, what are the outcomes of this model? For the most part they're what we want but the various rules gurus all agreed that the result in the "face down exile" case is unique. Long story short, the location of a General is known to all players at any time no matter which zone it's in, or whether it's face down/face up. That includes being in the library or face-down from something like Tuck+Grimoire Thief, and it means a player has the option to Command-zone their General instead of it being exiled face down.

  This behavior dovetails, as mentioned, with the common approach of putting a general in a unique sleeve. And while it's unique for a card's position to remain known across SBA checks, there are some related precedents in the CR where a card's location remains known in the library during the resolution of a spell (extremely arcane precedent)

  So what changes does this mandate for players? Not many... it only comes up in corner case scenarios. The only trick is shuffling. Shuffling is considered an atomic action in magic... it's indivisible and the player is not aware (technically) of any intermediate states. The deck goes from unshuffled, to shuffled, and the position of every card is randomized. So knowledge of the General's starting position shouldn't have any impact on the shuffling process. To implement that, a player shuffling his or her General into a deck in a different sleeve should take some steps to make sure he/she doesn't know where the General is going to end up. The easiest way to do so is usually a "blind cut" or two.

  (If the General is in an identical sleeve, there are other minor steps players can take to make sure it doesn't get "lost in exile")

  So, long story short:

  Generalness is more like a status than a characteristic, however we just call it a 'property' to match player intuition.
  The location and identity of a General is known to all players at all times, no matter what its status/effects/location.
  It's only relevant in corner cases, but this is the implementation which causes the least rules headaches.

This is a ruling outside of the Comprehensive Rules; but Commander was designed from the beginning to be a more casual format; where the rules were originally created outside of the Comprehensive Rules, and only added in there later.

I believe that this rule also can logically follow from CR 903.10a:

  903.10a A player that’s been dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander over the course of the game loses the game. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.)

In order to know if you have been dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander, you have to know if a given object is a commander or not. The rules don't mention anything about a player having to reveal a card to prove that it is a Commander, rather you simply lose the game when dealt 21 combat damage.

So if you do not allow for it to be always known which card is the Commander, you could have a situation where a player has lost the game, but no one knows that that player has lost the game. 707.5 allows me to look at my own facedown permanent, but it doesn't require me to, and it doesn't allow other players to do so.


Source for upcoming rule changes What is the primary source for upcoming rule changes? Who breaks the official news?

I know that these changes are made publicly available before they actually take effect. For example, I found out about the updated "2014 Core Set Legend rule" via a video from The Judge's Corner on Youtube. I have also discovered upcoming rules changes through StarCityGames news articles. Both of these outlets are probably secondary sources.

The official announcement of any rules changes is made in an article on Wizards' Magic site. This article is generally posted the week of a set's pre-release event (Khans of Tarkit Update Bulletin), or in the case of products that do not have pre-releases like the Commander 2014 decks the set's release date. Occasionally they are a little late for example the Commander 2014 Release Notes were not posted until the week after the decks released.

Wizards also usually release an article when previews start detailing all of the mechanics that will be in the set, for example Mechanics of Khans of Tarkir. The difference between these articles is that the Mechanics of ______ articles do not have any actual rules text, they just describe how the mechanics work, and they only contain information on one set.

The Update Bulletin on the other hand has the actual text for the mechanics that will be in the Comprehensive Rules, it also contains any other updates and changes they are making to other rules (for example they recently changed Convoke and Delve in the Magic 2014 Update Bulletin even though Delve wasn't in the set at all). It also contains any changes to the Oracle text of cards.

For your Judge Cast video Wizards actually posted an article about a month prior to the video listing some of the changes they were planning on making. This doesn't happen very often, but they do it occasionally for bigger changes that might change how people play the game. So for that change there was a big change to how the Legend Rule and Planeswalker Uniqueness Rules worked and releasing the news early allowed people to prepare for the changes, so for example if you played Commander and your decks way of dealing with opposing commanders was to clone them that would no longer work so you would have to redo a large portion of your deck and telling everyone there would be changes coming would allow you to get your deck ready for when they did.

So while they occasionally post additional articles on their site, the primary source for any rules information is usually either the Mechanics of ______ and the ______ Update Bulletin articles.

Anything outside of an official Wizards source is a secondary source probably getting their information from either of these two sources, or statements by Wizards employees on social media. On rare occasions there might be leaks of upcoming rules that other sites report on before it is officially posted on Magic's site I would not consider them to be a primary source, since they are still getting their information from Wizards it just isn't published yet.


Where can I learn to draft online? I'm new to MtG and I really want to go to Friday Night Magic, but I've never done a draft before.

Are there online resources with good advice for what to pick and when?

I would recommend http://www.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/. They have videos of expert player drafting and playing, which are a great (and fun) way to learn. Luis Scott-Vargas set reviews on the same site are also great (e.g. http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-2014-set-review-artifacts-and-lands/).


How do you handle fast players in a casual setting that skip priority? This really isn't a problem in a tournament setting, because players are expected to know the rules, and will usually ask their opponent if they wish to take any actions before allowing a spell to resolve. In a casual setting though, and especially in Multiplayer, where players may not be paying that much attention to what might be happening on the other side of the board, how do you handle a player who casts a string of non-instant spells without giving anyone the time/chance to counter each spell in the string?

Time is usually at a premium in MP, so I doubt that most players ask each player in turn if they have a response. (with the possible exception of the resolution of cards like Browbeat, where it is optimal to see if any player will bite the bullet and take the damage). In your multiplayer magic games, do you only ask if an opponent is playing Blue with 2-3 Mana available? Do you pause for a short time time after each spell? Do you allow opponents to backup and counter the first spell?

What is the best way to handle counterspells in multiplayer to minimize time, and not make counters too powerful?

By the rules, you allow opponents to backup and counter the first spell.

MTG is not a real-time game, it's a turn-based game. In other words, it's not a game of chicken.

MTG would be extremely tedious if you had to explicitly pass priority every time. That why people use shortcuts. If you say "I cast Foo and Bar", you are actually proposing the following a shortcut:

I cast Foo
I pass
You pass
I cast Bar
I pass
You pass

The other player(s) may accept the shortcut entirely, or they may accept the shortcut only until a point of their choosing. Accepting part of the shortcut could be done, for example, by saying "In response to Foo, I cast Baz."

If the shortcut is accepted, the person who proposed it must abide by it. (He must cast Foo and Bar.)

If the shortcut is accepted to a point, the person who proposed it must abide by it up to that point. (He must cast Foo.) He can deviate as he wishes past that point. (He need not cast Bar, though he obviously can if he wants to do so.)

So the answer, by the rules, is the last option you presented: You allow opponents to backup and counter the first spell.

If you want to be sure Foo isn't going to be countered before announcing you're casting Bar, you have to make sure noone wants to do anything in response to Foo.


Are there any fan-created campaigns for Shadows of Brimstone? I'd like to get into Shadows of Brimstone, but I've heard that there's a part during setup where you configure how hard the adventure is going to be.  I'm a little bit put off by that.  I worry that, when/if I win, it'll feel like I only won because I made the game too easy.

One thing I liked about Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is that it comes with a little campaign: it tells you to play these scenarios, in this order, with these special rules attached to each one.

Is there anything like that (perhaps fan-created) for Shadows of Brimstone?

Both City of the Ancients and Swamps of Death (the two base game sets available) include an adventure book.

Each adventure book features 12 missions, the first six of which are the same in both books, and then the last six are specific to the setting. They can be played through as a campaign or as individual missions, supposedly getting harder as they progress (I have only played the first three so far so can't really comment on the difficulty of later missions).

Regarding the setup phase where you determine the "difficulty" of the game, it is not a choice of easy/medium/hard etc. It is a scale based on the number of heroes, which defines the general number/difficulty of monsters and the number of revives you can use when heroes are knocked out. This scale is more about balance for the number of players than a way to actually increase/decrease the difficulty.

You can of course choose to make things harder or easier by changing the number of revive tokens or the Threat deck you draw from, but so far I have found the suggested difficulty to be reasonably well balanced and have lost just as often as I have won, although I have so far only played with 1, 4 or 5 players so can't really speak about the balance of 2, 3 or 6 player games, but the progression seems reasonable.


How fast can you win against a passive opponent in the Innistrad block format? There have been legacy decks in the past that were able to win a game in the first round, without even giving your opponent a chance to act. I wonder how many rounds minimum it would take to win a game in the Innistrad block format. In this format there are only cards allowed from Innistrad, Dark Ascension and Avacyn Restored.

The assumptions are:

Your opponent is totally passive and does not play more than a single land each turn until he loses.
You start with the perfect hand and each card you draw is the perfect card.
The deck must be legal.

Please show the winning sequence with your answer.

A solution for turn 2 on the draw. I can't seem to hit turn 2 on the play, but I -think- it's possible.

Edit: This looks kinda ugly, so here's a link to a picture: http://i.imgur.com/kSheO.png

                                                                           Mana Pool           Cards in Hand
Turn one                                                                    0                   8
Plains                                                                      W                   7
Doomed Traveler                                                             0                   6

Turn two                                                                    W                   7
Mountain                                                                    WR                  6
Infernal Plunge, sacrificing Doomed Traveler                                WRRR                5
Infernal Plunge, sacrificing Spirit, hold priority                          WRR                 4
Increasing Vengeance, targeting Infernal Plunge                             WRRR                3
Increasing Vengeance, targeting Infernal Plunge                             WRRRR               2
Increasing Vengeance, targeting Infernal Plunge                             WRRRRR              1
Resolve Infernal Plunge                                                     WRRRRRRRR           1
Desperate Ravings, discarding Past in Flames                                WRRRRRR             1
Doomed Traveler                                                             RRRRRR              0
Flashback Past in Flames                                                    R                   0
Flashback Infernal Plunge, sacrificing Doomed Traveler                      RRR                 0
Flashback Infernal Plunge, sacrificing Spirit, hold priority                RR                  0
Flashback Increasing Vengeance, targeting Infernal Plunge                   RRRRRR              0
Flashback Increasing Vengeance, targeting Infernal Plunge                   RRRRRRRRRR          0
Resolve Infernal Plunge                                                     RRRRRRRRRRRRR       0
Flashback Desperate Ravings, discarding any card                            RRRRRRRRRRR         1
Devil's Play for X=8, hold priority                                         RR                  0
Flashback Increasing Vengeance, targeting Devil's Play, dealing 16 damage   0                   0
Resolve Devil's Play, dealing 8 damage                                      0                   0


When should I stop retaliating? This frequently comes up when I play Alien Frontiers: both the Burroughs Desert (for its relic ship) and the Holographic Decoys are hotly-contested commodities.  (Yes, it's a bit silly to use the Raider's Outpost to steal the Holographic Decoy so that nobody can use the Raider's Outpost on you except to steal the Holographic Decoy, but it's still a useful move if you have the alien artifacts that are worth victory points.) The trouble comes when I want one of those contested resources; each time I steal that resource, it's useful to me.  But if that guy over there is going to keep stealing it back, then it's a waste (and the other players will pull ahead).

So: in a 3- or 4-player game, when should I steal that resource back, and when should I decide I've wasted too much time?

In my experience, having six dice available is a powerful threat that your opponents should never ignore. Attempting to take and hold the Burroughs Desert, with its access to the cheap relic ship, will probably not be worth the cost under any circumstances unless your opponents are allowing you to get away with murder. Either judicious use of colony-moving artifacts (making the region a tie) or the Inderdiction Field should shut down the Burroughs Desert. Consider it a threat to make your opponents spend resources, not an opportunity in itself.

By contrast, the Holographic Decoy is a lot easier to steal successfully. It's wonderful to have, but you need to know if it's likely to be stolen right away. If there's another player at the table who will steal it just to have it... don't waste your own resources. Otherwise, take it if there's nothing you need more right now (maybe a low 1-2-3 with no way to steal resources you can use) and especially if you might be able to use its best power--to hold ore from turn to turn without it being stolen--in the next turn or two.

If you do grab the Holographic Decoy, try to get ore in the same turn if possible. It's less attractive to steal the Decoy if the next player will then have access to all your ore for cheap.


Pokemon damage multiplied When a pokemon card says 20x the number of energy do you do 20 damage if there is no energy on a pokemon or would it be zero? Mewtwo for example, is it 20 plus the number of energies?

Let's say you talk about this Mewtwo : http://pokeplayer.com/cardex/next_destinies/98-mewtwo-ex

If Mewtwo has 2 energies and the Defending Pokémon has 0 energies, that would do 20 × 2 = 40 damage.

If for a weird reason you were able to use X Ball without having any energy attached, and 0 energies on the Defending Pokémon, that would do 20 × 0 = 0 damage.


Can I start with my identity card unrezzed? The rules state

  There are six types of Corporation cards: identities, operations, agendas, ice, upgrades, and assets... Corporation cards are installed facedown, and are inactive unless rezzed.

Does that mean if I'm playing as the corp I can start with my identity card unrezzed (and therefore inactive and providing no bonus), or must I reveal my identity to the runner immediately? Or is it special and not technically "installed"?

At the very start of the Setup section the rules read:

  Choose Sides: The players decide who will play as the  Runner and who will play as the Corporation. Then, each  player places his
  identity card faceup in his play area and  takes a corresponding deck.

Initial identities go face up.  It's only subsequently that Corporation cards should be installed facedown.

"Rezzing" is furthermore defined as "the act of flipping a facedown card faceup"; so if the initial identities are faceup, there can be no question of them starting the game "unrezzed" (if that wasn't already obvious).


If Emrakul, the Aeons Torn somehow loses all abilities, and then dies, does it shuffle back into the deck? This is a follow-up question to Will a God Eternal enchanted with Deep Freeze shuffle back into the deck if it dies?

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn has this line of text:

  When Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles their graveyard into their library.

If Emrakul loses its abilities somehow (e.g., because of Humility, or if it were somehow enchanted by Deep Freeze), and then dies, does this effect still trigger to shuffle it back?

I'm guessing yes in the case of Deep Freeze since presumably when it "enters the graveyard" it has regained all its abilities. This is in contrast to God-Eternal Oketra, whose ability triggers when it dies (not when it enters the graveyard). In the case of Humility, I'm guessing no, since Humility's text doesn't say it only affects creatures on the battlefield, and so presumably also affects creatures in the graveyard.

Yes, your graveyard will be shuffled back into your library.
This is a bit of an unusual situation because it's a triggered ability using the unusual phrase “from anywhere”.
Normally triggered abilities look at the current state of the game: we care only about what cards look like now. There's an exception made for a handful of triggered abilities that instead “look back in time”, which means we look at what the game state was like previously to determine whether and how any abilities trigger. The most common one is when a creature dies: in that case we look at the game state when the creature was last on the battlefield. Deep Freeze or Humility would remove all abilities from a creature, so that means usually a “When this creature dies” ability wouldn't trigger, so God-Eternals wouldn't shuffle back into your library.
That's according to these rules (under the section Handling triggered abilities, emphasis added):

603.10 Normally, objects that exist immediately after an event are checked to see if the event matched any trigger conditions [based on the game state and continuous effects as they apply now.] However, some triggered abilities are exceptions to this rule; the game “looks back in time” to determine if those abilities trigger, using the existence of those abilities and the appearance of objects immediately prior to the event. The list of exceptions is as follows:
603.10a Some zone-change triggers look back in time. These are leaves-the-battlefield abilities, abilities that trigger when a card leaves a graveyard, and abilities that trigger when an object that all players can see is put into a hand or library.

However, Emrakul's put-into-the-graveyard ability doesn't match any of these exception criteria. In particular it is never treated as a leaves-the-battlefield ability:

603.6c Leaves-the-battlefield abilities trigger when a permanent moves from the battlefield to another zone [...] An ability that triggers when a card is put into a certain zone “from anywhere” is never treated as a leaves-the-battlefield ability, even if an object is put into that zone from the battlefield.

This means we don't look back in time for Emrakul's ability, as surprising as that might be. We just do the default: we look at Emrakul's state once it's in the graveyard.
In the graveyard, Emrakul has all of its abilities intact. (Recall that Humility doesn't affect cards in the graveyard.) A trigger condition has been met—we know Emrakul has just been put into the graveyard—so we put that triggered ability on the stack. If it resolves, we shuffle your graveyard, probably including Emrakul, into your library.

Additional notes

If Yixlid Jailer is on the battlefield it will prevent Emrakul's ability from being triggered. This is because we check for Emrakul's triggered ability once it's already in the graveyard, but at that point it will have no abilities at all.
There are also various ways to stop the ability from doing anything useful: you can counter the triggered ability or exile all cards from that graveyard before the ability resolves.
Although Blightsteel Colossus has a similar effect it behaves differently because it is a replacement effect. If it loses all abilities on the battlefield then dies, it will be put into the graveyard and stay there. This is because we have to check the replacement effect in the previous zone before it reaches the graveyard, and on the battlefield the replacement effect doesn't exist.


Ochran Assassin vs simultaneous First Strike and Non-First Strike blockers Ochran Assassin has deathtouch and the ability: "All creatures that are able to block Ochran Assassin do so". My opponent attacks with Ochran Assassin, and I am forced to block with a 3/3 creature with first strike, and a 3/2 with no abilities. Does my 3/3 first strike creature kill Ochran Assassin and send it to the graveyard before it can assign damage to (and kill) my 3/2?

Yes, the assassin will die and both blockers will be fine.

Creatures with First Stike deal their combat damage before creatures without it do. These are 2 separate combat damage steps, with priority given and state-based actions checked between each. The assassin will have taken lethal damage and be sent to the graveyard before it ever would deal damage. Deathtouch doesn’t come into play.

  702.7b If at least one attacking or blocking creature has first strike or double strike (see rule 702.4) as the combat damage step begins, the only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are those with first strike or double strike. After that step, instead of proceeding to the end of combat step, the phase gets a second combat damage step. The only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are the remaining attackers and blockers that had neither first strike nor double strike as the first combat damage step began, as well as the remaining attackers and blockers that currently have double strike. After that step, the phase proceeds to the end of combat step.

Note that this would work differently if instead of Deathtouch, it were an ability like Engulfing Slagwurm has, which destroys the blocking creature when it blocks; as opposed to waiting until combat damage.


Flexibility in Opening two in third seat with 8 points and seven card suit? Is it against the rules to use your judgement as to whether to open two or three with a seven card suit?  Instance was third seat opening with a seven card suit, two of the top five, and 8 points with distribution - not vulnerable.  Playing with players that are very conservative in their bidding so opponents could easily had each held twelve points giving my partner a possible ten points if forth seat didn’t bid after my pre-empt.
Help - Opponants said I was going against the rules and had to open three with a seven card suit.  I can’t find any answer for this situation - unless it is obvious and you can never open two with a seven card suit.

You are, within certain constraints designed to prevent wholly destructive bidding systems, allowed to make any call that is:

any of a sufficient bid; a valid Double or Redouble; or Pass; and
not otherwise constrained by penalty under the Laws of Rubber Bridge consequent to a prior irregularity.

However your opponents are entitled to a full and complete description of the agreements and understandings between you and partner.

In particular, you are most definitely entitled to make a call based on your understanding of the opponents methods, in the context of the current auction. But if you make a habit of certain actions in common circumstances, such as a third hand opening following two passes as here, this must be added to the partnership agreements made known to the opponents.

Nothing you have stated in your post suggests to me that your opening bid is inappropriate. While not a call I would likely make myself, I see merit in your reasoning when playing against timid opponents.

It would seem that your opponents on this hand have conflated the rules of the announced bidding system (really just guidelines for improved play and partnership harmony) with the Laws of Rubber Bridge.


What is a good strategy for engaging children in playing go? For children what is the youngest age that it makes sense to begin to teach them go?  Is it best to start them on a 9x9 board?  Will a child that has learned basic algebra be better suited to learn go well?  Does anyone have experience working with their own children and can share what did and did not work?  I find that teenagers want to instantly master a subject and are reluctant to invest the time it takes to begin to master go.

It's usually a good idea to have an "outsider" teach, going by personal observations and hearsays.

My guess on why parents usually make for poor (beginning) teachers is that the children unconsciously think of it as the parent making them play a game that they will always lose to the parent at, and therefore tend to be less than enthusiastic. This may be why the children of pros so rarely play Go.


Can I remove the targeted creature in response to Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast's -2 ability? If my opponent casts Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast and uses its -2 ability to target a creature to be exiled, can I destroy the creature in response to the ability to prevent them from revealing cards until they find a creature etc, since the card reads "Exile target creature you control, then reveal cards...".
So if the creature is destroyed before it can be exiled, the rest of the ability fizzles?

Yes, if the targeted creature becomes an illegal target for any reason before the ability resolves, the ability will not do anything.
Lukka's -2 is a targeted ability. The legality of its only target is checked again as part of resolving it. If you destroyed the creature, or it became an illegal target for any other reason, the ability will simply leave the stack and no part of the ability will do anything.

Resolving Spells and Abilities

608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. [..] If all its targets, for every instance of the word “target,” are now illegal, the spell or ability doesn’t resolve. It’s removed from the stack and, if it’s a spell, put into its owner’s graveyard.


What is the origin of the term 'Mana Dork'? 'Mana Dork', as a slang term, refers to a creature that taps to produce mana, such as a Llanowar Elves.

What is the origin of this name? If someone simply started saying it, do we know who first popularized it?

The oldest reference I can find for this kind of usage of the term "dork" is an event coverage article on the Wizards website apparently dated January 1, 2000. It contains this description:

  "dorks" - creatures that are "ok" but not "savage"

This may be establishing the use of this word in this way, or it may just be explaining the usage.

The oldest reference I can find for "mana dork" is this MTGSalvation Forum post dated August 29, 2005. So, it seems likely that "dork" came first, and a "mana dork" is just a "dork" that produces mana.


What does skipping a draw phase mean for an opponent in Gloom? In Gloom, you can play modifiers on opponents' characters, and the action applies to that character's player.  For example, one card might say "discard your hand".  It has good stats, but the discard is a balancing downside.  You can use that against an opponent to make them discard their hand.

But, what does "Skip your draw step this turn" mean for an opponent?  Do they skip their (nonexistent) draw step during your turn, or does it apply the next time it can (their turn?).  Along with that, does a "Discard your hand. Skip your draw step this turn" mean an opponent would essentially miss two turns?

According to this answer on BoardGameGeek from one of the game's designers:

  Correct: most likely you will start your next turn with no cards and
  be unable to do anything, effectively missing a turn.

  In first edition, the effect was simply "Skip your next turn." By the
  current rules, you can still end up being able to play if some other
  card effect ends up giving you cards - for example, someone cheers up
  your shunned character. Also, if you are playing with Stories (from
  Unquiet Dead), you could use an action on your turn to claim a story.

  A key point here is that you skip your draw phase "THIS" turn - the
  turn on which the card is played. If you use the card on yourself, you
  don't get to draw back up at the end of the turn. If someone else
  plays it on you on THEIR turn, you wouldn't draw back up anyway, so
  this effect does nothing. You don't skip your NEXT draw phase.


Changing targets for a spell with a variable number of targets My opponent casts Paradoxical Outcome and targets 2 permanents they control.

I then cast Insidious Will. Now I can just counter Paradoxical Outcome, but instead I want to bounce some of their permanents (for example clearing blockers out of the way). It is clear that I can change the target from 2 permanents to another 2 permanents, but do I need to target the same number of permanents?

In other words can I choose to return none, one or seven permanents?

If I had to redirect the same number would I be able to choose the same target twice and as a result only return one?

Note that this is not a duplicate of "Choosing new targets for a spell with a variable number of targets" as that is specifically for copying spells, not changing the targets of an existing spell.

You cannot change the number of targets. The rules about targets say the following:

  114.3. The same target can’t be chosen multiple times for any one instance of the word “target” on a spell or ability. If the spell or ability uses the word “target” in multiple places, the same object, player, or zone can be chosen once for each instance of the word “target” (as long as it fits the targeting criteria). This rule applies both when choosing targets for a spell or ability and when changing targets or choosing new targets for a spell or ability (see rule 114.6).
  114.6. Some effects allow a player to change the target(s) of a spell or ability, and other effects allow a player to choose new targets for a spell or ability.

  114.6a If an effect allows a player to “change the target(s)” of a spell or ability, each target can be changed only to another legal target. If a target can’t be changed to another legal target, the original target is unchanged, even if the original target is itself illegal by then. If all the targets aren’t changed to other legal targets, none of them are changed.
  114.6d If an effect allows a player to “choose new targets” for a spell or ability, the player may leave any number of the targets unchanged, even if those targets would be illegal. If the player chooses to change some or all of the targets, the new targets must be legal and must not cause any unchanged targets to become illegal.


Twilight Imperium 2 Planetary Defence Units per planet question So I was reading the rules for PDS units using the Deep Space Cannon technology and I want to be positive I understand it correctly. So if an enemy faction puts a control marker down and moves ships into a system within the range. I may fire one die per PDS unit in range?

There is a planet tile with three planets in it and you can have up to two PDS units per planet. So if that is the scenario, that would be six dice rolled in total? That seems really overpowered.

It's powerful, but remember that you're limited by the number of pieces you have.  And if I recall correctly, then you only get the 6 PDS units.  So while yes, the PDS wall is strong, it is just a Maginot line.  You can just go around it, since the PDS units have to be transported or rebuilt.


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

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

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

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

That said, if I had to pick archetypes, I think these would win on power and consistent draftability. Think of them as a mental shorthand for "What's good in this set that I'm likely to actually see?"

White-based aggro (W/R)

This is the classic white weenie strategy, basically, with red as the strongest secondary color due to its own weenies like Lightning Mauler, Kruin Striker, and Fervent Cathar. Only some of the low-cost creatures in the set are actually good, though, while others are filler; one way this deck fails is if you draft too many do-nothing 1/2s. Auras or Equipment can help keep them relevant in the game, but many of these are weak, too. In my experience, you will be outclassed by your opponent's creatures at some point, so it's important to have a way to push that final bit of damage through, whether that's direct damage, buff spells, or even Heirs of Stromkirk.

I also think the format is just slow enough that you usually want to play a big finisher or two if you can manage to pick up a good one: that's right, shove Entreat the Angels into a weenie deck! Herald of War is actually one of the better finishers because it comes down early and grows so quick. I'd be looking to pick up some of the more aggressive midrange Angels as well, like Emancipation Angel and Restoration Angel.

Green-based midrange (G/R)

The core concept of this deck is simple: most of the other decks you encounter can't beat curving out with a good two-drop into Trusted Forcemage into Druid's Familiar. Green has a lot of playable commons and uncommons and probably the highest concentration of really good ones as well (Druid's Familiar and Wolfir Avenger, for instance!), and it easily supports splashing a third color without diluting your deck (Borderland Ranger, Abundant Growth). I like red as the support color here, because it's good to have Pillar of Flame, Thunderbolt, and all the haste cards to mess with your opponent's defensive preparations. Blue is also promising for its soulbond creatures like Tandem Lookouts but seems to lead to grindier decks; generally, I think it's better to just take the blowout when you can get it, and cards like Uncanny Speed go a long way towards getting blowouts all the time.

In addition to soulbond, there's a "power matters" theme with cards like Wandering Wolf; if you pick up multiples of Blessings of Nature (an uncommon), a bunch of cards like Champion of Lambholt and Falkenrath Exterminator suddenly become game-ending combo cards.

Blue-based tempo control (U/?)

Mist Raven is a good card. Playing it feels a lot like playing Snapcaster - Vapor Snag in Standard. Then you start using Ghostly Flicker and Nephalia Smuggler and it's like a whole wave of Vapor Snags. There are no Delvers in this set, though, so you're in for a much grindier game, pecking away for 2 or 4 a turn in the air while you frustrate your opponent with blockers and bounce; a bit like CawBlade without any hands-down awesomely broken cards, really. This deck really benefits from some card draw to generate more lasting card advantage, like the Tandem Lookouts - Windcrafter combo -- ideally using it to find your big finisher or some powerful removal.

If you pull a Deadeye Navigator, then you have a real control game in the form of a soft lock. Or, you know, a Tamiyo, but I suspect you don't need to be told that planeswalkers can totally take over in Limited.


Does Battlefield Forge add two mana to your pool each time it is tapped? Do cards like Battlefield Forge add 2 mana each time it's tapped or is it just one of the two tapped mana options? Or can you choose between both at once vs one? And is the mana only there while it's tapped?

{T}: Add {1} to your mana pool.

{T}: Add {R} or {W} to your mana pool. Battlefield Forge deals 1 damage to you.

You'll only get one mana, and like all mana, it'll be there until you spend it or until the end of the current step/phase. (There are a very small number of cards like Omnath, Locus of Mana in the game which change this, but they clearly, explicitly say so.)

Abilities are of the form "cost: effect". You pay the cost, and get the effect. In this case the cost is simply tapping the land. So you can choose one of those abilities to activate, then you'll have tapped the land, and you won't be able to activate the other anymore.


What should be used to represent creature tokens when the printed token card isn't available? Many spells or abilities cause one or more creatures to join the battlefield (i.e. 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens, 3/3 green Beast creature tokens, etc.). These token cards are not included with the cards that require them.

What do MtG players use instead to represent token creatures?

A quick search shows you can buy packs of such cards, but I'm wondering what convenient ways exist to represent these tokens without actually having to buy more cards?

I can cover what is legal and what is common, and you can hopefully determine what is "convenient". The MTG Tournament Rules dictate that you clearly represent your board state. This means:

You must be able to represent the tapped state of your token
You must be able to differentiate types of tokens
Tokens must not be in the same sleeves as the deck you are playing

This is under Section 3.8 of the Tournament Policy

  [...] Sleeves or card backs that appear similar to any player’s sleeves or card backs may not be used as markers. [...]

Notably, if you are playing without sleeves, you may not use an unsleeved Magic card as a token

I see no reason to ignore these rules for casual play. They aren't very limiting.

The most common legal method of representing a token, for those lacking the actual token card, is a plain face down card. Any card. If you control multiple types of tokens, it must be clear to both players which cards represent which tokens.

Some players use dice to represent tokens. Depending on what kind of dice you use, it can be difficult or impossible to tell whether a particular token is tapped or untapped. It's also unclear whether a "2" means "two tokens" or "one 2/2 token". You can overcome this by using dice that don't have rotational symmetry and by communicating clearly. I still advise against it because there are easier, clearer options (my opinion).

Representing a large number of tokens individually may not be feasible. In these cases, you can group tokens that have the same status using a single card with a numeric counter placed on top. Every token in the group must be identical. If some are tapped, or if some have summoning sickness, represent them as a separate group.


When to reveal what you saw using the Map card in Saboteur? When playing as a Digger, when is the best time to share the knowledge about one of the destination cards with the other players?

Should the digger tell other players this information immediately to avoid suspicion of being the saboteur? Or maybe it's better if he waits at least until the first saboteur is revealed?

What strategy should one use to take best advantage of the knowledge gained from looking at one of the destination cards?

When I have just looked a destination card I often afterwards put a road card that either:

Obviously leads towards the destination card that I just looked at, or
Obviously leads away from that card.

It is then up to my fellow players to decide whether they trust my obvious move or not, based on whether they think I am a digger or a saboteur. I noticed that this is often enough information for the other players to understand what you have seen on the destination card.

I don't think there is a better way that does not render you suspicious. If you give too much information away at a certain point, people will always become sceptical. However if you let them infer the "right" information themselves, they might believe that you didn't intend to give all information. And people consider their own "discoveries" more credible than information that was chucked into their laps. Even if you planned it that way. :)


When the bio-terrorist is eliminated, do they discard their cards? When the bio-terrorist is eliminated from play (via the purple disease being eradicated), should they discard their current hand of infection cards to the infection discard pile?

The rules don't specifically say:

  The Bio-Terrorist wins if the players lose and there is at least 1 purple cube
  on the board. The Bio-Terrorist immediately loses (and is out of the game) if
  the players eradicate the purple disease.

They are out of the game, but it doesn't say what to do with their cards. Personally, I would just have them discard the cards in their hand, since that should make it easier for the other players (a more diluted infection deck), and that is what normally happens when the Bio-Terrorist is captured.

  Capture (special player action) - Place the Bio-Terrorist’s pawn on your role card. The Bio-Terrorist must immediately discard all cards in hand to the Infection Discard Pile (without eﬀect).


Walking Ballista and how it works I assume Walking Ballista does not need to survive for the damage on the stack to resolve. Also I assume that you can remove multiple 1/1 counters before letting any of them resolve

What usually happens in the situations you describe is:

I have (say) a Walking Ballista with 3 counters on it.
I use Walking Ballista's ability to remove one counter and do one damage. While this ability is on the stack, my Ballista has two +1/+1 counters on it.
In response to the first activation, I activate a second time. Now there are two triggers on the stack and my Ballista only has one +1/+1 counter.
In response to the second activation, I can still activate a third time (or fourth, if there were a fourth +1/+1 counter on it).

And then when everything on the stack resolves, the target takes damage. If my Ballista now has a toughness of 0, it's dead, but since removing the source of an ability does not stop the ability from resolving, the target still takes damage.

Of course I could also sequence things differently. Instead of doing #3 above in response to the first activation, I could let the activation resolve, target takes 1 damage, and then activate Ballista again. Usually this won't matter, but if it does for whatever reason I can do this.


Must a player take a jump in checkers? Is a player in checkers required to take a jump if one is available?  What about a double or triple jump if that is available?

In short -- for tournaments, yes.

I never played with forced jumps as a kid, but my father-in-law always plays with forced jumps.  So I did a little digging around, and this is what I found:

The American Checker Federation seems to be the only sanctioned checkers organization I could find.  According to the American Checker Federation, rule #1.20 says

  1.20  All capturing moves are compulsory, whether offered actively or passively...


Shipping goods on an empty vessel in Puerto Rico In a recent game of Puerto Rico, I had the following situation. It was shipping time, and I had some corn and some indigo. There already was a ship half full of corn and an empty ship, too. My question is:

Did I have to ship the corn? Or could I choose to send indigo on the empty ship instead?

Keep in mind that shipping takes place in several turns, going around the table starting with the player that chose Captain. On your turn, you must load a good if you are able. This means that you could choose to load all your indigo on the empty ship (provided that the third ship is not already carrying indigo--there can be only one ship carrying each kind of good), or you could load as much of your corn as you can onto the half-full corn ship. On your next turn, once each other player has had an opportunity to load, you must load the other good, if possible. Only once all allowable loading has finished and all players have passed does the Captain phase end.

If, for some reason, you wanted to not ship the corn, you would have to ship the indigo and hope that another player filled up the corn ship on their next opportunity. This happens more frequently when you have an expensive good like coffee or tobacco that you are hoping to trade rather than ship.

A couple points, summarized from the rulebook (p. 6)

Each ship can only hold one kind of good.
There can be only one ship of each kind.
On your turn, if you have any loadable goods (with a legal space on any ship) you must choose one of those goods and load as much of it as possible. However, you are under no obligation to make the choice that will load the most barrels.
If you have a choice of multiple empty ships, and enough of the good you are shipping to more than fill up the smallest, you must choose a ship that is large enough to load all the goods, if you can, or the largest empty ship otherwise.
You are not obligated to use a wharf to ship if you happen to own one. (p. 9)


Cloning a card with Tribute Forthcoming Nessian Demolok has the following abilities.

  Tribute 3 (As this creature enters the battlefield, an opponent of your choice may place three +1/+1 counters on it.)

  When Nessian Demolock enters the battlefield, if tribute wasn't paid, destroy target noncreature permanent.

Assuming the reminder text is complete and accurate, what happens if you cast Clone choosing a Nessian Demolok? Specifically, does your opponent get a chance to pay tribute?

By the letter of the rules, choices for "As this permanent enters the battlefield" occur before the permanent the battlefield[CR 614.12a], but doesn't Clone's replacement effect happens at the point it enters the battlefield?

Yes, your opponent gets a chance to pay the Tribute. From the Clone rulings:

  Any enters-the-battlefield abilities of the copied creature will trigger when Clone enters the battlefield. Any "as [this creature] enters the battlefield" or "[this creature] enters the battlefield with" abilities of the chosen creature will also work.

This is the same behavior as when you Clone a Triskelion; the Clone will get 3 +1/+1 counters.


Alternative rules for SimCity: The Card Game Back in the 90s, I enjoyed collecting SimCity: The Card Game. I can't help but feel excited that there's a lot of potential in the game, but that the rules are broken and in certain aspects, to be honest, downright absurd.

I am especially bothered by a number of things that are either annoying or out of balance:

The sheer amount of counting the rules have you do.

Once you have a decent city going, keeping track of the number residents within however many of blocks—either by road or rail—is a headache.
Worse yet, add a couple of Receive # for every [card type] within # blocks into the mix, and you'll spend a good deal of the evening counting.

Zoning bonuses become crazy. Once a residential zone has reached a modest size, the value of putting any card down is dwarfed by the massive bonus of appending it to a zone. There's no sense in trying to close off a zone, either, because your opponent will eat you alive.
Council members are useless. Never does the game reach a point in which rezoning is really an issue, because it takes too many members to veto the mayor and/or council chairman. You require much too many in the deck, and pretty much any other card yields more value in the long run.
City services pay off much too much. Put down a few schools and a few police stations, and you'll be "adding" & "receiving" yourself to bliss.
Many of the event cards are either extremely focused on the council, or, like Fire!, extremely destructive.
Phase one cards pollute your deck once you have passed beyond that phase, but there's a dilemma: you can't really have less than a third of your deck filled with them unless you intend to sit around collecting cards for the first hour or so.

Some of these rules might be somewhat alleviated by limiting the playing area to something like 6×6, and having the good sense not to add too many city services, but that doesn't cut it for me. I sometimes get the impression that I might not be fully understanding the rules, but the official rulebook leaves so many questions unanswered.

For some reason, I feel very attached to the game, but the rules just let me down. Are there any good alternatives?

This Flickr stream has some photos, for those who haven't played for the past 15 years and wish to refresh their memory.

I found some house rules for SimCity here (TXT), which don't address all of your issues, but had some interesting ideas, such as:

If playing the common deck game, then consider splitting the deck further as follows:

One pile for Phase 1 & 2 cards + Phase 3 Power Plants + Council Members
One pile for Phase 3 & 4 cards + Events
One pile for Long cards
You may draw from the Phase 1 & 2 deck anytime
You may draw from the Phase 3 & 4 deck in phases 2-4
You may draw from the Long Cards in Phases 3 & 4

You may play one event card in addition to placing a block on your turn (presumably to done down events)
Minimum size of a zone or complex before it counts as a zone / complex is 2.  City Services are wild for all zones in the normal way.
The Zone and Complex Bonus are calculated normally, except that only cards which are within 2 blocks of the block being played count as within the complex / zone for purposes of calculating the bonus.

I haven't played SimCity before, so I can't say for certainty how useful his rules are, but they look promising.


Can an enchantment creature with hexproof be targeted by destroy target enchantment card? Can an enchantment creature with hexproof be targeted by a spell that destroys enchantments. For example, can Archetype of Endurance be targeted by Naturalize?

No. Hexproof prevents something from being targeted by opponents' spells and abilities — that's pretty final. You can't target Archetype of Endurance with Naturalize because you can't target it at all; there's nothing special about enchantment removal.

(If you're thinking hexproof is a creature thing, and we're getting around it by targeting their enchantment-enss instead of their creature-ness, that's not how things work in M:tG. Note also that anything can have hexproof: enchantments, players, or even every permanent you control.)

You get around this by doing things that don't target the creature: Dead Drop, Toxic Deluge, Settle the Wreckage, are examples of the kinds of non-targeting effects you'd use, or a plain old Wrath of God effect. Or kill it in combat.


Four Player Card Game Where Players are Kings 16 years ago I was taught a four player card game and I was never told the official name of it, and I have forgotten most of the rules.  I also might be remembering parts of this incorrectly too...
Rules:

The player with the most points by the end of the last set was the winner
The card game consists of 4 sets of 5 rounds where each player gets a turn at being the king of a set.
Each round the cards are dealt out so each player has 13 cards in their hand (much like Hearts)
After seeing his (or her) hand the king decides between 5 different games that will be used to determine the rules for that round
Each game is played once and only once for a set.
1 of the 5 games players could gain points while the other 4 you lost points.
At the end of each set if all the points were done correctly all the players score could be added together and it would equal zero, which served as a type of checksum.
So no matter what by the end of the set first place would always be in the positive while fourth place would always be in the negative.

The games that lost points:

Each of them had different set of cards that would lose points (similar to Hearts where certain cards gained points).
The King would start the first round and it would go clockwise around the group where each player would play a card similar in rules to that of Hearts.
From there whomever won/lost that round would start the next round much like in Hearts
One might have been called Queens, and you did not want to get the four queens
One might have been called Diamonds, and you did not want to get any diamonds

The game that netted points was different from the other four:

For this one the goal was to empty your hand first.
Whomever emptied their hand first got the most points, and it would continue till the second and third person emptied their hands, and they would get respectively less points.
There was four piles one for each suit and you played counting up much like in Solitaire.
If you could not play a card you passed.
King started and it would go clockwise around with each player playing a card or passing.
Common strategy was to holdout on a suit to force the other players to play the suit you needed in order to empty your hand first.  Also if you were the King and you looked at your hand and saw you had lots of face cards you typically would avoid this one, since they are the last cards to be played.

So what is the name of it and what are the rules?

I believe you are referring to Barbu:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbu_(card_game)


Mille Bornes - What is the purpose of the chips? What are the 4 chips used for?

The instructions make no mention of them. Some have speculated they are used to mark "coup fourré", or extension to 1000 points.

Any thoughts?

This is still exists in the Dujardin Prestige edition.

Sold Here:
http://www.jeuxdujardin.fr/mille-bornes-prestige.html

Rules Here:
http://www.jeuxdujardin.fr/files/regles/mille-bornes-prestige-regles-du-jeu.pdf

In the section for Coup-Fourre:

  Note: pour se souvenir qu'on a fait un Coup-Fourre, on prend un jeton
  et on le pose devant soi.


Starfield of Nyx and Eerie Interlude Say you have 7 enchantments on the field, including two Starfield of Nyx and a creature that cares about creatures entering the battlefield (e.g.Soul Warden). You cast Eerie Interlude targeting some number of the enchantment creatures to flicker them.

I know that if you flicker 1 enchantment creature, it'll trigger Soul Warden once.

If you flicker the two Starfield of Nyx, will they enter as creatures?
If you flicker three non-Starfield enchantment creatures, will they re-enter as creatures?

The enchantment creatures you flickered will enter the battlefield as enchantment creatures in both cases.

The static ability of Starfield of Nyx creates a continuous, type-changing effect. As such, it works as soon as the permanent it changes enters the battlefield. As long as the condition is fulfilled, enchantments including themselves enter the battlefield as creatures and trigger Soul Warden.

Note that Soul Warden would be triggered even if Starfield's condition is only fulfilled with their own presence, e.g. if you flicker the 2 Starfields and control only 3 other enchantments.

  603.6b Continuous effects that modify characteristics of a permanent do so the moment the permanent is on the battlefield (and not before then). The permanent is never on the battlefield with its unmodified characteristics. [..]


How can I catch up in Alien Frontiers? If I've fallen behind in Alien Frontiers, how can I catch up?  If the leading player(s) have more ships and colonies on the board, they're going to pull ahead even faster, so that an early lead turns into further victory.

I've seen the lead player dragged down by someone else, but that doesn't help the hindmost player win - it just means that the second-place player wins.  What can the hindmost player do to catch up to the rest of the players?

Get lots of dice. Not only are dice resources, but the more dice you have, the more powerful each one becomes. First, you can make better combinations; second, you can gain resources and spend them in the same round without the threat of having them stolen. Usually the sixth die paints a target on you for aggression, but if you're in last place you might be able to avoid that.
Get your colonies down. Until they're all down, you can play with the balance of power all you want, but you can't win.
Look for ways to disrupt your opponents' majorities and solidify your own. This means having alien tech cards with useful secondary abilities that will let you boost your score once you're within striking distance.
Force the second-place player to do the work of stopping the leader. Don't waste your own resources. If the second-place player isn't trying to pull down the leader, you're not going to win anyway, so you might as well play for the case you can win.


Can I activate Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar on the battlefield? Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar's activated ability doesn't require having to declare any targets, and it only cost {1}{G} and returning two lands to hand. The ability doesn't say Multani has to be in the yard. Is there any rule or thing I'm missing that prevents me from activating the ability, returning the lands, and then the ability doing nothing?

You won't be able to active Multani on the battlefield. See Comprehensive Rules 113.6k:

113.6k An ability whose cost or effect specifies that it moves the object it's on out of a particular zone functions only in that zone, unless that ability's trigger condition, or a previous part of that ability's cost or effect, specifies that the object is put into that zone.
Example: Reassembling Skeleton says "{1}{B}: Return Reassembling Skeleton from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped." A player may activate this ability only if Reassembling Skeleton is in his or her graveyard.

Multani states:

(1)(G), Return two lands you control to their owner's hand: Return Multani from your graveyard to your hand.

Since it says it is returning from your graveyard, you can't active unless it is in your graveyard.


Can I use strive to target the same object more than once? I have a question about the new mechanic Strive from Journey into Nyx.

Could I use the pay the strive cost to target the same object more than once with the spell, or can I only target any particular object once per card?

You can only target a creature once with a Strive spell. Taken from the Journey Into Nyx Release Notes, emphasis mine:

  You can't choose
  the same target more than once for a single strive spell.

Those who want a more detailed explanation should continue reading. From rule 114.3.

  114.3 The same target can't be chosen multiple times for any one instance of the word "target" on a spell or ability.

Twinflame has the following text.

  Strive — Twinflame costs 2R more to cast for each target beyond the
  first.

  Choose any number of target creatures you control. For each of them, put a token that's a copy of that creature onto the battlefield. Those tokens have haste.

The first occurrence of the word "target" is only there to define how much the spell costs. Per rules 114.1a-e, we only care about the phrase target [something].

The second part, "Choose any number of target creatures", has one instance of the word target, and so you may not target the same creature twice.


Are all the cards in High Caliber Ops supposed to be combined with the base set? I don't see any rules mentioning how to integrate the cards, so the obvious default seems to be to shuffle them all together, but half of the black market cards in the expansion are basics.  It seems like a heavy weighting towards diluting towards basic cards because of this.  Is there some different way we're supposed to combine these cards?

You are supposed to combine all cards in their respective decks with the exception of extra basic black market cards which go back in the box. The black market is supposed to have only nonbasic cards. The game is significantly harder with the basics in the dack so this might improve your winrate. :)


Determining which areas to use in 2- or 6-player Power Grid Pretty straight-forward question here: In the 2- and 6-player versions of Power Grid, you are instructed to use only 3 areas and 5 areas respectively, but it doesn't say how to pick the areas, leaving it up to the players.

What are good recommendations for determining which areas are in/out?

We use the system where player 1 picks an area to keep, player 2 picks an adjacent area, etc. until we have the right number of areas. I'm nearly positive this is how the designer, Friedemann Friese, taught us. If not then we picked it up from the earlier version of the game, the crayon-based Funkenschlag.

One tip: when the new (current) edition came out I had a chance to play with the designer explaining the rules. We used the pick-an-adjacent-area rule to pick our staring zones and were using the Germany map. With six players we picked five zones, and the one left out was the center zone, leaving a ring-shaped map. Friedemann immediately exclaimed, "We never playtested it that way!"

It turns out that's a pretty poor map to play on since you're restricted to expanding through other people's territory much earlier in the game than you normally would. The result was an extra-long game that frankly wasn't as fun.

So the tip: if you play the Germany map with 6 players, do not eliminate the center territory.


In 8th Edition, do you always make a to-hit roll? In 8th edition of 40k, several weapons have the phrase "This weapon always hits." Or some slight variation.

If a weapon with an ability that depends on a to-hit roll, like Hellblasters, were to get this ability on their weapons, would they still be required to make a to-hit roll?

TLDR

Everything regarding rolls to hit from my first comment still applies.
The Hellblaster weapon rules harm the user of the weapon, not the target.
There are weapons that always hit currently in the rules; they follow as described in my first comment.
The Deathwatch Frag Cannon is an example of a weapon that changes from one attack to the next.
If a psyker power is created that will always hit it will operate similarly.

This is too long for a comment and if I am still misunderstanding your question let me know and I will edit the answer until we figure it out!

First let me say that if you do not have your head wrapped around my first comment that is important; if you do forgive me and skip this section

  So from my first comment, during play you always roll to hit your target unless the weapon or attack specifically says otherwise. So once you have chosen your target you roll to see if you hit that target. If your roll is equal or greater than your model's ballistic skill then you have successfully hit your target. If not, then you miss. If you roll a one you always miss, regardless of any modifiers that may apply during that attack. i.e. Let's say you are attacking a target with a leader character nearby that has some ability that grants minus one to any model's ballistic skill that is within 6". Your skill is 2 normally and that took your skill from 2 down to 1. You roll to hit your target and get a one. While the modifier would grant you a successful strike, the fact that you rolled a 1, means that you have missed your target.

Second, I think you may be misreading the rules. Regarding the Hellblaster weapon the ability states as follows:

  Each time a model fires a plasma incinerator, it can supercharge the weapon before firing. If it does so, increase the strength and damage of the weapon by one (1) for this turn. If you roll any hit rolls of one (1) when firing a supercharged plasma incinerator, the firing model is slain as the weapon explodes.

This states that you can choose to overcharge your weapon making it more damaging to the targets for the duration of one turn. If you choose to do so you put yourself at risk of the weapon exploding in your hands and killing yourself. On a roll of one (where you always miss regardless of modifiers) you have not only missed your target, but the model that fired the weapon has blown themselves up as well. That model is dead.

Towards what I believe your real question is, there are weapons/ attacks that DO always hit and you do not need to roll for hits because of the special ability. One example of this is the Rubric Marine's Warpflamer and Warpflame Pistol. These weapons have the same ability:

  This weapon automatically hits its target

In this case despite the ballistic skill of 3+ you do not even have to roll to hit, because the weapon always hits its intended target. Theoretically, in this case, if you did roll you would roll a 3 every time. In keeping with my first comment, in this case you do not roll to hit when using one of those weapons, you have already hit your target choosing that attack profile and now need to roll to wound. In this case as well a target's ability to force you to re-roll to hit does no good, because you always hit. The only thing that can save them now is the wound roll or their save roll.

Similar to my comment the Deathwatch Frag Cannon is a weapon that has the ability to activate its always hit ability when attacking. If you use the 'Shell' profile and your target is within half its maximum range you get added benefits. If however you use the 'Frag Round' profile the weapon has the ability that it always hits. In this case you can choose which profile to use and its ability to always hit could change from one attack to the next.

If a Psyker ability (or any other weapon/ ability) is created that always hits its target it will operate similarly to these.

I do not know of any Psyker abilities of the top of my head that always hit, but it does not seem to be a likely circumstance. If anyone had the ability to always hit I would have assumed either the Magnus or maybe the Grey Knights to have such an ability. All of their available psychic attacks and special abilities say "If manifested" so even a Daemon Primarch and Grey Knights miss with their Psyker abilities.

This does seem interesting to me however, because it would mean that even Magnus the Red is subject to the Perils of the Warp rule; where if you roll snake eyes (double one) or midnight (double six) then you are attacked by warp manifestations... I would think Magnus would be exempt from that at least, but nope... sucks to be a Psyker!

If I have not gotten your question, please let me know and I will adjust my answer.


Can I use rewards from a just-bought building to pay the participation cost of a Great Project? During my turn, I place a building which produces resources or provides coins. Can I then use those resources / coins to pay the participation cost of a Great Project? Could I use those coins to trade with another player for a resource needed as part of the participation cost?

The language used to describe how to participate in Great Projects indicates when you need to pay the cost. Unlike monetary losses, which are "always resolved at the end of a turn, after players have played their cards, possibly having paid for trade and/or obtained money," participation is an additional cost at the time of playing your card. From the rule book on page 6 (emphasis mine):

  From now on, when a player constructs a building of the same color as the Great Project card in play (Brown, Blue, Red, Yellow, Green, or Purple), that player has the option to participate in its construction. To do that, the player must pay the participation cost in addition to the cost of their building. In return, the player takes a Participation token which they place on their Wonder board.

The decision to participate happens as you are paying costs, which must occur before gaining resources from your played card. If you don't have the resources at the time you are revealing your card, you can't participate in the Great Project.

Users on BoardGameGeek seem to agree here and here ("Participation requires the payment to be made upon constructing the building.")


Why was Kird Ape banned in very first Extended ban list? I'm curious as to what sort of reasoning went behind Kird Ape being too strong for Extended play? Granted this was many years ago but I was surprised to see that it was banned in a format that allowed powerful cards like Necropotence.

The simple answer is that at the time of the banning, WotC saw this card as a problem for the metagame in Extended. It could put an opponent pretty far behind pretty early, and many decks had to tailor early plays just to deal with Kird Ape. As Mark Rosewater notes in an article from 2003 (emphasis mine):

  We ban and restrict cards because we believe there is something worse than not allowing players to use a particular card, and that is having a play environment become so degenerate that the game is no longer fun. Sometimes individual cards have to be sacrificed for the needs of the larger game.

When an individual card takes over a format because it seems unbalanced, WotC bans it in order to try and change the metagame. This is constant battle for them in the Modern format, where they're trying to figure out a way to ensure it's a four-turn format.

If it's any consolation, in the same article by Rosewater he admits the Kird Ape ban may have been a mistake:

  Why did you ban Kird Ape in the original Extended format when Hypnotic Specter was not?

  I’ll let you in on a little secret. We’re not infallible. We occasionally, gasp, make mistakes. We correct them when we catch them, but hey nobody’s perfect. Was the above a mistake? To quote my grandfather: “If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and has a giant sign on it that says: ‘I’m a freakin’ duck!’, odds are, it might be a duck.”

I'm also skeptical that you are going to find a direct quote online referencing the Kird Ape ban. The earliest articles on the WotC website for Magic are from December 2001. I legitimately can't figure out when Kird Ape was actually banned and then unbanned, but this timeline shows Hypnotic Specter being banned in October of 1997. Since the above Rosewater quote references the banning of Kird Ape instead of Hypnotic Specter, I can only assume Kird Ape had both its banning and unbanning before then, more than four years before WotC decided to start using the internet to disseminate information about their game.


Munchkin Warhammer 40k - Running Away - Automatic Escape vs Automatic Failure I recently played a game of Munchkin Warhammer 40k.

In the middle of a fight I was losing, I was cursed with a "Can't Locate the Astronimican"  which I responded by playing a "Tactical Rearward Advance".  This lead to great disagreement within the group.

Card Text:

  Curse! Can't locate the Astronimican. Automatically fail your next run away attempt.

and

  Tactical Rearward Advance. Play before rolling the die to Run Away from the first monster in your combat. You automatically escape from all monsters.

My argument was that

I was still allowed to play the Tactical Rearward Advance, as I had not rolled the die to Run away yet; and,
it would negate the Curse entirely as my escape was "automatic" - ie I was not making a "Run Away Attempt" as explicitly stated on the curse card

My opponent argued that the Curse would have effect immediately as there is no "stack"

In the event, we negotiated a compromise and moved on with the game, but I am curious as to other peoples interpretation of those two cards.

You cannot escape this way
From the Steve Jackson Games Forums, on a thread about running away, the Munchkin Line Editor wrote:

If a monster doesn't allow you to Run Away at all, then there's no attempt that will automatically succeed or fail. (But some Items will allow you to try to escape even from monsters that don't normally allow a try; they will explicitly say you can roll even from those monsters.)
If you're under a Curse or Bad Stuff that means you automatically fail your next attempt, you can't use something else to make that attempt succeed (unless, as above, it says it can even supersede automatic failure -- Magic Lamp, for instance, or Tomb Dust, as you mentioned).
You can't use a Hireling to escape an automatic failure. You also can't use an automatic success to counteract an automatic failure, unless the auto-success says so; automatic failure trumps automatic success.
A monster that won't even pursue you never causes a Run Away attempt in the first place, so it doesn't trigger an automatic failure effect -- you're still stuck with it. However, if another card (such as Flask of Glue) counteracts the "will not pursue" clause, then your automatic failure kicks in.

Tactical Rearward Advance does not indicate that it supersedes automatic failures, therefore it does not.


Help me identify this old tile stacking game A game from the 60's. Stacking plastic tiles 1-20, six of each. Can't remember how to play but stacking was definitely involved.

My grandma has this game! I wanted to buy my own!
You turn them all over and put them into piles of 10. Separate the piles according to the amount of players.
Each player takes it in turns to flip over their top tile on the pile on the right hand side. The aim is to build up six piles from 1 to 20 in the middle.
If you turn over a tile and someone has a tile a number higher or lower (e.g. you flip over a 17 and someone else has a 16 or 18) you pass your tile over to put on their tile. The first player to get rid of all their tiles wins.


Can you affect the Haunt roll with items, omens or other effects in Betrayal at House on the Hill? I was watching Wil Wheaton playing Betrayal at House on the Hill, and someone commented:

Can the Rabbits foot, or the Angels Feather (or anything else) avert the haunt? I can't see why not, but this seems like a special case.

Both the Rabbit's Foot and the Angel Feather have extremely generic text; the Rabbit's Foot says once during your turn, you may reroll one die; the Angel Feather says When you attempt a roll of any kind...

The only restriction I can see is that both the Rabbit's Foot and the Angel Feather must be used by the player who revealed the Omen card and is making the Haunt roll. Both of those items specifically restrict the affected roll to the owner's rolls. The rules state that a Haunt roll is made at the end of your turn, but that means it's still your turn.

TL;DR: Yes, the owner of those items may affect a haunt roll that the owner makes.


Russian Roulette Alternative? Does anyone know of an established variation on Russian Roulette using dice or cards that doesn't involve shooting yourself in the head and would be somewhat child friendly?

Thanks :)

You can buy chocolate Russian roulette sets, the guns has 7 chocolate bullets filled with liquid chocolate and 1 chocolate bullets filled with hot sauce, these can be great fun.

http://www.treasureislandsweets.co.uk/acatalog/chocolate_russian_roulette.html

heres a link to a set :)


Do card abilities that grant mana stack? For example, if I have a creature card that says

  Creatures you control have "{T}: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."

and I have two of these creatures out, do they stack so I can tap a creature to get two mana?

The creature has two copies of the ability to tap for mana. However each one is separately activated, and you have to pay by tapping the creature for either of them. So you get a choice: Use the first copy of the ability to tap for one mana, or use the second. You can't use both.

So no, you only can get one mana per creature in this case.


Forester and Copse in Agricola Looking at some links that show statistics of the most used occupations and minor improvements from winning players, I've noticed that the Forester and Copse do not rank nearly as high as I thought they wood (haha, "wood", get it).

When my friends and I play, if someone gets one of those two cards it seems that person wins quite often. The ability to not need to pick wood first and not being starved for wood appears quite powerful. Being able to expand rooms as well as building fences to get that first pool of sheep seems pretty powerful.

However, statistics from 2000 winning games seems hard to ignore. Do you think  the Forester and Copse as good as I feel they are? Perhaps our strategy is just sub-par?  :)

EDIT: Here is the link I was looking at. Follow the accepted answer's links.

To me, the benefits of these cards have always seemed limited for several reasons:

Initial outlay. You need to invest a number of wood into the card to begin with.
Delayed gratification. The first harvest after you sow the forester/copse, you simply get back your initial investment, therefore it is two harvests before you get any benefit at all. This is particularly negative when we are talking about wood, which is most useful early in the game.
Needing to sow. Sow spaces are often at a premium, particularly in games with 4/5 players. You aren't going to want to waste a whole action just to sow your copse, so it's only really valuable if you are going to be sowing grain anyway.

For these reasons, an occupation like the Wood Collector seems preferable. On the surface it might seem like a poor alternative, since the total amount of wood that you get is potentially less: 5 versus 12 if you were to use the Forester to its full potential. But compare them over time, if both were played as early as possible:

On round four, the Wood Collector is already up by 3 wood, whereas the Forester is DOWN by three wood.
On round six, the Wood Collector is up by 5 wood and the Forester is drawing even.
It's not till round 10 that the Forester is actually ahead by 1 wood over the Wood Collector (6 vs 5).
By round 14, the Forester has gained 9 wood compared to the WC's 5. There is an extra three to come, but it is only useful if you have the Joinery/Sawmill.

And that's all if the Forester is used perfectly. If you don't get the chance to sow before the first harvest (which requires having picked up three wood and used the "Sow/bake bread" spot) then your return is much poorer.

  Being able to expand rooms as well as building fences to get that first pool of sheep seems pretty powerful.

From this, I wonder if you have misinterpreted the cards in some way. You should be taking one wood from the top of each stack during the field phase of each harvest and putting it into your supply. The wood on the card is not available for you to use to pay for anything until you have harvested it. For that reason, you don't get ANY benefit from the Forester/Copse until Round 8 at the earliest (the first harvest is just recouping your initial investment), so to use it to get the first pool of sheep seems implausible.


Pandemic Legacy Season 1 September: Where to search if the conditions can’t be met? In September we are supposed to

   search for the paranoid soldier in a faded city with military base.

...but we don’t have one! We have the former and the latter, but not both at the same time. We could build one, but then the story does not make much sense, as we could not rediscover something lost in a place we just built!

Anyway... is that the way to go? Build and search?

From the Compiled FAQ on BGG, taken from the July spoiler:

What if there are no research stations in faded cities?
You will need to build one (or use Field Hospital ) if you wish to attempt the search.

So similarly, in September you'll need to build a military base in one of your faded cities.
I don't know what the thematic explanation is, but I'm sure you could retcon something - building a military base is actually commandeering an existing facility, or it just gives you the necessary infrastructure to find the soldier in the region, or he congregates to the base, or something.


Swapping district in completed city Does the Diplomat has the right to swap a district in completed city ?
Warlord cannot destroy a district in a completed city.

No.

This is answered in the rules in the description of the Diplomat:

You may not exchange the Keep district, any
districts in the Bishop’s city, or any districts in a
completed city of eight districts (seven with the
Bell Tower in play).
Note: If you are using the
Diplomat in your game, you must remove the
Cemetery from the deck since both cannot be
used together.

It is verified in the FAQ:

Q: Can the Diplomat exchange one of his districts for
a district from a completed city of eight districts?
A: No


Carcassonne -- problem telling the difference between the Big Meeple and regular Meeples In our gaming group, we have a very hard time picking out the Big Meeple from the other Meeples on the board.  While the Big Meeple certainly is bigger than the others, it's not by a significant factor, and most of our group (epsecially me) just can't tell it apart from other Meeples on the board.

It has gotten to the point where we have implemented a house rule that when you play the Big Meeple, you must state you are playing it, and if someone asks where your Big Meeple is, you need to point it out.  Still, it's easy to loose track of, in my opinion.

Has anyone else experienced this?  Have you implemented a similar house rule?  Have you altered your Big Meeple (painting on it, drawing a smiley face on it, etc.) to help identify it?  Or are we all just seriously visually impaired?

I've mentally lost track of big meeples before, so I don't see a problem with visually altering it to make it stand out.  Perhaps you could borrow a hat from a set of Legos?  Honestly, I'm more surprised that your gaming group is cutthroat enough to need a rule to force people to announce when using big meeples.  Carcassonne is a game of perfect information (other than tile draws).  You should always be able to ask where something is.


Can you equip multiples of the same item? If a survivor has an item equipped (the lighter, for example), can that character equip identical items and would they be able to use all of them as normal?

There are no limitations on equipped items, so yes, and yes.


Do any precolumbian board games survive? A number of board games survive to the present day from quite ancient times in the Old World: mancala, go, even the physical components of the game of Ur survived (though we don't know the rules).

Do any board games survive from the New World that predate Columbus?

After reading this article I could find several references to games played during the precolumbian era.

For some of them the rules are unknown but here is the list (to be completed) :

Patolli played by Teotihuacanos, Toltecs, etc. Before Christ !
Bul
Awithlaknakwe
Totolospi