Ururam Tururam

I have just played a few games with the following rule: “At the beginning put both mosquitoes on the table as the starting tiles of both players.” It seems absurd at the first glance but it proved to lead to interesting configurations afterwards. Give this setup a chance!

Get a few recordings of the Gregorian chant and play them during your Ora et labora sessions. This will create a great medieval mood well suiting the theme of this game.

Ora et Labora is a game of limited resources, and the most limited resource of all is time for making actions. But sometimes you can group two actions into one: you can construct an new building and immediately send your prior to work there. Utilizing this privilege as often as possible gives a substantial advantage. So when you are to construct a building make sure that you have your prior available and make sure he may do something useful in. Be prepared in advance: it’s better to spend one more turn on preparations, gathering resources etc. and then to make two actions at once than to hurry to build something that you can’t use at once.

Sometimes a certain resource stacks on the wheel. If it’s one you need – no problem, get it. But what when you don’t need it too much? In principle you could need it in the future. Moreover you block other players. I’ve found that a good moment to take a resource that you don’t really need is when it reaches the 12-P amount where P is the number of players; i.e:
* 10 in a 2-player game;
* 9 in a 3-player game;
* 8 in a 4-player game.
Of course in many games you won’t have an opportunity to get that much…

To add some flavor to the game the players are welcome to address each other as “brother” or “sister”. E.g.: “Sister Catherine, it is your turn now!”. If some of the players are much older then others they may be addressed as “Father” and “Mother”. Alternatively the winner of the previous game may be “Father” or “Mother” during the next one.

For power gamers it’s hard to play a game of incomplete information if complete information could possibly be obtained. So if you are a part of group pf power gamers you may decide Risk Legacy is not a game for you.

But there is a workaround! You may open all the secret envelopes before you start playing the first game. In fact giving each player a day or two to fully comprehend all the ramification is a good idea here. Then start playing with all the knowledge in your minds.

This ruling may also be used for non-power gamers if they want to play through the whole campaign again (however it may be hard because of all those stickers).

It’s easy to cheat when playing this game. If someone knows what happens after certain conditions are met they may play accordingly. So if you want to fully enjoy this game play it in a group of trusted friends who promise each other not to read the game spoilers before playing.

If you want to play a longer-lasting version of the Caylus game you may use the following rulings:

* Parts of the castle are scored only when they are fully built.
* The game ends at the end of the turn when the Bailiff token reaches the very last town space. (It is thus possible that one – or even more – part of the castle remains unscored at the end of the game).

Using these rulings make building right town structures more profitable than it is in the standard game while developing the castle has a bit lower priority.

If you want to play Quarriors for five players you need the Rise of the Demons expansion. To setup the Wilds you put there four basic cards, four spell cards (instead of three) and seven creature cards as normal. Among the spells you should find the one with the lowest cost. If two ore more are tied, choose one of them randomly.

Each player gets:
– 6 Basic Quiddity dice (put two remaining ones on their card)
– 3 Assistant dice (put three remaining ones on their card)
– 2 Corrupted Quiddity dice (there are no remaining ones, their card starts empty)
– 1 dice of the selected lowest cost spell (no dice remaining, their card starts empty)

The game progresses as it does for 4 players. In order to win a player needs to get 11 (not 12) glory points. The game ends also if five (not four) creature cards are empty at any instant.

Edit: Gosh, it should be a “Rule”, not a “Strategy” but it cannot be changed now…

Here are two game variants proposed by the game developers along with my comments:

1) During Phase 4 of your turn, you may capture up to two dice (instead of only one).

UT’s comment: I don’t recommend it. It makes a few “you may get another die this turn” worthless. Moreover when there is a good and cheap creature to buy a possibility of buying two at once unbalances the game especially for 3-4 players.

2) When you score a die, you can only cull the die that scored and you can only score the glory for that die if you cull it.

UT’s comment: It makes the gameplay really different. I’m not sure – better or worse, but different. Worth trying.

Before you buy stock cards from the bank, take a look at your tiles to determine what companies you are able to enlarge yourself. Even if you don’t see any big growth in a foreseeable future, the other players will see you looking, thinking, and then buying. Thus you may use this technique also as a bluff and make your opponents to counteract inappropriately.

Getting rid of Corrupted Quiddity dice (culling them or – better – giving them to the opponents if possible) should be your no-brainer choice. You should avoid getting them as they are more then useless. You may be tempted by possible Corrupted Primordial Ooze / Corrupted Defender of the Pale / Corruption incantation combo – but it does not work well: sometimes you gain a lot of glory, but most of the time you end in “Quiddity screw”.

In contrast cards that give Corrupted Quiddity to opponents (especially Corrupted Witching Hag) are pretty useful.

If you want to encourage players to rotate their power plants faster you may use the following ruling:

* A player who discards a power plant card gains 1/3rd of its price (rounded down) payed for the scrap materials. *

The factor of 1/3 seems to be pretty well balanced: if it is higher e.g. (1/2)it alters the game too much, if it’s lower (e.g. 1/4) it has almost no impact.

This game end variant combines well with the “Quick purging rule” described before. In this variant the game ends when:

– no player played a tile during their last turn
or
– all the players agree that playing more tiles will not change the outcome.

When using this variant it is necessary to allow players to “pass”, i.e. to skip the “place and draw a tile” phase of their turn.

If you want to have some corruption in your game from its beginning, and also if you want slightly longer games, you could use the following startup:

– Deal the cards as usual.
– Each player gets 7 Basic Quiddity, 4 Assistants and 2 Corrupted Quiddity (13 dice total).
– Put 1 Basic Quiddity die on its card for each player in the game.

If you want to play the (probably) most corrupted Quarriors game ever choose the following setup and play a 4-player game.

Creatures:
– Corrupted Quake Dragon (9)
– Corrupted Witching Hag (5)
– Corrupted Scavenging Goblin (2)
– Corrupted Questing Wizard (7)
– Corrupted Warrior of the Quay (3)
– Corrupted Primordial Ooze (6)
– Lesser Demonic Overlord (8)

Spells:
– Corruption Incantation (6)
– Life Charm (3)
– Growth Cantrip (3)

Enjoy!

Players have no limit of the permit cards they can keep. It is then quite good strategy to collect the permits that are available at low costs (mostly the 1AP ones, but also the 2AP ones) early in the game even when there is no obvious way to use them soon. A versatile collection of permits gets valuable in later phases of the game and the loses in prestige points taken in early game are usually more then compensated later.

Under standard rules if a player has only tiles that may not be played legally, he can discard all those tiles and draw a new set. Alternatively the following rule can be used:

At the beginning of a turn, before playing a tile the active player may decide to discard a tile that may not be legally played any more. If he does he draws two tiles at the end of the turn. Each discarded tile counts as a small penalty at the end of the game: -$90 per tile.

Using this ruling reduces luck involved and causes the game to end in a draw less likely.

If you want more player interaction during the game you can modify the rule of purchasing stock (phase 2 of the turn). Under the modified rule players are still limited to 3 purchases per turn but they may buy from the bank or from other players. When buying stock cards from other players there is no restriction whether the chain is present on board or not, and there is no fixed price.

Note that only the active player may be the buyer and only the active player may make offers – the non-active players are limited to answering to the offers: ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘yes but at the price of amount‘. Rejected offer does not count towards the limit of 3 purchases per turn.

This is the rule that can be used to reduce the number of Hive games ending in a draw:

* The first player must not play the Bee as their first tile. Then a move that positions one Bee next to another one is illegal unless it wins the game immediately.

Here are a few strategic guidelines regarding equal trades. They assume capturing pieces of the same rank (e.g. a dog for a dog) by both players. They also assume that such a trade does not change positional situation too much (for example does not leave another piece unprotected or trap unguarded).

* If you are ahead by one piece of a kind it is usually beneficial to you to trade one of your pieces for the remaining one.

* If you are ahead by one piece it is usually OK for you to trade pieces of a higher rank than the rank of your advantage. This is because the quantitative advantage becomes more and more important as the board gets emptier.

* If you are ahead by one piece you should not look for trading pieces of lower ranks, but you should not avoid it too much either. Such a trade improves your quantitative advantage but weakens your qualitative advantage.

And of course if you are behind by a piece you should use reversals of the above tips…

If you want to get even more fun out of this game, let your group pretend that you all treat the things that happen during the game absolutely seriously. Laughter and joking is forbidden and punished by the deities with lowering the offender’s level by 1. It’s crazy, but craziness is what Munchkin is about…

Remember that you are allowed to shuffle your opponent’s deck after they shuffle it. While it’s not so vital during casual play it is very important during “serious” games – in tournaments or just when some prizes are involved. If your current opponent plays honestly, they neither gain nor lose anything. But if you happen to be paired against a cheater (with a deck with crucial cards distributed evenly) cutting the deck is not enough to nullify that effect.

Note also that you can choose the method to shuffle the opponent’s deck. From time to time you may play against a “preparer”, a person who places land cards as every third card in their deck and then only pretends to shuffle their deck properly. In such a case don’t hesitate to reshuffle their deck by distributing it to three piles and then putting them together: the effect would be devastating to the cheater.

Guess what?! The simple wooden ‘catapult’ device can be quite accurate if you practice aiming a bit. The best way I’ve found to handle it is pressing its base by your thumb while holding the front with the index finger of the same hand to assure the right direction. Then you can use your second index finger to apply the proper force.

Disclaimer: The fact that the catapult can be mastered does not change my overall negative impression about this add-on. I still prefer the ‘yearly fair’ variant described previously.

The goal of the game is to destroy all the opposing HeadQuarters while keeping one’s own on the board. While in a 4-player game it usually means defending one’s own HQ and dealing some damage to the opposing ones in 2- and 3-player games the participants are tempted to launch furious attacks against opponents’ HQ-s. While there’s nothing wrong in well prepared attacks, charging blindly may often result in dealing a serious amount of damage to the opponent but losing all the units in the process. That leads to a defeat a few turns later.

So when you decide to launch a total attack do it only in one of three following cases:

1) You have reasons to hope that during attack on a HQ you are able to destroy defending units too.

2) You expect that your attack will bring enemy HQ to zero.

3) You calculate that the game will end soon due to the time limit and the opponent will not have enough time to launch a counter-attack.

When you learn a foreign language consider obtaining (or making yourself) a Scrabble set of that language and play it with your friends or just solo to enrich your vocabulary.

Note that different languages have different distribution of letters and different values associated to them.

This variant allows players not to place the just drawn tile on the map.

Instead they can pay two points (they need to earn those points first!) to put the just drawn tile aside – face down – and to draw another one. This process can be repeated as many times as the appropriate player wishes (and as long as there are victory points to spend).

When there are no more tiles to draw, all the tiles that were set aside before return to the stack (or to the sack depending on the tile drawing method being used). The game ends when there are no more tiles to draw and no more tiles that are set aside.

Warning: Applying this rule makes the game last longer and leads to higher total scores.

For the civil card I, II and III, other than leaders (!) when they are taken out the queue due to not being bought, set them aside. Unhired leaders and used up cards should be discarded as usual. When the deck of a given age ends, shuffle the set aside cards and continue the current age, but after this operation all unused cards from the current age are discarded normally. When the recycled stack ends the age ends as per normal game rules.

I’ve noticed that many players new to El Grande tend to fight furiously for the central regions while the peripheral ones remain nearly empty. I admit that the central regions can earn many victory points. But often taking one’s nobles from any of these “rich” provinces and distributing them evenly among the peripheral ones would get the clever player twice as much. So watch the others fight for Castile, and go for Galicia and Seville in meantime.

After examining your improvements and occupation cards find a general idea which of them you should play to gain the most. Then find out what actions to take to get maximal profit out of them. Alas usually your opponents will block some of the actions. There’s the very moment when you need a “Plan B” – what other actions could be nearly as rewarding as the originally planned ones. If you think about it in advance you will probably avoid performing an ineffective action when the time comes.

But sometimes the combination of already blocked actions makes the original occupations/improvement setup not as appealing as it looked at the start of the game. Be prepared to change it (and thus to change your scheme of actions to preform) if needed.

All in all – your strategy should be flexible!

* Players form two pairs. They sit around the table as in Bridge – each player vis-a-vis their ally with opponents left and right.

* Players take turns in a clockwise order. Only the first player in the first team to play does not draw a card during the first turn of the game.

* Players can select legal targets for spells as they want, taking into account that a teammate is considered to be “a player” but not “an opponent” according to the game rules.

* Players can attack with their creatures only the opponent to the left. (And they are attacked by the opponent to the right.)

* Each player has their own deck and their own poison pool. Eliminating any player by the end of deck or by poisoning eliminates the whole team.

* Teams has common damage pools staring at 40. Damage dealt to each team member subtract from this pool. For the effects that look at the player health value each player is assumed to have a half of the pool current health, rounded down if necessary (for “Lich” effect both player are assumed to become liches). Reducing the total health to 0 eliminates the team.

There are three events each year: Pay Day, Tax Day and a random event driven by cards. Note that if the random event is either the first or the second event, you know for sure what will be the third event – effectively three seasons in advance. So you have a lot of time to prepare for it! Remember also that autumn events are most painful as you have more and more tunnels or monsters to pay for as the time passes. Unfortunately it is not possible to peek the random event that early.

Name: Imp

Strength: 1

Craft: 4

Alignment: Evil

Abilities:

1) Other characters may attack Imp psychically if they initiate the combat.

2) Imp can avoid every physical combat and cannot be hurt by physical attacks of monsters.

3) Imp has no penalties (and adversaries have no bonuses) for standing on runes.

4) When Imp encounters a player he may change their alignment to any other.

Comment:
Hard to play. Can be very annoying to the opponents!

The player who build most elements the castle during a given turn earns a royal favor. I a pretty common case of a tie in numbers the first player to accomplish castle development gets the favor. So the following guidelines can be derived:

1) Try to place your worker as the first one on the castle spots.

2) If you could do 1) but you see that any other player may build more castle elements during the current turn – don’t hurry, the worker order does not mean too much for you.

3) If another player has their worker in the castle and you can top them – it is usually a good idea to do that.

4) If another player has their worker in the castle and you can build the same number of castle elements or less – consider not improving the castle at all, but waiting for the next turn instead.

5) If you are to build castle elements and you could construct many of them – consider constructing only the number of elements that is enough not to be topped by other players.

1. Prepare a Tsuro board and put all the tiles face up nearby.

2. Place all 8 player stones on the starting positions of your choice.

3. Choose the order the virtual players will take their turns. You can not change this order afterwards.

4. Play subsequent turns of the virtual players. You can choose any available tile you want for each move.

5. End up with one square empty and all 8 stones on the board – in an eightfold draw!

Good luck!

A few setup guidelines for beginners:

* Don’t put too many rabbits on your front rank. Any number within the range 0-4 is reasonable.

* Good columns for forward rabbits are: a, c, f, and h.

* Horses like your front rank and columns b and g.

* Put your elephant on a centralized position (columns c to f) on your front rank.

* If you play silver don’t place your elephant directly in front of the golden one.

* Shuffle the tiles and form a stack. Draw three tiles. Position your stone.

* Play your first tile according to standard rules. Move your stone. Don’t draw a replacement tile.

* Play your next tile, move your stone and draw a replacement, to have two tiles. Repeat as long as there are available tiles. Try to keep your stone on the board!

* Play your two last tiles and move your stone. If you end with your stone on the edge of the last empty board square – it’s OK!

* Now take any tile from the board (except the one your stone is currently on!) and move your stone:
– If you land on the edge of another hole (the one you have just created) – repeat the process.
– If your stone falls off the board – you lose.
– If your stone follows an ‘infinite’ closed path – you win!

Instead of standard random drawing the 7 creatures and 3 spells you may decide to select the setup manually to obtain interesting games. Some cards form combos and anti-combos and you may use them to spice your games up.

Here is a sample setup that proved to be interesting for 2 and 3 players:

Creatures:
Scavenging Goblin (2Q), Deathdealer (3Q), Strong devotee of the holy query (4Q), Witching Hag (5Q), Quaxos warrior of the quay (6Q), Strong primordial ooze (7Q), Mighty Questing Wizard (8Q).

Spells:
Shaping charm (3Q), Growth cantrip (3Q), Victory incantation (9Q).

Clay is as useful as wood, but there are 4 wood producing tiles and only 3 clay producing ones. Try to restrict access to them early during the game. Partially you may do it even during the initial settlement/road placement. Then position your roads to obstruct other players’ access to those tiles.

The tower itself count as a “region” during the scoring phase. Not a very valuable region, but you may get a few points from it. Then all the cubes from the tower are to be moved to “normal” regions. So – if played wisely – they may count twice! But remember: in order to use the tower effectively you must keep in memory how man cubes have already been played there. It requires a little effort but it pays back a lot!

Quarriors plays fast, so shortening the time of game preparation makes sense as the available spells and creatures differ from game to game. It’s a good idea to keep the dice in an organizer box of appropriate size.

It also makes sense to use three colors of deck protectors – one for basic cards, one for spells and one for creatures. Fortunately the Quarriors cards are standard ones (“M:tG-sized”).

Before you make your move check the following:

* Your rabbits: Is any of them able to reach the goal line? If so – finish the game!

* Opponent’s rabbits: Is any of them going to reach the goal line next move? If so – try to intercept it.

* The four traps: Is any of your pieces in danger of being captured? Are you able to capture an opponent’s piece for nothing or for a weaker piece? If so – act appropriately.

Following these steps helps avoiding the most painful blunders. If you think that these tips are all obvious – I’ll say: yes, they are, but errors caused by not following them happen even during Arimaa World Championships.

Robo Rally can well be use to teach the basics of programming. But if you decide to use this game for such a purpose you may want to alter one rule:

Instead of locking the last registers (and having the commands stored here executed repetitively) with accumulated damage, make the last registers just unusable. That means if a robot starts its turns damaged, the number of orders the player should use is reduced, and the orders in “locked” slots are discarded. (Note that getting more damage during the turn does not cause already placed commands to be discarded.)

This makes the game flow more predictable and easier to understand for beginners. Playing the game is less chaotic and somewhat less funny, but it serves educative purposes better.

In a 5+ player games when choosing a character check what character(s) would benefit the leading player(s) most. Do that regardless if you are among leading players or not. Such characters would most probably be targeted by the Assassin and the Thief. So if you get any of them you risk being assassinated or robbed in that turn.

By the way, if you are the solo leading player you should get the Assassin as often as you can. It’s better not to get a bonus and do not risk missing a turn in such case.

When you are to capture a new die your decission is sometimes obvious: if you have only 2Q there’s only one critter to buy: the Scavenging Goblin; if you have 8-9Q you should most probably get a dragon if it is available.

In the mid-range you should take into account several factors like:

– How many players are there in the game? (For example Mighty Primordial Ooze works best in a 4-player game while Strong Witching Hag in a 2-player one).

– What creature and spell cards are selected for the current game? (Some of them form nice combos.)

– What dice have been taken so far by you and your opponents? (Look for synergies and counterstrategies.)

By the way there are two creatures that are always a good pick. There may be better picks in a given moment but those two are never bad:

* Ghostly Spirit. (It costs only 3Q and it allows you to cull regardless whether it scores or it’s going to be destroyed.)

* Mighty Defender of the Pale. (Rather expensive – 6Q – but he scores for 3, has a decent defense value and makes all opponents’ critters more expensive.)

THE THIRD YEAR

an extension for the game of Dungeon Lords

1) These rules expand the game for the players who want it to last longer. (Are there any? Sure, everyone wants bigger dungeons!) The extension adds the third year after the first two ones. So there is no scoring after the second year; instead the third one begins. Scoring happens after the third year and it uses the standard rules. During the third year rules from the second year are used with the exceptions described below. No additional components are being used.

2) Preparations:

2.a) Get all used trap cards and shuffle them into the traps deck.

2.b) Get all the monster and ghost cards that are not owned by the players (from both years) mix them all and form a stack. Note that it may happen there will be no monster or ghost to buy in later seasons of the third year!

2.c) Mix all unused rooms from the second year and form a stack. Then mix all unused rooms from the first year and put them on that stack. Note that there may be no room to buy in later seasons of the third year!

2.d) Get all unused and all discarded (“victorious” or “set free”) adventurers (excluding paladins) from both years. Count them. If there are less than 12 of them, there is a jail break: each player must free the strongest adventurer from their jail (excluding paladins again). Decide by the year and the glyph (or just by the background). If two or more heroes are equally powerful, it is up to the owner of the jail to decide which one to free. Mix all the adventurers (year does not matter) and form a stack.

2.e) For the 10 unused combat cards separate fast (blue) and slow (green) spells. Mix together fast spells from both years (fast deck) and slow spells from both years (slow deck). Then draw randomly four pairs: fast/slow (year does not matter). Put these pairs in order face down without looking at them. Note that it may happen that there will be only one combat/spell card for later seasons of the third year!

2.f) If the second year paladin is not imprisoned, use him in the third year too. Else if the first year paladin is not imprisoned, use him in the third year too. Else – what a pleasant surprise – there will be no paladin this year! All the third year adventurers including the paladin if he is present are considered to be fully healed regardless of their previous possible state.

2.g) Choose the starting player as in the beginning of the second year substituting words: “second” with “third” and “first” with “second”.

3) Order phase (differences only):

3.a) Reputation: if you are to peek a combat card you take a look at a pair of cards prepared for a given season.

3.b) Dig tunnels: there is no tunnel limit. If there are no tunnel tokens, use something else for the purpose. The same applies for using the room for digging a tunnel.

3.c) Recruit imps: there is no imp limit. If there are no imp figurines, use something else for the purpose. The same applies for using the room for making imps.

3.d) Buy traps: use the second year rules but discarded traps should be put at the bottom of the trap deck for further use if necessary.

3.e) Hire monsters or ghosts: if there are no more monsters and ghosts to hire, then this order becomes unusable (at least temporarily). However all discarded monsters and ghosts as well as ones not hired in a given turn are being put at the bottom of the stack, so they may appear in the tavern again.

3.f) Build rooms: if there are no more rooms to buy, then this order becomes permanently unusable. However rooms that are not bought in a given turn should be put at the bottom of the stack, so they may appear in the shop again.

4) For production, order retrieval, event, adventurer, paladin and end of round phases use the second year rules taking into account that there may be no paladin.

5) New adventurers’ skills in combat:

5.a) Warriors and paladins are more tough: they prevent the first fatigue point dealt to each of them each conquer step. If there is more then one conquering step in a combat round, prevention works separately for each of the conquering steps.

5.b) Thieves and paladins are better in disarming traps: if all the points of the trap primary damage is prevented, all additional effects – like extra damage, no spells/healing, no conquering – do not trigger and they are not applied.

5.c) Priests and paladins have a new oath: they heal each turn even if there was no monster or ghost attack.

5.d) Mages and paladins may cast two spells each turn: one slow spell and one fast spell (that’s why pairs of spells are prepared).

6) Combat resolution (differences only):

6.a) Trap step: use second year wordings on the trap cards. Remember the new disarming ability of thieves and paladins.

6.b) Fast spells step & slow spells steps: Check the magic level before each of them to determine if the appropriate spell is cast. A mage or a paladin could possibly be knocked down in meantime. Note that spell costs are not cumulative: to cast both spells during the first combat round a magic level of 1 is enough. Note also that the “Graffiti” spell has in fact no effect.

6.c) Healing step: It happens even if there was no fight!

6.d) Conquering step: If there are two combat cards for the turn, use the lower fatigue value. Take into account the new fatigue resistance of warriors and paladins. For example if the party is lead by a warrior with 1 hitpoint left followed by another warrior and there are 3 fatigue points to deal, then the first fatigue point is prevented, the second knocks down the first warrior and the third one is prevented again (as it is the first fatigue point dealt to that warrior that round).

This is a basic but pretty strong tactics of playing the numbered cards determining the turn order and number of called nobles:

* Play low-numbered cards (and call more nobles to your court) during turns 1, 4, and 7.

* Play medium-numbered cards during turns 2, 5, and 8.

* Play high-numbered cards (and gain more freedom of choosing your action just before scoring) during turns 3, 6 and 9.

If you are fortunate to have the Decennial Edition with all the expansions thrown in – that’s fine.

But if you have only the base game, or if you want to buy the game itself then you can easily forget that the expansions exist. The base game is so well designed that altering it in fact makes it worse.

Note that I am generally a big fan of game expansions! El Grande is just an exception – it’s a game I have all expansion for, but I play the base game only.

When you play against intermediate opponents you should most of the time be able to guess what will they play during the “orders” phase and react accordingly. There’s even TDD’s tip about that in the rulebook!

The problem appears when you play against skilled players or… against newbies. The later will probably select their orders more or less randomly. The former will calculate: “you think, that I think, that you think…” and they will play in an unpredictable (at least unpredictable to you!) manner.

In such cases try to apply the minimax rule: play orders that will gain you something valuable no matter what orders are played by your opponents. Imagine the worst combination of cards that can be used by them – and play against that combination. If you guess correctly – you will at least gain something. If they play differently, you can gain even more.

Note that this way of thinking is similar to the one used in Bridge – you usually aim not to get all the tricks you could get, but to maximize the chance of getting as much tricks as it is needed regardless of the opponents’ cards distribution. If you are good at Bridge you should easily become a master of the Dungeon Lords orders phase. Let the others weep it is “chaotic”.

The mosquito is in fact a doppelganger, a mimic, a copier… To work well it must have a model to copy.

So: play it late. As late as you can. However you should not leave it unplayed long at all cost. Just examine all possibilities, and if you see a few good moves and some of them require putting the mosquito into play and some require adding other insects play the other ones first.

A situation where good moves involves either moving piece(s) already in the game or introducing the mosquito is different. In such cases it’s usually better to play the mosquito.

This is a variant rule for Tsuro.

Instead of usual keeping only their own stones on the board the players are required to keep all the stones on the board. A move that makes any stone fall out, or a move that makes any two stones collide is illegal and can not be made. If a player can’t make a legal move he is eliminated, but his stone remains on the board. The last non-eliminated player wins.

This variant can be used by any number of players (2-8) but it is best for 4-6 ones.

Magic is a very complex game because of tons of rules and rulings.

If you play seriously (“play to win”) you should know all the rules concerning the cards you use in your deck – including all possible interactions that may appear between them and all important nontrivial interactions between cards in your deck and any other card allowed in your opponent’s deck.

It makes sense to have a printout of these rulings with you in the case your opponent does not agree with you and a judge is far away….

This is a risky tactics but you may try it… Yet not too often.

If you have a few valuable cards in a color (e.g. 8 and 10, or 6, 8, 9) and a weak card in the same color (2 or 3) you may be tempted to play the small number first. Instead, you may decide to discard it. Your hope is that your opponent has a medium-range card of the same color.

If it happens your opponent may take your card hoping to build an expedition of that color. If so, you lose 2-3 points but your opponent is to complete a hopeless expedition.

Another – and more common – possibility is that the second player assumes that discarding cards of that color is safe and gets rid of something like 4 or 5 . And then you grab the newly discarded card!

You may do the same trick with the “bet” card instead of a small number card but with the bet card the opponent may be more aware of the bluff possibility.

This is a simple Puerto Rico variant for 2 players.

Each player controls two player boards. The order of play is Player1_BoardA, Player2_BoardA, Player1_BoardB, Player2_BoardB. All the resources, buildings, plantations etc. are independent – separate for each of the boards. Players are allowed to select orders for one board to benefit another board. All other rules are taken from a 4-player game version rulings.

At the end of the game the player with more victory points acquired by his or her weaker board wins (Knizia-like rule). In the case of a tie the better boards are compared too.

This tactics works well when you play a multiplayer game (the more players the better), preferably with expansions. It’s not recommended for 2- or 3-player games.

Focus on common cards – the ones that are numerous but not very valuable. You will be surprised how often you get them from other players for free! They just want to get rid of them and you provide a nice opportunity to do it. You should also have no problems with selling a rare card for two or three “rubble” ones.

This is probably the simplest of the strong strategies in Caylus.

1) Build the “wooden” quarry (cost: 1 wood, 1 food, you can easily do it during the first turn!) as soon as possible.

2) Build the lawyer or if it is already built goto 3).

3) Use the lawyer to convert the “neutral” quarry to residence.

Benefits:
– Your quarry will be used in fact every turn giving you points (or stones if you use it).
– Limited amount of stone will slow the game down making your residence more profitable.

The counterstrategy in the case when someone builds the wooden quarry early is not building the lawyer (letting the player with the quarry do that) and then keeping him (the lawyer!) occupied with converting another neutral buildings to residences for 2-3 turns.

The builder is great. he lets you make two turns in a row if only the first turn adds a tile to the structure he is standing on. But if he gets stuck on a structure you can not develop you are doomed. Well, at least if other players’ builders aren’t stuck.

So before you place the builder somewhere think if it’s (relatively) easy to add new tiles there. If so: OK, the worst that can happen is premature finishing the structure by your opponents to let your builder go back… But it’s you who get points! But if you think it’s hard to find proper tiles – don’t place your builder there!

Oh, and look where the other builders are! If you can place your tile so it narrows the possibilities of development there – do it; it may be your winning move.

When you play Carcassonne with many expansions at once, the bonuses for the King and Robber tokens grow insanely. Moreover, it’s troublesome to count the total number of roads and cities at the end of the game.

So if you play with a lot of tiles and you plan to build a large piece of land, it may be a good option to set the bonuses to a fixed value. After a few playtests I recommend 16 points for both the King at the Baron. This bonus is large enough to be attractive and small enough not to be broken. And it can be added quickly!

This is a scoring variant for Power Grid; players are rewarded for their wealth instead of number of cities powered up during the last turn.

At the end of the game players power up the cities once (as they do in any non-ending round), and get money as indicated in the payout table. Then they “sell” their power networks to the bank.

They receive:
* 12E for each city if they have energetic monopoly there;
* 6E for each city with two connections;
* 4E for each city with three connections;
* 2E for each uranium unit;
* 1E for each unit of non-uranium fuel;
* (C-R)*3E for each power plant where C is the number of cities the plant can power up and R is the number of fuel units the plant consumes. If the result is negative or zero treat it as it were 1 instead.

The money received from selling the network is added to the amount of money the players had at the end of the game. The richest player wins.

Note that this variant changes greatly the end-game strategy the players should apply to win!

Take a constant look at the power plants of your opponents. Watch, what resources would they need in order to power them up. If there are a lot of – let’s say – coal plants in play don’t buy another one even if it looks like a bargain.

Watch for reverse situations too! If there is few plants using a given resource in play you may buy one at higher price than you would have done in average circumstances. Your additional expense will pay off soon in cheaper fuel for your plant.

Pax Mongolica – a historic period in Asia, when there was no competition to the Mongol army, so the Mongols rule the continent without any real need to actually use their army.

It’s obvious that the Age I leader Genghis Khan is worthless without mounted military units. It is not so obvious that the combo of that leader with “knights” military technology is one of the most powerful ones in the whole game.

If you can get both knights and Genghis at the beginning of the first age – do so even if you pay many actions for acquiring these cards. And if you are fortunate enough to get them both you would probably like to keep them to the end of Age II when the Khan becomes obsolete. Upgrading the cavalry to level 2 units during Age II is welcome but not necessary.

The power of this combo is in the fact that it gives you military advantage and it generates culture at the same time. Your opponents have to choose: either they compete with you on the military field (and slow their cultural development down) or they allow you to bother them with aggressions and – later – even wars. Either way – you have the upper hand.

As Tsuro players are required to place their tiles on the free board square adjacent to the position of their respective stones, it is ultimately dangerous to end your turn at the edge of a square that will soon be filled by any of your opponents. Avoid such stone positioning as much as you can. If you do so your stone will most probably be thrown out the board or collided with another stone when your foe makes their move.

Yet if someone else carelessly plays that way look whether you can eliminate their stone during your next move (preferably colliding it with another stone – this gets rid of two enemies at once).

Arimaa has been designed to be playable with a standard Chess set. To do that you should:

* Put four flat objects (like tokens or coins of appropriate size) on the trap squares: c3, c6, f3, f6.

* Substitute Arimaa pieces with Chess counterparts. The exact substitution is completely up to you and your opponent, but here are three most common ways to do it:

Height substitution. A taller piece is considered stronger. I recommend this one as the most obvious. Unfortunately it does not work for some sets with pieces of similar heights.

Center/side substitution. A piece more centered in the Chess opening position is consider stronger. It leads to King > Queen > Bishop > Knight > Rook > Pawn (usually the same as for the first method).

Chess strength substitution. A piece considered more valuable in Chess is taken as stronger. This leads to King > Queen > Rook > Bishop > Knight > Pawn.

Arimaa pieces form a straight hierarchy: elephant > camel > horse > dog > cat > rabbit.

It is important to use your pieces effectively; for example the best thing your elephant can do is usually threatening the opposing camel. Your camel should threaten opposing horses while avoiding their elephant and so on. Using the elephant to attack a horse or worse a weaker piece is often a waste of power. Of course if it’s a short time blitzkrieg action – go for it. But as a strategical commitment it is usually disadvantageous.

This resemble playing Bridge a little bit: with your ace you are glad to take an opponents king and not too happy to get only a jack or a 10.

FREE MARKET

A VARIANT FOR THE CAYLUS BOARD GAME

1. General note: This variant adds much more player interaction to the game. While it does not change the general game rules and “only” adds a few of them, it radically changes the gameplay. It is recommended for advanced Caylus players who want to add more economic aspects to the game.

2. Main rule of the market: Players are allowed to trade goods between each other. Both instant and delayed transactions are allowed. There are no fixed exchange rates. Both the involved players have to want to trade something for the exchange to happen.

3. Instant transactions: Players can exchange goods immediately.

4. Delayed transactions: They happen when at least one of the players promises another to give him some goods in future. Valid delayed transactions are e.g.: “We will trade one cloth for two wood next turn.” or “Give me one cloth now and I’ll give you two deniers as soon as I sell my food.” If one side of a delayed transaction refuses (or is unable) to keep their word, the other side (player) may request to subtract 6 prestige points from the debtor. A delayed transaction may be canceled if both sides agree to do so.

5. Deniers and cubes: Deniers, food, wood, stone, cloth, and gold can be the subject of trade at any time.

6. Favors: When a player earns a royal favor he may sell it immediately. (“Your majesty, I want nothing but please give some money to my poor friend!”) When a favor is sold the buyer may chose only the money and goods tracks (no prestige or buildings). The favor fully counts as a buyer’s one; let us say player A earns two favors, player B earns one favor and B buys one favor from A – then A can use any favor track, B must use either money or goods track and any track other than the first one.

7. Markers order:
7.a. Players may trade (exchange) places of their markers on the turn order scale only between turns.
7.b. Players may trade (exchange) places of their markers on the bridge only when the turn resolution comes to the point of resolving the bridge.
7.c. Players may trade (exchange) places of their workers in the castle at the end of town resolution before building in the castle starts. To perform this both players must have workers placed in the castle. They can only switch their locations, withdrawing a worker in favor of another player is not allowed.

8. Goods not listed above cannot be traded.

The rules of Caylus specify that under standard conditions only the prestige points determine the player order at the end of the game, and consequently a draw is possible. But in a tournament play it is sometimes required not to allow draws; not necessarily for the first place: if two players are to advance to the next round and the 2nd and 3rd places are tied a way to determine who is “better” is needed. Below a tiebreaker proposal is described, I hope it well fits into the general game theme.

1) If the prestige points are tied among several players the “overflow” deniers and cubes are counted (i.e. ones remaining after grouping deniers by four and cubes by three; in other words deniers[mod]4 and cubes[mod]3) . So: players get 3 tiebreaker points for each overflow denier (i.e. 0, 3, 6 or 9 points) and 4 points for each overflow cube (i.e. 0, 4 or 8 points). The player with more tiebreaker points is considered better.

2) If there is still a tie, the player who has more houses in the castle among the tied ones is considered better.

3) Final tiebreaker: if there is still a tie the player who occupies the lowest (the greatest number) position on the turn order track among all still tied players is considered better.

If you want to play this game online, meet a number of players from various countries, or participate in major events including World Championships, visit the Arimaa Community at:

http://www.arimaa.com

In “Through the Ages” each of the four game parts (“ages”) is a little different and it requires a slightly different approach. Here is a simple set of strategic guidelines I use that gives some advantage to careful players:

Age A – ancient times. Know all the leaders! Be prepared to play with any of the ancient leader, know its strengths and weaknesses and focus your development to gain as much as you can from your leader presence.

Age I – middle ages and Renaissance. Either / or! You should either focus on general development of your civilization not taking to much care about acquiring culture points or – if you have an opportunity – you should execute powerful combos focused on gaining culture quickly. If you play Theology / Michelangelo / St. Peter’s, your opponents may even immediately concede… But if you focus on development you should not worry about gaining a few culture points. You’ll get them later.

Age II – discoveries and enlightenment. Expand! You can get quite a lot from new colonies. It’s also a good moment when you can dominate the game by military force if other players have still ancient units only.

Age III – modern times. Don’t be greedy! The game will end soon, so focus on gaining culture. Building a level III mine or lab can be plentiful but only if you have enough time to use it. So count the probable number of remaining turns and plan your development ahead as precisely as you can!

Standard rules of the Carcassonne game assume by default that the space available for the tiles is unlimited. But the game is often played on a table and the “land under construction” sometimes reaches its edge, especially if the game is played with a few expansions. Here’s a rule my group used to solve this problem if (for any reason) we don’t want to play using a “moving tablecloth” described in my previous tip:

The end of the table is the edge of the world. The edge terminates all structures touching it. For cities it counts as a city wall, for roads as its finished end, for cloisters as virtual tiles surrounding them. But because it is easier to finish a structure that touches the edge, they are worth less points: for roads the points are halved and rounded up if necessary; for cities 2 points are subtracted from the score for each nonexistent wall fragment; for cloisters only “real” tiles contribute to the score.

When you start the game of Carcassonne you don’t know what will be the dominant development direction; thus the starting tile is usually placed in the middle of the table. But if you play with a few expansions you may eventually reach the edge of the table in that direction still having a lot of space elsewhere.

The cure for such a situation is playing on a tablecloth which is bigger than the table. (Myself I use a ‘polar’-type fabric blanket for this purpose.) When the game reaches an edge you may gently slide the tablecloth in the opposite direction. Do it carefully not to destroy the newly created land! 🙂

PROSPERITY OF CATAN

RULINGS FOR A CUSTOM SCENARIO FOR THE SEAFARERS OF CATAN

-=- IMAGE -=-

1) Standard Settlers/Seafarers rules apply unless stated otherwise.

2) Board preparation:

-Sea, desert and gold tiles should be placed as shown on the picture. Other tiles should be distributed randomly (face up!).

– Eight number tokens (1×2, 3×6, 3×8, 1×12) should be positioned on the fields shown on the picture. Other number tokens should be distributed randomly onto all the resource producing tiles.

– Two 3:1 ports should be placed as shown (at the shores of the small islands). The remaining ports should be placed at random (face up) on the spots marked on the picture. Caution! Specialized ports must not be placed on the edges of corresponding tiles. E.g. the wood port must not be placed on the edge of any wood tile. If such a situation happens, ports need to be rearranged (at random).

– The pirate and robber tokens are placed as shown.

3) Starting settlements.

– Players may place their starting settlements only on the 3 big islands. They may place them on one or two of these islands at will.

– If a settlement is a coastal one a road or a ship may be built, but a ship cannot be placed on a line adjacent to the pirate token.

4) Small islands:

– When a player builds his first settlement on each of the three small islands he gets one victory point (token) and he may draw one development card. The “first settlement” is considered separately for each player and for each small island.

5) Wonders:

– Each player may buy one (and only one) wonder card. The building conditions (restrictions) do not apply, i.e. each player may buy any available card. To buy a card the player pays the amount of resources show on that card.

– Freshly bought card counts as a “level 0” one. Paying the specified amount once more the player upgrades the wonder level (acquires a victory point token to be placed on the card). Wonders can be upgraded up to level 4 (4 victory point tokens). The wonder card itself is not worth any victory points, only tokens are.

6) Game end:

– The game ends when a player declares a victory having 15 or more victory points during his turn (in settlements, cities, VP cards, road/army cards and victory tokens). Only the players with a wonder cards bought (upgrades are not necessary) may declare victory.

Remember that some cards become obsolete when one age ends and another begins.
Prepare yourself earlier not to get caught and discard too many cards or worse face disasters after losing your leader.
This tip seems obvious, yes, but amazingly many players forget about that…

This is a simple variant for Robo Rally: In order to win, a robot should touch all the flags (as always) but in any order.

At the first glance it seems to be only a minor tweak but in fact it changes the flow of the game dramatically. Instead of usual placing their robots just behind the ones of the opponents, the players need to solve the traveling salesman problem with their robots. 😉

This variant is the best if it’s set up on a pretty small board, smaller than one normally required for a given number of flags.

When playing against newbies, advanced players may use the big meeples from Inns and Cathedrals as their score markers. This is quite a fair handicap allowing inexperienced players compete with more skilled ones.

To trade cards successfully you must know their trade value. You have to know how much you should demand for your cards and how much to offer for the cards you want.

Remember that equivalent cards from different editions and expansions can be of different worth, especially if they have different artworks. Invest a while or two to study the price lists of a few online card-trading services – it will pay you off soon.

* THE FRIENDLY DRAGON *

Rules variant for “Carcassonne: The Princess and the Dragon”

This variant can well be used by players who find the original “The Princess and the Dragon” rules too harsh. It is also much easier than the original rules so it’s recommended to play with children.

1) All tiles and figures from the expansion are being used. The dragon figurine represents the dragon while the fairy figurine represents the princess. At the beginning of the game they are both aside.

2) Placing and moving the princess and the dragon does not prevent players from placing their followers according to the rules.

3) When a volcano tile is placed the active player removes the dragon from the board if it is on.He may then put his follower there if he wishes (and if he is allowed to do so by the general rules).

4) When a tile with a dragon symbol is drawn the active player puts or moves the dragon onto that tile. He may then put his follower there if he wishes (and if he is allowed to do so by the general rules).

5) The friendly dragon adds some fame to almost every object. Whenever a town or a road is finished if on any of its tiles there is a dragon on its symbol the player who owns that structure earns 5 extra points. For cloisters the dragon (still on its symbol) could be on any of the 9 tiles to contribute to the score. The dragon however never contributes to the farm scoring!

6) When a mystical road tile is placed the active player removes the princess from the board if she is on. He may then put his follower there if he wishes (and if he is allowed to do so by the general rules).

7) When a town tile with the princess is placed the active player puts or moves the princess onto that symbol. He may then put his follower on that tile if he wishes (and if he is allowed to do so by the general rules).

8) When a town with the princess inside (on her symbol) is finished the player who finished the town (not necessarily the owner) gets 1 point per every tile and every shield in that town.

9) General rules and rules of other add-ons apply normally.

Use a cloth sack to draw tiles from. Especially in a multiplayer and multiexpansion game it’s easier and faster to draw tiles from the sack then to take them from a pile standing on the table.

The photo below shows a “tournament” starting island setup leading to interesting play and recommended for 3 players. Place the number tokens as usual (clockwise or counterclockwise, alphabeticaly starting from any corner).

IMAGE

This setup is meant to be as balanced as possible, as it has the following features:
– No two identical tiles touch each other;
– No forest/hills sweet spots are present;
– No special ports appear near appropriate tiles.

This is a simple variant rule for intermediate and advanced players.

At the beginning of each game round each player draws one improvement card and one occupation card, and then discards one card of each type. Cards are drawn and discarded face down so other players can’t see them.

The outcome is quite frequent appearance of combos of two or more cards which results in more developed farms at the end of the game.

It is surprising how many gamers play Puerto Rico take care only about their own boards. Doing so, if they plan well, they take the roles that assure them the highest gain from both the action and the privilege… and they end up losing against players who remember that Puerto Rico is not a game of solitaire racing. It is a cooperative/competitive game.

The winning players look at their opponents’ boards and use the dual nature of the game in two appropriate aspects:

* Cooperative aspect. Look around what other players are willing to do. If there are several roles that benefit you, look if there is a player who could possibly take a role that benefits you too. If there is one, give him or her an opportunity to do that – choose another role for yourself.

* Competitive aspect. Look for situations where the game clogs after taking a certain role that is profitable to you. Are the ships almost full? Take the captain. Is there little space in the trading house? Take the trader. Are the resources almost exhausted in the general supply? Take the craftsman. You will get all the benefits you could get, and the others will earn less or even nothing.

When playing this way you won’t be perhaps the most liked player, but your chances of winning grow significantly…

Each turn you must divide the total quiddity you rolled between buying new dice and summoning creatures. Here is a small set of advices what dice to buy to gain advantage over other players:

* Buy creatures first. You can win without extra creatures but, well, not likely.

* If you roll a lot of quiddity and no good creatures (or just a cheap one), buy the heaviest critter you can afford. Even if you are allowed to buy two dice that turn, one strong one is usually better. You can also live one turn without summoning an assistant you could summon, if that one extra quiddity gives you a nice biggy early.

* If you have heavy creatures in your collection invest in portals. Even one heavy creature acquired early makes portals a good investment!

* Remember that spells cost you nothing to cast and they persist from one turn to another. Don’t overload your collection with creatures, after getting a few, start acquiring spells. But if the spells selected for that game look weak to you, keep buying portals as long as they are available.

* If the game becomes stale (because creatures repetitively kill each other), look whether there is a spell that can break the tie. Spells like Victory Incantation, Victory Spell or Life Cantrip may be valuable.

Name: Peasant

Strength: 4

Craft: 2

Start: Fields

Alignment: Good

Abilities:

1) On fields you can avoid combat.

2) When you start your turn on fields instead of moving you may declare harvest time: roll a die, on 3, 4, 5 and 6 you get 1 gold.

3) You can never have more than 4 gold.

Comment:
Fairly strong. Easy to play: good for beginners boring for advanced players.

The cards are shuffled frequently, especially the character cards. In order to let them last longer them use deck protectors.

I also advise you using a different color of protectors for the district cards and character cards. If you do you will be able to sort the character out at the beginning of the game much quicker.

As you acquire new, stronger dice to your collection, you should get rid of some of the weaker dice. This process is called “Culling” in the game rules.

Basically, you should cull as often as you can. Remember that culling happen after scoring creatures, and you can cull a creature that just scored. Remember also that assistants are creatures, so they allow you to cull after they score. The only rare exception when you should not cull is obvious: if you have no weak dice in your used area, don’t cull strong ones just to do it.

Don’t make a common mistake of culling basic quiddity dice every time you are to get rid of a die. You may well “quiddity screw” yourself, having no energy to summon rolled creatures.

It turns out to be a good strategy to cull alternately assistant dice and basic quiddity ones. Assistants’ ability to re-roll may look tempting, but it triggers rarely and thinning out your collection works better in most cases.

For longer 3-4 player games (especially if you set the glory points target higher than standard) you may even cull weaker creatures you acquired at the beginning of the game to make your stronger guys appear more frequently.

And the bottom line: don’t even think of culling portals. Every portal makes your collection effectively thinner by 1/3 dice, so culling it in fact counterproductive.

This rule helps to fix two issues: the snowball effect (early lucky rolls may influence the whole game) and the first player advantage (visible mostly in two-player games). It also makes the game last a bit longer, what may be seen as a good or a bad thing.

When you are to cull a die after scoring your creatures:

* If you are the leading player or the first place is tied, you must cull to the wilds (like the basic rules say).

* If there is a single leading player other than you, you must cull to that player’s used area. That player may lower their glory by 1 in response to put the culled die in the wilds instead.

This is a strategy for a competitive game. Don’t use it when playing a friendly game and don’t use it against children. Married male players, think twice before using it against your wives! You have been warned. 😉

When you draw your tile you should consider where to place it to get as much as you can from that play. This is obvious. But it happens quite often that you may well place it here and there for a more or less equal gain. Sometimes it even does not suit your plans at all so you just want to put it as far from your structures as possible…

In such a case look where that tile will obstruct your opponents’ structures. Big unfinished cities are obvious targets but in fact any started town or road can be one. Such obstructing tiles make your opponents look for specific matching tiles to finish their structures. If you find such a target place your tile nearby!

Sometimes those structures just remain unfinished to the end of the game (thus they give less points). Sometimes they are finished later, but even it that cease blocking does its job, because it freezes meeples for a number of turns – and thus restricting possible choices of blocked players.

Here are three cases (all involving playing the abbey tile at the very end of the game) that may be hard to resolve according to the Carcassonne + Abbey and Mayor rules. They are presented along with proposed solutions:

Case 1: Player X has got an Abbey tile ready. It is his turn, there are no other tiles in the sack. Is player X allowed to play the abbey assuming that there is a place the abbey can be legally played?

Proposal: yes, as the current player is still able to make a legal move.

Case 2: Situation as above; if the answer to #1 was “yes”. Is player X required to play the abbey or may he declare he does not do so thus ending the game?

Proposal: no, playing the abbey is never mandatory. So the player can “attempt to draw from the empty sack” ending the game.

Case 3: Player X has an unused Abbey tile. There is a turn of Player Y. There are no more tiles, so player Y has no legal move. Is player X allowed to play the abbey tile after such a situation?

Proposal: no, as soon as any player tries to “draw from the empty sack” the game is over.

* * * The Princess the Dragon and … No Faeries * * *

* Rulings variant for Carcassonne – The Princess and The Dragon *

*** General rulings

** This variant is targeted towards players who find the original rules regarding the Faerie movement too troublesome and taking too much time. It also changes the Magic Path rules. So if you think those rules are fine, this variant is not for you… The rulings below preserve the highly competitive nature of the add-on.

** General game rules apply unless stated otherwise.

** Rules of “The Princess and The Dragon” add-on do NOT apply unless stated otherwise.

** There is no faerie. The white figurine represents the princess!

*** Setup

** Using the starting town from “Te Count of Carcassonne” and the river from “The River II” expansion is strongly recommended but not necessary.

** This variant combines very well with “The Count on the Tower” variant described in “The Count” entry.

** Dragon placement:
* If you use “The River II” place the dragon on the volcano ending the river.
* Otherwise if you use the starting town place the dragon on any of its 10 outer tiles.
* Otherwise place the dragon on the starting tile. The dragon is onboard from the very beginning of the game.

** Princess placement:
* If you use the starting town place the princess on any of its 2 inner tiles.
* Otherwise the player who draws the first tile with a town fragment instead of placing his own follower puts the princess figurine in that town.

* Starting setup *

*** The Dragon

** The standard expansion rules regarding the dragon apply (the dragon jumps to volcanoes, moves 6 squares when a dragon tile is drawn etc.). There are only few differences:
* As there is no faerie there is no moving obstacle to the dragon movement.
* The dragon cannot walk onto two inner tiles of the starting town.
* The princess may be chased away by the dragon (see below).

*** The Princess

** When a princess tile is drawn the player may not put his follower on it. He takes the princess figurine and puts it on a princess symbol instead.

* Placing the princess. *

** When a town with the princess (the figurine, not the symbol!) is scored every town tile is worth only 1 point (2 if there is a cathedral in, 0 if it is the endgame scoring of an unfinished town).

** If at any time the princess is in a besieged town (containing a siege tile from “The Cathars” expansion) she flees to the starting town (if it is not used she can be moved to any unowned town (finished or not), if there is none she leaves the board temporarily and returns when an unoccupied town appears).

** Whenever the dragon walks onto the tile with the princess she flees to any of the 2 inner tiles of the starting town (see above if you don’t use it).

** Whenever the magic path tile is placed it is played as any normal tile (the active player can put a follower on it), but at the end of the current player turn the princess tries to move:
The active players checks if there are roads connecting the town the princess is in with any other town. There may be crossroads and cloisters in between – they do not count. The starting town is treated as any other town. Both finished and unfinished town are considered.
* If no connection is found (a common situation) the princess may be moved by the active player to any fragment of the town she is currently in (it may be important to align or dis-align her with the dragon).
*If one connection is found the active player moves the princess along the road – to the tile the road the princess travels approaches the second town.
*If more connections are found the active player decides which one to use and acts as above.
*Note that the princess cannot move through that second town and go to the next one. She stops as soon as she arrives to the second town. She also cannot be displaced within the same town if a connection to the other town is found.

* Moving the princess after placing a tile denoted by the triangle. She may move to any X-marked tile. *

*** Additional rulings that apply if you use the “Abbey and Mayor” expansion:

** The dragon can’t destroy barns (as it can not do under in the basic rules).

** The dragon cannot walk onto abbey tiles (they are protected by walls and their aura of holiness).

** Wagons may escape: when the dragon walks onto a tile with a wagon, the owner of the wagon may either remove it from the board or move it to the neighboring unoccupied, unfinished structure (as if the current structure was finished).

If you start playing Magic, deck protectors should be one of your first investments.

* If you just want to play with one (probably pre-constructed) deck, you will soon find that the cards without protectors gets worn out after a dozen of games. Playing them would be much less enjoyable.

* If you plan to acquire new cards the new ones and the older ones would look differently when unprotected. This may lead your opponents to accusing you for cheating. And it looks bad.

* If you want to purchase old cards you will find out that you may get a card in worse visual conditions for less money. But to play it along with new ones you need to sleeve it – see above.

* If you want to sell or trade out your cards remember, that card that looks better is more expensive. Protect it to max out your gain!

So – no matter what – invest in deck protectors!

If you want to play UNO but it happens that you don’t have a game set nearby, you may well mix two decks of standard cards together (including jokers) and make a sheet which card substitutes which. After a play or two the game should run as fluently as it does with a genuine UNO set.

CITADELS FOR A SINGLE PLAYER – RULES.

* Standard rules of Citadels apply unless stated otherwise.

* Do not use cards from the “Dark City” expansion.

* You play against a virtual “Fake Opponent and Enemy” (FOE) whose actions are described below.

* At the beginning of the game you get 2 gold pieces and 4 cards, and FOE starts with 4 gold pieces and no cards.

-> The turn starts:

* At the beginning of each turn you shuffle the character deck and place one character card face down for FOE. Then you reveal two card to yourself. Then you get two more cards to choose a character for you (this can be modified by King, see below). Then you reveal one more card to yourself (two remaining stay face down).

* If you play Assassin or Thief choose your target (you have a chance of 1/3…).

* Reveal the card of FOE. Play the turns in appropriate order.

* In your turn follow the standard Citadels rules with the following exceptions:
– Magician: you can discard any number of cards (including 0) and draw the same number of cards plus one.
– King: next turn you get three cards to choose your character from and reveal no more cards after that. You also get gold for yellow cards as usual.

* The turns of FOE are somewhat different as he has no cards in hand ever. First of all you use special abilities of FOE characters:
– Assassin: you lose your turn – no matter what.
– Thief: you give your gold to FOE unless you are Assassin.
– Magician: you discard the newest drawn card from your hand.
– King: next turn you are forced to get a character (you leave one for FOE, reveal 2, take next one for you and reveal 2 more cards). FOE gets one gold for each yellow card in his city.
– Bishop: standard rules apply.
– Merchant: standard rules apply.
– Architect: FOE gets an additional construction phase.
– Warlord: destroy the oldest building in your town unless you are Bishop. Foe gets one gold for each red cards in his town.

*After playing the abilities of FOE he enters the construction phase (twice if he is Architect). You do the following:
– Give 1 gold to FOE.
– Reveal a building card. If FOE has enough gold and does not have such building in his town add the building to FOE’s town paying the specified price. If the card can not be added to the town discard it. As FOE can not play the abilities of purple cards whenever a purple card is added to his town he earns 1 gold.
After the construction phase(s), if no cards are added to FOE’s town this turn, give him 1 gold (only once a turn!).

-> The turn ends.

* The game ends and scores are calculated as usual. You win only if you finish your city first and if your score (including bonuses) is higher than the one of FOE.

In M:tG you cannot just get any card you wish unless you are filthy rich. So, in order to have good decks you should trade cards with other players. If you use a good trading strategy you can build quite a good card collection pretty fast.

Many players think: “I have not to much money – so I’ll restrict myself to one or two decks.” They check then what decks are “trendy” or “on the top” at that given moment and they try to build them. The result is high demand for the cards needed for those decks. But the trends come and go. If any deck becomes too popular, other players construct other decks that are designed to beat the old ones (of course the new ones have to be good overall to count in). As the result the one/two-deck players have ultimately to switch to newly discovered sets of cards, selling some of their old ones. Their deck-building method drains their wallet continuously.

Don’t follow them. Exploit them. If you are fortunate enough that you have a “trendy” card offer it for trade – but for a price. For a good price! Key cards in trendy decks can easily be traded for 2-3 “overall useful” cards of the same rarity and additionally 2-3 “junk” cards of the same rarity. If you find a trader who is desperately looking for a single card you can even get more of these useful cards. How about getting two Birds of Paradise, Wrath of God, Armageddon, City of Brass and four Lightning Bolts for Recurring Nightmare (the best trade I had)?…

While getting cards that are just useful is obvious you should not overlook the “junk” ones. Don’t trade specifically for them, just demand them as a bonus to your trade. You never know which of them is going to be trendy in a month of two!

This is a long-term strategy. Your cost is not having top decks for several months. But after that, let us say after a year, you will find yourself a card-wealthy player who is able to build almost anything at a reasonably small cost. And when you get to selling your collection there’s quite a good chance you will get more money than you have invested!

Name: Dervish

Strength: 3

Craft: 4

Start: Village

Alignment: Good

Abilities:

1) On deserts Dervish draws an adventure card instead of losing life points.

2) Dervish can avoid combat on deserts.

3) When plaing dice with Death, Dervish adds 1 to his roll.

Comment:
Relatively weak at the beginning of the game he becomes dangerous in the mid-game. Drawing cards and avoiding fights on deserts is more powerful than it seems.

Name: Pacifist

Strength: 4

Craft: 4

Start: Town

Alignment: Neutral

Abilities:

1) Pacifist cannot use / carry weapons (he can only carry an axe but for raft making).

2) Pacifist cannot attack other players. He can cast spells on any other player only when attacked by one.

3) Whenever atacked, he MUST try to avoid fighting – throw a die: 5 or 6 – no fighting.

Comment:
S+C=8 but he is really hard to play! Recommended either for experienced players or… for peace-loving ones.

* * * JAHRMARKT (“Yearly Fair”) * * *

* Rulings variant for Carcassonne – The Catapult *

*** General rulings

* This is a variant for players who think dexterity elements do not fit the theme of the Carcassonne game yet they want to use the “Fair” tiles.
* General game rules and the rules of other expansions are used as normal.
* “The Catapult” rules are not used.

*** Specific rulings

** There is a new function of followers introduced: a Merchant:
* “Ordinary” followers, big followers and trolleys (from the Abbey and Mayor expansion) can be Merchants.
* “Mayor” followers cannot be Merchants (as well as pigs and barns can’t be ones).

** Whenever a player draws a Fair tile he may play it as normal, or he may decide keep it.
* If he plays the tile normally all standard rules apply.
* If he decides to keep the tile he must place a Merchant on it. The tile then lays next to that player (not on the map!). After doing so the player draws another tile. (Note that a lucky player may collect several fair tiles during a single turn!)

** If a player has one or more fair tiles in his resources at the beginning of the turn he may choose not to draw a tile from the sack, but play one of his fair tiles itself. But he is allowed to do so only if he is able to place the follower on that tile effectively converting the merchant into someone else: (a knight, a peasant etc).

** At the end of the game each fair tile with a merchant in players’ resources scores as -3 (minus three) points for their appropriate owners. (There are losses because the merchant had too much of his goods unsold.)

* * * “THE COUNT ON THE TOWER” * * *

CARCASSONNE RULING VARIANT

This ruling variant is prepared for Carcassonne players who think (like I do) that the rules included in the “Count of Carcassonne” and “Carcassonne: the Tower” in fact spoil the game, yet they want to use game elements included in those expansions. So – using other words – if you think the rules of two mentioned expansions are OK, this article is not for you.

** In order to play this variant you need the base game of Carcassonne and two of its expansions: “The Count” and “The Tower”. Other expansions may be used at will. All the rules of basic game and of additional expansions apply unless stated otherwise. Rules of “The Count” and “The Tower” do NOT apply!

** The game starts from constructing the big city included in “The Count” expansion. The count figurine is placed on any of the two central tiles of the city. All 30 tower elements make a stock available to all the players. If you use “The River” expansion, the first river tile should be placed adjacent to any of the matching city tiles.

** Tiles with tower bases are placed as usual and the active player may place his follower on the one he just played if he is allowed to do so by the general rules.

** Players gain another option during their respective turns: as long as there are tower elements available, instead of placing a follower (or a builder, a pig, moving the fae, removing a follower due to the princess rule etc) they may place one tower element on any tile with the tower base on it. It may be the first tower element on that tile as well as a next one (making the tower higher). If this option is used the count visits that tower – the active player puts the count figurine on the top of that tower. As long as the count stands there new elements can’t be added to that tower. (Of course when a new tower element is placed elsewhere the count moves there allowing further development of the first tower.)

** When a town or a road is finished its owner (or owners if there is a tie) gains 1 point for each tower segment on each of the tiles the town or the road is on (it does not matter if the tower is in the town or out of it, or if the tower intersects the road or just stands aside). Additional 1 point is awarded if the count stands on any of those towers.

** For a completed cloister the above rule apply, and the tower elements on all 9 tiles completing the cloister are counted.

** No “tower poins” are awarded at the end of the game: neither for meadows nor for unfinished structures.

Special rules that apply if you use “The Princess and the Dragon” expansion:
* The dragon can not be moved onto two central tiles of the starting city.
* If the dragon moves onto a tile with a tower, the tower gets damaged: a half of its elements (rounded down) is returned to the stock (e.g. if a tower has 7 elements 3 are returned and 4 remain). If the count stands on any tower damaged by the dragon he escapes to one of two central tiles of the city.