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Snow Tails - Expansions?
Will there be expansions to Snow tails? Some additional track parts would be fine... What is the Lamont Brother's policy on "fan art"? Is it allowed to create high quality track parts and upload them here?
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Lord of the Rings - Friends & Foes - is F&F OOP?
(apologies if this gets duplicated, I thought I sent a similar post yesterday, but can see no sign of it).
Hi Folks,
I bought the base game for my 7yo daughter at xmas and she loves it. I was considering picking up this expansion, but cannot find any copies for sale online in the uk.
Does anyone know if it is OOP? and if so how likley that is to change (e.g. I know FFG's AH expnasions regularly go in & out of print).
I saw a couple of copies for sale from the US, but I'm not in a big enough hurry to shell out for international postage just yet.
Thanks in advance & best wishes - Chris
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Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm - Request for a victorious solitaire session report on hard difficulty
I played a few solitaire games over the New Year's Day long weekend, and I was either lucky or I've gotten better. I consistently beat the robot on medium difficulty. I think a big step in getting better vs. the robot is learning that it's not the same game as multi-player Race for the Galaxy. So now I've switched to hard difficulty. And I have yet to win one.
I couldn't find any session report of a solitaire game on hard difficulty. Is there one I missed? If not, can anyone reading this beat the robot on hard difficulty? Care to post a session report?
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Cuba - 2p: Products are king
Since getting this game for me for Christmas, Julie has been nice enough to play several two-player games with me. I've pretty well settled into my overall strategic idea. The execution changes from game to game, in major ways that I wouldn't definitely call strategic, but the main idea is this:
Products are king.
Previously, most of my plays of this game were with five players. Almost all goods shipped were shipped on the boat worth 2 points. By the time a boat got to the 3 slot, if it ever did, it had maybe one space left. It wasn't really worth using an action most of the time to get just the 3 points.
In a two-player game, there are just as many boats, but less capacity for growing products. The result is that we usually ship on the 3-point boat. This makes shipping the dominant concern. In a five-player game, shipping is one of many viable strategies. You can win without ever shipping anything.
There are two things you can ship: products and goods.
In a five-player game, it's good to be able to generate some goods if you're planning on making shipping a major part of your strategy. Even on the 2-point boat, there's a lot of contention and the spots for the easy-to-produce products. If you're not agile, you won't get those spots. If you're the only one with a rum Distillery or Cigar Factory, on the other hand, you have a near-monopoly. Often you can take it easy and still get the spots on the 2-point boat. If you work a little bit harder you might even manage to stall until you ship on the 3-point boat.
On the other hand, in a 2-player game, there's often little incentive to make goods. Most boats have at least 60% product slots. Some boats have 100% product slots. You can stay ahead of your opponent even if you just focus on dominating the product slots and ignore the goods slots entirely.
The most critical building to this strategy is the Dam. You want to maximize your output of products. There are spaces on the board that align with four products. You often want to take those spaces, and use 2 water to produce all four. The Dam keeps up your supply of water nicely.
The next most important strategic consideration is what to do with all those products. It's great to produce four products in a turn, but unless you do something with them, they'll rot at the end of the turn. Of course sometimes you intend to ship them with the Mayor. However, it's better to have your products lined up to ship in your warehouse the turn before the ship reaches the 3 slot. Otherwise, your opponent might get the jump on you and ship before you. The Tradeswoman is an outlet for your goods that's always available, but often pretty weak and sometimes very weak if the supply-increasing Market Act is or has been in effect.
The remaining ways of disposing of your products involve buildings. One building, the Warehouse, you start the game with. Storing your products allows you to use them at the opportune time. However, the Warehouse doesn't align with the best places to put your Worker to generate products. If you have other buildings that you want to use every turn, you won't be able to use the Warehouse.
I suggest buying some other building that makes use of products. You can alternate between the use of this building and your Warehouse. For example, you could place this building in the bottom right corner (4,3), and place two buildings you want to use every turn at (2,1) and (3,3). Then you can alternate between placing your worker at (3,1) using your Warehouse and two others, and placing at (2,3), using all of your buildings except the Warehouse. This gives you some flexibility to Work for different resources and products as tactically necessary, while still generating a lot of products without letting them go to waste.
The Distillery and Cigar Factory are two candidates for this building. You use them mainly to preserve your products, rather than with any specific use of the good in mind. Eventually a ship will probably come along demanding that good, and that gives you an extra couple slots to fill while you're already shipping a lot of products. Or, you can just sell the good using the Tradeswoman if you need some quick cash.
Building a second Warehouse might be good, although I haven't tried it yet. It doesn't give you any additional capabilities, but it gives you flexibility in where you place the Worker while poising products for a quick ship or other flexible use.
The Product House is good, although limited, because it only lets you convert 1 product to money. You might want to combine it with another of these options.
The Monastery might be good. It converts products directly to victory points. I haven't tried it yet.
Late in the game, a Golf Course is a natural build. Although I think using your water to generate extra products is a better path to victory, with the Dam even despite your best efforts you might not be able to use all your water for making products. The leftover easily buys the Golf Course and then turns your remaining water into points in one or two turns.
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Domina 4 - Explaining the SETUP rule
A geekuser asked me about the setup rule. Does this rule benefit the white player?
Thanks for asking! 
The answer is 'no'.
As the SETUP phase takes place BEFORE determining the players colours, both players try to create the most balanced board.
On the other hand, the 'white player goes first' rule might benefit the white player, but by now, the results are near 50-50 in the playtests.
Néstor.
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Battlestar Galactica - Forced Jumped Timing and a few random rules questions.
Page 20 states that "There are no "Activate Cylon Ship" and "Prepare for Jump" steps during a revealed Cylon player's turn. Does this mean that if the Cylons action step, he chooses a crisis card to play, any icons at the bottom of the card including "activate raider, Basestar etc and 'prepare for jump' icons are ignored?
Also, if a character activates the forced FTL as his action, is it immediate, so you would clear the board of all ships, make a roll to see if population is lost, draw destination cards and THEN play a crisis card, so that there could immediately be Basestars etc in the location you jump to, OR, do you take the action, play a crisis card and THEN jump as it where a standard auto jump?
Last one is, if it is for example, Helos turn, and he draws a skill check card which needs say red and yellow to pass, can ANOTHER player play a card which allows blue cards to be positive? In combat can a players who isn't in their turn, play a pilot card to help a pilot in combat on their turn (Like the skill card which allows re rolls for attacked vipers? I guess what Im saying is, can you play skill cards that dont say ACTION: on another players turn?
Thanks heaps.
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Risk Express - Extra Dice?
Argghhh.
I had a mishap the other day and one of my dice has gone missing. 
Any source for extra dice?
Brad
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Playing Gods: The Board Game of Divine Domination - Playing Gods Rulebook now available in German and Portuguese
The Playing Gods Rulebook is now available in German and Portuguese on the Playing Gods Web site, www.PlayingGods.com. The rules are available for free in PDF form. Other languages, including Spanish, will be ready soon.
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Agricola - Solitaire: too lucky with Minor Improvment/Occupation draw? (66 pts!)
First, my Agricola cred: I have played Agricola 12 times -- 3 times solitaire. The first time I played Solitaire, I got 48 pts. The second game (with one carry over Occupation from the first game) I scored 52. I felt like I made too many mistakes the first two games and wanted to start over. I saw how beneficial it was to let spaces build up over time (especially animals and wood) and realized my approach to the game would have to be quite different to do well. As well, my first two solitaire games were my 8th and 9th playings of the game, and I felt like I was just starting to get the hang of how to use the Minor Improvement cards and Occupation cards effectively.
So tonight I sat down for Generation One (first game) in a Farming campaign, my 12th playing of Agricola (3rd solitaire). I used E deck only and amongst the cards I was dealt was the Baker and the Millstone. I look at one then the other; back to the first then returned to the second. Could it be as good as it sounded?
It was. To get the food I needed for the first Harvest, I used Day Laborer for 2 and the Fishing hole for 4. I used the rest of my actions to get set up for grain farming (2 Plow + 2 Grain + Sow). Before the second Harvest I built the Clay Oven, and then the food engine went crazy. Without even having to use a Bake Bread action, I was generating 7 food every Harvest automatically (at the cost of one Grain). This allowed me to basically go nuts on the board. I Plowed, Grained, Vegged, Sowed, Built, Renovated, and - on the last turn -- grabbed 14 Sheep, 7 Wild Boar, and 4 Cattle, finishing the game with 66 POINTS!
You could say that my play improved considerably. But - as much as I'd like to take credit for it - it seems obvious to me that I got dealt an amazing 2-card combo. I still enjoy the flow of play in Agricola, and the challenge of every game, but I was surprised to see how much easier the Solitaire game is depending on the starting cards. There are some cards that are just not great for Solitaire (for example, the Occupation card that gives you an extra Wood every time you take Wood from a space -- since Solitaire is about letting spaces build, this card is almost..."dead wood" if you'll excuse the pun.)
I'll still play the game multiplayer, but I may give up Solitaire. 66 pts in game 1? Seriously? That's 8 food for the start of next game. That's insane. 48 points was frustrating; 66 pts is barely less so. It felt too much like the cards wone, and not my play.
Thoughts?
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Ghost Stories - Green's power on a neutral board?
If green is a neutral player, does the green's power affect the tormentor's on its boards (or any left curse effects of ghosts placed on the board)?
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