Paul Marshall

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bio	website	potatoengineer.110mb.com/…
	location	Seattle, WA
	age	33
visits	member for	10 months
	seen	2 days ago
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	1,214 reputation	bio	website	potatoengineer.110mb.com/…	visits	member for	10 months
123 badges		location	Seattle, WA		seen	2 days ago

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May 15	comment	Is there a viable “Japan First” strategy for the Allies in Axis and Allies? I can't say whether this will actually work, but it looks like there are two key weaknesses you'll have to work through: denying reinforcements to Russia's western front might cause Russia to fall (or fall faster than it otherwise would), and building two factories in Asia is a fairly steep price - those IPCs might be better spent elsewhere. Ceding Africa to Germany would also give them almost as many income IPCs as you're gaining from Japan. You'll bottle up Japan early, but giving Germany (relatively) free rein will probably cost you Russia. Try it and see what happens?
Apr 19	comment	What to do in long games with players who are way behind? @Pow-lan, that would make a good answer.
Apr 18	comment	Can a tank attack across water within the same space (Germany to UK)? @TimLymington yes, Ireland is an entirely separate zone. It's a neutral country, like Spain. It's also wholly useless; England doesn't need it, and Germany doesn't want it either: it's just as far from England as Western Europe is.
Apr 1	comment	What does the Yoke card mean when it says “Plow”? @thesunneversets Good point: it's a card with huge prerequisites (that you can't even control!) and an underwhelming effect; its one redeeming feature is the low cost. If there's only one Plow in play, then it's exactly the same as the Plow One Field action, except it costs you 1 Wood to boot. (Maybe it's still useful if you're more interested in taking First Player, but that's about it.)
Mar 26	comment	Can one 40k army fight another of the same? An easy one for the entire Imperium: one side has been suspected of being tainted by Chaos. Now you can fight anyone! You still have all of your old enemies, and now even your friends are enemies. (Eldar vs. Eldar might be hard to justify, but add in any Farseer prophecy and it suddenly works just fine. Maybe Tau vs. Tau is harder to justify?)
Mar 19	comment	How does Only A Test affect the end-of-round honor bonuses/penalties? So that makes it equivalent to the way my group played Order Cancelled (except that Order Cancelled is played before the mission, not after it). It's straightforward, at least!
Mar 16	comment	Can you combine the Orbital Teleporter's ability with other Alien Tech cards? The example isn't perfect; if I'd been going for a triple-4, then I wouldn't have been able to get one free energy via Solar Collector + Orbital Teleporter. And I can't use both the Shipyard and the Raider's Outpost if I need to modify a die as I move it. (Say, I have 2355, and I want to use the Shipyard with the 55, then change a 5 to a 4, then use the Raider's Outpost with 234.)
Mar 15	comment	Can I throw more than one cargo overboard during a single Traitor's turn? Wow, that makes Sadine Rochat (throw Level 2 cargo overboard for free) brokenly powerful, and she was already great. But at least it rescues Henchman 111 (1-gold discount per cargo) from the Pile Of Not Nearly As Useful As Everyone Else.
Mar 15	comment	Can you combine the Orbital Teleporter's ability with other Alien Tech cards? I was afraid of that. It seemed clever when I did it in the game, and nobody called me on it, but now I can't do it again.
Mar 15	comment	Can the Crate of Alcohol be played if the wind isn't favorable? Wow, I sure wish those rules about all level 4 cargo were actually in the rulebook. I suspect the translation was a wee bit faulty, considering that the designer is French and was apologizing for his English in that thread.
Mar 15	comment	Question on ethics or rules If an answer is helpful to you, you can accept it by clicking the check mark to the left of the answer.
Mar 13	comment	Question on ethics or rules The one time I remember a revoke happening in the bridge games my family played, we just called it a misdeal and dealt out the next hand. They were friendly games.
Mar 13	comment	Question on ethics or rules @KeithS, it gets nastier if the next trick has already started by the time the revoke is found; if East won the trick, then they transfer that one (plus one more if they win any further tricks down the line); if East lost the trick (even if West won it), then they transfer only one trick (as long as East-West won that trick or any later trick). This case has lighter penalties because it was caught in time.
Jan 25	comment	Is Fluxx a game of skill or luck? Poker is both a game of skill and a game of luck. Individual hands are heavy on luck (influenced by your skilled decisions to draw, bluff, fold, and how you raise), but over the course of many hands, it's a game of skill (But still with a wee bit of luck in it; it's quite possible to draw bad hands all night, just unlikely). If you insist that every game is either skill or luck, then every game is skill - with the sole exception of Hi Ho Cherry-O.
Jan 17	comment	Do you need military power when using the Rebel Sneak Attack to settle an additional military world? I forgot about takeovers - my gaming group plays entirely without them. Yes, it means that several cards are only good as discard fodder. (We also occasionally play without the prestige-gives-you-cards-and/or-VP-every-turn rules, to slightly nerf the military track.)
Jan 16	comment	When trying to quickly end the game, is it better to skip building cities? I'm not playing with the Late Bronze Age expansion at the moment (though I hear it's marvelous). I'm concerned with points because I'm hoping to win with this rushing strategy, but I know there will be a tradeoff between speed and points (starving yourself to death will end quickly, but may well have negative victory points at the end).
Dec 19	comment	Which “end of round” effect resolves first: dealing in a dead player, or game end due to low honor? Thanks, that's very clear. I was looking at the "You Have No Honor!" section right below it, which uses the more ambiguous "at the end of the round."
Dec 18	comment	When should I stop retaliating? A very late thought: what if there are two Holographic Decoys on the table?
Dec 5	comment	Can an optimal strategy for Roll Through the Ages be created for two player games on modern hardware? @DaveDuPlantis, for a probabilistic game, the game is "solved" if an optimal policy can be found: what move to make in every possible circumstance, to maximize your final score. Blackjack is "solved" in this way; you don't know if you'll win, but you'll know that you took the best possible choice given that you don't know what card comes next. (Also, as a side note, the Wikipedia page is for deterministic games; Yahtzee is not deterministic.)
Nov 29	comment	Which alternative methods of choosing a starting player actually WORK? Alas, it seems the game has gone out of print; eBay is the best source for this at the moment, and even then it's not common.