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A detective might be stuck in a position which he cannot leave since he doesn't have an appropriate transportation ticket. What happens to this detective?

  1. Is he removed from the board?

OR

  1. Does he stay in this position until the end of the game? This would imply then that no other player could go to this place (since Mister X would lose and since the detectives are also not allowed to occupy one place with more than one figure).

I could not find an answer in the rulebook so far but maybe there are some indicators in the rulebook or in the rulebook of related games, such as New York Chase.

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From the rules here

What if a detective is unable to move any more?

the game goes on and the rest of the detectives try to catch Mister X.

The rules also say.

The game is over if the detectives are no longer able to move. This situation is reached at the latest at the 22nd move, but can be reached earlier if detective are left with ticket they cannot use (bus or underground). They are immobilised at the last point moved to.

And from another source here

If a detective no longer has any tickets or can't move from his current station with the tickets he has left, he has to sit out.

I've not found anything about removing the piece from the board so rules about not having a space occupied by more than one figure would still apply. In general when playing a board games it's better to assume that if the rules don't says something happens its probably doesn't. If a piece was supposed to be removed from the board its likely this would be stated.

There is a previous boardgames SE question here "Can Mr. X move into or through a detective occupied field?" It is argued that they would lose automatically and is the accepted answer.

Contrary to that, there is this thread on BGG which has argument that as a player not enter an occupied space that this also applies to Mr X. and it would be impossible for them to do.

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  • Unfortunately, the rules quote is still ambiguous. "the rest of the detectives try to catch Mister X" could be taken as saying that the detective who cannot move cannot catch Mister X even if Mister X moves to their location.
    – Philip Kendall
    Commented Nov 14, 2020 at 11:48
  • @PhilipKendall The first quote does say "the game goes on", implying that the usual rules are followed. It doesn't say anything about removing the figure from the game, so that can't be inferred. The second quote says "if ... can't move from his current station", also without saying they'd do anything other than, well, sit there.
    – ilkkachu
    Commented Nov 14, 2020 at 18:32
  • However... As far as I can tell, the rules also don't actually forbid X from moving to the position of a detective. It only says detectives win if one "succeeds in moving onto [X's position]" (first link), or "finishes his move on the same station as Mister X" (second link). But letting X do that would allow an easy win for him, he'd only have to shadow the detective just before him in turn order, and no detective could ever move to his position.
    – ilkkachu
    Commented Nov 14, 2020 at 18:34
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    @PhilipKendall: There is no rule that suggests that Mr. X can ever move onto a detective without losing, nor that the detective would need to "do" anything in order to win. In the other hand, if detectives ran out of taxi tickets on squares 9, 10, and 33 while Mr. X was on square 2 or 20, I think Mr. X would win because there would be no way for detectives to ever prevent him from bouncing between those two squares.
    – supercat
    Commented Nov 14, 2020 at 18:36
  • I've added another rules quote that a detective is "immobilised at the last point move to" if unable to move. and links to another SE question and BGG threed on mr x entering space occupied by detective.
    – StartPlayer
    Commented Nov 14, 2020 at 23:10

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