Saboteur 2
Team of Completion Wins
Q: Who wins if my team is the one who places the last connecting card?
A: (Frederic Moyersoen) [1] [2]
If there is a connection with no door, the profiteer wins (always), the boss wins (always) and the team of the miner who finished the connection. If someone else (saboteur, geologist) finished the connection, all miners win.
if there is a connection with a door, the profiteer wins (always), the boss wins (always) and the team of the same color as the door.
if there is a connection with 2 doors (blue and green), the profiteer wins (always) and the boss wins (always).
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If there are no doors and a green digger player completes the path, blue players don't count towards nor share in the winnings. And if a Gemologist (or, less likely, a Saboteur) completes a path without doors, the green/blue players win. [3]
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Q: Who wins if there is a connection with a blue door, but last path was maked by green dwarf?
A: The blue door blocks the path for the green miners. Thus, the blue miners get points (together with the boss and profiteer). In this special case, it doesn't matter who made the connection.
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(Frederic Moyersoen) When a saboteur reaches the gold, all saboteurs have lost the round (in all cases). There is no exception. [4]
Only Boss Wins
Official [5]
Q: If only the Boss win, how many gold could he get?
A: (Frederic Moyersoen) Five minus one is four.
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(Frederic Moyersoen) [6] The boss gets 4 points. He is a green AND blue dwarf. (5-1=4)
Blue Green Door
Official [7]
Q: If Blue and Green Door, who wins?
A: (Frederic Moyersoen)
If there are 2 blocking doors (green and blue), the boss ... can win
[blue/green dwarves] The rules are clear for them: if there is no path from the start to the goal, they have lost the round.
The boss can use both doors and win alone. This is his only strategy to maximize his reward.
Note: Players may of course use a house rule and agree that the boss must chose one side (green or blue) at the end of the round. Consider this as a variation on the official rule.
Milling the Deck
"The name "Mill Deck" comes from Millstone, a card in the first widely-popular TCG, Magic the Gathering. Millstone allows the user to put two cards from the top of one player's deck (or, "library" in Magic) into their graveyard; there are dozens of other cards like this in Magic, but because Millstone was the first, the act of putting cards from the deck into the discard pile directly became known as "Milling." Decks that centered around the alternate win-condition of depleting one's opponents' decks of cards became known as "Mill Decks," a term that has since spread to most other card games with this win condition. "
"Mill is an informal term used in Magic describing cards moving out of a player's library to somewhere even less useful (meaning: anywhere other than the hand). The term alludes to the card, Millstone, which was the first to feature the mechanic "Milling", a strategy some decks use which takes advantage of the decking rule."
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The official rule state that you should remove 10 cards at the start of a round. Nevertheless, I did some playtests where you remove up to 20 cards. It works fine too. It shortens the round and helps the saboteurs to win by depleting the deck faster.
So, if you think that it's too difficult for the saboteurs (which depends highly on the number of present saboteurs), this is my proposal to fix the balance.
Ladder Placement
"As the ladder is always connected to the start card, you can place this card when the connection is interrupted. " (Frederic Moyersoen) [10]
"new path card must always connect to one or another ladder card (including the start card)." (Frederic Moyersoen) [11]
Rules say that ladder must both: [12] (confirmed: [13])
- be placed next to a path card (so you can't play it out in totally empty space)
- cannot be placed next to a goal card.
"Any card you place in the gallery must match with an existing corridor. There is no exception for placing a card with a ladder. " (Frederic Moyersoen) [14]
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Can ladders be placed diagonally next to a goal card? | Saboteur 2 (expansion-only editions) | BoardGameGeek - https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1523285/can-ladders-be-placed-diagonally-next-goal-card
Q: The rules state that ladders "cannot be placed next to a goal card". This clearly covers adjacently placed ladders, but can ladders be placed diagonally next to goal cards?
A:
New Tunnel Placement
"new path card must always connect to one or another ladder card (including the start card)." (Frederic Moyersoen) [15]
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Q: Can I place a "wall" next to a goal card? [16]
A: Yes, you can. This is a great saboteur trick, and turns a simple tunnel card like a corner into a deadly weapon for the saboteur. The goal card won't get revealed.
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It's true that the rule has been written to avoid placing a ladder directly next to a Goal card. Nevertheless, because the rule exists, it's valid for all other situations. When writing rules, it's sometimes better to keep it simple and to avoid sentences like: "You may not place a ladder card next to a Goal card, except if you are using the card as a simple path card (without a ladder). In this case, you are just lengthening an existing path to reach the Goal card." (Frederic Moyersoen) [17]
Possible house rule variant!
Scoring
"remember that in saboteur 2 you use a different score system! so the less dwarf wins (with dwarf i mean every role available apart from geologist)the more gold you gain!
in your case would be 1 dwarf win (profiteer) so he would gain normally 5 gold! since he is the profiteer he would gain only 3 gold... if the saboteur was there, the sab would get 4 gold (2 dwarf win) and the profiteer 2 (4-2)
the new score system goes basically like this:
1 dwarf win = 5 gold 2 dwarf win = 4 gold each 3 dwarf win = 3 gold each 4 dwarf win = 2 gold each and so on
you count every player that meets the objective apart from the geologist! (they don't count in the total) then for each single player you apply malus if they have one
if someone is jailed they don't count for the win " [18]
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Official
Q: 1) can the Profiteer not also win by being the ONLY winner? Eg: 3 player game of 1 blue, 1 green and 1 profiteer. blue & green lose because path to gold has both doors. So the profiteer is the only winning dwarf, and therefore wins 3 gold (5-2). (I would hope this to be the case, because it would seem to me to make the profiteer role more interesting, with the ultimate challenge of trying to secure everyone else's downfall.)
A: (Frederic Moyersoen) Yes, the profiteer can win alone as you explain
Q: 2) Same question re the boss: 3-player game with blue, green and boss. path to gold has both doors, so boss the only winner and gets 4 gold (5-1).
A: (Frederic Moyersoen) Yes, same for the boss.
Q: 3) In the clarification doc, it states that geologists are not counted as winners. Does this mean that if we added the geologist to scenario 1) above to make it 4-player with the same outcome, the profiteer would still gain 3 gold at the end of the round as the sole "winning" dwarf?
A: (Frederic Moyersoen) Yes
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(Frederic Moyersoen) [19] Here is the "official" clarification:
If there are 2 blocking doors (green and blue), the boss and profiteer can win (together or alone). All the other gold-diggers have lost. If none of both is present, nobody wins.
If the boss wins alone, he gets 4 points. If the profiteer wins alone, he gets 3 points.
Geologist
"At the end of the round, you count only the crystals which are still visible on the table. " (Frederic Moyersoen) [20]
"You are right that it feels a bit strange that you get a reward for inaccessible crystals. Feel free to use a house rule to solve this special case. However, for sake of simplicity, the official rule is kept as simple as possible. So, "visible" means visible for the players at the end of the round." (Frederic Moyersoen) [21]
Hiding Gold
"Players must declare that they have Gold but can keep the total amount secret" [22]
Player Aids
Who Wins? Flowchart
Who Wins? Flowchart | Saboteur 2 (expansion-only editions) | BoardGameGeek - https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/127467/who-wins-flowchart
Saboteur 2 Player Aid
Saboteur 2 Player Aid | Saboteur 2 (expansion-only editions) | BoardGameGeek - https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/66718/saboteur-2-player-aid
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My original editable documents (in open office word format, free open source word editor)
- v1: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3fLiRtCSoybMjlhMGJlNTItOGFiMi00NTg1LWI0MTUtMTE3NDJlN2E2OGMx&hl=en_US&authkey=CPWyk5EP
- v2: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3fLiRtCSoybZGE3MWYxMzktNDE3Yi00YzRlLWE3MmQtMzE3ZmY5MGQwMTJk&hl=en_US&authkey=CK787_kH
I welcome all comments on this aid, please comment even its nitpicky. I plan to update the aid as time goes on.
I have a dicussion thread for the aid up:
But feel free to respond here instead.
I've based the aid on both the rulebook (The english translation isn't very clear in border cases) and on official responses in these threads:
- http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/644369/who-wins-when-the-saboteurs-connect-or-t
- http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/647502/questions-about-the-doors-and-paths-official-ru
- http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/644359/profiteer
- http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/622755/green-and-blue-pathcards-with-door
This has resulted in some of the aid wording being differant than in the rules book, such as the boss winning condition, since the author has said the boss wins in cases such as a path to the treasure that is blocked by blue and green doors simultaneously.
Please feel free to modify my aid and upload your version (such as other language translations or a better theme), I only ask that you credit me somewhere (for instance, a link to this file page in a comment or description on your file page). As with all my previous files, I've marked this with creative commons to help creatively enable people.
If anyone wants the open office file I used for the source (such as if you want more easily edit the file or to use the higher quality uncompressed thumbnails), I've uploaded it. I may not upload an open office version for every PDF version I upload, but if anyone wants a certain version of the ODT file let me know.