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[hemmerling] BoardGameArena ( BGA )

Related pages:

Additional Tools & Software

Clients ( Windows App ) & Helper Tools

  1. Google Play Games on PC "Board Game Arena" - Not for Android :-(, but for Windows :-). “Für die Installation dieses Spiels unter Windows ist Google Play Games auf dem PC erforderlich”.
  2. BoardGameArena Wiki "ChromeExtension" - Replacement for BoardGameArena "Games in progress":
    1. Firefox Browser ADD-ONS Extensions "Board Game Arena (BGA) Extension by Christophe Delaforge, Flavien Busseuil" - “Available on Firefox for Android”.
    2. Chrome Webstore "Board Game Arena (BGA) Chrome Extension - boardgamearena.com".

General Game Hardware to support Online Gaming

Games

Games & Special games

List of free BGA Games

List of Public Domain Games ( which might be implemented on BGA,.. )

Game Development

BoardGameArena Studio ( BGA Studio )

Tools

Projects & Project Descriptions

Slides

Videos

Wiki

Forums, Newsgroups

Infos for Users

The Online Service for Users

  • BoardGameArena.
    • BoardGameArena "Games".
    • BoardGameArena "Lobby".
      • “Simple / Turn-Based / Friends” - You may invite friends to free games :-).
      • “Simple / Turn-Based / Automatic” - “Favorite games” ⇒ Press “Play now!” for a specific favorite game. Similar to press “Start” on a BGA game page.
      • “Simple / Turn-Based / Manual”.
        • Click on “Display the tables I cannot join”, to reduce visual clutter on the screen, if there is any ( mostly with real-time plays ).
        • “Create a new table” Blue button ”- Blue button “Create” ⇒ Error message “In order to create a new table for this game, you must be a Premium member” :-(.
          • However non-premium members may be invited to Premium games by a Premium member :-) and may apply to join Premium games.
        • Red error messages:
          • “For now, you cannot join more than 21 turn-based games. This limit increases by one each time you finish a turn-based game. :) ( You have 21 games in progress ) ( You can Play in real-time instead )”.
          • “This table is already full” :-(.
          • “You cannot join this table because of your level” :-(.
          • “Your reputation isn't good enough to join this table” :-(.
          • “This table can only be joined using the Arena mode”.
          • “This table is not open for joining”.
        • BGA Studio, Button “I want to use a custom image for my avatar”:
          • “Sorry, you need to play at least 20 games to unlock this feature. In the meantime please choose an avatar below”.
        • Red system message:
          • “Unable to contact the server. Are you connected to the internet?”.
        • Chat messages:
          • “XXX declined to start the game” :-(.
          • “There is a minimum of 1 seconds between messages”.
      • “Simple / Turn-Based / Friends” - You may invite friends to free games :-).
      • “Arena”.
        • Red error message “Sorry, you need to reach 100 ELO to unlock Arena mode for this game” :-(.
      • “Tournaments”.
        • Red error message “Sorry, you need to reach 100 ELO for a game to unlock Tournaments”.
      • ”[Expel player](table host). This player has a very bad reputation”, on the dashboard page of a play.
        • “Unexpected error: This action is impossible with this table status (reference: M7 01/06 08:12:49)”, as the player is host :-), and the expel request was by a non-host table member :-(.
    • BoardGameArena "Games in progress" - Check here if action is needed. All active games with it's game speed ( “1 move per day”,.. ) are listed.
    • BoardGameArena "Preferences / Advanced".
      • “Customize the appearance of this website. If you know CSS, you may place some CSS declarations there to customize the appearance of this website (for your account only). Warning: we are NOT responsible for any problem caused by your CSS”.
      • BoardGameArena Wiki "Css Customization".
    • Newbie / rookie help, as status message of the profile, on the gameboard:
      • “This is my first game, so my turn time is doubled. Thanks for helping me!”.
    • Profile - “Change my avatar” / “I want to use a custom image for my avatar”.
      • “Sorry, you need to play at least 20 games to unlock this feature. In the meantime please choose an avatar below”.
  • LinkedIn "Board Game Arena".

Communications & Play with other Players

Username

  • BoardGameArena "Preferences / Account", button “Change my username”.
    • "Changing your username", 2018-11 - “Each account on BGA is now allowed to change its username ONCE (from Preferences / Account). It is really only possible ONCE, so do it carefully”.
    • User feedback: Changing the username can can only be done when not playing any games.

About Message

  • My “About me” message: “I will be joining a camper group for summer camping holidays 2026, for who TTR is the favouite boardcame. So I want to excercise TTR at BGA, to become at least an experienced 'Apprentice'”.

Ghosting / Muting of other players

  • Red thumb down icon in a profile of a player “You are about to give a thumb down. If you confirm, BGA will make sure you do not play at the same table again. This player won't be able to send you a message (or speak as a spectator at your table)” :-(.

Beeing Moderated and Banned, Karma

  • Error message by sending a message “Because you've been moderated, you cannot do this”
  • BGA message:
    • You have been moderated.
    • BGA account hemmerling behaved inappropriately in the chat.
    • “2026-06-07 09:14:15 hemmerling: me + the player from the camping group I met in late July, we will do nude camping holidays by motorhome, and it MIGHT be that there is “no internet” at the nude camping spaces ( or in general, camping spaces )”
    • What are the consequences? You are forbidden from chatting or publishing for 3 day(s) (starting 2026-06-07 18:46), and your Karma has been reduced to 50.
    • What if I do this again? You will be banned from using the chat for a much longer period. On the contrary, if you are not moderated again during the next 12 months, this moderation will be totally removed.
  • My profile has the notice: “Moderators have limited this player's access. (Until: 2026-06-10)”.
  • I cant change my “About me” message on my profile, by the red error message “Because you've been moderated, you cannot do this” :-(.
  • Consequences:
    • BoardGameArena "FAQ".
      • “What is absolutely forbidden? On Board Game Arena, it is absolutely forbidden to: ... Create multiple accounts and play against oneself to boost one's ranking” ⇒ So you shouldn't create a new temporary account, for chatting.
      • “Tournaments and Karma: how does this work. There is a minimum reputation to reach to play each Tournament (default is 65)”.
    • Red error message “Post author doesn't have the right to post on wall”, while trying to post a message on the profile wall of a friend.
    • BoardGamearena Forum "Introducing: new reputation system and Karma".
      • “If your Red thumbs represent more than 10% of the thumbs you received : alert on homepage + Karma cannot go over 60”.
      • “If your Red thumbs represent more than 20% of the thumbs you received : alert on homepage + Karma cannot go over 30”.
      • Important: Ask your true BGA friends to give you a Green thumb :-).
    • Red error message “With your current reputation (52), you may participate in a maximum of 10 turn-based games. Each time you finish a game, you gain +1 reputation. (You have 13 games in progress) (You can Play in real-time instead)”.
  • IMPORTANT: If “moderation” means that my chat is now filtered and “critical” contents is presented to human admins, I can't chat freely with my friends about sexual topics.

Chat Filters

Warnings to the Sender
  • “We detect a word in your chat input that may be considered an insult/profanity/aggressive attitude by others. BGA has a zero-tolerance policy for insults and aggressive attitudes, whatever the reason. If another player reports you, you will be banned from BGA. If someone is provoking you, DO NOT RESPOND, block (red thumb) and report them to the moderators. (red thumb and report link are on their profile). Insults on both sides = Moderation of both sides. Do you really want to send your message and risk moderation?” :-(.
Message to the Receiver
  • “Is this provocative or an insult? Please do NOT engage if it is. You may want to block this player with a red thumb and/or report them to the moderators” :-(.
Word filter
  • “ass”, “XXX”, “shit”.
Resources

Collaboration

  1. BoardGameArena ( BGA ) "Contribute to BGA".
    1. Sponsor your friends! ( BoardGameArena - Affiliate Link "Hemmerling" ).
      • “A sponsored player finishes their 1st game: +5, A sponsored player finishes their 5th game: +20”.
      • Error message if I click on the link on a browser, where I am already logged in: “The referral has not been registered (it may have already been registered, or the link may have expired)”.
    2. Help us translate Board Game Arena! ( BoardGameArena ( BGA ) "Translation center" ( Deutsch-de ) )
      • “For each validated translation: +1. 5 strings to translate”.
    3. Play all games! ( BoardGameArena ( BGA ) "Games" ( played=never ) )
      • “Each time you win at a new game: +5. 1278 games you haven't played yet”.
    4. Write tutorials ( BoardGameArena ( BGA ) "Tutorials" ).
      • For each tutorial selected as Official (max): +600. 149 games without tutorial yet”.
  2. BoardGameArena ( BGA ) "Become a BGA reviewer"
    1. You must have played more than 50 different games.
    2. You must have played more than 750 games in total.
    3. You must have a seniority of at least 5 months on Board Game Arena.
    4. [Red X :-(] Your reputation on BGA must be absolutely perfect.

Bugs

Error: generated notifications are larger than 128k √

  • BoardGameArena "Bugs & suggestions ( Ticket to Ride: Europe[x] )", BoardGameArena "Bug #222359".
    • What is this report about?
      • [x] About a game.
      • About the website.
    • What is this report about?
    • Short description:
      • Error: generated notifications are larger than 128k (136858) (reference: GS1 25/05 07:14:38)
    • At which step of the game did the problem occur? What was the current game instruction?
      • 3 players are not playing anymore.
      • I took a train card.
      • I tried to take another train card.
    • What happened when you tried to do this game action (error message, game status bar message, ...)?
      • Red error message “Unexpected error: Error: generated notifications are larger than 128k (136858) (reference: GS1 25/05 07:14:38)”
      • I didn't get a train card, I can't continue the play.
    • Browser:
      • ...
    • Any additional useful information ( red error message “Please add additional useful information” if left empty ):
      • F5 didn't solve the problem

Affiliate Link error message √

*BoardGameArena "Bugs & suggestions", BoardGameArena "Bug #222368".

  • What is this report about?
    • About a game.
    • [x]About the website.
  • What happened? Please select from below.
    • suggestion - Suggestion: in my opinion, the following would greatly improve the website
  • Short description:
    • Please improve the “Affiliate Link” error message
  • Please explain your suggestion precisely and concisely so that it's as easy as possible to understand what you mean.
    • Currently:
      • If I am logged in to BGA with a browser, and if I click then on my own BGA affilate link
      • http://www.boardgamearena.com/?sp=1n8fph
      • Then I get the error message:
      • “The referral has not been registered (it may have already been registered, or the link may have expired)”.
    • Suggestion:
      • Please make this error message more human readable, e.g. “You are already logged in at BGA, so an Affiliate Link has no impact”.
  • Any additional useful information ( red error message “Please add additional useful information” if left empty ):
    • The current error message might be confusing for non-computer experts, that beeing logged in is the problem. They might think that something is wrong with the Affiliate Link.

Resources

Game Replay

  • “Sorry, you need to be registered more than 24 hours and have played at least 2 games to access this feature. This service is free, but servers can cost us a lot of money”.

ELO

  • BoardGameArena "FAQ" - “What is ELO? ELO is a rating that measures a player's skill level, with a separate rating kept for each game played. This rating starts at 0 and is updated after every non-friendly game. It is inspired by the original ELO Rating System, widely used across various platforms, games, and real-life tournaments to determine competitor rankings. ELO classifies players into 7 distinct classes: Beginner (0 ELO)”.
  • BoardGameArena Wiki "Rating" - “This content is deprecated”.
    • “The number of Elo points you can gain/lose during a game increases with the number of players. The maximum is reached when there is the “recommended number of players”. Try to play games with this recommended number of players”.
  • EN.Wikipedia "Elo rating system", EN.Wikipedia "Elo-Zahl".
  • Google AI: Where to Find ELO on BGA (2026)Via Profile:
    • Click on your username/avatar in the top right corner, then click on your profile name to open your dashboard. Scroll down to see a list of games you have played and your ELO for each.
    • Game-Specific Page: Go to a specific game's home page on BGA, and under the “Rankings” or your personal stats section, your current ELO will be displayed.At Game Start: Your current ELO is often shown for a few seconds when a gam”.
  • A penalty for leaving a game results in an ELO decrease :-(, e.g. a decrease of 23 ELO.
  • “You can never go below 100 ELO points once reached” :-).

Skip turn of players out of time

Strategy

Good Reason to "Skip turn of players"
  • Short time before holiday travel, where the bad chance is that there is not always Internet connection.
  • If all players have high number of points, i.e. game progress is 50%, 70% or so.
    • If you have the most points, i.e. you are the winner at this moment.
    • If you don't have the most points, look at the ELO status of the other profiles. If you have more points than players with lower ELO, there is the chance that you will get ELO points.
No Reason to "Skip turn of players"
  • Little game progress:
    • If all players have 0 points ⇒ No ELOs for any player, negative ELOs for the skipped player.
    • If all players have very little number of points, i.e. game progress is less than 50% or so ⇒ No or very little number of ELOs.
  • If you don't have the most points, i.e. you are not the winner at this moment.
    • “You (and the remaining opponents) will be considered as winner(s) of this table” ⇒ you don't get a penalty, so no negative ELOs :-).
    • If you don't have the most points, look at the ELO status of the other profiles. If you have less points than players with lower ELO, you won't get ELO points either...
Chance of Winning
  • In games with 2 players, just the 1st. player is winning.
  • In games with 2-3 players, usually just the 1st. player is winning.
  • In games with 4-5 players, usually 1st. and 2nd. player are winning.

Buttons & Messages

  • Red button “Skip turn of players out of time” in game, next to the red button “Return to table list”.
    • “Skip turn of players out of time. Skipping a player's turn is an important decision. The player will receive a leave penalty and lose ELO. You (and the remaining opponents) will be considered as winner(s) of this table, and will get 64% of the ELO points that would have been received for a completed table. You may also propose abandoning the table collectively, with no ELO changes or penalties”.
    • “Note that there are other options than skipping this player's turn, such as voting to convert the table to Turn-Based. Are you sure you want to skip this player's turn?”.
  • “Player XXXX ran out of time (or quit the game) and lost at 64% table progression, receiving a Karma (☯) penalty. All other players are considered winners. You may continue playing or leave this game without penalty”.
  • “Your thinking time has expired and all your turns will be skipped”.
    • Red button “Get back in the game”. “Are you sure? You will get back into the game, but you will keep the penalty you received for quitting this game. Continue?”.
  • BoardGameArena "Games in progress" - “Time Joker”.
    • “A Time Joker allows you to take more time to play your turns on your current turn-based games, in SIMPLE mode and ARENA mode only. (For example, when you are on holiday or when you are having difficulty keeping your schedule.) Each Joker is worth 4 days. Although this will extend any games in progress, it is limited to 4 days and will not affect TOURNAMENT mode”.
    • “You have 4 Time Joker(s) available. You will get your 4 Time Jokers back on January 1st every year”.

For EU/Germany, UTC+2: Time to join a Play vs. Playtime

  • Best time to join games, especially Premium games ( especially with a friend, to find plays with 2 free seats ) is late afternoon.
  • Especally in “Fast Turn Based” plays, the time when the plays process, is in the evening and at night ( = US daytime and EU evening ).

How to negociate as non-premium Player with non-premium Friends for Play

  1. I load the page BoardGameArena "Lobby" and select “Simple / Turn-Based / Manual”.
  2. I load the chat window with my friend.
  3. On smartphones, the “Lobby” screen is still loaded behind the chat window.
  4. On desktop PCs, the chat is opened in another browser tab.
  5. My message in chat “3 plays with 2 seats, please take the first TTR-Europe” ( example ).
  6. I wait until the message is read, and maybe the friends chats “ok”.
  7. On smartphones, I close the chat window, so that I an see the “Lobby” screen. On desktop PCs, I switch the brower to the “Lobby” tab.
  8. I wait until I see that my friend joined a play.
  9. I join this play.

How to much reaction time does a Player have, in different Playmodes

  • Google AI:
    • In Board Game Arena (BGA) turn-based mode, time is calculated as 24/X hours added to your “time bank” per move, where X is your daily move rate. For 1, 2, and 4 moves per day, this means you receive 24, 12, and 6 hours added respectively, up to a strict maximum bank limit.
    • Reaction times and clock rules on Board Game Arena (BGA) break down specifically as follows:
      • 1 Move / Day: +24 hours added per move. Maximum bank is 72 hours (3 days).
      • 2 Moves / Day: +12 hours added per move. Maximum bank is 48 hours (2 days) or 24 hours.
      • 4 Moves / Day: +6 hours added per move. Maximum bank is 24 hours (1 day).
    • How the Clock Works:
      • No Pause (Standard): For rates of 4 moves/day or less, the timer ticks down continuously (including overnight).
      • Pause Rules: If you choose faster “Fast Turn Based” speeds (like 8 or 12 moves/day), BGA often includes designated “playing hours” where your clock freezes overnight.
      • Time Penalties: If your bank reaches zero, you enter negative time and a “clock” penalty appears on your profile. Your opponents can then legally skip your turn or kick you from the game.
  • BoardGameGeek "BGA 4 Moves / Day vs. Fast 8 Moves Day With Time Limit".
  • reddit "r/boardgames", Thread "Board Game Arena turn-based question (that board is mostly dead)".
    • Let me give you a couple examples for your 4/day game:
      • It's your first move of the game. When it becomes your turn, your timer starts ticking down from 24 hr (the max). After 3 hr (at 21 hr on the timer) you make your move, adding 6 hr, and taking the timer back to the max of 24 hr.
      • Same situation, but you were not able to log on for 18 hrs. Your timer went down to 6. You make your move, add 6, and it's back to 12. It stays at 12 until it's your move again, and then starts counting down again.

FAQ

General Resources

Forums, Newsgroups

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en/bga.html.txt · Last modified: 2026/06/08 13:32 (external edit) · []
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