Board Game Arena

This is clearly not a Terraforming Mars issue.

There are multiple reports in the general forums. Here is one:

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48763

I appreciate people reporting this here, at least, instead of the bug forum. There have been 6 or 7 identical reports in the TFM bug forum, which is a waste of time and energy for the people who manage the bug report page.

Okay everyone, listen carefully.

In addition to site-wide issues of games starting in friendly mode, there is something else that can cause games to start in friendly mode.

I do not feel like repeating myself, so I'll just post this link. Please read the bottom post.

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=216252

REMINDER: sending unsolicited and unwanted private messages to complain about a bug report is not acceptable and not tolerated, and will be reported immediately.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Hi Frank,

thx for your answer and sorry for all the annoying posts.

But please give our anger to some admin, or whoever is in charge.

I just read everywhere "We are doing nothing about it"

It would be very nice to read something like "We know the problem and are working on it"

I have no direct line of communication to any BGA administrators.

Also, I am not having this problem. So, I have no idea what the problem even is.

BGA has heard me *gg*

"BGA bug #216186: Game mode setting stuck on friendly
boardgamearena.com/bug?id=216186

Ysgarn:
I was able to reproduce the issue and will handle it as soon as possible."


They fixed it.

In the meantime, while you are waiting for them to fix it,

If you go to the "play now" page, and try to start a game in normal mode, it does not work? This is very odd indeed that it happens only to some players and not others.

Thanks to everyone who replied. I felt like I was losing my mind! I personally cannot find an option to play in "normal mode" on the play now screen.

80couches wrote: ↑20 April 2026, 18:55 Thanks to everyone who replied. I felt like I was losing my mind! I personally cannot find an option to play in "normal mode" on the play now screen.

Make sure you have it set to “Automatic” in the third menu across the top of the page. Then each game should have a gear icon next to it. Click on that to open preferences for that game. Game Mode will be hidden until you go to the bottom of that window and click on “Show advanced options”, then go back up and find “Game mode”. It will probably say “No preferences (change)”, so click on “change” to see the actual options. It will have two drop-downs, one for “normal” and one for “friendly” and allow you to say if you are ok or not playing in that mode.

As of this morning it looks like things are fixed. When I did this yesterday for TM it defaulted to “never” for normal and “ok” for friendly, but now it’s gone back to the reverse (which was the old standard).

I have it set to manual. Problems occur when I set it to Automatic.