Board Game Arena

I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this. It has only happened with this game. Every once in a while, I'll start a game. I always start with 2 players. I'll click "accept" without looking closely, and there will actually be 3 players in the game once it starts. I know I could solve this by looking closer before I accept, but I have restrictions on my table so that I don't have to worry about getting paired with someone I don't want to play with, and this glitch happens infrequently enough that I don't remember to double check. It's not really a big deal, but it's weird.

ampfaff wrote: ↑09 July 2026, 13:38 I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this. It has only happened with this game. Every once in a while, I'll start a game. I always start with 2 players. I'll click "accept" without looking closely, and there will actually be 3 players in the game once it starts. I know I could solve this by looking closer before I accept, but I have restrictions on my table so that I don't have to worry about getting paired with someone I don't want to play with, and this glitch happens infrequently enough that I don't remember to double check. It's not really a big deal, but it's weird.

I'm assuming you mean it's starting with the "wrong" number of players, although given the game that's a funny typo.

How are you setting up the table? There are two main ways to start a game: 1) from the single game page itself, and 2) from the Play Now lobby. The answer to this question could depend on which method you use, and it's hard to tell from what you've said so far what you did.

Yes, I meant "wrong." Lol. I always forget the "play now" lobby even exists, I always start my games from the main game page. Always with the same settings.

ampfaff wrote: ↑10 July 2026, 04:19 Yes, I meant "wrong." Lol. I always forget the "play now" lobby even exists, I always start my games from the main game page. Always with the same settings.

Do you have that little slider button to the right of the speed setting shifted to the right (it turns a blue-green color when you do)? That could be the cause. It means you're open to settings that don't exactly match your choices. I don't remember if the player community has figured out whether the flexible slider can override player count also, but that could be it. Always keep it to the left if you don't want surprises.

Frankly, this is the prime reason why the Play Now lobby is so useful. If you use the manual settings on the Play Now page, you won't have surprises like this. Anything that BGA does to automate things to reduce friction in starting games (including the Automatic matching on the Play Now page) results in unintended consequences occasionally.

Nope, the slider is to the left. I have the settings set pretty much the same for every game I play on BGA, but this is the only game that ever happens to, so I'm pretty sure it's a glitch associated with this game. I'm just curious if it happens to anyone else with this game.

I might have to look into the "play now" lobby a bit more. I didn't realize there were settings to change. Every time I've ended up there I've gotten matched into a game I didn't want to play, so I thought it was for people who didn't care about their settings I've always been premium so I usually just start my own table for anything I want to play. Thanks for the info!

Yes, on occasion, this happens to me. Please make a bug report and post the link here so we can report future instances.

ampfaff wrote: ↑10 July 2026, 14:47
I might have to look into the "play now" lobby a bit more. I didn't realize there were settings to change. Every time I've ended up there I've gotten matched into a game I didn't want to play, so I thought it was for people who didn't care about their settings I've always been premium so I usually just start my own table for anything I want to play. Thanks for the info!

That's probably because it defaults to Automatic matching because BGA doesn't want users to bother their pretty little heads and just be able to click one button to start a game. But even on Automatic matching you can click the gear icon to configure each game.

However, boss mode is setting the rightmost option to Manual.

smattathias wrote: ↑10 July 2026, 19:22 Yes, on occasion, this happens to me. Please make a bug report and post the link here so we can report future instances.

I'll have to wait until the next time it happens I think. If I remember correctly, I have to have a specific game table number to report a bug, and I haven't bothered to make note of any yet.