We played our first game of TI3 yesterday and had a great time - we even managed to finish the four player game in less than 6 hours! A couple of things came up and I can't seem to find the answers in the rules or FAQs:

One of the players used 'Political Stability' as an action to keep one of his two strategy cards for the next round. As neither card in his hand was Imperial or Initiative should he have kept both of his strategy cards? If not, and if he should have only kept one, should that count as his first or second pick of strategy cards? We ruled that he kept one card and that was counted as his first pick. This was very important, as it meant that he missed picking the Initiative card, thereby missing out on the 2 VPs from Imperial for another four turns.

The Jol-Nar player had a huge fleet on Mecatol Rex, 7 BPs and was poised to win in the strategy phase by claiming his secret objective and a public objective. He activated the political primary and, through quick use of 'determine policy', we ended up with 'Ancient Artefact'. As it was the Jol-Nar player's turn he rolled the die, Mecatol Rex went boom and we easily took the planet from him. One of the Jol-Nar special abilities is to spend a strategy command counter to reroll one of their die rolls. As it was his political activation which caused the 'Ancient Artefact' die roll to be made, could he have used his special ability to reroll the die?

Hope someone can help with the answers to these questions!

I do not believe you played the Action Card correctly. If I'm not mistaken it's played in the Status Phase, which means it does not affect SC selection order in the Strategy Phase. He would get to pick his second SC while everyone else picking their first.

If the Jol Nar played the Political Strategy card, he would be able to use his re-roll ability. He could even keep rerolling until he was out of Command Counters in his Strategy Area.

Hopefully sigmazero will back me up on this when he sees this. But I'm pretty sure I'm right.

I agree with Funky on both counts. Political Stability is played during the Status Phase. I would agree that it means that they would pick their second strategy when others would pick their first. However, I can see it being played by some groups that the first "pick" is skipped, and only the second is made, but that would undermine the power of the card.

I also remember Corey ruling that Jol-Nar could re-roll the Ancient Artifact roll, IF they were the active player at the time (ie, the player who played Assembly or Political), as the active player is the one that makes the roll.