If there are 3 players, then the game should look:

OPTION1.

Player 1 does upkeep, then encounter then mythos.
Player 2 does upkeep, then encounter then mythos.
Player 3 does upkeep, then encounter then mythos.

So there are 3 mythos phases?

OPTION2

All players do upkeep, then all players do encounter, then active player does 1 myhos.

Final battle question:

When I cast spell at the begining of final battle (e.g. +6 to combat), will it last until the end, or until 1 round (all players attak + AncientOne attak)?

Option 2 is correct. All players do phase 1 (upkeep), in player order (usually for Upkeep, order doesn't matter). Then they all do phase 2 (movement), in player order; etc.

Phase 5 (mythos) is done once. It doesn't matter who "does" the Mythos phase, as it is independent from the players. Sometimes a Mythos effect will take an action on the First Player, but never on the person who "drew the card" and I've never seen a Mythos card ask for one die to be rolled, looking for a success versus a failure, in which case a Blessing or Curse is important, making the person who is "doing" the Mythos phase relevant.

In final battle, all spells get refreshed during Upkeep and have to be re-cast every round you wish to use them. Re-casting Shrivelling specifically will prove to drain sanity quite quickly.

I don't mean to be rude, but you should read the FAQs.

It's options 2 of course. If there was a Mythos phase after EVERY player's turn, the Ancient one would wake up in a few table rounds, and you would'n be able to close enough gates!

The "Spellcasting vs. Ancient one" question has been asked by soooo many people... In brief: yes, you have to cast again every turn. So You can't rely on strong spells (like the Dread Curse of Azatoth) very much: unless you're playing with some expansion item/character, even Harvey Walters won't be able to cast the Dread Curse for more than 3 rounds.

Anyway, I agree with you being so confused by saying that the rules are a REAL MESS. It took my group 1 year of playing (and some 30+ games) just to find that fighting a monster ends your movement and your turn (that is, you can't walk-fight a monster-walk again-fight another monster).

The main reason why I am asking (about timing) is my today's game with 4 players.

On that game we had 3 main fighters who were very easily closing any appearing gate (only 1 gate opens per turn). The game was a little borring, as we were rather fighting each other, who should go for thropies, rahter than fighting monsters.

Outshirt limit is nothing here, as monsters die within 1-2 turns.

Is there any rule to make game harder for games with 4 or more players?

With rules I know now, the game difficulty is OK for 2 players max. Then it goes very easy....

Veross said:

If you were only closing gates and not sealing (5 Clues or an Elder Sign), you're not really closer to winning IMO (I count final combat as draw). Closing only allows the GOO more options for doom tokens.

Dam said:

We count Final Battle victory as a win, although it does feel a little hollow sometimes -- short of a bad string of Epic Battle cards or some monumentously bad rolls, you pretty much know if you're going to win or lose going in.

But I do agree -- you will find that closing gates without sealing is only going to allow the GOO to wake up more quickly. This is especially the case in the base game, where seals are pretty much a sure thing (later expansions add "Gate Bursts" which can destroy placed seals).

Of course, I didn't really realize it at the time, but looking back now the base game is very easy to win by either placing seals or fighting the final battle. Since so many of the GOOs have a pathetic attack, unlike later ones which can't be "saved" against, they can be defeated by gathering up a lot of weapons before the battle starts. Now that I think about it, that was a pretty common occurance before we got any expansions -- it still happens now sometimes, but depending on the GOO and investigators, it's much less of a done deal.

So to answer your question, some "rules" to make the game harder are the expansions -- anything that adds Gate Bursts is going to heighten the difficulty, and the later GOOs are definitely more difficult to beat to death.

Veross said:

The number of players makes the game harder in the following ways: if there are 5 or more investigators, an extra monster appears whenever a gate opens. The gate limit and outskirts limit decrease if you have more players, and the monster limit increases (it's players+3). Having a high monster limit isn't necessarily worse, though; depending on your tactics, it can make the game considerably easier.

Apologies if you already knew all that - it's all on the back of the rulebook anyway.

AH difficult really depends on you 'customizing' the game and selecting the components which make it a challenge for you. So if you want a hard time, use weak investigators against a difficult AO. It's a lot easier to fine-tune the game if you have the expansions, because you can limit the item decks, and add heralds etc. The Black Goat of the Woods expansion probably has the most ways of easily ratcheting up the difficulty.

That is a very good idea - expansions. I (alas) have only base one.

Which expansion do you recommend to buy, to gain most fun, varierty and difficulty?

Veross said:

Everyone is going to have their own opinion on this one, and for me, honestly, it's hard to say. I got Dunwich first and I still think it does add a tremendous amount to the game -- having another city to worry about is a big deal. There is a ton of material in there, but really any large-box expansion is going to add a lot to the game. The small boxes add fun mechanics, but they aren't as much of a big deal and I think they are probably more interesting after you've played through another board a lot and want to revisit Arkham (the city) proper.

I also have a question about expansions.I love Innsmouth thematicly,and I like Dunwich for mechanics.

Should I get Dunwich (everyone says it's the best) or do I get Innsmouth ,which was anyway my first choice ,but since it doesn't have any new investigator cards (which I think will make the game much harder considering I only have the base game and its cards),I'm not sure anymore.

So,which one should I get ???

Well, IH does technically have investigator cards, they're just Personal Stories, no Items, etc. Diluting the UI deck is IMO essential (if you have just the base deck, you could remove 1-3 Elder Signs), otherwise Elder Signs are too plentiful, leading to removing more doom tokens, thus relieving pressure on the GOO waking from the doom track filling. Also, collecting Clues to seal forces you to go to unstable locations for the most part, could always get the "lovely" "a gate and a monster appears" encounter.

ok, but should I get IH or DH ???

Axalara said:

As your first expansion? Never Innsmouth.

Innsmouth:

• is the hardest expansion. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if you're used to just the base game, this is a huge gear shift.
• has gate bursts, but not in Arkham! You should get an expansion that has some first (KH, DH, BGotW)
• has AOs whose worshipers are not in the base game or in the Innsmouth expansion itself.
• has no new Other Worlds, like Dunwich and Kingsport do.
• has no new items, skills, or allies!

Innsmouth is definitely a "later" expansion; maybe even a "last" expansion. So Dunwich has my vote for first expansion.

Veross said:

In which case, I suspect the rule you want is in the rulebook. AH should not be easy unless you run 6+ Investigators without additional boards.

The first time I played all the expansions I drew Shub, who is not the hardest GOO but still challenging. My party wasn't bad, either: Akachi, Rex (who's pretty good when Akachi can give up a crappy spell to get him Blessed on turn 1), Roland, Mark, Marie and Zoey, with Golden Swords on Zoey and Roland and the Fetch Stick on Rex.

I got my ass handed to me. My first Seal was burst before I got my second; I got up to three Seals and was burst again. Rex had to waste three turns and the chance to pass his PS when Plans In Motion showed up. Zoey got the Corruption that mills two off the deck when a white Mythos is drawn - so of course, I drew about six of those. My street sweepers had to go through Gates to avoid awakening the GOO, while my sealers were stopped from going where they needed to be by monsters they could neither evade nor defeat. I was going to sacrifice Akachi to cast Call Ancient One with the card that trades two Clues for a success, but then Mark got his Focus reduced to 0 by a Concussion before I could adjust his speed below max. As he only had one monster trophy, I packed up the cards rather than waste another 30 minutes on a losing battle.