Hey there! Nice to see a new face around.
Regular player here, so allow me to answer
some of your questions. ^^
1) In rules it is stated that announcing your role directly counts as "bad manners". Then does allowing players to pledge team allegiance (for example stating that your are red/green/blue) count as "going against spirit of the game and bad manners" or not?
1a) Are intimidation tactics within the boundaries of the "spirit of the game"? Recently dominant strategy for Heroine players was establishing ironclad regime and monitoring actions of all players to the point of explicitly deciding where, when and how everyone is supposed to attack and even if they are allowed to defend themselves. Anyone who does not comply is eradicated. Several players are dissatisfied with that and question if it is even allowed.
Talk about your rule as little as possible, even if it's "just" your color. However, pretty much anything else is allowed. For example, you can tell a person that attacking you is a pretty bad idea, hinting at that you're in the same team as them; e.g. if the heroine is considering attacking you, you can tell them that they probably shouldn't do that if they don't want to lose all their items (as that's what happens if the partner dies). However, the thing is, you might as well be pretending to be the partner and just bluffing your way out of harm.
On the other side, you might as well form alliances with other players until you know whether you're on the same side as them or not. For example, A Challenger Miko might give the heroine cards for free with her ability until her other goal is finished, in the hopes of the heroine thinking Miko is the partner until Miko can actually start finishing the heroine off.
The ironclad regime is technically allowed, but using this strategy is just being "that player", AKA the player nobody wants to play with because they're rude, to put it nicely.
If your players are unsatisfied by it (which I can't blame them for), then tell the heroine that this kind of play is ruining everyone's fun, and, if needed, just ignore your roles and join forces with the enemies to destroy the heroine and consider that the group's collective win condition. (The ironclad regime only works as long as people are willing to cooperate with the heroine.)
After all, having fun is the most important rule of Danmaku!!, or pretty much any game.
We had situations as well (involving Crisis of Faith) where we ignored our (new) roles because the game up until that point was too epic to suddenly switch sides because of an incident. xD
Long story short, don't state your role, but feel free to form alliances and bluff your way to victory... or get killed trying.
2) Marisa with 1 Power card in play uses her SpellCard on Meiling, which responds with her own spellcard. Both doesn't have any dodge cards in their hands. Which attack resolves first - Marisa's or Meiling's?
Reactions always go first. That means, Graze goes before attacking, Countering goes before any attack, even Byakuren's passive ability of firing Danmaku at a person who attacks goes before the initial attack (though the attack still is active, even if its initial user dies).
2a) If meiling's card resolves first then how much damage is dealt by Master Spark - 1 or 2?
2b) If meiling's card resolves first then can China draw into Dodge cards and actually dodge master spark?
2b.1) What about drawing into Bomb? Can she cancel Marisa's spellcard in that case?
That's a good question. I'd say Master Spark only deals 1 damage then, as by the point of its effect being used, Marisa has no Powers anymore.
And yes, since the card draw is part of her Spell Card's effect, if you get a dodge card, feel free to use it!
Regarding the Bomb, I would say no, as Meiling's Spell Card requires an attack; if the initial attack is made void, there is nothing to Counter anymore. At least that's how we handle Bombs targeting the initial attack being played after someone plays a Counter Spell Card (like Reisen's).
3) Are players obliged to declare all targets for their spell cards immediately when they play it, or can they wait until they resolve first step (Aya's draw, Futo's hand swap, other effects like this) to declare targets for their attack?
TECHNICALLY you perform your actions in the order they're written down in, so if it says "Draw 2 cards. You may attack a player in range.", you first draw 2 cards, then you declare who to attack.
However, often times, people want to save their bombs for until they are attacked, which causes the problem that, in the aforementioned example, you'd have to put the cards drawn back into the draw pile, which is just inconvenient. So we tend to just declare our targets, and then, if nobody chimes in to play a bomb, we do the action and then perform the actual attack part of the Spell Card.
This is also (probably) why Futo is (one of) the only character who attacks before her special part of her Spell Card goes of. Because otherwise, the targeted player might get a Bomb from the hand swap, with which they would want to stop the attack, which would also negate the hand swap and create a black hole in the process.
But, uh, yeah, the most convenient thing is to just declare your target, if nobody Bombs, follow the rest of the Spell Card's effect in order.
3a) If former, is Alice forced to declare only targets in her current range? Or can she declare farther targets in hope of drawing Power? If she can, will her attack fail if she doesn't get range? Also, does this opens an opportunity to discard Shoots by declaring them against far targets?
You can say "I'm going to attack X, but if I get a power, I'll attack Y" if you want to declare targets first, but that'll create lots of enemies. ^^;
So it's probably best in Alice's case to wait with declaring targets until after the draw, but people can still bomb and cancel your obtained Item. Alice has probably the most inconvenient Spell Card in that regard.
3b) If latter, then how exactly do Bombs work? For example in case of Aya, imagine that she first draws her cards, then declares an attack, and then attacked player (for example) wants to bomb this. Is he allowed to use Bomb, and will bomb only cancel attack part of Spell Card (since draw part was already resolved)?
And that's exactly why we tend to ignore the order of the actions and declare first. xD
But if you declared afterwards, the Bomb would cancel the drawn Danmaku cards. But since it's messy, we declare and Bomb first.
4) Is it possible to target yourself with danmaku? If it is, then
4a) What is the distance to yourself?
4a.1) Can it be changed with Focus and Stopwatch? What about Suika's Spellcard?
We had this question come up during play as well, and the answer is no, you cannot target yourself, as funny as it would be. xD
