Expansion musings

[Tobias]

So - you've just bought a new expansion and you pour a glass of your favourite bewerage and are skimming through the rules. You look at the new tiles - still "unpopped" - and in your mind new and grand victories unfolds. You call in your regular group of game fodder, and after a short explanation you're set for a game. A few times during the session the rules are consulted and maybe a small discussion is held over some minor detail, but all in all it's straight forward.

Afterwards, what do you do? Do you merge this new expansion with some other ones you usually play, do you try new mixtures or do you always play Mega C? Is it a good enough expansion to always play, will you drop another, or will the extra time it'll take justify using all the nice ones?

When will it be enough? Ever? Already?

As it is now, a game of Mega C can take upwards three hours - or more, and I find myself more and more often playing H&G or Arc instead, because then I can play a couple more games during our gaming nights. I havn't played Mega C for a long long time, and with the new expansion it'll be even more seldom. "But don't then", you say, "just select your favourites and go with them". Yes, I do, but unfortunatly that means that some expansions won't ever be used, or some combination of them won't get used as often. And I bought them for a reason - to be played. And I just don't play them a lot anymore, and that makes me somewhat sad. Not to mention that the nice tile suspenser that came along with The Tower isn't cutting it anymore either.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say here, but I'm not satisfied with new expansions any more - enough is enough - really! Then again, I'm a collector, so I'll just keep buing anything they release (Big Box excluded).

Meh 

[mjharper]

We still use the tower dispenser to divide the tiles roughly in half - but with the latest expansion, we then shifted one column's worth into the bag. It's easier to pass back and forward anyway.

So yes, we always play mega-Carc, although the 'reduced' version. It's quicker, and the tile distribution is less predictable. All the possible strategies still run through your head - if on that particular tile would come up! - which is infinitely preferable to ruling strategies out because the expansion isn't in use.

Good thing with A&B, though, is that because it's basically four new meeples, the strategy is always there, even if you're only playing with half a mega-deck.

Now that's my kind of expansion.

[Tobias]

Right, you only play with half of them.. hmm.

Do you go by expansion, or by all/all? I mean, is there a chance that no tiles from one expansion will come up, or do you have a system?

[mjharper]

To start from scratch, I'd just throw all the tiles into the box and give them a good shuffle, then take then out and stack them into the tower dispenser, the only rule being than the tiles must be face down (obviously). No more method than that.

Then we normally just use one side of the dispenser. So yes, it's quite possible that a given expansion won't come into play at all. But I really don't think that's a problem, although it does increase the luck/random factor of the game. All strategies are possible in that way, but they won't necessarily all come up.

To be honest, I've never really understood the argument that there's too much luck in Carcassonne - I always thought the game was about doing the best you could with what you're given.

We DID play a proper mega-Carc game a little while ago, and it was just too much. The one-side-of-the-dispenser method keeps the whole thing to a reasonable time, and helps the game stay fresh as well. IMHO.

[Tobias]

It's hard to totally eliminate the element of luck in games, although I'd say that in C it's generally not a problem. Usually luck comes into play insofar that you're opponent(s) miss to see an option, or that you never seem to get that one tile which you need, but then again - you do have the option to *not* play it that way to start with I avoid pure luck based games like the plague though.

A game that comes to mind where luck has nearly no effect at all is El Grande - there you can let all your evilness spew forth at your own leisure ... at a cost. *cough*

[Gantry]

For us it's often just time alone that prevents us from playing at all - after a very long day of work, then dinner, then housework, we're too exhausted to do much of anything.  Especially since I work a lot of weekends too, plus finishing my degree plus redoing our kitchen & flooring, plus . . . what was I talking about again?  Oh yeah, time... of course the collector in me wants all the expansions, but the amount of time we get to play isn't enough to really enjoy them, sad but true

[bsquiggle]

we always play mega-C but I have just acquired the Abbey expansion, and it really is getting a bit much now.  I expect at some point we will trim down the expansions - tower seems least favoured, but I love it.  The problem is, how do you decide which ones to use or not?  I have the Big Box, and it comes with the expansions labeled, but I figure that the king and scout and farming (traders and builders?) are, by this time part of the basic game.

[Scott]

Some people exclude expansions because they find it adds too much or too little to the game. If your group of players is having trouble unanimously agreeing on excluding an expansion, but you still want to shorten the game time, perhaps you should establish a rotation? Exclude the Tower for one game; the next game exclude Princess & Dragon; the next game exclude Traders & Builders. That way you still get to play all of them, just not simultaneously.

[Tobias]

Some people exclude expansions because they find it adds too much or too little to the game. If your group of players is having trouble unanimously agreeing on excluding an expansion, but you still want to shorten the game time, perhaps you should establish a rotation? Exclude the Tower for one game; the next game exclude Princess & Dragon; the next game exclude Traders & Builders. That way you still get to play all of them, just not simultaneously.

That would work and that's pretty much how we do it already, although some expansions get played less than others for obvious reasons. But the main thing that irks me remains: I buy expansions to play them. If an expansion is totally crap (so is the case with the aforementioned El Grande) I don't play it, and I don't want to play it. With C it is however that none of the expansions are totally worthless, so they all have thier place. Some combinations are more intereesting than others though (like Original, Tower, Cathars and P&D only).

Not to mention that we play a lot of other games as well ...