Expansions: one or all?

[KappaTango]

Hi,

I have been playing this addictive game for a few days now, since my son got it for his birthday - I love it and we have the game, P&D, A&M and River.

To learn the rules first time out, we just used the base set. Second time, we added the river, then the P&D, finally today the A&M expansion. Now, we used all 3 expansions in with the game - and it played very well.

The questions are these:

1: Are ALL expansions compatible with all others ?

2: Are there downsides of playing all expansions I own ( excluding increased game time and assuming I will buy more soon )

3: Do YOU play all / some / none - what are the best ( for my next purchase )?

Thanks in advance

Kappa

[Gantry]

Hi Kappa, welcome to the Carc Central community! Glad you found us.

1. yes, although not always easily
2. not at all
3. look at these polls: least favourite expansion and favourite expansion.  Once you've bought all of them (and you probably will, it's an affliction), please consider casting your vote.

[Bixby]

My wife and I prefer to play with all of the expansions. We do not bother sorting our tiles. If we want a shorter game we just pull of half tiles at random. Welcome and enjoy the addiction.

[KappaTango]

Ok, "spot the Newb" time

Is "Sorting the tiles" as obvious as it sounds ( into expansions, the drawing in turn ?? ) or is there something more to it. Me and my boys ( 11 and 9 ) have picked it up quite quickly and want to get any "bad habits" squeezed out early on

Kappa

[Bixby]

When I said sorting, it is because some people have all of their expansion tiles seperate when they put away the game(s). This allows them to quickly decide which expansions they will use when it comes time to play a game. Since we always play with all expansions we leave all of the tiles together when we put away the game. We do not bother to sort the Princess & Dragon tiles, the Tower Tiles, etc. into different releases to put away. The exception is the river tiles do need to be kept seperate as they are placed first when playing.

Hope that makes sense, and there are no newb questions.

Enjoy,
Matt

[KappaTango]

Thanks for clarifying - We currently keep the packs separate ( I guess that is like trying to keep new Running shoes cLean )

I have just ordered River II, Count and King and Scout Packs - so will report on those at the weekend - any tips?

[Gantry]

My only tip would be to play each new addition by itself, or else the rules will get a bit confusing.  Except for River II... oh and scout, there's not much to those.

[Novelty]

I just want to point out that the expansions are compatible with each other, but the spin-offs aren't.

[KappaTango]

Well, I am excited - My [mini] expansions arrived today so I am about to play them.  Will report back!