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Hello, all!
I just picked this game up--I haven't even 'baggified' the pieces yet--but it occurs to me that the following may be a great way to balance the card-drawing:
The cards effectively may be split up into two groups:
A) start-game cards (favouring scoring outside of the city)
B) end-game cards (favouring scoring in a large city).
During the game, discard the cards into two separate discard piles--starters and enders.
Then, to set up the deck for the next play:
1) shuffle each discard pile
2) set 1/2 of the 'enders' aside to be the bottom of the new deck
3) shuffle 1/2 of the 'starters' and the other half of the 'enders' together to create the middle part of the deck
4) put the remaining 'starters' on top of the deck.
Voila! Everyone gets great starting cards at the beginning, great ending cards at the end, and a mix during the middle of the game when both may be useful.
This is theoretical--I'll be playing it for the first time tonight or tomorrow--but I'd love to have Mason vets try it out and let me know what they think.
THE DICE
For those who are allergic to dice and who wish to mitigate the randomness somewhat, why not try what ol' R.K. did in Genesis? Either place the TWO colours of houses as rolled, OR place ONE of your own choice (regardless as to whether or not you rolled a wild).
Salutations,
Gary LaPeare 
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Nick Fisk
United Kingdom
Stoke on Trent
Staffordshire
Come on the mighty Seagulls! Puching for the play-offs ... but not sure we want to win them!
That's weird. This bit used to mention Shire Games, and tell you all how wonderful we are. But it seems to have got deleted. Let's see what happens this time ....
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To be honest, I think it's completely unnecessary.
Sometimes the "large city" cards are never worth much ... we've had plenty of games end with no cities, or maybe one small city.
If you've had a poorer hand dealt to you, the skill in the game comes from manipulating the score and your hand to improve your chances.
Why not play it a few times following the rules, and see what you think ?
N.
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Tomello Visello
United States
Reston
Virginia
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violin man wrote: I just picked this game up--I haven't even 'baggified' the pieces yet--but it occurs to me that the following may be a great way to balance the card-drawing: I've had my copy plenty longer. I even use it for "Gateway" purposes. I don't see the problem.
see also: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/1752221#1752221
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Carl Olson
United States
Connecticut
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violin man wrote:
I just picked this game up--I haven't even 'baggified' the pieces yet--but it occurs to me that the following may be a great way to balance the card-drawing:
In our group, when a noob wants to "balance" the game, we open up a second set, turn all the cards face up, and tell them to choose any cards they like. Often times, we can finish the entire game before they decide, and then we move on to something else.
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Todd Redden
United States
Manchester
Connecticut
"Don't pray in my school, I won't think in your church."
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Part of the fun of this game is knowing what cards to hold on to and which ones to dump. Most games never end up with "large cities", and there are still some random elements which can't be controlled by such manipulation, such as getting the towers=on=the=water cards early before any/many cities form. It could be tried as an alternative, but I don't think it's necessary, the game always works fine as-is.
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Stven Carlberg
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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What the other guys said.
Don't try to "balance" the game. There are plenty of opportunities to trade out cards if you don't like the ones you've got. Accept the challenge and enjoy!
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