Eric
United States
Bridgewater
Massachusetts
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I don't particularly care for the random stacks of expansion cards - the memory element seems unnecessary, and the beginning of the game can be frustrating as you continue to draw cards you don't want.
However, some amount of randomness is a staple of the Catan family. It seems less severe in the original game - the smaller pool of cards makes the unknown element more manageable. Likewise, in Cities and Knights, the three different piles of improvement cards allow you to have predict the 'flavor' of the card you're about to draw.
Taking inspiration from Cities and Knights, I've devised the following variant: There are still 5 piles of expansion cards, but the contents of each remain constant.
--The City Deck (14): This deck contains all the red cards.
--The Knight Deck (13): This deck contains all the knights, as well as the garrisons and the smithy.
--The Trade Deck (13): This deck contains the mills, the fleets, and the abbeys.
--The Attack Deck (10): This deck contains the arsonists, the spies, the brigands, and the black knights.
--The Neutral Deck (10): This deck contains the alchemists, the caravans, the bishops, the herb women, and the merchants.
--Finally, note that there is no longer the option to search the deck for the cost of two resources. Instead, it costs one resource of your choice to draw an attack card. If you are ahead in victory points, it instead costs two resources of your choice to draw an attack card.
We also play with an extra production die (as seen in other threads), otherwise the game overstays its welcome. We've played several games with this variant, and find the draws considerably less frustrating.
As always, comments and questions are welcome.
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Great way to cut down randomness. I will try this. Thanks!
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How do you determine the starting cards? Also drawing from these piles? I guess the best choice is 1 from The Knight Deck and 2 from the Trade.
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Eric
United States
Bridgewater
Massachusetts
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Thanks for the comments!
Starting cards = 1 scout for each player (note that they aren't listed in any of the piles) and 2 cards from the piles of your choice.
Likewise, when you have the option of drawing a card during the game, it can be from the pile of your choice (with the small restriction of having to pay for attack cards, as mentioned in the original post)
Hope this clears things up!
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Posted Thu Apr 7, 2011 2:06 am
