Randolph Bookman
United States
Los Angeles
California
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Are you supposed to mix the separate decks? Was playing at a friends house and he had all the decks K,E,I, etc mixed together.
They were still separated into occupations and minor improvements, but other than that it was a random distribution of what cards you might get.
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Brian Spieles
United States
West Carrollton
Ohio
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You can mix the decks if you want, but I feel like it diminishes the effect of some of the cards, as some are dependent on others in its particular deck.
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david landes
United States
oak hill
Virginia
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We mix E, I, K, and Z and like it that way. Obviously, we remove cards that are for more players than we have.
Many folks handle the mixing in various ways. One we don't use but sounds very plausible to me is to use a certain # of cards from specific decks.. so for instance, everyone's hand will consist of 4Es, 3Is and 3Ks.. then pitch down to 7.
Cheers
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Ryan M
Canada
Saskatchewan
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Celebros wrote: You can mix the decks if you want, but I feel like it diminishes the effect of some of the cards, as some are dependent on others in its particular deck.
A lot of people do mix the decks, but I personally agree with this comment. I usually pick a deck depending on the group and just use one.
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Tadeu Zubaran
Germany
Berlin
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I don't, I think it is better to choose one and use it.
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Tor Sverre Lund
Norway
Trondheim
Sør-Trøndelag
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It is mentioned in the rules. You are free to choose whichever way you want. Play K only, I only, E only, or mix one or more. K+I, K+E, E+I, K+I+E. Any way works, none is more right or wrong than the other. Just make sure you don't use the 4+ cards in a game with only 3 players, etc.
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Mathue Faulkner
United States
Dallas
Texas
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We have a hand selected group of cards from the 3 main decks (a little larger than a regular deck). We picked cards that we felt were good and worthwhile, and removed the over powered cards. A lot of those decisions were based off posts/polls here on bgg. It's reduced the amount of complaining about poor hands, and honestly, made it a bit more fun imo.
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Mike Young
United States
Sterling
Virginia
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We Mix ALL THE DECKS!
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Netherlands
This space intentionally left blank.
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Why are not everyone mixing all the decks?
(Also known as: "yes".) 
(Though sometimes we try to give games a bit of focus by distributing 4 cards from one specific deck to each player, and shuffling the rest.)
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I actually haven't mixed the decks much in F2F games, but that's mostly because I don't play often F2F with the same people that I tend to play the E deck there most of the time. Sometimes I will use EIK splits, just because my decks are currently separate. I actually prefer mixed/draft as the impact of individual cards are lessened. Cards like the Roads are rather cute, but I'd rather explore cross-deck combos instead.
I think the I deck is rather lackluster in terms of the ability to play by itself. The G deck fares a little better by itself, but it's also meant to compliment EIK so it's a much better experience mixed.
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Eric Ho
United States
Long Island City
New York
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Depending on group, I always mix, but either do EIK, EIKG, and with my advanced group, EIKGWm
 I tend to find going mono decks leads to some predictability of what other cards people hold, especially in 4 or 5 player games.
Online, I tend to play EIK or EIKGWm. I still enjoy the old school decks with less dilutions (Punner is a decent card in the former, very mediocre in the latter). Wm is a little chaotic for my tastes and while some people find G a little bland, I like it because it has my favorite minor, Pumpkin Pie.
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Alexander McKinney
The Bahamas
Nassau
na
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I was playing with the Ö-Deck and Č decks last night, they're fun, but is there anything like an explanation of why they are so tiny that you have to mix them with something else?
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lexifer wrote: I was playing with the Ö-Deck and Č decks last night, they're fun, but is there anything like an explanation of why they are so tiny that you have to mix them with something else?
Probably because big expansions take a significant amount of time to develop. The G-deck and the WM deck were designed and developed collaboratively with play-agricola.com members over the period of half a year each (I believe). And those are 120 cards each. The NL deck was designed by Uwe, but also used play-agricola.com as testers. (It's also a significant power level increase from the normal cards).
Even then, mistakes get through. Late Sleeper in the G deck is banned after extended play, Remodelling and Stone Crane are being considered.
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Alexander McKinney
The Bahamas
Nassau
na
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zeroth hour wrote: lexifer wrote: I was playing with the Ö-Deck and Č decks last night, they're fun, but is there anything like an explanation of why they are so tiny that you have to mix them with something else?
Probably because big expansions take a significant amount of time to develop. The G-deck and the WM deck were designed and developed collaboratively with play-agricola.com members over the period of half a year each (I believe). And those are 120 cards each. The NL deck was designed by Uwe, but also used play-agricola.com as testers. (It's also a significant power level increase from the normal cards).
I understand that reason, however, people tend to say that you only see 'broken' card combos when you mix multiple decks as they were play tested against other cards in the same deck. With decks as small as the Ö-Deck and the Č-Deck, how can they be properly play tested if you don't know which decks they will be used in conjunction with?
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Fraser
Australia
Melbourne
Yep that was 12 Power Grid maps back to back over two days. Worth doing, but possibly not in such a concentrated burst.
Ooh yes, now a little to the left - my nose is itchy. No, no the other left! Now what colour is 12 supporter badge going to be I wonder?
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When we mix decks, which we don't always do, we actually do, for example, 2 cards from E deck, 2 cards from I deck and 3 cards from K deck to each player. That way all the players are relatively balanced, if you shuffle all the decks together and then deal the cards out you could get one player with all K deck cards and one with all E deck cards which would probably be a trifle unbalanced.
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