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The two biggest expansions for Catan are Seafarers of Catan and Catan: Cities and Knights. I previously asked the question, "How is gameplay improved in the Cities & Knights Expansion?" recently before buying it myself. I would check out the answers there for some other opinions on that expansion. There is also a third expansion, Catan: Traders & ...

Carcassonne: Traders & Builders The chance with the builder to draw two tiles can make a huge impact on the game so it adds a dimension all on it's own. I however personally prefer not playing with the Traders part (the cloth, wine and grain tokens) just the builder and the tiles. Carcassonne: Bridges, Castles, and Bazaars Bridges makes for some ...

Short answer: I don't like the first expansion ("The Buildings" expansion in the Treasure Chest [BGG] set), as there are only a few good buildings; I do, however, enjoy the second expansion ("The Nobles" expansion in the aforementioned Treasure Chest). If you are a completist and want some variety, go for it, but I don't feel the first expansion adds much ...

My favorite expansion is Seafarers of Catan (sometimes also called Catan: Seafarers or simply Seafarers if the context is clear). Seafarers adds ships to the game, which you can use to explore separate islands; they are like roads, but go over the sea. The addition of ships adds some balance that was missing in the original game; since ships cost wool and ...

I'll list the expansions in the order they were released, and give you some basic information and my experiences with them. Curse of the Dark Pharaoh - The first expansion, a "small box" expansion that just adds new cards. Out of all of the expansions, this one (currently) adds the smallest amount to the game. It adds a few new mechanics in the Exhibit ...

The simplest way is to simply shuffle up the tiles, then pull about 60-150 of them for use. This will typically mean a 1-3 hour game, depending upon player speed and exact number of tiles. It also limits the needed table space. It does, however, also mean it is possible to not have any tiles turn up from a given expansion. Also, don't use the River nor ...

Most of the time, I think the point of expansions is to improve replayability. Most games are fine without any expansions, but might get boring after you play them enough time. How many 'enough' is varies greatly on the game, but the approach I'll take toward the question is what games have relatively little re-playability without expansions. Citadels is ...

Here are summaries of five of the Alhambra expansions with links to detailed video reviews by Tom Vasel. He gives opinions on which ones are the best and which ones are not worth it. I've included some highlights from each video. I recommend watching and deciding for yourself. All quotes are from Tom Vasel. Expansion 1 "The Vizier's Favor" Alhambra ...

0) I am not a lawyer. I am definitely not YOUR lawyer. I don't even play one on TV. 1) go read the circular on Trademark at the USPTO.gov website. 2) Realize that, if you aren't in the US, you need to find the equivalent for wherever you are. Canadian IPO — UK IPO — French IP Agency Directory of Intellectual Property Offices 3) Realize that anywhere you ...

Here's my big one: St Petersburg This is a pretty good mid-range boardgame, but its basic set has some serious problems. It contains cards which are significantly undercosted, like the cheap Observatory and the seriously overpowered Mistress of Ceremonies. Rather than fix these cards in a new printing of the base game, they released an expansion which ...

The Fishermen of Catan This is a small expansion that I got in the now-defunct Games Quarterly magazine (according to BGG, it was in Issue 12 of Spring 2007). Basically, there are fishing segments on the shoreline, and if you have a settlement touching one of these fishing areas when the number is rolled, you get a random fish tile. You can trade in ...

The main board is 2'x3' and each expansion board is 2'x1' (1/3 the size of the main board), which lends itself to two different configurations if you want to use all the boards. 2'x6' and 3'x4' Also, as the second picture demonstrates, you can make clever use of business card holders to hold the cards using less space. Make sure too keep in mind that ...

My wife and I regularly play with Inns & Cathedrals and Traders & Builders. We're mostly interested in having more tiles for a longer game, but the extra rules do add some variety. We sometimes ignore the expansion rules and just use the tiles, especially if we're feeling lazy or playing with less experienced players. Inns & Cathedrals We use ...

First off, the expansions you have listed are official. Depending on which expansion you're trying to find (and which print run) may be a little challenging: The Cathars (BGG) (German: Die Katharer) was originally released in the German magazine "Spielbox", and then again in the set "Der Carcassonne Almanach". It was re-released in the US as part of the ...

Added: A fundamental property of Dominion is card interaction, so to claim (not that anyone has) that a certain expansion doesn't increase the amount of positive interaction between cards/sets would be quite a criticism of said expansion. It's possible, but I haven't seen it yet. (Of course, Alchemy does create a sort of artificial exterior game with the ...

There will be very different answers to your questions depending on where you plan to sell your expansion. I think Europe in general is much more restrictive about mentioning trademarks without explicit permission than for example North America. You'll probably want to consult a lawyer before going ahead with this.

Alhambra The basic game has very little variation and really only two methods to score victory points... buy buildings and place them so you have long walls. The expansions each add some small element to the game, many of which are alternate methods of scoring victory points, but some of them are minor gameplay changes which create more interesting ...

Cosmic Encounter, 1977 version (Eon games). This may have been the game that launched the expansion set trend, so worth describing for the historical value: Original: Nice idea but not enough variation in Alien powers or edicts to make it interesting for more than a few games and limited to 4 players max. Expansions 1-3: Worth buying for adding players 5 ...

The way I usually tell it to people is this: what do you like about Catan, and what would like to improve on? Because each expansion generally tweaks one broad area. Seafarers is ideal if you think Catan is fine, but wish it was bigger. More space to place things, more exploration, and generally just more Catan. Same basic rules, new maps. Cities and ...

In general, adding more expansions will allow more interesting combinations to emerge. Scout is one of the notable exceptions; in fact, Donald X. (the creator of the game) mentioned that Scout is one of the cards that wasn't as well balanced outside of Intrigue because it was made earlier and he was still improving in his ability to develop cards (source: ...

I think Cities & Knights is my preferred expansion out of that and Seafarers. I'm hoping to get Traders and Barbarians soon. Seafarers I feel didn't add much to the game, it's easy to pick up, but honestly most games are won by simply staying putt and not using ships/visiting islands which is what seafarers is all about. Cities & Knights adds a ...

Carcassonne is one of the most expanded board games around. Last time I checked there were 8 full expansions, and 10 mini-expansions. The River is an example of a mini-expansion, and Inns and Cathedrals an example of a full expansion. I have only played a few of these expansions, so cannot offer my view of them all, but when choosing an expansion, I went ...

The artwork and language may be copyrighted so at a minimum you'd have to create your own. What you should do is call them up and see if they are willing to license their product. Some will, some won't. Here's one good link.

Rio Grande Games is supposedly going to start carrying the Crop Circles expansion sometime this year, but it doesn't appear to be there yet. The Cathars is available from them as part of Cult, Siege, and Creativity.

I probably wouldn't use the River in a 2-player game: it acts to rapidly expand the available playing area and gives the players more "elbow room". This may not be really what you want with just players, as it just means you may end up doing your separate things at opposite ends of the table. I'm a big advocate of Traders & Builders and Inns & ...

It says right on the back of the box "To play the giant three-part adventure, you must own the Dungeons & Dragons game. The bonus board game is playable immediately." I would think that at the very least you'd need the rule book from the core game and a full set of polyhedral dice to make things work properly if you wanted to play the three-parter.

Yes, others have encountered this problem. At least one poster on BGG (Tim, it isn't you, is it?), posted that the game drags and proposed a Draw 2 Variant. No, there is no official variant to my knowledge. No variants are listed in the rule books for Elixir or any of it's three expansions. No variants are listed on the designers websites. I am not sure ...

Overall, I have to say yes, somewhat. The cards in a given expansion go together thematically and seem to often be selected with certain combos in mind, which of course you will see more often if you play with just that expansion. However, you'll see those same combos again and again if you just play with the same expansion and you will miss out on some ...

If it is just two of you use a chess clock to force yourselves to play faster. Play with the rule that if anyone runs out of time then they cannot play any more tiles. We play with a multiplayer game timer that I wrote for my mobile phone, and we (3/4/5 of us) can get through 3 games with the basic set in an hour. Before we had the game timer, we could ...

I would recommend getting Dunwich Horror first because of it's Injury and Madnesses cards. The add much to the variety of the game. Second I would probably get Kingsport since the Epic battle cards give much needed variety. The first time we played it we managed to beat the GOO and the last possible moment. This is the only time I have every experienced a ...