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Reviews & Session Reports / Fan made expansions - I would like to hear more about them
« on: October 17, 2017, 12:08:01 PM »
I am currently putting together a collection of Fan-made expansions, and I am finding it difficult to find much on this forum that tells me how good they are, what other expansions they work well with and any tactics for their use (and any clever tricks that they bring with them).
Over the last couple of weeks I have play-tested a few and, to be honest, they are very impressive when used with other expansions.
The main one that I considered was the enormous Forest expansion, which I put together over a few nights. I must admit that I was a bit disappointed with it at first, as all I kept getting was a map full of 4 point cities and not much else. I then added The Green Dragon expansion (to cure the problem of the lack of CCXX tiles) and this improved things greatly, but the board was still 'forest heavy' and finding places to put the 'regular' tiles was always difficult.
The problem was solved as soon as I added in The Princess & Dragon and Inns & Cathedrals, where the balance of the tiles righted itself. I then tried Bridges, Castles and Bazaars and Traders & Builders with the 2 forest expansions and this proved an even bigger success.
I would be very pleased to hear from anyone that has played these fan expansions who has useful advice, even if it is "don't bother, it is boring". At least this would make me think twice before spending many hours making up tiles and playing, only to come to the same conclusion.
It would also be interesting to see photos of the tiles 'in action' as, once again, they do not appear on this forum very often. There are plenty of pdf files of tiles to print, but I have not seen many actually printed and in use.
I have added one of my photos of my last game to get the ball rolling, and another photo of my newest addition to the fan made collection that I finished about an hour ago.
Over the last couple of weeks I have play-tested a few and, to be honest, they are very impressive when used with other expansions.
The main one that I considered was the enormous Forest expansion, which I put together over a few nights. I must admit that I was a bit disappointed with it at first, as all I kept getting was a map full of 4 point cities and not much else. I then added The Green Dragon expansion (to cure the problem of the lack of CCXX tiles) and this improved things greatly, but the board was still 'forest heavy' and finding places to put the 'regular' tiles was always difficult.
The problem was solved as soon as I added in The Princess & Dragon and Inns & Cathedrals, where the balance of the tiles righted itself. I then tried Bridges, Castles and Bazaars and Traders & Builders with the 2 forest expansions and this proved an even bigger success.
I would be very pleased to hear from anyone that has played these fan expansions who has useful advice, even if it is "don't bother, it is boring". At least this would make me think twice before spending many hours making up tiles and playing, only to come to the same conclusion.
It would also be interesting to see photos of the tiles 'in action' as, once again, they do not appear on this forum very often. There are plenty of pdf files of tiles to print, but I have not seen many actually printed and in use.
I have added one of my photos of my last game to get the ball rolling, and another photo of my newest addition to the fan made collection that I finished about an hour ago.