I was wondering if anyone has ever tried combining any of the more recent spin-off games (Around the World Series, Over Hill and Dale, etc.) with the main game. I am new to this forum and couldn't find much on the topic. I have some of my first thoughts on how to do it below, but would love some other ideas or input!
One of the biggest issues I think you’ll see below is creating scenarios where tiles cannot be placed due to needing features from both the base game and one of the expansions. Perhaps this means it would be best to predefine zones with start tiles early in the game? (i.e. just place the start tile for each expansion spread out along the base game River/other start tiles) I also never considered scoring imbalances and just assumed you’d score each feature specific to the game it's from and track it all on one scoreboard.
Over Hill and DaleThe field coloration here doesn’t exactly match, but if you’re already combining C1 with C2/C3 it isn’t too bad. I figure you can match the field of these tiles to the field of the base game. Roads could match too, but it would transition from paved road to dirt road. So maybe it could work best initially pairing the start tile of the base game next to the start tile of OH&D and having a kind of zone thing? Alternatively, just integrating it directly into the base game wherever they match roads/fields but treating farms as their own feature (ie not matching farm with city) is an option, but I think it would lead to some tiles being unable to be placed.
The thought of requiring farms to be near cities did pop into my head at one point (or vice versa), but I have no idea how to take that idea further.
Gold RushWhile it ruins the French countryside aesthetic, the colors here match fairly well. Pairing field with field and treating railroads and mountains as their own features could be best. This would likely lead to one part of the board expanding into a Gold Rush area while the base game grows elsewhere.
SafariAbsolutely no clue here. Only thought is to put the Safari starting tile adjacent to the City of Carcassonne in the base game and growing it out from there as a sort of safari zone, but I don’t think it would look pretty.
South SeasI really wanted this to be a simple addition by having it at the end of the River instead of the lake, but it does not look pretty. I’m stuck on this one, unless you could start it from
Amazonas? Maybe having the base river feed into the 2x1 tiles from Amazonas, then start south seas at the end of that? I don’t own Amazonas so I can’t speak to how it would look but that’s all I’ve got in terms of ideas.
This is all very rough, but I’d appreciate any advice!