Category: House Rules

House Rules, Game Fixes and Mods

House Ruling Botany

2024-04-10 / / 0 Comments

I had just received a Kickstarter game that I was eagerly anticipating for a little while now. Botany turned out to be a beautiful game, made with with high quality components. I immediately punched out the components which all fit into the well thought out storage trays and added the two additional expansions which also fit nicely in the original box. I then dug into the rulebook and started to learn the game.

There were a few confusing parts of the rulebook and what appeared to be some ambiguity in the turn sequence. I decided to try a two player game with my wife, assuming that all would be clear after the first play. This first play was a bit awkward, like a first play usually is, but we got through it fine. Going out on expeditions, collecting samples, and pushing our luck to grab those last few samples was very rewarding. However, we often found ourselves stopping to resolve issues that came up, disrupting the flow of the game. This resulted in numerous thematic breaks, just as we were getting into the game. We chalked it up to inexperience and resolved to try it again the next day.

About half way through the second game, we noticed that the game flow had actually seemed more discordant than the first time and there was some ambiguity in the turn action order as described in the rules. We tried to follow a more consistent turn flow during the second half of the game to reduce the thematic breaks and were finally successful near the end. It seemed to be the event cards which gumming up the works. Not the events themselves, but how and when we resolved them. The game took even longer the second time, even though we were more familiar with it. This was due to the Reputation Track, which was also the game timer, being constantly set back by the event cards. The game overstayed it’s welcome. It was a shame to see a game that was basically a work of art with some really fun parts to it, being bogged down with confusion and set-backs. It’s time to add some house rules.

The main source of disruptions in the game was the resolving of the event cards and when a player chose to resolve them. According to the rules, you could optionally resolve the card at the beginning of your turn, or wait until you acquired your first specimen during the movement phase. If you didn’t acquire any specimens, you could get away without drawing an event card. The events generally were something bad or something good, which was determined by rolling a single die. More often than not, it was best to avoid the events unless you had a large number of Expedition cards which helped you mitigate the die rolls or evade the harmful effects. Only a true masochist would opt to draw an event card at the beginning of every turn, but this was necessary if you wanted to pick up any specimens in your travels. Drawing the event part way into the movement portion of your turn, however, was very disruptive. You had to stop dead in your tracks, draw an event card, then search for Keywords on all of your Expedition cards to see if they matched the keywords on on the event in the hopes of avoiding any harmful effects. By this time you have completely forgotten how many more movements you have left and you have broken out of the really cool theme of the game. This had to be fixed.

House Rule #1

You must draw an event card at the beginning of your turn if you plan on picking up any specimens during your turn. This way, the disruptions are dealt with up front and you then can get back into the flow of the game. (If you don’t draw an event card, you can’t pick up any specimens, sorry about your luck.)

House Rule #2

Organize your Expedition cards by Keyword so they are easier to parse. I am so tempted to take a highlighter to all the keywords on the cards, but I will hold off for the moment. We’ll see how grouping the cards works for now.

House Rule #3

You can have only one of any type of Expedition card. This eliminates the many ambiguities of having more than one of any specific card. Some of these cards require you to roll a die. If you have two cards, do you roll two dice and resolve each individually? Do you roll one die to achieve double the effects? What if one card allows you to succeed and the other causes you to fail? Let’s just avoid all of these problems by eliminating any duplicates. If you draw a card from the face down pile and it matches what you already have, you simply discard it and draw another one. If you can’t find any cards that you don’t already have, you have too many Expedition cards anyway. Having more than one type of card also gives too much of an advantage to a player.

House Rule #3

Modified turn flow and turn reference card. The existing turn reference card was very helpful for a standard turn and reflected my earlier suggestion of drawing an event card at the beginning of your turn. Between step #3 (Move) and step #4 (Specimen Cards) there should be a special highlighted note to Flip the card over if you reach the Estate. (Your movement ends)

Standard Turn

  1. Pay one coin
  2. Draw an event card, Optional
  3. Move

Flip this card over if you have reached the Estate

  1. Draw new Specimen Cards
  2. Collect Income
  3. Buy an Expedition Card

Estate Turn

  1. Draw new Specimen Cards
  2. Collect Income
  3. Deposit Specimens
  4. Optionally Sabotage other players
  5. Gain additional income from Deposited Specimens
  6. Optionally purchase a Garden Feature
  7. Optionally Cycle Expedition Cards
  8. Fund the next Expedition

House Rule #4

Remove 19 of the of the Event cards. There are a total of 76 event cards in the base game and players will only see about 25 of these during a typical game. Nobody is going to miss the19 cards you removed. The following cards can be eliminated:

  • 13 situations which could cause a player to lose reputation. This will speed the game up and keep the tension high.
  • 5 cards which could cause a player to end their turn immediately. Losing a turn slows down the game and makes it vary unpleasant for the player.
  • the “Income Taxes” card because it forces players to choose between two vary bad outcomes. It just isn’t fun.

Removing these cards should prevent the game from dragging on too long and provide a more positive experience.

We haven’t fully tested these rule tweaks, but we will in the following weeks. If you’ve tried these out yourself, please let me know how it went.

Take Care and Happy Gamming

RogerDoger

Fix’n Moonshine Empire

2022-12-18 / / 0 Comments
Moonshine Empire on BGG

I finally got my Kickstarter copy of Moonshine Empire. The components were top notch, the artwork was good and the game tray holding the components was very handy. Unfortunately, the game wasn’t as smart as it looked.

The characters in the game were portrayed a dim-witted country yokels with teeth missing. This was a a bit too cheesy for for my taste but I was willing to overlook it if the game played well. The movement mechanism seemed really cool because you could chain together various modes of transportation for some really great plays. In reality, however, it was very difficult to accomplish any significant chain of movements. The swamp tiles, which you get to explore, looked like fun until we realized that they tend to beat up on the players and some were so punishing that they could cost you the game. The rewards for exploring these tiles were minimal, so we avoided this part of the game. Finally, the randomizing of the turn order before each round was a real pain in the butt and had a very minimal effect on game-play. Overall, the game was very mediocre.

This game had many cool items and could potentially be a lot of fun, so my wife and I decided to tweak the game to try and fix it. The first thing we did was cut out some of the components we didn’t like by removing the following:

  • “Fix a Moonshine Still” tile – this tile trapped you until you removed one of your stills. This is a game-ender if you only have one still.
  • “Find an inventor who Needs an Idea” tile – this tile traps you until you discard an upgrade card. If you don’t have one you you’re stuck until you win one at auction, just to give it away. Another game-ender.
  • “Hire a Sneaky Thief” cards – Stealing half of another player’s cash just didn’t seem like fun for us.
  • “Steal an Upgrade” cards – These didn’t seem like fun either
  • “Mix it Up” cards – These allowed a player change the player order. They just seemed ineffective and not worth bidding on.

The first thing we need to do is tweak that really cool movement mechanism. During set-up, we decided that each player will get one additional vehicle which they don’t already have and place it anywhere on the player-board on the appropriate terrain. According to the current rules, whenever a vehicle makes it to Pappy’s Tavern, it is removed from the board. Instead of this, the player who is last in player order (last to move) will place the vehicle anywhere on the board except on the outer edges. These two rules should get more vehicles in circulation, which should make for some interesting moves.

The turn order is the next item to be simplified. In the original rules, the turn order is randomized each round. This is too often for something that doesn’t seem to have a strong effect on gameplay. Why not randomize the play order at the beginning of the game then alter it each time somebody makes a delivery to Pappy’s Tavern. Whoever made the delivery would take the position at the end of the queue which will let them go first in the auction and last in movement. All of the other players will shift down to suit. This should provide enough variability in player order, reduce the administration, an opportunity for the players lagging behind to catch up.

Finally, there should also be more of an incentive to explore the Swamp Tiles. After removing the two tiles mentioned earlier, there are still three red tiles left. These tiles should be included in the other tiles used each game while setting up. Each time a player reveals a red tile, they can take an Auction card from the top of the Auction deck. This might make it more worthwhile for a player to explore and flip over the Swamp Tiles.

Hopefully these changes will make the game much more fun to play. If anybody has tried these house rules, I would love to hear how it went. Please leave your comments below.