It says in the Kingsport rulebook that reason that the number of players is considered to be 1 less for every board expansion beyond the first is that "the investigators have much more ground to cover". But if that's the case (and it is) why isn't the rule "the number of players is considered to be 1 less for each board expansion"? (including the first) It would have made the game sooo much more managable.

I think because the idea is that your team of investigators should be able to handle Arkham and another town without too much assistance, but if you have to spread your investigators among three towns, they get really spread out and can't handle every threat that is out there. Treating your team as slightly smaller can allow for more gates to be open and more monsters in the outskirts before bad stuff happens. I have to say, when we ran our 8 player team with all the expansions in last year's league, just having an Outskirts limit of 1 made a huge impact. If we got that bonus just because we were playing with Dunwich or Kingsport alone, it would lessen the challenge.

Yeah, Dunwich was designed to make the game harder (and so was each other board I believe). But add on another board and there becomes just a bit too much to handle.

kroen how many Investigators do you normally play with?

The game plays best in the 4-6 range. If you're using less than that I can understand how the extra board feels unmanageable. Whenever I play with 2 or 3 othr people we normally play 2 invesigators each to counter this.