Keep in mind, I’m biased. I admit that fully up front, and you have been warned. Ever since the days that the DH and KY cards started weakening each other mixed together, I’ve been extremely choosy about what goes in my Big Card decks.

Now that all of Lovecraft Country is available, many people still choose to play with everything possible, and I’ve played enough AH/IH games to get a feel for what each town can do alone (with just Arkham), so I guess it was time to try it. (Plus, I want to believe in Tibs’ Anti-Dilution Method, but I needed to see what dilution still exists first.)

Chaugnar Faugn vs. Agnes, Darrell, Jenny, Rita, William, and Rex. I wanted to see how the multi-board bonuses work, and I didn’t want to be caught with too few people to cover the real estate. Although…I may have overloaded this experiment.

These particular Investigators have somewhat compatible Personal Stories, so they all split up to handle those first. For most of the game, when a Gate popped, the monster it spewed out would immediately move, so it wasn’t hard to get people into gates. So Darrell went out of character and bounced offworld, Jenny went to Innsmouth for Clues, Rita went to Dunwich (hoping for monsters), Agnes went about trying to finish the Sacrifices to Make Mission, and Rex tried to stay invisible until his 5s started counting.

Well, that only took two turns, it turns out. I took a chance that with a THOUSAND South Church Encounter cards, William might pull a free Blessing for himself, and then use his monster trophies for Rex. And so it came to pass.

By turn 6-7, everyone but Agnes (surprise Graveyard Gate diverted her from her Mission) had managed to pass their stories. Darrell had even started with an Elder Sign, so there were even two seals on the board by now. A single Gate on Wizard’s Hill (monster removed by Darrell Gate closure) left Rita bored without anything to kill, so she came back to Arkham to beat up a Cultist and an extremely tough Tcho-Tcho. With Rex and Darrell knocking me out of my chair with their Story Rewards, I was suddenly…wow. Things suddenly felt…tedious.

And that was the rest of the game. Mythos cards were all over the place, and about half of them weren’t even Gates, like a Next Act card (that filled me with NO fear AT ALL because my Mythos Deck was about six inches tall) and some Double-Doom cards, none of which matched Rift Progress Tracks. So Kingsport did little, Innsmouth reacted to nothing, and Dunwich was just as cricket-filled as I remember.

No One Can Help You Now came out, and I thought about just closing the last few Gates to maybe liven the board up…and I kinda froze, because what I was actually thinking about was THROWING a game to the AO. So instead I just bopped about Arkham Encounters, looking for trouble, like I was some kind of street gang. Even worse, I passed the Cover-Up Rumor without batting an eye, giving everyone a Blessing and a Retainer. By the end of the game, Deputy Darrell had $47, having basically moved into his own place in Kingsport. No one could manage to get any significant amount of monster trophies after the Rumor, so Agnes never finished her story. Rex sealed the last gate on Turn 23, leaving my Mythos deck at about 5 27/32 inches.

Okay, so what did I do wrong? I played almost everything—AH, DH, KH, IH, KY, BG: I don’t use DP—and although I did get a nifty variety of Encounters, Gates, and Mythos that most all-expansion players praise, all together they amounted to almost ZERO threat. My guys had weapons and defenses falling off the table, and Blessings fell like rain. I feel like I should apologize to Chaugnar Faugn for putting him through that. When it was all over, I looked over at my decks, and wondered if I shouldn’t just leave the cards I’d discarded in the box, and just play another game with what was left…cuz I think I’ll die if I have to shuffle those towers again.

I will try this again, because anyone can get a lucky game once in a while (but a BORING one? ), but at present, I still don’t get it. I wonder if this is why my win ratio isn’t higher, because that game was ridiculously easy. I would honestly suggest (perhaps even beg) that any all-expansion player who hasn’t tried just-one-or-two to try a straight AH/IH game, and see what happens.

My apologies. Discuss, debate, rage.

Nice post, Well written. Your experience has pretty much been my experience, so I usually play with only one expansion and a herald (often of my own devising). In addition, I load up the expansion so that half the cards are from the expansion and half from the base game so I get an intensive theme game. Still Dark Pharaoh is a little easy, even with the herald, but the others are more like a 50/50 proposition with Dunwich and King in Yellow.

Nobody much likes Kingsport around here because even a thematic game of Kingsport doesn't have much theme we can make sense of.

Innsmouth is beating me up, however. I may have to throw in Dunwich Horror, so I'll have a chance. I think FFG has done an excellent Lovecraftion game with Innsmouth with the situation getting worse and worse as the game goes on.

jgt7771 said:

Kate + Arcance Insight in an all-random game = utter boredom.

Also, why use 6 investigators? Despite all-in, that's still a lot people to cover the ground (esp. when are counted as 4).

Dam said:

Partly out of panic that I was gonna be outnumbered, partly because I was curious since I had never played more than one expansion board at a time. But I agree: 6 is just too many. I'm gonna try 5 next time, and see if the "sweet spot" really is 4, independent of outside conditions.

I've "stuck to my guns" with 4 investigators for 65+ games now. True, only now entering the 2-extra boards realm, but didn't even think about adding a 5th. Especially with 5 being counted as 4, didn't see the point. 4 counted as 3 doesn't make a difference in the gates open GOO clause, monster limit and Outskirts adjusted by 1.

Having just played the game with every expansion, including Dark Pharaoh, I think 4 will do, 5 ist still too many. We had 10 Doom Tokens on Quachil Uttaus when we landed the sixth seal, having removed one of his doom tokens via an elder sign and another via a tome (Eltdown Shards?).

However, with the group I played, well...they are extremely lucky. I.e. I've never lost any game with them. Next time we're going to try to play the difficulty modifier cards from the Black Goat expansion, at least, with the one that curses you. Perhaps these would help?

To add an answer to your question, jgt7771, I have played several games with all expansions (except Black Goat and Innsmouth Horror, I've only played one game with those), and several with just Arkham, AH+DH and AH+KH. I have only played a single game with just KiY in it, and also a single one with Dark Pharaoh.

So really I can only comment on using single board expansions (DH and KH) and the mix mentioned in the first sentence. I have not seen a noticeable change in difficulty level with these; I either play 2-Investigator games with a friend of mine, or with a pretty lucky group of 4 players/Investigators. In all cases the 2 Investigator Group struggles and the 4 investigator group has a breeze/it's easy for them. The only exception to this I have found is that the 2 Investigator Group also has an easy time with just AH or just AH+DH.

I hope that wasn't too confusing with all the "except this" sentences in there.

Bottom line: the amount of investigators makes a bigger difference than the dilution, imo. However, the effect of the dilutions is bigger the more investigators you use.

Also, I am reserving judgement on 3-board expansion play with my statements, as I've only had 1 game with 4 Investigators vs Quachil Uttaus - it was a close game, but there weren't nearly enough monsters on the board to be much of a bother; we could have probably done it (barely) with three investigators. I am unsure if the "counts as 2 less Investigators" rule isn't too much help. Also, perhaps the difficulty level cards can be of help here if that rule is indeed too much help.

Currently Im playing with BG and IH. This works out well, in fact Im thinking its actually much harder than with IH alone as the BG all monsters move cards are causing the Deep Ones to be a lot of trouble, every game. So there are some expansions that make aspects of IH more brutal.

The personal stories are also strongly affected by the game setup. Depending on which AO is rising, some are **** near impossible. Removing all cultists leaves Rita and others who are looking for them with no choices, unless you have the "counts as a cultist" trophies in the cup, and then they have to appear and be snagged.

On the other hand, some PS are made ridiculously easy by some components. Carolyn completed her story in the 1st Upkeep when we took Nodens as guardian and the Nauseating difficulty level in setup (all investigators are blessed). She drew the blessing of Nodens that allowed her to use it in place of spending $10. Of course, being blessed x2 didnt matter, but the extra clues did.

Ive been thinking about throwing all in a pile too, but this has put me off. I would now really like to see an expansions expansion to make this more doable.

jgt7771 said:

So when you say you're "extremely choosy about what goes in my Big Card decks", you mean you USED to be choosy, right:?

I've never played with everything, but I always assumed that dilution would be a big problem if I did, and your experience seems to confirm that assumption.

I'd say what you did wrong was exactly what you've said: playing with almost everything. Completely toss out BG and KY and, according to all of my experience from the last thirteen games, you'll be screaming for mercy instead of yawning.

Solan said:

Solan, how come you'd drop BG and KiY (and not say, the often disliked CotDP)? I'm not a fan of KiY myself (I rate it last of the small-boxes), but I'm guessing you might have other, more tangible reasons. BG adding gate-bursts definately means that's a must for me (not that I'm going to trim my decks, just saying).

This all comes down to the type of player you are. I have stated this before. Some people enjoy the thrill of not being able to prepare for the game. Others like to have a path outlined, and have things thrown at them trying to throw them off the path.

To put this into roleplaying terms. Grimm and other storytelling RPGs are for the people that like to expect the unexpected. DnD and hack n slash RPGs are for players that like the whole "you are here and you need to get to there."

If you are already biased towards not adding all expansions. Give up trying to find fun out of using them all together. Your subconsious mind is going to be constantly looking for things that stand out and reinforce your reasons for not liking them. Try one all-in-one game with 4 investigators. It won't change your oppinions. The reason it is so hard for humans to change is because of the inner psychology of the mind, that hidden behind the scenes voice that looks for things to support their bias thoughts.

Dam said:

Dam said:

I didn't tell JGT to cut CotDP for the simple reason that, according to the text of his posting rather than the title, he didn't use CotDP in the first place!

I don't use CotDP either (except for the three dual color Gate cards), but it is actually my favorite of the small box expansions. I feel that its flaws are exaggerated and its strengths downplayed or ignored, but that's a topic for another time.

I first combined KiY with Dunwich and was appalled by the results, since it made the game far too easy! The KiY Mythos cards open zero gates at the rare locations and of course zero gates at Dunwich, so they really slowed down the Doom track, not to mention rendering the gate bursts considerably less of a threat, since the KiY Mythos cards also have no gate bursts! Then, too, the Press Pass and Arcane Insight are far too powerful. In one of the games in which I used KiY and Dunwich, a group of NEWBIES and I sealed YIG away with time to spare!

Now the KiY Herald is quite excellent, and does remedy these problems to some degree, but does he really do enough? Especially when the KiY Otherworld cards are the dullest and most trivial among the entire set of expansion gate cards. .

So not playing with KiY is a no-brainer for me. BGotW I found to be horribly disappointing. Yes, the Mythos cards DO have gate bursts, but unless you're absolutely entranced by the idea of two monsters being placed in separate street locations, those cards have very little else to recommend them (Notable exception: Funnel-shaped Cloud weather environment. Brilliant!). And of course, like the KiY cards, they greatly lessen the number of gates opening in Dunwich and Innsmouth.

I've never played with the Black Goat of the Woods Herald, but just as I don't have to stick my hand in a fire to know it's hot, I don't have to play with the BGotW Herald to know he sucks. All monster surges add a Doom token to the Doom track? Come on, get serious! You might as well spend the whole game just preparing for the Final Battle with the AO, since you're sure as heck not going to win by sealing.

Unlike most of the online commenters here, I actually found it enjoyable and beneficial to join the Cult, as Jacqueline wound up with seventeen! Clue tokens largely due to the combination of her membership and one of the resulting Corruption cards. But if you're not playing with the ridiculous Black Goat Herald and ARE playing with any other exapansions, then opportunities to join the Cult will be few and far between. The same holds true for opportunities to be corrupted. You'd get either one of them what? One in six games, maybe? And for that you're clogging up your Mythos deck with distinctly sub-par cards, greatly slowing down activity in Dunwich and Innsmouth, and putting up with average Gate cards. It's just not worth it.

Arkham Horror. Dunwich Horror. Kingsport Horror, Innsmouth Horror. Play with just these and you're virtually guaranteed a roller-coaster ride of a game every time. Sure, sometimes the track will fail right at the beginning (like in a recent game against Shub-Niggurath, twelve Doom tokens in thirteen turns!), but the vast majority of the time you'll get your money's worth with some of the closest, most suspenseful games you could ever want.

Finally, Dam: I know you for some reason despise Kingsport. But unless you never do Final Battles at all, you simply don't know what you're missing with Epic Battle cards and Sinister Plots. I swear, it's worth the money for those, the new characters, the new AO's and the new monsters alone!

Solan said:

I like Tongue-Tied Teacher as well. Like as in "argh, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo", but still it's a positive card, just like Clothing Drive .

Solan said:

Just how many surges are you getting per game? Last game (my first IH game) 2 surges. Overall I have a 50% close/seal record with the BGotW Herald (out of AH + DH GOOs). Like with most of my Shudde M'ell games, I don't seem to surge that much. I was chuckling evilly when I saw that IH Mythos card that does the same thing (Environment Mystic I think), get that in a BGotW Herald game and then final combat might be likely.

Solan said:

Main thing is the board, second thing the characters. Only reason would be the GOOs and maybe the EB cards (and related issues), but those aren't worth €50.

Dam/Victimizer: Most seem to agree that 4 Investigators is the best, regardless of what you play with. But with all boards, doesn't that mean I'm supposed to treat everything like 2 players? I guess because the Monster Limit doesn't effect other boards, there should be enough monsters to cover for the mere 5 allowed in Arkham. Of course, this requires gates to actually open in Dunwich and Innsmouth, and that barely happened.

So should I play 4 Investigators, but ignore the multi-board bonuses? Dam, do you at least raise your Gate Limit by 1?

DJ2.0: After a few AH/IH games, I wondered what happened to my Gate Bursts. After a little too-not-deep investigation, I then wondered if I couldn't add a few Gate Bursts without ruining the Deep One Rising mechanic. Turns out, by adding the BG Gate Bursts as well as all of its Strange Sightings, Innsmouth seems to lose little momentum, while Arkham gains just a wee bit more threat. In one case, it was enough to fulfill the AO plans just a turn or two before mine.

Agreed on the Personal Stories. I really love them to death, but some can be as easy as making a phone call (I see your Carolyn and raise you a William), while others are just mind-boggling on the "what the hell do I do with THIS?" scale (Tommy? Lily?).

Solan: Oh no, it seems I will go back to being choosy fairly quickly. It would seem that...

Darkkami: ...has a point. I am self-aware enough to have expected my brain to resist fighting its bias, but I really tried to do just that. I am far more open-minded than I may come across, and I can admit when I'm wrong. The point of this wasn't really to reinforce "my way" of playing Arkham, since that's just foolish; whatever number of Arkham Horror players there are, that's how many ways there are to play it. But I really wanted to see what the other half of the pie see. There must be SOMETHING that works over there; otherwise NO ONE would do it. I think I may have seen a bit of it: it is indeed kinda fun to see a whole bunch of cards that I've never seen played together, played together.

Are you kinda saying "why bother?" Since I've found the way that works for me, why should it matter that other ways don't? I would agree...except for the simple state of "being uninformed". I really don't like to be the guy that says, "That method sucks!" without ever having encountered that method. I may choose A over B, but I'm sure as hell gonna know about both. I shoved in all the leaves of my table to work all this, and that was SUCH a pain (and I've, like, LOST my living room) that I don't want to disassemble until I'm SURE I'm DONE.

Solan (again): While I still got all my cards out in the open air all at once, I'm gonna try it again, and then I have to try Tibs' Anti-Dilution method, but then I intend to try your Just-The-Boards Method. (Perhaps even combine that with the Anti-Dilution.)

Thanks for all the thoughts!

"DJ2.0: After a few AH/IH games, I wondered what happened to my Gate Bursts. After a little too-not-deep investigation, I then wondered if I couldn't add a few Gate Bursts without ruining the Deep One Rising mechanic. Turns out, by adding the BG Gate Bursts as well as all of its Strange Sightings, Innsmouth seems to lose little momentum, while Arkham gains just a wee bit more threat. In one case, it was enough to fulfill the AO plans just a turn or two before mine."

Exactly, the Gate Bursts from IH actually supplement the threat from the DOR, in all the games Ive seen so far using IH/BG, there have been Gate Bursts, or a threat from the DOR or both, with a Gatepop happening early so it doesnt slow the rising too much, but kicks the early thrust of investigation in the national groceries.

"Agreed on the Personal Stories. I really love them to death, but some can be as easy as making a phone call (I see your Carolyn and raise you a William), while others are just mind-boggling on the "what the hell do I do with THIS?" scale (Tommy? Lily?)."

Yeah! There are some interesting ones...but man these things are cool. I keep seeing new ways to look at them, each game fleshes the story out in a different way. Rita just completed her quest for the first time, against Eihort...brood tokens were then supplemented with the special Yuggoth encounter from IH...the very first trip out...she had 4 turns to live...

Please don't assume what I am implying, that will only get you in trouble. I was merely stating the reason why it is going to be hard for you to accept change. I would NEVER tell a person to not try living in another's shoes. The key to winning in a debate is to learn the ways of the devil's advocate. It's a bit like the old saying "keep friends close, but enemies closer".

Never give up and never surrender. If it did not work the first time. Try try again.

The best way to get the same thrill as those that enjoy using all 4 in one method. Is to get together with them.

Lol you should be debating more about why you are playing a co-op game by yourself. Sounds boring to me and when I tried it I thought it sucked. I mean there is no energy in the room without an audience to provide or feed the environment with excitement, hope, anger, fear, or success. Try imagining the movie Jumanji with out the board coming alive...BORING.

Then again I am also never wrong. It stinks sometimes. But that is why there are other people to mess up my perfect plans sharing this planet with me.

My record with 1 player board games is 100% wins. With other players .... 30%.

Me: Hrmm here is the plan and if you follow it we will live and sucee...

Other player: I kick in the the door

Me: It's more fun to play risky more than right.

*party charges into the room*

darkkami said:

I was trying to just ask. And then I provided an answer (several moot ones, apparently) just in case I was right. Unfortunately, debates in forums don't often take the time to ask, "What did you mean by that?" No offense, of course.

I'm playing the game by myself:

1) Because I do play this game with others, but they have more time-sensitive lives than I do. They chose to have families, and presently I have not. At the moment, summer just started, and so has all their kids' vacations. It's usually easier to find weekends away from the summer. While I'm waiting for them to have the time for Game Day, I wanted to try a bunch of things.

2) Because I don't want to waste my friends' time by making them play the game in a way that won't work, but at the same time, I don't want to be the one telling them they shouldn't play that way without cause. I played a few games with several of them with Dunwich and either Dark Pharaoh or King in Yellow, and they sucked. And most of them told me so, so that ended that. But Kingsport doesn't play like Dunwich and combines just fine with KY or Black Goat, and several of my friends enjoy wandering around Kingsport. I'm the only one who owns the game, and thus I am trusted as the expert.

3) Because I can. This is the only co-op game that STARTED with the capability of being a solo game (and not just a regular game with a few extra solo rules written in the manual's margins) AND had a theme and goal that appealed to me. Instead of doing a jigsaw or some other conventional "thing to do while the TV's on", I play Arkham Horror. Obviously that's not for you, and I'm not going to get into a lifestyle debate with anyone.

Then again I am also never wrong. It stinks sometimes. But that is why there are other people to mess up my perfect plans sharing this planet with me.

Point taken. I think I understand now where I made my error.

jgt7771 said:

No KH for me, so I count everything according to 3-investigators. Yes, monsters are hitting Outskirts more, esp. if you get Flyers, Green or Aquatics in the other boards and they migrate to the AH board. To me, Outskirts/Terror going up more is a good thing. I had 1 investigator in the OW most of the time, Rita was in Dunwich for a quite a few rounds, IH didn't have anyone for a quite a while, but thankfully it had Yellows and Greens mostly, leaving pretty much 2 investigators to keep Arkham in check. Not that I really care about monsters unless they get in the way of entering gates. Yeah, I did raise the gate limit by 1 (well, by 2 very early on, Ursula drew the Unique Item that adds another to the gate limit).

darkkami said:

wow thats a gross generalisation and a very poor metaphor...as you said, different people. I play a lot of solo play as well as with friends. Its never boring. I find that I can keep myself amused and entertained that way, and my own imagination provides more than enough energy and emotional stimulus. Maybe you could try using yours more? I mean that sincerely

LOL I was just kidding.

Man you guys need to lighten up...the dark Lovecraftian aura is getting to you guys. Even Cthulhu can have a good time.

I even told my friends to come up to my computer to see what I typed lol...

You obviously weren't thinking, that after talking about devil's advocate, I could possibly be joking with the irony.

I do love this board though. So much that I am buying a pipe and monicle for everyone. Then we can sit around and make noises and say things like "interesting and quaint".

...er well I was only joking about the playing alone. Heh, now that I am out of college years and all...its hard to find time to get together with friends. Work work..zub zub. Believe me I understand and love the fact that there are companies out there that make single player board games. One reason that I am always right is because I study every ratio and probability (til insane) for the challenges presented to me. Random doesn't happen. I don't believe in random...for the same reason you don't just kick in the door like my barbarian friend likes to do, why would an enemy just go head long in to a battle with out a plan to succeed in their goal?

My point was missed in your reaction: in solo play, to replace the loss of dynamic you get with 1+ people playing, you have to employ your imagination. This is how you *talk* to yourself, in the way other people debate, share and communicate together in games. Otherwise, you are just reading a lot of cards and chucking die.

Very true. LOL. I can just picture a person like Golem and Smeagle or the Old Man from the toy story short film playing arkham horror with them selves. Haha just thought about Robin Williams doing all of the voices too.

Awe man my feelings are hurt...*sad face* I guess I have no imagination. *Cackles* Nah trust me I got plenty of that. I tend to keep it bottled up until group play though. When by myself I am a serious thinker.

Being able to play game with yourself also depends on whether you are an introvert or extrovert. Introverts are more calm and feed off of the extrovert's energy. Exroverts tend to be wild and need introverts to leach the energy from them.

So if you are more introverted mindset and no extroverts are around to produce energy for you then you won't find fun. But if you are Extrovert...well a room can only hold so much energy...so let your mind run free, just not too free.

jgt7771 said:

You should try a game called Ghost Stories....one of the hardest single player board games I have tried. Even harder with more players. I won't link the game though because its not made by FFG.