Hello everybody,

I would be glad to know if you also remove some tactic cards from the deck in a two player games.

There are a few of them (e.g. like "establishing a trade route") which to us have less sense in a two player game. Thank you in advance for your comments.

In the dozens of 2-player games, we've never removed them. The Trade Route one is obviously less useful, but if you use it at just the right time, it could be a nice way to get one influence when you need it, and sometimes in a way where it doesn't help the opponent TOO much.

The only thing we've done differently in 2p games is with map setup - after building the map, we again randomly determine order for who places the starting realm tokens and who chooses first - this helps ensure that the map isn't too lopsided.

The only thing we've done differently in 2p games is with map setup - after building the map, we again randomly determine order for who places the starting realm tokens and who chooses first - this helps ensure that the map isn't too lopsided.

Another option could be to have one player place both home realm markers and have the second player choose which one he/she wants. This puts an incentive on the player placing the home realm markers to put the home realms in as equally advantageous position as possible.

I may not have been as clear as I should That's what we do, we just do it so we don't decide who places those markers until after the map is built.

Using RAW, the second player has a big advantage and less incentive to make a balanced map, since they get to place their tile last AND they will get to choose which home realm is good. Since there are only 4 tiles with a 2-player game, it's often not difficult for the second player to place his tile in such a way that no matter where the first player puts the setup markers, there is always a clear "better position". It may not happen every game, but it happened often enough in our 2p games that we decided to change it.

With my change, basically neither side knows who is going to get first pick at starting locations while building the map. Thus, neither side wants to risk making a lopsided map. It obviously doesn't mean the map is going to be completely uniform (that's difficult to do), but rather makes it so that it's not GROSSLY imbalanced