Hey,
Summary - Read the faction agenda cards as "+1 influence for each color grouping [x faction] has advanced farther than [y faction]..." on the faction tracker instead of space.
Much has been said about the faction specific agenda cards. I have played 5+ games now with all the different numbers of players solo, 2-player, 3-player, 4-player. The 4-player games seem to end very quickly. Someone gets over 8 influence points usually within an hour. The game feels like its only about half way done (most of the quest chains are just under half way completed and the factions are only about halfway down the track). This usually is a result of someone having 2 or more faction agenda cards and one of the factions is advanced 2 or more spaces than the other giving the agenda cards a value of 3+. Much has been said about balancing these cards by taking some out of the box or limiting the value of any beyond the first per player. I tend to defer to the printed rules before making house rules and I think we may be interpreting the agenda cards incorrectly (or maybe they are worded badly). The faction agenda cards read "+1 influence for each space [x faction] has advanced farther than [y faction]...". Now look at the faction tracker. See how there are 7 spaces but they are grouped into 4 colors? What if the "spaces" the agenda card is referring to are actually the color groupings? "+1 influence for each color grouping [x faction] has advanced farther than [y faction]." This would slow down the game just enough that everything else falls in line with the pace of the these faction agenda cards. It would mean players would have to work just as hard as the other agenda cards to make the faction agenda cards worth 3 points and only in rare cases would they be worth more than 3 (all of the quests completed for only 1 faction). Also the risk of advancing the factions closer to the last space (immediately ending the game) would be higher. The length of the game would line up closer to the length of the quest chains and the target 2-3 hour timeframe.