Does anyone here have any particular house rules they use?

The only house rule we have is that Mengst can't pick Typhon with his stage one leadership card that allows him to choose his starting planets. It is just too easy to win with that.

Other than that we haven't found a need for any, the game is awesome.

We kinda have the same house rule in a our gaming group regarging Typhon. But us, we just don't play with it, the game is not meant to have such a planet. Its a great addition to my collection however.

We play a lot, and kinda keep score of who's winning with what faction. Those, who score a win with every faction gain a title of "elite player" and picks a bonus, that no other future "elite player" will be able to choose. The bonus is an additional worker or transport for one faction and that player receives it when he plays that faction. Additionally, so called "elite player" victories add bonuses to the factions they win with, that all players can use.

We started this one not so long ago and we have one player who managed to win with all factions and there are some, who lack 1 or 2 wins (Mainly Raynor is the pain in the ass for the majority, Tassadar and Kerrigan are the ones that everyone managed to score a victory), and yet we don't face any imbalance problems. We play on the original starcraft, didn't get the expansion set. We decided to do such a thing for the purpose of continuity, so that winning would mean something. In the long run, we expect to see a game, that starts with advanced buildings, modules, units, etc... This is being done in a way in the expansion set, so we don't know if the whole keeping score thing will last with brood wars.

Also, recently got an idea for a house rule, that if anyone destroys another player completely, then all other surviving players lose one conquest point, except for the killer. We noticed, that bashing a player to the state of not being able to win is quite useful, but there's no point in destroying a player to non-existance - wasting orders, etc. Buy adding such a twist we expect some more action + Aldaris might pull off the end draws near victory, cause it's practically impossible to do (well, at least no one was able to do it in our games, everyone's so aware of that fact, that someone usually is able to get his sp. victory condition when the game hits stage 3).

Its competitive game, so I think it doesnt matter what planet are you starting on, you can have a headstart, but others will go after you... same as if zerg chooses LS card that places a base on each of the starting planets.

Unfourtunately starcarft has a bit of a problem of scale. Once you get past three players it actually becomes difficult to "kill the leader" simply because the board is too large for each player to effectively reach all sections of it. With six players for instace it can become very difficult to make it across the board witht he necessary transports and orders.

I really think this game is at it's best with two to four players. It is still fun with six but the board construction can make it fairly unbalanced.

blarknob said:

Maybe, but with up to four players, usually every player is next to two other (in three players it is always like this), and how you build the board doesnt matter. It is what i dont like ... when creating the board it ends the same.

But leadership cards are selected before the board is settled, so you can adjust your strategy to that.