It occurs to me that the greatest benefit any future expansion of CtBG could offer is to increase the number of players beyond four. The chief problem is that it is important to set the starting locations so that nobody is positioned on the board at a tactical disadvantage relative to everyone else. So, for instance, you can't just build a square and set the fifth player in the middle. That would be an egregiously disadvantageous spot (that capital is primed get pounded from all directions.

I'm not a left-brained person, but I guess it would be possible to set up a six player game in a hexagon formation. Five players though...I have no idea how to do that using squares while maining symmetry among the starting locations.

Any thoughts?

I agree, good idea. The game will be very competitive too I think.

I just don't know if there's a valid way to arrange the board for more players. Maybe if an expansion replaced the squares tiles with hexes (which they should have done in the first place, and which Civ V did already),...

I think the following could be a decent layout:

..XOOX..

OOOOO

XOOOX

OOOOO

..XOOX..

X - Starting tile, O - Generic tile

The top and bottom row would be 4 tiles with the middle 3 rows having 5 tiles. The middle two civilisations might be slightly closer to the other civilisations but have slightly more space in the centre to explore and expand towards.

Span Argoman said:

I think it's very problematic to have the two players sandwiched in the middle, with each one within two squares of the other fiv civ's (whereas the players at the end are essentially shielded from the two at the opposite end). Basically, the center needs padding out.

I suppose any expansion would need to include hex tiles to replace the sqaures entirely, providing a Cataan-like hexagon.

I think it might be better for a game to not include all civilizations as it adds a wider range of versions of the game.

steveg700 said:

Hexes will not work. You are given only 6 outskirts to gather from, not 8 from the squares. This will greatly reduce the building options you have or end up having a huge board increasing the number of cities one could build. I believe the hexes where tested, but failed due to the resource gathering problem.