[Cross posted from main forum]
When I first read about the alternate gates on the MH mythos cards I began to wonder about how far this would go toward addressing the dilution problem when using DH and/or IH with other expansions. Now that I have the game and have crunched the numbers I can say that overall things look very good.
For those who don't want to read the details, here's the summary:
if you want the likelihood of gates opening in Dunwich and/or Innsmouth to be no
worse
than what happens when you play with the base game and
just
DH and/or IH then:
- Play with MH (doh!)
- Add in DH and/or IH
- Add no more than two of the remaining expansions.
That's it - there is no need to bother with any of the special anti dilution rules.
Now for the details.
The common complaint about dilution is that when you add on expansions to the game in addition to DH and/or IH, then the likelihood of gates appearing in Dunwich / Innsmouth locations start to plummet. In the case of Dunwich this means the chance of the Dunwich Horror waking up (not that great to begin with) goes down to practically nothing. For instance, if you add in both KH and a small expansion (say KiY) when using the DH, the chance of a gate opening in Dunwich goes from one gate in four down to roughly one gate in six!
So the question is, what does MH do for us? There are lots of combinations that could be considered, however for the purposes of number crunching, it all comes down to the following
- CotDP, KiY, KH, BGotW, and LatT mythos cards only open gates in Arkham. Also, they each have roughly the same number of mythos cards that open gates (18 cards for three of the expansions).
- DH and IH mythos can open gates outside Arkham
- MH mythos can open gates anywhere depending on what expansions are in play.
So, I'm going to focus on what happens when we start with DH and/or IH and add in expansions from the first group (CotDP, KiY, KH, BGotW, LatT).
DH only
When just the base game, 25% of the gates appear in a Dunwich location - so 25% is the "non diluted" likelihood. Before looking at adding in expansions, it's worth noting that adding just MH changes this number: now 29% of the gates will appear in Dunwich locations (yeah!)
DH plus
one
from (CotDP, KiY, KH, BGotW, LaTT)
Using MH: 26% of the gates appear in Dunwich locations (without MH: 21%).
DH plus
two
from (CotDP, KiY, KH, BGotW, LatT)
Using MH: 23% of the gates appear in Dunwich locations (without MH: 18%)
Note: this is below the non diluted %, but I'd consider it close enough to use (especially if one of the expansions added is KH).
IH only
When just with the base game, 33% of the gates appear in an Innsmouth location. Adding just MH changes this number: now 40% of the gates will appear in Innsmouth locations (ouch!)
IH plus
one
from (CotDP, KiY, KH, BGotW, LatT)
With MH: 35% of the gates appear in Innsmouth locations (without MH: 28%)
IH plus
two
from (CotDP, KiY, KH, BGotW, LatT)
WIth MH: 32% of the gates appear in Innsmouth locations (without MH: 24%)
Note: just a hair under the non diluted %, however if one of the expansions is KH, then I'd go with this.
DH and IH
With just the base game, 43% of the gates appear in locations outside of Arkham (19% in Dunwich, 24% in Innmsouth). Again, adding just MH changes things: now 55% of the gates appearing in locations outside of Arkham (23% in Dunwich, 32% in Innsmouth).
DH, IH and
one
from (CotDP, KiY, KH, BGotW, LatT)
With MH: 50% of the gates appear in locations outside Arkham (21% in Dunwich, 29% in Innsmouth) - without HM this drops to 38% (16% in Dunwich, 22% in Innsmouth)
DH, IH and
two
from (CotDP, KiY, KH, BGotW, LatT)
With MH: 45% of the gates appear outside Arkham (19% in Dunwich, 26% in Innsmouth) - without MH this drops to 34% (15% in Dunwich, 19% in Innsmouth)
All in all, I think FFG did a great job. You can start with DH and/or IH, add in one small box if you want, then add in KH as well and gates will appear in locations as if you were using just the original game with DH and/or IH and no other expansions. And, for those who think that Dunwich and/or Innsmouth don't get enough gates, well then just add MH and no other expansions and the towns will get more busy than they did before.
