Tikal

Lots of people know and love Tikal, its really a very good game and a classic example of modern German game design with the whole 10 points to spend on differing actions every turn mechanic.

As usual I will not bog myself down in describing the game, other people can do that:

Rainy Day Games

Board Game Geek

I've never played the auction variation because I play rarely enough that I feel I like I should just do the basic version. I've also not felt like I needed something extra with the strategy. That said, I have found that the 2-player version of the game can be a little lacking.

The problem with 2-player is that you aren't forced to compete as much with your opponent for temples (and treasure to a lesser extent). I think this happens because two people can very easily use all their expeditioneers to simply cover "their" half of the board. When there are 3 or 4 people you are almost forced to try to steal control of temples from others.

What's the fix for that? Making the board smaller seems like the obvious play. However, if I take tiles out of the mix (thus reducing the size of the board) I will also be reducing the the length of the game. I'm not sure what affect that will have, but it should be worth a try.

I'll keep you all informed.