Taking Tiles out of Tikal

I suggested a while ago that a 2-player modification for Tikal might be to take some land tiles out of the stack. My hope was that this would create more competition for scoring resources by making the playing space smaller.

I was a little concerned about upsetting other play balance issues, so I took out 1 blank land tile from each letter group (7 total). I think it helped a little, but was too incremental a change.

It did make the board smaller. However, there were the same number of scoring opportunities so it did not force increased competition. I think it made it easier to poach some scoring chances because everything was closer together, but it did force you to.

On the other hand, it made the game go a lot quicker.

I think next time we try taking a random tile out of each grouping (excepting the volcanoes of course). That way we will be making scoring opportunities rarer and thus increase competition.