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.

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.