Which boardgames need expansion sets before they work properly?

Question

I think, sad to say, this is still a common problem in modern boardgaming. You buy a game and it's maybe okay, but then you discover that there's an expansion set that makes all the difference. If you don't go out and buy that too, you're not really experiencing the game as it was meant to be played.

It's in all of our interests as consumers to know which games are going to be satisfactory straight out of the box, and which have hidden costs involved. Which games in your collection wouldn't really be complete without one or more of their expansions? Obviously I don't want vague answers like "Dominion is really good but Dominion with all the expansions is even better": please provide concrete explanations of the actual problems a game's base set has, and how the expansion set goes on to fix them, if possible!

I have a bugbear or two of my own to tell you about, but rather than shoehorn them into the question as "examples", I'll post them as an answer below!

Answer 1

Civilization

It's really a great game, but the so-called "expansion" Advanced Civilization is actually more of a "revised version", which fixes things which were a bit broken, and adds some variety.

Answer 2

Most of the time, I think the point of expansions is to improve replayability. Most games are fine without any expansions, but might get boring after you play them enough time. How many 'enough' is varies greatly on the game, but the approach I'll take toward the question is what games have relatively little re-playability without expansions.

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Citadels is one that plays fine without the dark city expansion, but Dark City adds SO much new variety its hard to imagine playing without it. With just the base there's one possible set of 8 characters; with the expansion there's 256 possibilities with 8, and an extra 256 if you play with 9. There won't always be a gigantic change when you switch some characters, but there's definitely at least 20 different combination that all make the game completely different and require a total recalibration of strategy. The later editions of the game mostly come with the Dark City expansion in the box.

Settlers of Catan is another where the expansions add a huge amount a re-playability. The base has a significant number of different maps, but as with Citadels the expansions increase the possibilities of the island exponentially, not to mention giving some completely different strategies. Ending up with smaller surrounding islands with Seafarers will definitely change your building plans, and you'll probably think differently about your military if you have to worry about being attacked in Cities and Knights.

Countless more games have similar situations, like Dominion, Three Dragon Ante, Carcassonne, Pandemic, and probably at least 200 others. IMHO any good expansion should add a lot of re-playability.

Are they satisfactory without the expansions? Definitely. Are they really complete? That's a matter of opinion. Is the Dominion base set complete because it has 3,268,760 possible kingdom sets of 10? Or is it not complete until you have at least one big expansion and 10,272,278,170 possibilities? Or 2 big expansions and 828,931,106,355 possibilities? Or all the first 4 expansions and the 3 promo cards and 6.20885664 × 10^13?

I totally agree that there are some games that aren't very good standalone. My point is that the definition of completeness if very subjective. :D

Answer 3

Here's my big one:

St Petersburg

This is a pretty good mid-range boardgame, but its basic set has some serious problems. It contains cards which are significantly undercosted, like the cheap Observatory and the seriously overpowered Mistress of Ceremonies. Rather than fix these cards in a new printing of the base game, they released an expansion which contains replacements for the broken cards, as well as a 5-player option, and a few dozen new cards. The problem being that this box costs over $20 for, basically, a slim deck of tiny undersized cards! I really like fixed St Petersburg, but my local independent game store refuses to stock the expansion for being a rip-off, and I can't really fault his reasoning.

And a couple of minor quibbles for good measure. Carcassonne I love, but the basic game is a pretty simplistic thing before you add in at least Traders & Builders and Inns & Cathedrals. I guess most people buy the Carcassonne Big Box these days for value, so it isn't often a problem... but some people may buy the basic set and not realise they're not getting anywhere near the full Carcassonne experience.

Agricola is my favourite game ever, and it's superb straight out of the box, but I have to say I find it difficult to imagine going back after experiencing the Farmers of the Moor expansion. There are some dominant strategies in basic Agricola, like building rooms for early Family Growth, that are hard to escape from: I have friends who have gotten bored of Agricola because, in their opinion, it's too obvious what move they should take at any turn, just take the resource that the other players have allowed to build up the most. Farmers of the Moor really does fix all of that: now that you have to pay to heat your house, building lots of wooden rooms to fill with people is no longer a no-brainer strategy. And the Free Actions really do give the starting player an agonizing choice between getting a choice pile of resources or an extra action in the turn. Agricola is great, but FotM just makes it near perfect in my opinion. Of course, the cost of both boxes is going to be well into three figures of dollars... :-/

Answer 4

Alhambra

The basic game has very little variation and really only two methods to score victory points... buy buildings and place them so you have long walls.

The expansions each add some small element to the game, many of which are alternate methods of scoring victory points, but some of them are minor gameplay changes which create more interesting variations.

Bazaars as an example, are a tile which are more valuable the more tiles of particular types that are adjacent to it. Treasure Chamber lets you buy and stow chests in your Alhambra for VPs.

On the other hand the expansion with coins gives you change for overpaying for tiles! These little things help make an otherwise fairly humdrum tile drawing game into something pretty cool. Or the thief you can use to steal money cards when it's not your turn.

There are multiple expansions and each comes with four of these game play elements and they are completely independent of one another. So you don't have to own them all, or even play with more than one or two of them. You can have a bit of variety every time.

Answer 5

Cosmic Encounter, 1977 version (Eon games). This may have been the game that launched the expansion set trend, so worth describing for the historical value:

Original: Nice idea but not enough variation in Alien powers or edicts to make it interesting for more than a few games and limited to 4 players max.

Expansions 1-3: Worth buying for adding players 5 and 6 and a little more variation thanks to more powers and edicts, but the game still did not have strong replayability power.

Expansion 4: Flare cards added, which tremendously added to the variability of initial conditions and outcomes. Getting the basic set and expansions 1-4 is enough to get hundreds of games of enjoyment.

Expansion 5: Added moons. Most people I know hated moons and never used them. Was not a necessary building block for future expansions.

Expansion 6: Added lucre (a money system) and powers. It did add variation but some people liked it, some didn't. Best bought in conjunction with Expansion 8.

Expansion 7: Added powers. Best bought in conjunction with Expansion 8.

Expansion 8: Added the flare cards for the powers added in Expansions 6, 7, and 9. Therefore a required purchase for those who bought any expansions above #5. Also added kicker cards, a welcome addition among those I gamed with.

Expansion 9: Added a single power (the Aristocrat) and rules/stickers needed for inverse play. The inverse rules were not liked by those I played with so this expansion could have been skipped (though Aristocrat was well loved).

Comments: This is the only game system I've used where the basic set is so boring that it's essentially a requirement to buy expansion sets (1-4 at a minimum). However, the expansion sets were sold in thin plastic bags at a low cost ($5-$6 for each expansion kit). So buying the basic set plus expansions 1-4 was the equivalent of paying for 2 games.

Answer 6

It's funny that you mention Dominion.

Dominion's base set doesn't have any problems that require you to buy the expansions, but the Base set is extremely weak on variation. In my opinion, Intrigue makes a much better starting set.

Other expansions are optional.

Answer 7

My vote is Twilight Imperium. They made a lot of changes to the base game that really improved it.

Answer 8

I'd definitely agree with previous mentions of Catan and Carcassonne (although I've only played the latter on the 360, it also has available expansions, so I will assume the experience is the same with the original version).

From personal experience, I'd also suggest Talisman. (I think 2nd edition is what I've played.) It may be a fun game with just the base set - I can't say because we never played just with that - but if you add the Dungeon and City expansions, as well as the base Expansion, you've got a much deeper game. (I don't remember if we actually tried to tie in the Timescape expansion as well ... after a certain point, there can be too many options.)

Games like that, ones that have expansions that don't depend on each other, give you a lot of options in terms of replayability ... and you'll always have the original game if you want a simpler, scaled-down game night once in a while.