by Salimo
Whymme wrote:
RotA makes it possible to play with more than six players. If you want to do so, you will need more tiles because of the different lay-out (players start in ring 3 instead of ring 2) and to give everyone enough room to explore outwards. Further, there are some extra tiles that add new features to the game, such as warp gates and Ancient homeworlds.
I'm not sure you really answered my question, I have the expansion and am aware of all of the specific new tiles and how they fit into the game based on the group's desires.
My question is specifically regarding the 6 new regular hexes (#213, 320-324). I can't find mention of them anywhere in the rules. Even the 7-9 player variant does not specifically instruct players to add the 6 new tiles to the starting hex piles. Lindyhopper's comment seems to be in line with my assumption.
On second thought, and I just noticed this while typing this response...the right hand side of page 12, the 7-9 player game page, has a graphic listing the quantity of hexes required for the middle & outer sectors for 7, 8, & 9 players. I checked the base game and it only comes with 11 middle hexes & 18 outer hexes. The graphic on pg 12 of the RotA rules indicates a 7-9 player game needs 12 middle hexes (thus the new regular single middle sector hex). It then indicates a 7 player game needing 22 outer hexes and a 8 or 9 player game needing 24 outer hexes.
This has been a little unclear because the new hexes are not mentioned in the preparations section of page 12. So now my interpretation is that the new regular hexes are supposed to be for the 7-9 player game, especially if that game is not going to have any of the other new dedicated tiles added to the base game.
So now, I'd like to hear about the pros & cons of mixing them into the base game with less than 7 players...does it affect the game much, or at all. There has to be a balance change of some sort with them in the mix, right?