Friday Night Shots – Expansions: Yea or Nay?

It’s Friday.

A long week is finished and it’s time to sit back, relax, have some good food and a drink of some kind (whatever kind you like).

There’s plenty of soft music in the background too.

This isn’t so much of an issue with wargames (so sorry to the usual readers of this post), but my topic of discussion today is expansions.

Are they good? Are they bad? Are they unnecessary? Or are they must-haves?

Like I said, wargames don’t have this very often, though some games are starting to dip their toes in the expansion pool.

I think it’s mainly COIN games that are doing that, right?

And Combat Commander, of course, though really only two.

I don’t count Battle Packs as expansions, though some may beg to differ.

This is different from “series,” which wargames do in abundance.

Hell, The Last Hundred Yards is up to four volumes in the series now!

Or will be when The Russian Front finally releases.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah, expansions.

Many games (it feels like “most,” but there are a shit-ton of games out there so I’m sure the total is under 50%) have one or two expansions.

Some games even leave themselves open to expansions right from the get go!

Other times, expansions are almost afterthoughts that still make the game better, like an absent-minded professor suddenly realizing that ketchup just might make that dry burger taste better.

Garphill Games usually has expansions for their games (or at least their series games), and they seem to be planned ahead of time.

Hell, Wayfarers of the South Tigris (yes, a review is coming one of these days when I get off my ass) comes in a box where the insert is open to holding a bunch more stuff.

You might ask the question.

“Dave, are black holes singularities that can take you to another universe?”

And I would answer “why the hell are you asking me that? Do I look like Stephen Hawking?”

You might also ask me “Dave, if they are planning expansions anyway, isn’t it kind of a rip-off that they don’t include it all in the base game to begin with?”

And I have an excellent answer.

I’m not a game designer or publisher, so this isn’t based on any raw data or anything.

And I could be wrong! (Editor: “That’s the whiskey talking, I’m sure.”)

Let’s say a game costs $60. The expansions could cost $20-30 each.

If all of that content is in the base game, do you want to pay $90-100 for the game?

Or even more?

Also, expansions give the players a choice of whether they want to include the extra stuff or not.

Some people love the base game and don’t think it needs any more.

Others love tons of new stuff!

If it all came at the beginning, some players might be really overwhelmed.

Sometimes a base game has one fundamental flaw and when they produce the first expansion, that flaw is fixed!

Of course, the best example of that is Viticulture and how the Tuscany expansion apparently made the whole game so much better (Tom Vasel gave the original game a 6 but after Tuscany along with adding a couple of rules like the Grande worker, it rocketed into his Top 100).

I’ve only played the Essential Edition of Viticulture, so I don’t have any experience with that, but that’s one case where an expansion (or rules change) can reinvigorate a game.

Even Garphill Games can do this somewhat.

Architects of the West Kingdom is one of my favourite games, but one of the small problems with it is the inability to wipe the townsfolk rows if none of them are of interest to any of the players.

The first expansion, Age of Artisans, alleviates that by adding places in the Guild Hall where the front two apprentices are dismissed.

There is even an Adornment that lets you wipe the whole thing!

Ideally, a game wouldn’t have a flaw that needs to be fixed with an expansion, but that can always happen no matter how much playtesting is done.

When you have the masses trying to break a game, sometimes parts of the game might just be weaker than other parts.

I haven’t played any of the Teotihuacan expansions yet, but I know some of them address things like how masks don’t really do much in the base game. If you’re collecting masks over doing other things, you are going to lose.

In this case, the expansions give more avenues for players to pursue, strengthening things from the base game that might just be a little weaker than was intended.

But sometimes, it’s just more stuff.

And it’s cool stuff!

The Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition expansions are not technically necessary for the base game.

The base game is great by itself.

But the expansions (other than the cooperative one, which I really have no interest in) take the game to the next level for us.

I would definitely play the game regardless, but if the expansions are available, I wouldn’t play without them.

There is one thing that sometimes comes up with expansions that I don’t often hear much about.

That’s the completionist in many of us.

I have games that I haven’t even gotten to the table yet. But when an expansion comes out, many times I’m right there to get it.

Lately, I’ve been able to resist that, at least to some extent.

I have Lost Ruins of Arnak but I haven’t played it yet (other than on Boardgame Arena).

There is one expansion out now and another one coming, and I haven’t even thought about getting them.

Maybe I’m learning?

I like to think so.

On the other hand, there are some games where I’ve played the base game and bought the expansion(s) and I just haven’t gotten the game to the table with the expansions yet.

What am I waiting for?

That will never happen with a Garphill Game, but it can happen with others.

There are some people on Boardgame Geek who state that expansions are worthless and they never buy any of them.

If they are getting enjoyment out of the base game, then more power to them.

I just don’t agree with their reasoning for myself.

What about you?

Do you buy expansions? All of them? None of them?

The occasional one?

Let me know in the comments.

Now that we’re at the end, I do want to say how much I appreciate you and I hope you enjoy these Friday night posts.

I enjoy doing them. Lighthearted topics (or maybe not so lighthearted sometimes) and not always fueled by booze.

Ok, somewhat, but not totally.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

(This post brought to you by Canadian Club, the number 1236, and the letter Ñ)