Friends with Benefits

“Mod it Monday”

Over the years I’ve come across a number of tweaks and mods for games that IMHO improve them quite a bit. These are usually decent games to start with but some clever folks have applied brain power and made them even better. I’m now going to share a few of those and hopefully like a new graphics card In your PC, breath some new life into some old games

First up is the venerable Settlers of Catan

A complaint sometimes wheeled out (mostly by LOSERS) is that’s when someone gets ahead it’s real hard to come from behind (feel free to insert appropriate oh errs or giggities right there). The welfare rules are clever and make this game a real close run race.  I don’t play Catan anymore without them.  Here’s how it works

First you’ll need a number of welfare tokens.  An ordinary deck of cards works well.

After each roll for resources, every player who didn’t get a resource gets a card from the deck (a welfare chit if you will).  During a player’s turn they can cash in the cards at an exchange rate of what their score currently for one resource of their choice.  That’s it.

So early on since you start with two points resources cost two cards each.  As you progress the exchange rate will get higher as you score.  It’s a real equalizer.  Play a few games this way and you’ll see some interesting possibilities like holding back and making a sprint for the finish with welfare chits.  It really makes for an interesting game.

Tell you what, don’t trust me (sound advice), try it for yourself and let me know what you think

 

Huzzah!

Vic