Play the duke with a variant of the hoplomachus deployment: draw three tiles and have them ready, openly visible, when you bring in a piece take it from the deployment area and fill it up from the bag. Possibly add the rule that the deployment area can’t be having holes, so if the bag is empty, the last pieces in deployment are not available (prevents to keep some joker back in deployment until the last moment – you have to use it or lose it). Since tiles are open, opponents see what you have available and can plan accordingly. Makes placement of tiles much more strategic but keeps replayability high by providing different setups and reaction options.

Play the duke with a variant of the hoplomachus deployment: draw three tiles and have them ready, openly visible, when you bring in a piece take it from the deployment area and fill it up from the bag. Possibly add the rule that the deployment area can’t be having holes, so if the bag is empty, the last pieces in deployment are not available (prevents to keep some joker back in deployment until the last moment – you have to use it or lose it). Since tiles are open, opponents see what you have available and can plan accordingly. Makes placement of tiles much more strategic but keeps replayability high by providing different setups and reaction options.

points to the requirement “standard deck of playing cards” 😉

points to the requirement “standard deck of playing cards” 😉

Kashgar: Händler der Seidenstraße is a good one for that. You build up three caravans with kinda a deck-building mechanism and when you get a really good one set up, you can run it round and round and round for the rest of the game (key is removing cards from a caravan that actually make them longer – that way you have the optimal order of cards you run through every round). Fun one, at least for me.

Kashgar: Händler der Seidenstraße is a good one for that. You build up three caravans with kinda a deck-building mechanism and when you get a really good one set up, you can run it round and round and round for the rest of the game (key is removing cards from a caravan that actually make them longer – that way you have the optimal order of cards you run through every round). Fun one, at least for me.