by Reid666
Here is the list of expansions that work well for me and my playgroup:1.Inns and Cathedrals - must have, great addition but simple
2.Traders & Builders - as above, must have, more tiles, few new rules, more stratety
3.Abbey & Major - we love it but only with very experience players, if you remove barn from the mix it gets more accessible
4.King - King and Robber Baron Tiles ads a lot of tension to the game and can score bit points!
5.Siege and the Cult - small additions, Siege lets you mess a bit with opponents ( but only a bit), Cult - more Cloisters, force more meeple management!
Expansions that were OK, but not fan favorite:
1.Princes and Dragon - too random and require too much managament and memorazing!
2.River and River II - contrary to many opinions those expansions don't ad anything to the game, only make board more spreed out, nice for people that like to avoid conflict!
3.Tunnels - small addition, but with only 4 tiles it's hard to justify extra rules. More of an distraction than expansion!
4.GQ Mini Expansion - just make game last longer, no new rules and new tile configurations are also available in other expansions.
Expansion that didn't work at all:
1.Bazars, bridges and castles - great ideas but extremely poorly implemented. Bridges makes fields the only feature thats importants. Bazars are boring and have really complicated rules. Castles require you to pay attention to them at all time to not miss opportunity to score points :(.
2.Tower - changes game completely, ads a lot of luck to the game, and just breaks the fun of building anything.
That's all, after that I didn't have enough balls to try new expansions. After reading rules the only one I'm interested in is Crop Circles and Phantom, the rest of them look like extremely forced and underdeveloped additions :(. They make new expansion just for the sake of making them and milking loyal supporters :(
Yes, I think the game jumped the shark a few years ago :(