I like expansions. I’m the kind of person who plays with every available expansion for a game, so CARCASSONNE and ARKHAM HORROR are now two-table affairs for me. I think good expansions can extend the lifecycle of a game tremendously while introducing new concepts and mechanics into established systems.

Sometimes it doesn’t work out—expansions like the absolutely awful YAKUZA expansion for CA$H AND GUN$ can wind up mucking up what was a perfectly great game or the superfluous SPICE HARVEST and DUEL add-ons for DUNE that only serve to indicate how perfect the base game was on its own. And then there’s the inevitability of the DOMINION expansions, which I predict will mostly be new cards with different abilities and very little actual renovation or extension of the game’s best ideas. Oh, and let’s not forget garbage expansions like everything ever released for BATTLELORE, where the idea is to string the purchaser along with teaser material and promises of better things to come that never materialize.

A good expansion adds variety, new ways of interacting with both the game and other players, and expands upon the existing themes. Some expansions, like those we regularly see for games that rely heavily on cards and executive theme like TALISMAN and ARKHAM HORROR can be effectively expanded simply with new adventure, item, and spell cards. New characters and new adversaries are usually in the mix, and I think those are great ways to impart freshness to the games. And then there are games like COSMIC ENCOUNTER where you get some of that and you also wind up, over the course of its nine expansion additional mechanics like Flares, Lucre, Moons, and so on. What happens with expansions like that is that you wind up with a veritable smorgasbord of options with which to season your game. That’s a great expansion model as well.

But the best expansions are the kind that take the base game and turn it into something radically different without losing the essence of what made the game great in the first place. New mechanics, procedures, and narrative elements can drastically change the scope of a game, and when it’s done right the result is an expansion that becomes an inseparable part of the core game. When I play an expansion and I think “we’ll never play without this again”, I know I’m not only increasing the value of a game I already own, but I’m also taking advantage of an opportunity to effectively rediscover the game again.

Here’s a list of my five favorite in-print and readily available expansions; I think that these are all tremendous examples of the power of an expansion to give you more for your money when you add them on to favorite titles you already own.

1) CITIES AND KNIGHTS

SEAFARERS was the first SETTLERS expansion and it was a great on in its own right as it moved the base game out of the static landmass setup and enabled players a lot more freedom to create smaller islands, build ships, engage in piracy, and even add an exploration element to the game. But it was small potatoes compared to the changes in CITIES AND KNIGHTS. C&K moves SETTLERS ever closer to a proper CIVILIZATION-style game by adding a couple of new ideas that find players actually developing cities through three different tech trees and earning potential benefits by way of development cards from their advancements. A stronger military element created by the titular knights makes blocking and more aggressive strategies possible. There is both a much stronger sense of theme when C&K is added to the base game as well as a more pronounced feeling of conflict and competition. Some people don’t like that the game is a little longer or that there is more “gotcha” to it, but I think it takes SETTLERS from being one of the best games ever published to being a candidate for THE best game ever published. The downside is that like all SETTLERS expansions, it only supports four players- you’ve got to get the 5-6 player expansion packs for everything to get the complete set.