Core expansions and compatibility

[Needmora]

Hello everyone. I am not an expert at all but want to buy several expansions to make the game more fun, so I wanted to know what are the core expansions which you would nor mix and what are great combinations. As I understand, I can mix anything I want, but I could get a complete piece of trash, right? So if you had to choose which sets would you buy to combine

[Really Impressive Title]

I have 6 (double dungeons), 3 and 5. And though I haven’t played a whole lot of games with all three expansions, they seem to work (and shuffle) pretty well together. That said, I’m beginning to understand that getting the expansions in numerical order is probably the best way to go. Each subsequent pack was obviously made with the previous available cards in mind, so if you’re looking for a purist kind of approach I would get them linearly. However, if you want some real game-changing mechanics, you can probably grab 6 once you‘re a couple expansions in. Either way!

[Fufu]

Munchkin Mini-Expansions are very useful. These mini-expansions keep those Munchkin door and treasure decks low.

[Really Impressive Title]

So I've spent the last few nights working on a little spread sheet:

While I don't have every card from every core expansion to reference (no card listing on the website for Munchkin 9) I used what cards where listed to track some total percentage values of certain cards. -- I wanted to see how each new main expansion (in linear order) affected the original deck's balance.

For instance, I can track (just based on card name) how many Wandering Monster cards are in each expansion. With those numbers I then tracked the percentage of that card from set to set to see how that card balances out with each new main product.

And, turns out, Steve Jackson Games must have some pretty smart people making these new additions. -- Wandering Monster cards (3) make up 1.79% of the original 168 cards. If you buy and add all of the main expansions in order (no additional mini-packs), by the time you get to Half Horse, Will Travel they take up exactly 1.79% of the collective 836 cards. You, mathematically, have the same odds of drawing a Wandering Monster with 8 expansions (not including 6's added Portal cards) as you would in the original game. Which is kind of bananas... except for the fact that of course SJG already thought of this for us!

You'll also notice, when you buy the expansions in order, that the Class and Race cards stay perfectly even. De-Ranged comes with 6 Ranger cards and 0 of the previous classes because, up until that point, each class already had 6 cards a piece by the 4th expansion. So if you bought De-Ranged out of order you could end up having as few as 3 of each original class and 6 Rangers. -- Twice as many! -- Rangers would (statistically) rule the game and most players' character traits.


Cheat with Both Hands skewed the balance pretty significantly (it was meant to be used with more than one Munchkin game) but actually the balance was pretty much restored by the time we got to Jurassic Snark.


So basically, with the power of math (and a concerned wife) I reverse-engineered SJG's quality-control and game balance practices and PROVED that they take a fun, functioning, balanced game very VERY seriously!

And with all this data (I should have all the expansions by xmas) I'll actually be able to determine what types of cards from the booster packs and promos can be added incrementally to keep the game's original balance in tact. -- I'll post about it when I've collected everything.


So yeah, buy them in order. And try to buy 7 and 8 (and probably 9) simultaneously. -- #mathisfun