Topic about Expanded “lore friendly” regions

[Melkovid]

Something that's been debated many times but never implemented… Seems to be too simplistic for those who would like a more refined solution to the site path abusive manipulation that we all know in expanded format.

On top of the rule of 3 sites with the same twilight, I think it would make a lot of sense to recreate the sense of increased difficulty once the fellowship reaches site 4+ similar to the way the game was played at first and also consistent with the lore with escalating difficulties and dooms and deaths as the fellowship advances to mount doom.

This effectively kills many broken combos and balances some crazy cards like Led Astray, Nelya etc. Seems that most powerful and broken sites would be in region 1 by the way.

So here we go:

- Region 1 "Fellowship of the ring region" (all based on which movie features the card. For instance zirakzigil is shown in Jackson's two towers so that's a region 2 site)

- Abandoned mine shaft
- Anduin Banks
- Anduin River
- Breeding pit of Isengard
- Buckland Homestead
- Doors of Durin
- East road
- Emyn Muil
- Streets of Bree
- The angle
- The bridge of khazad dum
- Woody end
- The great gates
- Anduin confluence
- Ettenmoors
- Expanding Marshland
- Neekersbreekers bog
- Shores of nen Hithoel
- Barazinbar
- Caras Galadhon
- Chamber of Mazarbul
- Hill of sight
- Hobbiton Market
- Moria Stairway
- Redhorn Pass
- west gate of Moria
- Dammed Gate stream
- Green dragon inn
- heights of Isengard
- Imladris
- Moria guardroom
- Old forest road
- North Undeep
- Starkhorn
- The prancing pony
- Trollshaw forest
- Valley of the silverlode
- Sirannon Ruins

- Region 2 "Two towers region"

- crags of Emyn Muil
- Dol Guldur ( When is dol guldur even shown in the trilogy?)
- Fangorn Glade
- Fortress of Orthanc
- Isenwash
- Cavern entrance
- Rohan uplands
- flats of Rohan
- fords of Isen
- Helm's gate
- mere of dead faces
- Osgiliath reclaimed
- stables
- westemnet village
- Westfold village
- window on the west
- Wold battlefield
- Caves of Aglarond
- East wall of Rohan
- Falls of Rauros
- Harrowdale
- pinnacle of Zirakzigil

- Region 3 "Return of the King region"

- courtyard parapet
- gates of Mordor
- City gates
- doorway to Doom
- Isengard ruined
- Morannon plains
- Northern Pelennor
- Nurn
- Pellenor fields
- Pellenor Flat
- Slag mounds
- Slopes of orodruin
- Steward's tomb
- Watch tower of Cirith Ungol
- Foot of Mount Doom
- Mithlond
- City of Kings
- Crossroad of the fallen kings
- Mount doom

I haven't thought of what the meta would become. I just think it would be great to get that format out and start play testing it and go from there.

[Ringbearer]

I think it would make Expanded even more boring. You are adding another restriction purely for flavor taste, which by itself will do little for recurring sites. Between the region you would still see people manipulate sites so someone walks to the Bridge three times for example.

Site manipulation is a thing indeed but this would not be the solution to solve it, not to mention that lot of Shire sites do feature in RotK as well in the ending scenes.

[Tunadan]

I think that doing this is perhaps an overkill solution. For instance, you've immediately made Woody-End a useless site because nobody uses it in region 1. I agree that there are certain strategies with site manipulation that are a NPE, but that could even be solved by either errata to certain sites, or only allowing certain sites in certain regions.

[Melkovid]

lot of Shire sites do feature in RotK as well in the ending scenes.

Literally not a single one? All those shire sites have images from the first movie.

someone walks to the Bridge three times for example.

Wait how, if the bridge of KD is region 1 you can only get there twice and the Balrog is roaming anyway. So effectively it means the Balrog costs -1. Compare to now when you can get hit by it many more times and the Balrog costs -3. Idk why the bridge is always cited as a counter example when in fact limiting it to region 1 solves a couple of broken combos in the Orc culture and prevents abuse of Till durin wakes again


Only allowing certain sites in certain regions makes sense too.

Killing some sites isn't that big of a deal VS preventing mass abuse of the same problematic sites that everybody overplays. Woody end can be used on site 3 to pull back Nazgûls. It also counts as a forest

I don't find expanded boring at all by the way. Most fun format for me once I figured out some of its meta. Def true that some stuff is NPE and broken shadow + sites combos make it next to impossible for fellowships to double move.

[Ringbearer]

lot of Shire sites do feature in RotK as well in the ending scenes.

Literally not a single one? All those shire sites have images from the first movie.

That's not what you say in your post. You say where it appears. The Green Dragon for example appears in RoTK as well. And Baranzibar appears at the start of TTT for example. Osgiliath Reclaimed appears in RotK as well.

Point that I am saying is that its very ambiguous to say which sites appears in which movie. If you want to try it, good luck with you but I doubt it will catch on.

[Melkovid]

Green dragon inn is a reprint of a card from FOTR block so I'm assuming they've picked the exact same scene which is in movie 1

You're correct about Barazinbar my bad that's from TTT intro. Should be a region 2 site

Osgiliath reclaimed I'm pretty sure is from TTT before faramir releases Frodo Sam and Smeagol since it's much darker in ROTK when the orcs assault it. That photo is from movie 2. 

I appreciate the negativity about something new not catching on, meanwhile there's been many formats and PC Cards that never really caught on anyway so let's never try to solve the problem of broken sites and shadow combos in expanded, makes a lot of sense.