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dmazeDeal the initial cards normally. In addition to the normal contracts, flip up three contract cards, as in a "public contracts" variant. When you fill a contract, take your choice of one of the face-up contract cards and replace it from the deck; if the replacement is an event, resolve the event as usual and draw a new card. If you discard contracts, draw new ones from the face-up cards one at a time, replenishing after each card.
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narya and I tried this out last night playing conventional Empire Builder. I wound up doing extremely well on a Mexico-to-Seattle route, with a spur up to Chicago for connectivity. Being able to pick contracts meant that exotic routes were easier to run, since I can not only pick up "I know that once I'm in Seattle I can get nickel and bring it back to Chihuahua" but I can also pick up the load for "if I take coffee to Seattle then the next card I pick will be steel to Seattle".
I don't have a strong feel for how much this throws the game balance off. There's certainly more possibility to attack other players by picking off contracts they might do; with more players (or our two-train variant), it's also likely that contracts won't stay up for as long. On the flip side, Iron Dragon definitely has some annoying contract cards that you wouldn't pick given an option (a couple with no high values, at least one where you have a choice of shipping to or from the underground or taking 10 GP) that might clog the board longer until someone took one out of desparation.
narya and I tried this out last night playing conventional Empire Builder. I wound up doing extremely well on a Mexico-to-Seattle route, with a spur up to Chicago for connectivity. Being able to pick contracts meant that exotic routes were easier to run, since I can not only pick up "I know that once I'm in Seattle I can get nickel and bring it back to Chihuahua" but I can also pick up the load for "if I take coffee to Seattle then the next card I pick will be steel to Seattle".I don't have a strong feel for how much this throws the game balance off. There's certainly more possibility to attack other players by picking off contracts they might do; with more players (or our two-train variant), it's also likely that contracts won't stay up for as long. On the flip side, Iron Dragon definitely has some annoying contract cards that you wouldn't pick given an option (a couple with no high values, at least one where you have a choice of shipping to or from the underground or taking 10 GP) that might clog the board longer until someone took one out of desparation.
