That's not how the TM auction works. First, four factions are selected, one per player. Everyone can see how many color neighbors each one has. From this information (and the score track, bonus tiles, turn order, etc) players start to bid VP on which faction they want to play. They know all of the info before bidding starts.Phoxtrot wrote: ↑19 February 2024, 11:36 For me, the biggest balance problem isn't the faction in itself.
It's having 0, 1 or 2 opponents playing an adjacent color.
So I don't think that the TM auction is actually the best to balance as you are bidding without necessarily knowing how many adjacent colors will be played to each of the popular factions.
It would be the same in Terra Nova and tbh it is sorely needed. Just like Terra Mystica, the factions are quite unbalanced and there's typically no reason to play Water Sprites or Fakirs unless they can start with extra VP. The auction-less game is decided by faction selection, even more so than the other games in the series. This is a really great fast version of TM but it's languishing as a casual game when it could be the next craze.