House rules for Krieg & Frieden

By Andy Merritt, but based on those in Counter by Stuart Dagger.

1) Generally up the values of all VP generators to reduce the relative value of the final cathedral piece.  Note that this has a relatively minor effect in this area (not enough to eliminate the problem that the winner of the last round often wins the entire game).

Winning a privilege: 2VP
1st-3rd piece of cathedral 2VP
4th-5th piece of cathedral 3VP
6th piece of cathedral 4VP
Still add just 1VP per serf set aside for building

2) End of game extra scoring for cards remaining in hands.

For the player who has the most (non zero) cards in each of the resource types a bonus of 2VP is awarded.  If several players have equal highest numbers of a resource type then each of these players is awarded 1VP.

Thus 8 more VP are available at the end of the game, and the player who manages to build the last cathedral space is unlikely to get any of them.  This gives more options when it comes to the final round and getting a couple of these bonuses can make up for not building the last cathedral piece quite easily.

3) When successfully attacking a player with a knight, rather than getting 2 resources randomly drawn from the stockpile, instead 1/3 of the cards the victim holds (round down) are selected at random and these are plundered.

This has the effect of making it less desirable to pick on the weak (who have fewer cards to defend themselves with), and more profitable to pick on the leader as they will likely have many cards (and if not can be knocked back a hut or two).

This house rule is clearly not related to the generally perceived end-game problem.