by davypi
+1 to the above comment. Town Hall and Bank can score huge in a 2P, especially if one player is allowed to build out more than the other. The church's ability is rarely useful at any player count, but the point return on resources is one of the best in the game. Its not there to be used, its there to be built.I often run a house rule that we use the 3P building setup in a 2P game. It encourages players to build more and rely less on shipping strategies. A few warnings though. First, the Town Hall and Bank become insanely powerful. The more building you have in the game, the higher they score. Second, the Black Market has the potential to becoem dangerous. If the building comes out early when players are still frequently taking offers, you can create situations where the Black market can spit out three or four pair of goods. Sometimes it actually becomes a bit of a chess match. "I really need those three clay, but if I pick them up, you can get three resources in the Black Market..."
If you want to use the correct amount of cards, I also used to have a variant setup where certain critical buildings (i.e. brick works, bakery, steel works, a wharf, etc.) had to be in the game. We would then cut the deck in half and do a draft. Each player would choose one building to include. We would reveal, swap decks, and choose again until we got the correct amount. This allows each player to choose how they want to balance the abilities present in the game.
