This sounds fun.

When you say "No routes may be built into a city controlled by the Highwaymen" do you mean players can't claim a route that includes the city or just that no office can be placed in the city?

Thank you!

Actually I meant that no player may play that city card down in front of them while the Highwayen control it. You can both claim the route if you already have the card in front of you and place an office there.

Sorry about the confusion, I have edited my initial post

OK - I'll suggest this next time we play.

Scenario: All 3 cards of a city available.
Now i can take one, and then move the Robber into that city, causing the other cards to disappear?
Or move him to replace 3 cards, hoping for the perfect card, while still being sure that something useful stays?
Sounds too strong for me.

Well, with the standard rules you can still do the same thing (take one and flush the other two). Only by doing it the way you describe would actually hurt yourself more as you must move the Highwaymen again to play the card you just took.

The point of discarding the cards is that it makes the city seem less accessible because of the Higwaymen. For example, you know that the first city the Higwaymen starts in will have a lower probability of showing up the first turns and you will have to waste available resources to get through to it. And then you open it up to the other players who will have an easier time getting there than you. But then again you made access more difficult to another town, preferably one that you already have an office in .

Thank you for the feedback!

I think you're playing this wrong. If you use the Administrator to discard all face up cards you must use it before you pick up a card.

Oh...

Well I guess I must have been. So I guess you just got to move the Highwaymen before you pick a card as well (dang, I really liked flushing the cards, it made me happy )

But still I do not think it is to strong. You are after all wasting an action to mess with the other players. I had both a weaker version of this variant (discard the top card to reveal the Highwaymens next location) and a stronger one (additionally you need to discard a card from hand to move the Highwaymen) and I settled for this one.

But I guess not flushing the cards would have less impact on the flow of the game while increasing player interaction just a tad.

Again, thanks for the feedback

I have changed the wording according to your observations.

The player may discard and replace one card on the board picturing that city.

Happy -ing!

It would keep the game historically correct as I heard Dich Von Turpin used to roam at that time ....

actually we liked the idea of the highwayman blocks play in 2 ways:

1) if the card matching the highwayman is part of your route already (in otherwords if you already had the card as part of your route and then the highway man was moved to that city), you CAN NOT place a post office where the highwayman stands when claiming that route, but, can still play a route across that city and receive the appropiate carriage cards, bonuses for post offices are obviously given out only if the post offices are physically present on the board

2) you cannot play a card matching the highwayman city into your route during your turn.

This could definitely be a fun variant. I would use the robber from my Settlers game and play as follows:

1. The initial placement of the robber is determined by a card draw before drawing the first six cards to be placed face up. That card then starts the discard pile.

2. If the robber occupies a city, a player cannot add that city to his route. (The postal carrier avoids passing through that city when the robber is present.) It doesn't affect players whose routes already contain the city because their postal carrier has already passed through, you might say, and is unaffected.

3. If the robber occupies a city, a player cannot add an office to that city when scoring the route. (No building while the robber is in town.) It doesn't otherwise affect the scoring of the route or placing of offices.

4. Introduce a new role, called the Marshal, which allows the moving of the robber. The time to use this role is between the draw and play phases. The player who moves the robber may take one card at random from the HAND of a player who has an office in the NEW city. In accordance with the rules, a player may choose only one role per turn, so when choosing the Marshal no other roles are used.

5. The robber does not affect the drawing of cards. (An administrator or postmaster may make decisions about route planning, hoping the robber will move on or hoping to use the Marshal at a later time to make their plans work.)

So the new order of actions within a turn is

1. Maybe use Administrator.
2. Draw cards. Maybe use Postmaster.
3. Maybe use Marshal.
4. Play cards. Maybe use Postal Carrier.
5. Maybe score. Maybe use Cartwright.

Something worth noting is that players can be affected in different ways by the robber. If they have an office in the city already, they can lose a card from their hand. If they don't have an office in the city, their routes/scoring are restricted. That way it is a little bit less about "picking on" players than it is about shaking up the game.

I think your idea is great and want to play with it.

Just thought i would add a bare bones version.

1. Highwayman placed at random when setting up.
2. At the end of your turn you can play the Marshall instead of any other assits and play a card that has a road link with where the highwayman is and move him there.
3. The presence of the highwayman stops any cards of that town being played, and any posthouses being added to that town.

cheers

rob