I think that Mall of the Dead simply doesn't work with four players or fewer. I just played two 4-player games and was eliminated from both before my 3rd turn. I suppose it's still "fair" in that the seat order is random, but the game feels more like Russian Roulette than a strategic fight.

+1

I think this is an example of a general problem with many maps - which is the map maker sets the # of allowable players very broadly.  Originally I fell into this also, thinking that, ok maybe the map doesn't play great with N players, but who am I to tell people that can't give it a shot and see what they think.

I played a game on Salem's Dusk: Classic and my mom got taken out before she was even able to go.  I think we had just too many people for such a small map.  Now we play the deluxe version and it works great for our group.  I haven't rated these maps yet, but if/when I do, I'll probably rate the classic version lower, simply because it doesn't work well with the 'advertised' number of players.  If it simply allowed less players I would probably rank it higher. 

It seems kind of weird to me that I would rank a map higher if the map maker gave me less control/options, but that is the way it is.  Maybe there should be two settings for # of players, recommended and allowed.  That way a mapmaker could say "This map plays best with 4-6 players, but if you want to play it with 3 or 9 it will play OK, but might have more problems".

I'm definitely open to changing the number of players allowed, and that was something that I opened up from the port over since WG handles the setup a bit better (on WF it was 6-8).

Kind of like Ozy said, it is probably recommended for 6-8, but I think it's possible to have fun games in the 2-5 range too although it is a bit up to the random setup.

Also that being said, I think a lot of players have been eliminated prior to the 3rd turn even in the 6-8 range.  Mall of the Dead does definitely have it's Russian Roulette aspect, but that has always been there.

But again, I'm open to making it a bit more restrictive if too many people are playing the bad way.

What is the bad way ? On Antastic, my favorite board, you can read :

This is a big map suitable for larger groups. This game works best with 6 to 9 players.

But looking at the charts (it won't paste), you can see that  less than 7% of the total number of games played are with 6 to 9 players (73% are 1 vs 1 games).

Just saying.

But looking at the charts (it won't paste), you can see that  less than 7% of the total number of games played are with 6 to 9 players (73% are 1 vs 1 games).

Isn't that because there's been about 402,000 1v1 fog tournaments played on Antastic?

I guess so. But I don't know.

Even though 43 % of the games are without any fog.

maybe you could change the starting sen. so each player recieves 2 entrances to the mall.

I agree that default Mall of the Dead should be 6-8 players (like on WF), but also agree that the board is pretty brutal (by intent) and that experienced players know to focus on eliminating their neighbors in rounds 1 & 2 (depending on starting position). A mod with 4-player & two entrances a piece might work, although I think that it would also need fixed pairings (and maybe seat order) since some entrances are better than others and some pairings would be super-strong (especially with an early seat order).