I did this with Oh My Goods as well. Partly because of the solo-ability of the expansions. But it just made a quite fiddly game even more fiddly and even less likely to get played. If I’d left it at the base game we might have come to enjoy it. I ended up getting rid of the whole unwieldy pile.
(We later got Expedition to Newdale, which we enjoyed much more).
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I dislike the idea of sleeves, but I play on pubs and so, sleeve it is. For low cost, they prolong the life of my copy.
Expansions:
I have made a rule where I will only keep expansions that I can include from the get-go. Like, seriously, any one here played Keyflower with either or both of the expansions?
Food Chain Magnate have been the exception so far where i dont like including (most of) the expansion modules. The city tiles are easy to include.
However, nowadays, I feel like the expansion is a must now, even if it is just the new milestones and city tiles. Even then, you dont even need to teach what every single new staff cards does (minus, the new restaurant related staff cards. e.g. noodle chef)
Also expansions always go inside the main base game box. Why do you keep them separate (in general)?
I think the worse value so far was, indeed, FCM Ketchup expansion, but I expect future value from it. And also the Chicago Express expansions, which are not to be included all the time, but I kept them because I like Chex and they radically change the game in a good way
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Interestingly Farmers was the one that broke me on expansions. Chuffin’ love Keyflower so I bought an expansion. Played a couple of times and realised I just don’t play enough to have sufficient knowledge of the game to make the variety worthwhile. Stopped me buying any more expansions by default. I used to just buy all the expansions I could get my hands on as I was excited to buy games and it was the same hit. I still have Farmers but it’s in a bag and never gets out to be played anymore.
I currently have 54 expansions for 21 games. Listed on BGG. However that’s not including the Cthulhu Wars expansions I didn’t buy but was given so undersells the total by 30-40.
Cthulhu Wars is the bulk of the 54 anyway. CW factions and maps are all very worthwhile. Then Teotihuacan I have all the expansions and no regrets. Same with First Class. It’s designed with modules baked in so more modules is no hardship. Then there is the mighty Spirit Island. All current expansions owned and would be less happy without even one of them. Technicality I could do without Horizons but that’s an expandalone. I use SI expansion content all the time and it makes the game better. I’m happy to be completionist on all these games as all add good game play. Other great expansions are the card games where more variety is just good. Res Arcana and Seasons. I no longer play enough games to get more for these but would if I player games more regularly. Similarly I might get no more Spirit Island expansions as my boxes are now full and my game time has gone.
Innovation I have all the expansions in shrink.
Mottainai is so good that they’ll just sit there being fairly small in case I end up in a time in life I can Chudyk again.
Some are only still around as they fit in the box and it’s too hard to sell them. Hanabi, Keyflower, Wabash Cannonball are in this category.
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You can replace the cards with for example Parade. Which is how I proxied my copy that I have yet to play.
Also: Smashup was another game I was able to sell for more than its worth because I had a few rare early expansion decks. I am glad I got rid of it or I would be hunting expansions.
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As my game buying has progressed from “that sounds fun” to “if I can play it first” to “what does is do that [game I already have] doesn’t”, so my expansion buying has progressed from “must have the full game” to “does it actually add to my fun with it”.
I know, but I have the Actual Cards Which Almost Nobody Has. 
And because it’s a Japanese game, it will be impossible to fit it into the box with sleeved cards.
A side note: expandalones like the Villainous boxes or Imperium: Foo. (As distinct from separate games in the same line like Horrified where you can’t combine them.) When these are done well you can end up with minimal extra bits (for Imperium I think it was just the commons-cards layout guides, and I chose to use the new 5- and 10-chips rather than the old ones), but at the same time you don’t need to stick a label on the front to say “this is an expansion, not a game on its own” for Granny to ignore and Christmas Will Be Ruined.
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I would say I have definite plans to play Merchants. Content, and reviews, suggest it really augments the 2-3 player count, while Keyflower alone shines at 4 or 5. Plans for that one.
If I die never having played Farmers, I won’t be surprised.
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Sleeves: I have one sleeved game. It is Paperback Adventures, which came with the sleeves under the premise that it’s a bit difficult to play a game with double-sided cards where only one side is currently active and you achieve the other through upgrades if you don’t sleeve w/ an opaque-backed sleeve. (I didn’t get the Slay the Spire boardgame but it does the same thing.) Other than that, no thank you. Don’t like the feel, don’t like the expense, don’t like the faff of putting them on and off, and definitely hate the amount of box room they take up. Agree with earlier comment that games coming with the assumption you will sleeve built into their box/insert designs is a pain and should stop. If you’re going to buy aftermarket stuff for your game, make an aftermarket sleever insert one of those things. Leave me out of it. I understand the argument about card damage, but I’ve never experienced a meaningful level of wear on my game components. (It probably doesn’t hurt that I don’t play any given game dozens or hundreds of times, and generally if I do anything close to that, it’s across many different characters/decks/etc.)
Expansions:
If I want the game, I want and buy the expansion(s) almost without exception. I also will tend not to buy games if I cannot get meaningful gameplay content in reasonable fashion, be that missing Kickstarter exclusives or out of print expansions, etc.
That said, I never did buy the Scythe expansions (probably because there’s several, they’re not consistently in print and the big box is difficult to find lately, and none of them were crowdfunded) and honestly I am not super feeling the lack. I haven’t played Scythe that much, either, which might be different if expansions had come in. That Rise of Fenris legacy campaign, say. And there’s a few other, mostly retail, expansions that have slipped me by. I don’t have Shades of Tezla for Mage Knight because it was apparently printed with very different card back coloring and although I think that was eventually corrected I’ve not gotten around to it. I never find time for Mage Knight and in my one Tezla-equipped session on TTS it did not seem to add anything very exciting. (If I were playing MK constantly the variety alone would be sufficient of course.)
Favorite expansion? Oh, probably Jagged Earth for Spirit Island. There’s an incredible amount of great stuff for the game in that thing. Darkest Night was also an incredible example of a game where every expansion brought not only strong variety but new mechanics so natural to the game that you’d never consider playing without them going forwards…which is why the second edition just included all that content in the box.
Regrets: The Australia expansion for Agents of SMERSH, which by the time it arrived I’d realized I didn’t like Agents of SMERSH. Other than that…mostly just a matter of “I probably shouldn’t have bought this because I don’t have time to play all this”, i.e. the extra campaigns for Tainted Grail, Etherfields, ISS Vanguard, Aeon Trespass, Middara (well, for ATO and Middara it’s technically more of the same story), Sword & Sorcery, Chronicles of Drunagor, and probably another ten upcoming games that haven’t shipped yet. Do I actually regret those? Nah, not really. I’ve enjoyed every one of those games, and in theory I want to play all of those campaigns. Will I? Fuck knows.
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Had some final thoughts from looking at my list of expansions.
Best Expansions, in my opinion
- Agricola decks. That said, it’s more about evolution than variety. Having 1-3 balanced and curated decks would be plenty. This is kind of A-C (don’t talk about D) but they also familified the game for the modern generation.
- Castles of Burgundy modules - CoB is a great game but you can definitely play it out. These modules have critically extended the game life.
- Concordia Maps - It’s a shame you have to pay more to properly support player counts. But you do, and the maps are good. +1 for Salt, as well.
- Race for the Galaxy - It’s well known by now that I like Arc 1 all in. But I also like Artifacts with and without the orb and XI with the invasion. RvI is the only miss I wouldn’t recommend except as part of its Arc.
- Res Arcana Perlae Imperii - Pearls are great. New places of power are great. On average, this expansion makes the game less dark as well.
- Innovation Cities - Subtle but gives the game more buttons to press when things aren’t going your way. Also a little poison you can take that may launch you ahead or kill you.
- Palaces of Carrara 1e Downgrade cards - I’m starting to come around to 2e. 1e can have bad setups with broken strategies. But barring those setups, the brutality of the 1e endgame is key.
- Lords of Waterdeep Scoundrels of Skullport - Like Vegas Up!, this should have always been in the box. I thought it was about the Corruption, but at this point it’s the new cards in Undermountain that keep the game evergreen.
- Settlers of Catan Seafarers - As usual, fight me.
- Furnace Interbellum - Interbellum put this over Res Arcana for me. Good solo, improved 2p mode, and new fluidity to tableau builds. The auction was always great, now the deck is too.
- Jump Drive Terminal Velocity - too much to say here so I’ll say little. Such a good solo.
- Star Realms - Frontiers is the place to start now. Bases & Battleships is necessary to round out the original deck. Colony Wars is necessary for elevated play when the game gets stale. A lot of goodness here.
- Quacks Herb Witches - It’s about the 6 pumpkins and the new recipe books. I don’t use the rest.
- Mysterium Secrets & Lies - All this game needs to be perfect is more cards. Here you go. Slows the evolution of the metalanguage.
- Flamme Rouge Peloton - Enables lower player counts, better track variety. Base is only about the hills, and this does so much more.
- Carcassonne Traders & Builders, Inns & Cathedrals - gave the game the edge it needed. A little push your luck and doubling down.
And the most superfluous purchases I've made...
- Ticket to Ride - I don’t really like this game. I buy it for others to play. Why did I buy India and Asia? Never touched them outside the app.
- Space Base Terra Proxima - What I wanted was Genesis, and it was out of stock. So I bought Terra Proxima? This would be a good use for a time machine. Ask a few pointed questions at the old me. I like the cycle of Space Base but games are inconsistent. Sometimes interesting but often just big money. I want a bigger pool of cards with more of the tech abilities. That’s Genesis.
- Lancaster New Laws - I didn’t understand then, but certain games thrive on repetition rather than variety. Lancaster is one such game. New Laws is still in shrink; I should probably check the market rates.
- Beyond the Sun Leaders ot New Dawn - I was just hyped up on factions and solo. I don’t think Beyond the Sun needs more factions or solo. See Lancaster.
- Village Inn - I think this was going out of print and SUSD said it was the best. I later learned that it’s all about the port (which I don’t have).
Digital expansions
Looking at my list I also realized that a lot of my opinions are based on app/bga play. Some of these are good expansions but I may never have touched the physical copy in my house??
- Concordia - I’ve only played Italia and Hellas physically. Imperium, Hispania, and Creta have been TTS and the app.
- Race for the Galaxy - Only TGS and AA (with and without Orb) have seen my table.
- Palaces of Carrara - Yes, I like 1e. But 1e has always been on BGA.
- Lords of Waterdeep - yep. I have Skullport but only played it in the app.
- Star Realms - Honestly not sure. I think Colony Wars and Frontiers have gotten physical play once each. The app does so well, even for pass and play, that my wife and I play on the iPad now. The base game was all we had back when it was on the table.
- Mysterium Secrets & Lies - yep, app.
… I thought there was more here. Maybe I’m just skipping over now that this is long. Not going back to check!
Expansions I dearly want to play but haven't
These are expansions I so want to play but haven’t or can’t. Often these drastically change the base game, so I need someone as familiar and excited as me before it can become a reality.
- El Grande constructed decks. Just to try it.
- Keyflower Merchants. One day.
- Isle of Skye Journeyman. Everyone says it’s bad, but I need to find that out for myself, darn it! Looks fascinating.
- Cyclades Titans
- Roll for the Galaxy Rivalry - another bonkers change to the game that I just have to see for myself.
- Istanbul Mocha & Baksheesh - Come on. This one is so tableable.
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I don’t have any sleeved games - maybe I would if I played any of them often enough to be worried about damaging the cards…
On expansions:
I like map expansions. We have loads of Age of Steam maps that we get a lot of use out of - they add enough interesting wrinkles without lots of extra rules overhead, and I like having maps suited to whatever player counts we are working with. I also bought the Britannia map for Hansa Teutonica to make it easier to play with three (which was all we did at the time).
Looking at my list, it seems like my favourite kind of expansion is “more of almost the same” 
I have all of the Wingspansions, a bunch of Root factions (although the lizard cult are still my favourite, so I could have stopped there), all of Railroad Ink (no regrets), and the Peloton expansion for Flamme Rouge.
The type that I’m least enthused by is the mix and match modules type of expansion, mostly because I cannot be bothered with splitting everything out every time I play the game. We have Teotihuacan: the Late Preclassic Period, which we never use, and I definitely shouldn’t have bought the FCM expansion…
The most pointless expansion that we own is probably The Wind Gambit for Scythe. I wanted those airships to be way cooler to use than they are 
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until you said it I didn‘t know I was agreeing with you. Those pesky modules… worst of all is this „do not include these two together“ thing. Who has time for that? especially when you have to setup decks of cards.
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This is why we only play Wingspan with all of the expansions. There’s no going back once you’ve shuffled in all of those extra birds!
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I’ve broken out base game cards once or twice from my copy of Firefly for the benefit of new players, but I’m increasingly disinclined to do that.
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I buy expansions and don’t normally even use them. Too many games, when we pick a game we haven’t played for ages, I try and keep it simple and not use expansions.
I have expansions for some favourite games (Ghost Stories and Ginkgopolis) that I’ve never used, the base game is fine.
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For me sleeving is about shuffling. I’m not coordinated enough to riffle shuffle so the sharp edges of a sleeve allow me to mix cards in an equivalent way. The first game I sleeved was Marvel Legendary as I was playing so much the base cards were getting obvious. That revealed the shuffling magic of sleeves to me. So now deck builders in my collection get sleeved, most others don’t.
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Oops, I forgot this. I never play the app without using both expansions
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+1 for Peleton. Looking forward to the Grand Tour expansion arriving soon as well. I don’t think I even need it to be good, it’s just a good excuse to bring out Flamme Rouge again.
It’s probably a universal experience for board game hobbyists but I often get asked what’s my favourite game, and my go to answer is Flamme Rouge, but I haven’t played it in at least a couple of years. Expansions give you a reason to revisit a game!
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