Sorry for the delay in posting these rules changes. Part of the delay
has been to allow time to test the changes. 

The changes are: 

1. Remove the French bateaux card from the initial deck and place it
with the availble cards.

2. Reserve - you cannot place location cards in your reserve. 

3. Raids - the raid distance is now two connections plus one connection
for each additional card played (so playing two Native American cards
would allow you to raid a location up to three connections away). 

4. Home Support - you can only take cards from your draw deck, so if you
had fewer than three cards available you would only be able to draw
these. Consequently, the only time you shuffle your discard pile is when
you need to refill your hand at the end of the turn and your draw deck
is exhausted. 

What I have realised in testing different versions of the game is that
in itself is what could make the game retain long-term playability.
Changing the rules is effectively the same as the changing card
combinations in Dominion. What I am planning on doing is publishing
varients on the Treefrog website. It's probably best to think of them as
scenarios. Some of these will take the form of'what-ifs', allowing the
game to diverge from published history. 

Many thanks for your patience in waiting for an 'official' response. I
am aware that this will not stop more posts being made by various
persons, but that's the nature of the Geek, so no point in worrying
about it. 

Martin