Author Topic: The Barbarian Report: Attack of the Monasteries (Monasteries in Germany Review)  (Read 18839 times)

Offline Fritz_Spinne

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Holes do stop the cross.

Offline Whaleyland

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Hmm...maybe they should. It wouldn't help much, but would add a strategic edge to the expansion. Other players' monasteries could be blocked.

Offline asparagus

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In a megaCarc game, which this is clearly not intended to be used with, one must hope that the detriment of spending a Follower permanently on the feature and the generally large-scale of the map will cancel out the large point gain that will be earned at the end.

You are forgetting that in a game mega-carcassonne a player will likely tie up a meeple for most of the game only for the dragon to eat it near the end. I suspect that this expansion is surprisingly balanced.

Offline coyote

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In a megaCarc game, which this is clearly not intended to be used with, one must hope that the detriment of spending a Follower permanently on the feature and the generally large-scale of the map will cancel out the large point gain that will be earned at the end.

You are forgetting that in a game mega-carcassonne a player will likely tie up a meeple for most of the game only for the dragon to eat it near the end. I suspect that this expansion is surprisingly balanced.

Very possible. Since we don't use the Dragon, or any other method for removing figures from the playing field, we didn't run into this.

But, that does raise an interesting question!
Can an Abbot be placed by the Flying Machines? Or Phantom? Or via a Magic Portal? (I don't have the latter two, so am not 100% with the riles.)

Offline asparagus

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But, that does raise an interesting question!
Can an Abbot be placed by the Flying Machines? Or Phantom? Or via a Magic Portal? (I don't have the latter two, so am not 100% with the riles.)

If you have abbots, a way of of getting into them after the initial lay and no way of getting rid of them, that would make the game revolve around those six tiles. That strikes me as unbalanced. So with that combination I might houserule that only the initial lay was permitted to place a follower. But one rule for one combination and a different rule for a different combination does not feel right.

More generally there is an issue with splitting portals from the rest of P&D. In general I am okay with splitting expansions especially as some of them were only placed together as a bundle of separate mini-expansions anyway. T&B and A&M seem fine for dissection. But P&D has a method for removing meeples, a method for protecting them and a method for putting them back. I am not sure that those should be split.

I would say an abbot can be placed by a flying machine and removed by a tower. These are both more difficult to pull of than portals and so on there own would be less unbalancing.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2014, 10:53:23 PM by asparagus »

Offline obervet

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But, that does raise an interesting question!
Can an Abbot be placed by the Flying Machines? Or Phantom? Or via a Magic Portal? (I don't have the latter two, so am not 100% with the riles.)

I believe that all of those options should be possible. Based on my reading of the German Monastery rules, the 2 options should apply whenever a follower is to be placed on the German Monastery for whatever reason.

Offline Scott

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I agree with obervet.

Offline Carcking

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I also agree with obervet.

We played tonight with the German Monasteries and the Flier, among other expansions, and the Flier played perfectly well. It was quite balancing with the Flier - or at least it seemed everyone had a chance to get involved.

It can feel like the Monasteries are generally unbalancing in a mega-carc game of say 120+ tiles. The scoring for them averages around 25 points each and it comes down to ceratin players being lucky enough to draw them. They are difficult to block because they can expand in four directions. We just played a 5 player game and one player drew three of them. End-game scoring gave him a boost of around 65 points. The thing is (dong some math) the average score for any one follower in the game was around 18 points each. So to commit a follower to a Monastery to return 22 points at game-end does not seem unbalanced...it just feels it because the points come all at once.

The Flier helped those players who were unlucky enough to not draw any of the Monasteries to be able to glom into some of that scoring. In our game they became the main target of the Flier so that says something right there. I think at least 2 of them got joined into with the Flier, might have been three. But theoretically, even if you drew none, you should be able cover the 20 points return per follower using the followers you don't have tied up in the Monasteries.

It's still too early to say if we will attempt to house rule them. We've only played two games with them so far. We have talked about scoring only the longest axis of the cross. That would cut it down for sure - but it's too early to make that call.


I just drew the perfect tile for my MonKnighThieFarmer!

Offline Rozkoe

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As many have found with the German/Dutch Monasteries, they are both awesome, easy to score, and extremely over powered with no real weakness or limitations other than gaps which break up the row and column on the field (not including a Dragon or Tower which could remove the Abbot entirely). A house rule we use is that the Shrines end the row/column of the Monastery as well as gaps.
With this, it allows for apponents to block the Abbots reach, reducing the amount of points it can get.

Offline Just a Bill

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A house rule we use is that the Shrines end the row/column of the Monastery as well as gaps.

I like that ... it seems elegant and thematic, and (as you point out) makes the whole monastery mechanic more interactive.

Have a merit from me for making your first post here a smart and useful one. :)
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Offline Willem

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That is a good way to combine those 2 expansions!
We have a house rule for them, to keep them from being overpowered.
We use the abbot meeples from carcassonne II, and people can use those to have the monastaries. It will stay untill the end of the game (unless removed by dragon/tower/plague etc).
Any other monastaries you get, you can only use as (normal) cloister.
So everyone will have just one in a game
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