Carcassonne Central
Carc Central Community => General => Topic started by: Whaleyland on April 18, 2015, 11:50:33 PM
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ELEMENT OF THE WEEK: THE VINEYARDS
Each week, a specific element from an expansion is chosen for deeper discussion. This is an opportunity for you, Carcassonne's biggest English-language fans, to discuss strategies and problems you have encountered through the years regarding specific expansion elements. All forms of critique – from the most joyous to the most scathing – are encouraged.
This week's element is THE VINEYARDS (from Hills & Sheep [Expansion #9]). The ninth large expansion for Carcassonne by Hans im Glück included three unique elements, the only one of which not to be included on the title being The Vineyards. This red-headed stepchild of the expansion has simple enough rules: when a Cloister scores, any Vineyards in its square (eight surrounding tiles) grant a bonus of 3 points to that Cloister. That's it. Yeah, it's not too difficult to understand.
With the sheer simplicity of this expansion, it isn't surprising that there are few issues with it. It can be score by multiple Cloisters; Abbeys can also score for it (as well as Shrines, Monasteries acting as Cloisters, and the two Darmstadt Cloisters); and it is so simple that it was included on a tile in the new Halflings I and in The River (BB5 edition) expansions. The only real restriction for the element is that Vineyards don't score at game end for incomplete Cloisters. Discuss your relationship with The Vineyards and how you optimise your use of this strategic element.
Next Week: The Monasteries O:-) O:-) O:-)
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I voted for the top line before thinking this through. I should have voted for, Creative use.
Here we go changing things up again :)
We now include the Abbot in our (Rio Grande) games and it has kind of revolutionized and dominated the Vineyards, Cloisters, (and the like). We use the Vineyard tiles in place of the garden feature in Carc 2.0.
Before the addition of the Abbot, while the Vineyards were a nice feature on the board it didn't affect scoring much in our game. Most of the time the tile were better used in other part of the landscape.
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Love it, its my favorite element of hills and sheep !!
When you play vineyards with litle bulding the cloister score some amazing points!!!
:blue-meeple:
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Although I have the expansion box and Big Box 5, I've never used this feature yet. But I love to vote so I voted lowest option. :)
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Ah, vineyards! Lovely element. Like an Inn for a cloister. Sort of. It's nice that they've got round to introducing that, a simple way to bump up a few points on a cloister. And multiple cloisters, if you're clever! And multiple vineyards, if you're really clever! Interestingly, no penalty for a vineyard. You don't score points for a vineyard on an incomplete cloister, but you still score endgame points for the cloister, unlike inns and cathedrals.
I really like vineyards. It's a simple addition, nothing confusing. Thanks to BB5, I have two copies of the vineyard tiles. In large games, I often add two copies of Inns and Cathedrals to balance out the increased number of tiles. I may start doing the same with these!