Author Topic: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)  (Read 15714 times)

Offline kettlefish

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The author of the spin-off "Carcassonne - The Castle" Reiner Knizia has posted at his homepage download files for the never published expansion "The Falcon"

Here is the link to the homepage from Knizia

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2079.0

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2015, 10:19:55 AM »
Wow, finally! On the one hand, this is great news. But on the other, it's as many of us 'feared': a print-at-home version rather than a published version. So that part is disappointing.

I imagine there will be quite a few of us here who would like to have this expansion, but many (including me) don't have the equipment or skills to do our own printing. Would one of the members who can print high-quality tiles like Decar or quevy be willing to print copies of this expansion to send to forum members? I would gladly pay for shipping and other costs and I'm sure others would too.

Edit: Now that I have actually looked at the expansion, it's less conducive to print-and-play than I had hoped it would be. Firstly, there are two new meeples for each player. And secondly, in addition to new tiles, there are also new sections of castle wall that will be more difficult to print than standard tiles.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2015, 10:30:21 AM by jungleboy »

Offline quevy

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2015, 10:48:30 AM »
Surely I'll make a copy for me of these, including laser cutting of the wall pieces/puzzle and followers. If the results are good I can think of to create some copies to the members that I require.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2015, 10:50:57 AM by quevy »
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Offline aenima

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2015, 11:29:27 AM »
Finally!!!  :DD I love this game!!!

Offline Vasek

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2015, 01:47:27 PM »
I have been waiting for this since Rio Grande announced the Falcon expansion in February, 2011.
I agree with jungleboy that this is a very difficult task to produce at home. I would love to obtain a set.
Where do I sign up?

Offline Whaleyland

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2015, 02:44:38 PM »
OhMyGod!OhMyGod!OhMyGod!OhMyGod!OhMyGod!

I want this set. I want it printed. I want it now...wait, I don't actually have The Castle with me... whatever! I've seriously been wanting this set since I fell in love with The Castle back in 2010. I loved the strange mechanics, the outer wall, and the bonuses. This improves on all of those! I was so ticked off when Reiner announced the expansion only to have RGG hedge on it for so long. Then with the Z-Man switch and The Castle going out of print, things only got worse. I had fingers crossed that the expansion would be included in a future Z-Man reprint, but that's clearly not an option either now.

This expansion needs to be printed! It is a large expansion (18 tiles!) with two new meeples per player, two of which have never been made before (the others are just Mayors). This was never designed for print-and-play and really needs a formal print run. Spielbox? CundCo? Z-Man? 999 Games? Delvir? That Russian distributor? Somebody, please!

...okay, rant over.

Offline quevy

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2015, 03:01:34 PM »
OhMyGod!OhMyGod!OhMyGod!OhMyGod!OhMyGod!

I want this set. I want it printed. I want it now...wait, I don't actually have The Castle with me... whatever! I've seriously been wanting this set since I fell in love with The Castle back in 2010. I loved the strange mechanics, the outer wall, and the bonuses. This improves on all of those! I was so ticked off when Reiner announced the expansion only to have RGG hedge on it for so long. Then with the Z-Man switch and The Castle going out of print, things only got worse. I had fingers crossed that the expansion would be included in a future Z-Man reprint, but that's clearly not an option either now.

This expansion needs to be printed! It is a large expansion (18 tiles!) with two new meeples per player, two of which have never been made before (the others are just Mayors). This was never designed for print-and-play and really needs a formal print run. Spielbox? CundCo? Z-Man? 999 Games? Delvir? That Russian distributor? Somebody, please!

...okay, rant over.

The other followers are those of hunters and gatherers.



Offline Whaleyland

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #7 on: September 23, 2015, 03:09:14 PM »
The other followers are those of hunters and gatherers.
lol. I just noticed that. So that's good news at least: the meeples are the same as those in other expansions. I guess to pull this off, you just have to switch out the White player pieces of The Castle with a set of meeples that are based on the Hunters & Gatherers meeple colors, meaning Yellow, Red, Green, or Blue. Not too difficult at all.

Now the Castle Gates...that's a bigger problem. Only cardboard-quality prints will really take care of that issue.

Offline Rosco

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Can I sign up too?? Looks fun
Just lay the damn tile!

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2015, 01:30:20 AM »
Moving beyond the issue of printing etc for the moment, what are people's first thoughts about the game-play and aesthetics of this expansion?

Here are some of my initial comments:

- It's a more significant expansion than I expected, with lots of new elements (Element of the Week lives on!). Yet for all the new elements, the rules seem fairly simple and easy to understand, which is nice. The artwork of the chapel seems to fit in quite well with houses and towers.

- Sorry to be the one to make such a pedantic comment, but aerie is spelt two different ways (aerie/arie) in the rules, and yet another (and perhaps more common) English spelling is eyrie. All that said, it would have been a lot simpler and easier if they had called them nests instead.

- I don't think I like the aerie scoring. Since it scores the same points as the largest keep, this either means that one player wins them both or (perhaps more likely) that one player has the most aerie tokens and another has the largest keep, and the points are just split. And in a two-player game, I don't think rules that lead to splitting the points should be encouraged.

- I also don't think it's great that the aerie tokens can run out and then still need to be used, so that they are taken back from the players who have already earned them - this seems a bit messy. I realise that this is because the falconer can generate extra aerie tokens that aren't accounted for in the nest tiles, but I still think there could have been a better way around this.

- I like the increased points as the chapel gets larger. It gives the chapel a purpose and something that distinguishes it from houses and towers. The calculation of these points seems a bit messy (i.e. the value increases by one more point per additional tile than it did with the previous number of tiles), but I guess you can learn the values by heart pretty quickly.

- The gates only seem to serve to make the castle walls bigger to allow for more tiles. Hopefully they fit in well with the rest of the castle walls visually because the walls are one of my favourite things about this game.

- The king follower is a nice addition - like the prophet in Ark of the Covenant but usable multiple times. And I like the rule that you can't use the king to complete a feature. You need to plan it a bit more in advance than that. In practice, I guess players will try to use their king for chapels, while the other player tries to close down any possible expansion of that chapel.

Overall, I think it looks cool and adds a lot of new things to the game. I think some aspects of the aerie element aren't great as I mentioned above, but the rest of it looks very promising!

Offline Whaleyland

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #10 on: September 24, 2015, 01:55:29 AM »
Moving beyond the issue of printing etc for the moment, what are people's first thoughts about the game-play and aesthetics of this expansion?

Here are some of my initial comments:

- It's a more significant expansion than I expected, with lots of new elements (Element of the Week lives on!). Yet for all the new elements, the rules seem fairly simple and easy to understand, which is nice. The artwork of the chapel seems to fit in quite well with houses and towers.
Yes it does indeed. There are multiple new elements in this expansion. Granted it'll have to be a few weeks (or months?) before we should hold the Elements of the Week for this since it just released, but the PnP nature of the expansion makes the usual excuses void (except not owning The Castle). I like the chapel too – very basic yet direct.

Quote
- Sorry to be the one to make such a pedantic comment, but aerie is spelt two different ways (aerie/arie) in the rules, and yet another (and perhaps more common) English spelling is eyrie. All that said, it would have been a lot simpler and easier if they had called them nests instead.
I think I would have gone with aerie. That seems the one I'm most used to as an American. Eyrie makes sense too, but it doesn't seem as natural.

Quote
- I don't think I like the aerie scoring. Since it scores the same points as the largest keep, this either means that one player wins them both or (perhaps more likely) that one player has the most aerie tokens and another has the largest keep, and the points are just split. And in a two-player game, I don't think rules that lead to splitting the points should be encouraged.
I don't like the scoring either. It doesn't make any sense in that it's not new, it's just doubling an already existent mechanic. Why would they do that and why would they name the expansion after that? I feel like this feature was one of the reasons why the expansion was held up for so long at RGG and why Knizia finally felt it was only worthy as a PnP.

Quote
- I also don't think it's great that the aerie tokens can run out and then still need to be used, so that they are taken back from the players who have already earned them - this seems a bit messy. I realise that this is because the falconer can generate extra aerie tokens that aren't accounted for in the nest tiles, but I still think there could have been a better way around this.
Definitely messy. I think a simple "Robber Baron" mechanic would have worked just as well with a single marker passing between players and a chit or something running around the track marking the aerie points or something.

Quote
- I like the increased points as the chapel gets larger. It gives the chapel a purpose and something that distinguishes it from houses and towers. The calculation of these points seems a bit messy (i.e. the value increases by one more point per additional tile than it did with the previous number of tiles), but I guess you can learn the values by heart pretty quickly.
They are triangular numbers. Americans know them pretty well because of bowling since the pins are arranged in triangles of 10 pins. 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21...

Quote
- The gates only seem to serve to make the castle walls bigger to allow for more tiles. Hopefully they fit in well with the rest of the castle walls visually because the walls are one of my favourite things about this game.
I like the variant rule where the gates stop point gain. It's a bit cruel, but can mean that players must plan their point gain more strategically. The gates allow for an entirely new X on the map for the 18 new tiles, although I doubt it adds 18 more spaces...probably closer to 15. I think they add a nice aesthetic to the board.

Quote
- The king follower is a nice addition - like the prophet in Ark of the Covenant but usable multiple times. And I like the rule that you can't use the king to complete a feature. You need to plan it a bit more in advance than that. In practice, I guess players will try to use their king for chapels, while the other player tries to close down any possible expansion of that chapel.
I think the King rule is a bit fiddly, myself. Making it so the King can't immediately score is just a nuisance, even if it makes logistical sense.

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #11 on: September 24, 2015, 04:30:55 AM »
I don't like the scoring either. It doesn't make any sense in that it's not new, it's just doubling an already existent mechanic. Why would they do that and why would they name the expansion after that? I feel like this feature was one of the reasons why the expansion was held up for so long at RGG and why Knizia finally felt it was only worthy as a PnP.

Do you think that's why it's a PnP? I assumed that he did everything he could to get it published and PnP was his last resort. He could have easily changed the aries scoring mechanic if that was the holdup. It could have been something like the goldmines, where you receive a certain number of points per token depending on how many you have (with no 'handing back' of tokens), or one of several other options.

I like the variant rule where the gates stop point gain. It's a bit cruel, but can mean that players must plan their point gain more strategically.

Yeah this is an intriguing variant and it gives more meaning to the gates rather than just expanding the size of the board. It adds even more strategy to how, when and in what order you decide to complete your features, a strategy that already exists in the Castle because of the wall tiles. I find it a bit strange that a variant is included in the official rules, though. Someone must not have liked this idea, otherwise why wouldn't it just be the actual rule and not a variant?

Offline kettlefish

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #12 on: September 24, 2015, 05:09:19 AM »
some information from Knizia at twitter

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #13 on: September 24, 2015, 10:57:35 AM »
From the replies to Reiner Knizia's original twitter post, this is the first image of someone's attempted gate that I've seen.

Offline quevy

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Re: Knizia - Falcon expansion for Carcassonne - "Die Burg" (The Castle)
« Reply #14 on: September 24, 2015, 11:41:55 AM »
To begin with I have traced the first piece for the laser cutting of the cardboard.


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