Poll

How do you primarily use The Abbot?

To claim Gardens specifically.
1 (7.1%)
To claim any applicable religious feature.
1 (7.1%)
I usually chose not to or forget to use my Abbot.
1 (7.1%)
I use it in some other creatively strategic manner (describe below).
1 (7.1%)
I don't ever play with or don't own Carcassonne II.
10 (71.4%)

Total Members Voted: 14

Voting closed: August 14, 2015, 05:44:36 PM

Author Topic: The Abbot – Element of the Week #47  (Read 14790 times)

Offline Christopher

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Re: The Abbot – Element of the Week #47
« Reply #15 on: March 01, 2016, 01:01:26 AM »
Abbots are clearly very powerful because they can't be trapped. I think having gardens in other expansions is a neat idea.  A lot of new players grab every cloister they can, so being able to retrieve the abbot is helpful for them.

I always find cloisters too valuable or worthless. By introducing more youve given everyone an opportunity to score some. But by limiting access to them, by making them gardens, they dont get over powered.

I wonder if they called it 'the gardener', who can join a cloister to attend their gardens, you'd dislike the theme.  I just assumed that gardens were mainly maintained in religious grounds or the extremely wealthy during this time period.

Id like to see other expansions moee often, all like more inns or cathedrals, there's never enough in larger games.

I agree about the not trapping, it's great to have a follower who can actively avoid it.

I hadn't thought about some of those arguments. Limiting the power of this new feature is definitely a good thing.

I'm still not sure about gardens as a thematic feature, but given that we have cloisters, shrines, monasteries, cathedrals and soon more cathedrals, it's probably good to have a feature with less religious connotations.

I agree about the inns and cathedrals, but the problem, I think, with repeating them in other expansions is where do you draw the line? Would we start expecting to see bazaars in other expansions? What about hills? Or tower foundations, volcanoes? I know the argument falls flat because those features simply aren't the same, and more inns and cathedrals would be nice, but I think implementing it would be difficult. Of course, now that they're reprinting all of the expansions, now would be the time to do it.

In large games, I often add a second set of inns and cathedrals to balance it out.
Look to the north. Keep looking. There's nothing coming from the south.

Offline Whaleyland

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Re: The Abbot – Element of the Week #47
« Reply #16 on: March 01, 2016, 01:18:21 AM »
I'm rather in the camp of preferring expansion expansions, as Dominion has hesitantly done with Adventures and, presumably, Empires. But it must be done in extreme moderation for accessibility. Inns are fine to include, as are Sheep and Wolves, since none of those features really hurt anything if one doesn't own the games. In fact, Inns can even be played without Inns & Cathedrals. Including the Volcano in River II was a genius move since that really improves gameplay with Dragons. But the Crop Circle in Halflings I is just annoying. Only a few expansions, therefore, really allow features to be placed in other expansions:
CarcII – Gardens
Expansion #1 – Inns
#3 – Volcano, Princess, Magic Portal
#5 – Double pennants
#6 – Cults
#9 – Sheep, Vineyards

Minis #1 – Flying Machines
M#2 – Maybe Messenger icon
M#5 – Mage & Witch icon
M#6 – Maybe Robber icon

Others:
Besiegers – Maybe
Festival – Conceptually but not practically

Note I don't consider Corn Circles or the River acceptable expansions for export into other expansions even though both have appeared in others.

Offline Decar

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Re: The Abbot – Element of the Week #47
« Reply #17 on: March 01, 2016, 01:49:14 AM »
I think there's already a precedence for including other expansions in expansions.  Like Whaleyland already said: The Volcano appears in River 2.  Halflings seem to have all sorts: Hills & Sheep, Corncircles.  GQ11 has the pig tile.

I think the Abbot is more of a general expansion.  If you don't play with the meeple, the gardens become decorative. It's the meeple that makes the expansion.

I can see that playing with more copies of Inns would work.  But I think having the same tile distribution will never be as good as having a few more tiles.

Offline Christopher

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Re: The Abbot – Element of the Week #47
« Reply #18 on: March 01, 2016, 08:29:25 AM »
Agreed that certain features lend themselves to reappearing, and work in other expansions. The volcano in The River II is brilliant, it adds a great deal when combined with the Princess et al. However, the single inn in (I think) Bridges, Castles and Bazaars adds very little if playing with Inns and Cathedrals, and if not playing with I&C, it adds a fairly pointless single inn to the game. The sheep in the River III also seems odd to me, as it's completely incongruous with other tiles. There's suddenly a single sheep larking around. Reasonable if playing with H&S, random sheep if not. Even if playing with H&S, none of those tiles have sheep in them. At least the vineyard in River III will match with the other vineyards in H&S. The Pig tile in the River II and GQ11 applies to farms which are a base game mechanic and are thus present in all games, which I think separates it from the others.

Adding more inns is great, but as you say, it doesn't change the tile distribution. I love the idea of an expansion expansion. Obviously not going to happen as they're no longer printing in the old art, but I would love an expansion which adds new tile configurations to a few of the old expansions. More inns and cathedrals, hills, double pennants, vineyards, that sort of thing.

I seem to have gone completely off topic, sorry!

Offline Decar

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Re: The Abbot – Element of the Week #47
« Reply #19 on: March 01, 2016, 08:38:23 AM »
I think most of Carcassonne's expansions are binary - eg: on or off.  I think I would like to see smaller expansions, like The Abbot become more integrated in future expansions.  This would make Carcassonne 2.0 significantly different from Carcassonne.  It's much easier in this release because Road Map is essentially decided and no doubt give original-artwork-ists something to moan about :p

Offline Hounk

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Re: The Abbot – Element of the Week #47
« Reply #20 on: March 01, 2016, 08:59:26 AM »
I don't have and never played with Abbots, but I keep wondering, are these "gardens" really necessary for that expansion? (Beside the fact, that they are pretty unthematic. I would agree, that "vineyards" would have better fitting, if they had not been occupied by H&S, or something like libraries or breweries.)

But I would assume, that they can easily also be used on "cloisters", and "cloisters" alone, and since they scale up on nearly all expansions, I don't really see the point for the need of gardens.


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