Author Topic: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide  (Read 26067 times)

Offline obervet

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #30 on: January 08, 2015, 06:35:28 AM »
I'm certainly no obervet...

I would argue that this fact is worth many points in your favor.  :D

Offline CarcinFool

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #31 on: January 08, 2015, 07:01:17 AM »

For example, a few of the writers seem to be under the impression that cloisters are like a golden ticket that mustn’t be wasted because of the potential for scoring points. I don’t agree with this as the risk of permanently losing a meeple is too great. I have problems with the assertion that you shouldn't place farmers too early either as I think this depends entirely on how the game develops. This isn't up to me though, nor should it be, so if anyone else disagrees with this then feel free to chime in now!


I agree! Even if a monk meeple doesn't get trapped or stranded until the end of the game, it often gets tied up for a significant time waiting for you to compete the cloister. In this case you often could have earned more points with it in the meantime on cities, roads, or even cloisters drawn later that can be placed with more tiles initially surrounding them (so you have a good chance to get them back quickly). I find this especially true in longer games with multiple expansions.

People will definitely disagree about strategies, but the discussion and ideas are almost always useful. I have also noticed that often apparent disagreements in strategy are really due more to incomplete descriptions of the conditions under which each person's strategy is useful/optimal rather than opposed viewpoints.

Offline DLloyd09

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #32 on: January 08, 2015, 08:22:19 AM »
My reservation with including bits from other strategy guides found on the internet is that I don't always find them very helpful. This is a personal thing, but much of the advice will be obvious to anyone who has played more than a handful of games, and a lot of the rest is questionable (in my opinion at least - or maybe I’m just being unnecessarily pedantic?). For example, a few of the writers seem to be under the impression that cloisters are like a golden ticket that mustn’t be wasted because of the potential for scoring points. I don’t agree with this as the risk of permanently losing a meeple is too great. I have problems with the assertion that you shouldn't place farmers too early either as I think this depends entirely on how the game develops. This isn't up to me though, nor should it be, so if anyone else disagrees with this then feel free to chime in now!

I think one of the great things about developing a collective strategy guide is that personal biases can get thrown out. For example, I frequently will play on a cloister if I get it, particularly if I think I can get 7+ points at the end scoring, even if I can't finish it off, as those points add up awfully fast. But I also like to play a field early, especially if I draw some good small-city tiles early on.

I don't think a strategy guide like this needs to contain a definitive "best" play for all situations. Rather, if someone writes an impassioned and well-reasoned article defending early field play and someone writes an impassioned and well-reasoned article explaining why early field play is a disaster, I don't see why both of those couldn't end up in a guide. Ditto for always playing a cloister/rarely playing a cloister, and lots of other things that I'm sure we all disagree about.

Might it be possible to make this a wiki that gets incorporated into CarcC? That way it could be more of a living document and also set up easy navigation across articles.

Offline danisthirty

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #33 on: January 08, 2015, 08:49:30 AM »
@DLloyd09 - those are some very good points.  :(y)

You're quite right that most of the time there isn't a proven "best" play for any given scenario and as such it's helpful to consider different viewpoints and a range of playing styles. Hopefully this is something we as a community can do well given that we're all capable of respectfully disagreeing with each other over certain tactics. However, whilst things needs to be balanced and unbiased, we don't want to be contradicting ourselves either so this is something to watch out for.

I think I would be happy as long as a) individual contributions have been written by the person contributing them (or people contributing them in the case of collaborations) and b) have been subject to the approval/ criticism of the Carcassonne Central community at large, otherwise we're effectively encouraging anyone to write/ find anything and add it to our combined pool of strategic knowledge without any kind of moderation!

Does this seem fair?  C:-)

As for a wiki, I don't know much about those. It does seem like that may be something that's slightly further down the line than we're ready for at the moment though...

Offline DLloyd09

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #34 on: January 08, 2015, 08:50:19 PM »
I think "access control" seems fair; I certainly agree that it shouldn't be a free-for-all! I also think that the guide should not contradict itself per se, I just hope that our definition of "contradiction" is fluid enough to allow for multiple perspectives that might clash.  :)

Offline Whaleyland

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #35 on: January 09, 2015, 12:09:56 AM »
The easiest thing I can think of is to do a Blogger blog and grant various members posting privileges. I don't think there is a limit to the number. I've been running a bunch of Blogger sites for years. They aren't super flexible but they get the job done and allow HTML tinkering in the posts, in case the default image posting options aren't good enough.

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #36 on: January 09, 2015, 12:42:32 AM »
I do quite like the idea of using a blog as a tool for helping to drive content generation but this would be a Carcassonne Central project so it would be better to try and keep it on Carcassonne Central if possible. There's no reason why we couldn't have a sub-forum somewhere if this idea takes off, and submit each contribution as a new post there. Anybody can post, and anybody can provide feedback.

I agree with Dan. I think the process should start here on the forums before moving into 'published' form, whether that be a blog or something else. The way I see the process going is:

1. Someone decides to write about, or is assigned, a certain topic related to strategy - let's say, 'To claim cloisters or not?'
2. That person starts a new thread in a sub-forum and posts their write-up.
3. Others in the community give feedback, opinions etc.
4. The original author eventually posts an edited version, taking the feedback into account.
5. If everyone is happy with it, it then moves into 'published' form.

Offline danisthirty

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #37 on: January 09, 2015, 02:15:20 AM »
The way I see the process going is:

1. Someone decides to write about, or is assigned, a certain topic related to strategy - let's say, 'To claim cloisters or not?'
2. That person starts a new thread in a sub-forum and posts their write-up.
3. Others in the community give feedback, opinions etc.
4. The original author eventually posts an edited version, taking the feedback into account.
5. If everyone is happy with it, it then moves into 'published' form.

This is pretty much exactly what I was thinking. The "published" form most likely being the blog in this case as a PDF or traditional document seems too static for something like this.

Offline CarcinFool

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #38 on: January 09, 2015, 10:47:27 AM »
I think the suggested process is a good one, but the only concern I have is with the transfer of the posts from the "reviewing" environment to the "publication" environment.

If the review is going to happen here on CC and the publication will be on a blogging site there will likely be extra time/effort that needs to be spent copying, re-uploading images (of which there are bound to be plenty), and possibly reformatting the post to clean it up (due to differences between the way CC and the blogging platform handle text/HTML). This will need to be done for every post, and will get tiresome quickly.

Most blogging sites have tools that support the suggested collaborative review process from start to finish. I'm familiar with WordPress, and it looks like Blogger has similar tools. Having the entire process happen on one site (I'd suggest the blogging site, which is optimized for authoring and sharing content articles whereas CC is a forum optimized for threaded discussions) would eliminate this extra work to re-publish the post after someone already worked hard on getting the images, formatting, etc. right the first time through. That way when the post is "done" the author or administrator just needs to flip a switch and it's published in the format everyone already reviewed.

Hope this is helpful!
« Last Edit: January 09, 2015, 10:58:04 AM by CarcinFool »

Offline danisthirty

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #39 on: January 12, 2015, 06:23:05 AM »
If the review is going to happen here on CC and the publication will be on a blogging site there will likely be extra time/effort that needs to be spent copying, re-uploading images (of which there are bound to be plenty), and possibly reformatting the post to clean it up (due to differences between the way CC and the blogging platform handle text/HTML). This will need to be done for every post, and will get tiresome quickly.

Most blogging sites have tools that support the suggested collaborative review process from start to finish. I'm familiar with WordPress, and it looks like Blogger has similar tools. Having the entire process happen on one site (I'd suggest the blogging site, which is optimized for authoring and sharing content articles whereas CC is a forum optimized for threaded discussions) would eliminate this extra work to re-publish the post after someone already worked hard on getting the images, formatting, etc. right the first time through. That way when the post is "done" the author or administrator just needs to flip a switch and it's published in the format everyone already reviewed.

Whilst I do appreciate your concerns, the content itself is what's most important to the guide and one way of making sure that each article is as accurate and thorough as it can be is by letting as many people as possible read it and post their thoughts so that they can be considered by the author. If we tried to do everything on the blog, the chances are that the potential proof-reading audience would be cut in half as most forum members won't think/ bother to dip onto the blog to see if there's anything new there as well as their daily/ weekly/ wheneverly trip around the forums.

If photos need to be included then they can be linked to or uploaded easily enough without having to go to too much trouble over formatting. On the forums, photos will be included to help readers understand any points being made rather than to look pretty. Once something is ready to be made live on the blog then it can be, but this work shouldn't be too laborious, or even if it is, it should at least be a one-off as it isn't necessary to spend much time arranging the formatting of articles on the forums.

What we need now is for people to start writing stuff! Think of something you can write about, post here what it's going to be and then write it. Post it back to the forums once it's finished (a new forum will soon be available specifically for this purpose) and then encourage others to read it and give you their feedback.

My next article is going to be a continuation of my "Being Kind to be Cruel" series where I focus on situations where it's better to give away a few points here and there in order to give yourself a longer-term strategic advantage. I would also like to contribute some sort of introduction to tile-counting, but if anyone else would be happy writing something like this then feel free to claim it!  :)

Offline CarcinFool

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #40 on: January 12, 2015, 09:56:21 AM »
OK. Here are some topics I can tackle...
  • Protecting your cities as you build
  • Ways to join fields (or block your opponent from joining fields)
  • Considering net points per tile in your strategy (e.g., is it better to build a new road or a road around your opponent's cloister?)
  • Maximizing use of the Abbot (Carc 2.0)
  • Carcassonne probability
Please let us know when the new forum is available!

Offline danisthirty

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #41 on: January 12, 2015, 12:39:27 PM »
OK. Here are some topics I can tackle...
  • Protecting your cities as you build
  • Ways to join fields (or block your opponent from joining fields)
  • Considering net points per tile in your strategy (e.g., is it better to build a new road or a road around your opponent's cloister?)
  • Maximizing use of the Abbot (Carc 2.0)
  • Carcassonne probability
Please let us know when the new forum is available!

Those sound like very interesting topics. I can't wait to read them!

I'm also going to cheat a bit by including old posts such as the one I posted specifically about tactics for games with more than one opponent. I think it's on General somewhere...

Offline Allan in Brisbane

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #42 on: January 12, 2015, 12:54:44 PM »
I'm also going to cheat a bit by including old posts such as the one I posted specifically about tactics for games with more than one opponent. I think it's on General somewhere...

The tactics your talking about are here:- http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1060.msg12222#msg12222

I've been reading through all the old posts and gathering various tactics and ideas and correlating them into a document.
This was a great help.
Also extremely helpful for general play were the sections in the Carcassonne Central News Letter (meeple blocking etc) and the comments in the Element of the Week series.
Can't wait to see the end product of this current collaborative project.

Offline danisthirty

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #43 on: January 13, 2015, 03:20:30 AM »
The new forum is now in place!


Offline Scott

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Re: Carcassonne CSG: Complete Strategy Guide
« Reply #44 on: January 27, 2015, 09:36:01 PM »
I strongly believe that the forums are the best tool for a peer-review process. It has worked extremely well with expansions and variants, and I'm glad to see that it will be used for this as well.

I favor PDF for the published format; it matches our already-established business model. By summertime we should have a decent number of finished strategy articles to justify putting together the first version of a full-fledged strategy guide.

I agree that base game is a priority over expansions. River 1 makes sense as the first expansion to be included, and I would recommend proceeding in order of large expansion after that, followed by minis. I suspect that large expansions have a wider market share, since they are available at retailers. I think minis are more commonly found among enthusiasts.

I like the idea of approaching strategies from both offensive and defensive perspectives. Separating into general, offensive, and defensive categories may or may not work in practice. For example, when Carcinfool writes about joining fields, I suspect that it makes more sense to deal with the offensive and defensive perspectives one after the other, rather than having these in two separate sections of the final strategy guide. Might make more sense to group strategies by feature, so that strategies for fields/farms are grouped together.


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