German Monasteries interactions

[asparagus]

I thought I had come up with another great conundrum on this issue. Then I checked the CAR. Now all I can ask is:

Assuming there was a crop circle card for monks, how would that work with German monasteries?

[kettlefish]

I thought I had come up with another great conundrum on this issue. Then I checked the CAR. Now all I can ask is:

Assuming there was a crop circle card for monks, how would that work with German monasteries?

The Crop Circles:
- Pitchfork
This affects farmers (on a farm segment).
- Club
This affects thieves (on a road segment).
- Shield
This affects knights (on a city segment).

There is no Crop Circle for the monks (on a cloister or monastery) in the official rules.
As long as HiG doesn't expand this mini with a new Crop Circle for cloisters/monasteries, the followers haven't to do any "work" as monks or abbots. 

[asparagus]

The Crop Circles:
- Pitchfork
This affects farmers (on a farm segment).
- Club
This affects thieves (on a road segment).
- Shield
This affects knights (on a city segment).

There is no Crop Circle for the monks (on a cloister or monastery) in the official rules.
As long as HiG doesn't expand this mini with a new Crop Circle for cloisters/monasteries, the followers haven't to do any "work" as monks or abbots. 

Precisely. A monk crop-circle is pointless when you are just adding it to the basic game (because the adding choice is pointless). The count of Carcassonne and the Flying Machines start to give the concept some meaning. But a monk crop-circle becomes very interesting when combined with German monasteries. Could I for instance place an abbot and then later on use the monk crop circle to place a monk next to the abbot?

I strongly suspect that the idea of a monk crop circle is a bad one, because it only has meaning in obscure situations and those situations are really not worth it.

However if we end up in a situation where you can get a monk and an abbot sitting next to each other using the flier but not using the phantom/wagon/magic circle then I would certainly want to raise the theoretical question of a monk crop circle and German monasteries.

[MrNumbers]

Maybe I don't understand something, but where have you found a crop circle for cloisters?
Is this just a theory or home rule?

[asparagus]

Maybe I don't understand something, but where have you found a crop circle for cloisters?
Is this just a theory or home rule?

I thought I was being very clear it was a thought experiment.

[kettlefish]

asparagus,
I am often confused about your philosophical questions here in the "official rules".
You are asking questions for something that doesn't exist - with an other word "nothing".
Please tell me how should I ask the publisher HiG questions about "nothing"?

A crop circle for a cloister doesn't exist, so I can't ask HiG about this.

[asparagus]

asparagus,
I am often confused about your philosophical questions here in the "official rules".
You are asking questions for something that doesn't exist - with an other word "nothing".
Please tell me how should I ask the publisher HiG questions about "nothing"?

A crop circle for a cloister doesn't exist, so I can't ask HiG about this.

If HiG respond with sensible answers to the flier/German monastery then I don't care.

[obervet]

To move back toward the question at hand, if I were to make a house rule until the official rule is known, I would say that the second follower (the one who flew in) gets to choose what to count the feature as, regardless of the first follower's status. But, until we know for sure, the CAR gets a footnote with the dreaded red padlock.

[Scott]

I thought I was being very clear it was a thought experiment.

Better to leave that for another time in another thread. Figuring out loopholes in the rules is complicated enough already.

[asparagus]

I thought I was being very clear it was a thought experiment.

Better to leave that for another time in another thread. Figuring out loopholes in the rules is complicated enough already.

I really think noone has figured out what has got my goat here. And that is despite the fact I have been trying to put it into words. So I looked through the thread to see where I had gone wrong and I think I missed this:

Yes, the open question is: once an occupation is chosen on initial placement is the other option automatically closed for the duration of the game?

What if no choice is made on initial placement, but the feature becomes occupied later through other means...magic gate, flier, wagon, etc. Is the second occupation then automatically closed?

No I don't think this is the question at all. I have been seeing two theories as to how German monasteries operate:

• It is one feature that can either operate in monk mode or abbot mode. As long as the feature is occupied the mode is fixed, but it is undecided as long as the feature is unoccupied.
• It is two features occupying the same point.

I have been reading this thread as if I was the only one arguing for Theory 1.  Theory 2. looks the next most plausible to me though one I would strongly dislike. I have been trying on data (and in one case a thought experiment) to try and distinguish between these two theories. Clearly other theories have been proposed if only reluctantly.

I guess the moral is I should read the thread more carefully. But I hope this clears up my view point.

[Scott]

I lean towards theory 1 as well. I think when Carcking said "for the duration of the game" he was not thinking about expansions where the abbot could get removed. If a player places a monk, which is later eaten by the dragon, and then someone places a magic portal, they are not limited to placing a monk, they could also place an abbot on the unoccupied monastery.

[asparagus]

I think when Carcking said "for the duration of the game" he was not thinking about expansions where the abbot could get removed.

It is mis-communications like this that lead to the break-up of marriages and the break-out of wars. Curious then that diplomacy should be about ambiguity rather than clarity.

[kettlefish]

I've called with HiG - Georg Wild today:

The flier can land on the German Monastery even if there already stands a follower as a monk or an abbot. The flier can chose if he like to be a monk or an abbot. If the flier like to land as a monk the feature (German Monastery as cloister) is not finished (cloister and 8 tiles surround it).

[Fritz_Spinne]

So one question is answered! If the cloister (of the monastery) is not finished yet a player can choose to make him a monk or an abbot, if the cloister is finished the flyer can become an abbot, no matter if there is another follower as monk or abbot, right?

[kettlefish]

The flier can only land on an unfinished feature.
that means: if a German Monastery is surrounded with 8 tiles - then the flier can only use the German Monastery as an abbot.