Carcassonne Central
Carc Central Community => General => Topic started by: Whaleyland on December 19, 2014, 11:48:52 PM
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ELEMENT OF THE WEEK: THE MAYOR
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 MAYOR (from Abbey & Mayor [Expansion #5]). This is perhaps the most overrated Follower in the Carcassonne universe. It does virtually nothing that a normal Follower can't do better, and it can only be placed on Cities. What does a Mayor do? It can claim a City so long as that City has at least one Pennant. For each Pennant, the Mayor is worth one strength. Thus in a large City with many Pennants, it can be worth quite a lot of strength against other Followers. But this only helps a player if other non-Mayor Followers are in that City. If they aren't, then it just works like a normal, albeit fiddly, Follower. That's pretty much all that can really be said about the Mayor, a figure-to-be-underutilized extraordinaire! Discuss your relationship with The Mayor, as well as your strategies for taking advantage of this element.
Next Week's Topic: The Cathedrals >:D O:-) >:D O:-)
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Wow, it sounds like your mind has already been made up! This said, I do agree with you. Unless you can get your mayor into an opponent's city and close it quickly, the opponent will usually be able to respond with their own mayor so they end up cancelling each other out. If however, other players have their mayors trapped elsewhere it can be handy to keep back for a quick steal should the opportunity arise. In my experience this rarely happens though, and it's more often the case that all the mayors will end up in the same city...
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Given the self imposed constraints of the game, the Mayor is a reasonable addition to the range of followers. It has a negative in that it can only be placed with effect in Cities with the positive that it enjoys a boost from pennants in cities. Maybe the number of pennants in the game makes it less effective as a strategic specialized follower.
I do find it difficult to visually discriminate between the mayor and the large follower but that is when I reach for my tiny coloured rubber bands.
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He can be really handy in conjunction with the Count of Carcassonne. And comes in handy for a glom here or there. He largely gets forgotten in our group.
If I had a dime for everytime someone in my group has uttered the string of statements: "Now, which one is the Mayor again? ... Oh OK, what does he do? ... Oh, that's all?!"...eeesh
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Never was fond of The Mayor. Usually the case is, can't get enough pennants in a city to make it worthwile. Albeit, this is yet another experience from semi-mega to megaCarc games and thus these devious strategies often are easily dispersed by a simle tile placement or one of the vast elements at disposal.
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I will buck the trend. I like the mayor and I even have a pretty name for him - 'baggy trousers '. He is great for that city where you have the builder, then first tile you get the tile that adds to the city but has a second city segment, then with the second tile you close the city! Fantastic move!
Although, it does need to be a fairly big game to be truly useful.
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Unless you can get your mayor into an opponent's city and close it quickly, the opponent will usually be able to respond with their own mayor so they end up cancelling each other out.
This is where I am too. Often there's one big city that everyone tries to go for, and everyone ends up with their mayor in it so he ends up being pretty useless.
Maybe we could experiment with some house rules to try to change this dynamic. Two that come to mind are:
- The mayor can only be used once in the whole game (like the big follower in the Ark of the Covenant), so choose wisely!
- Only one mayor can be in any one city at a time, so the first person to add their mayor has an advantage. If two different cities, each containing a mayor, join up, the city that had the most tiles before they joined is the one whose mayor stays, while the other mayor is booted out but can be replaced by a regular follower if desired.
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I like him. It means I can usually stop my brother from steal both of my cities at the same time!
We call him "MC Hammer" because of the pants / trousers
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We call him "MC Hammer" because of the pants / trousers
:(y)
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We call him "MC Hammer" because of the pants / trousers
Ha ha! I know someone else who refers to the mayor as "MC Hammer Trousers"...
Maybe we could experiment with some house rules to try to change this dynamic. Two that come to mind are:
- The mayor can only be used once in the whole game (like the big follower in the Ark of the Covenant), so choose wisely!
- Only one mayor can be in any one city at a time, so the first person to add their mayor has an advantage. If two different cities, each containing a mayor, join up, the city that had the most tiles before they joined is the one whose mayor stays, while the other mayor is booted out but can be replaced by a regular follower if desired.
I like these ideas. I think the second would probably work best, but perhaps determine the most powerful mayor by the number of penants in his city (rather than number of tiles) before the two mayor cities were joined? If it's a tie they can be joint-mayors.
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I like these ideas. I think the second would probably work best, but perhaps determine the most powerful mayor by the number of penants in his city (rather than number of tiles) before the two mayor cities were joined? If it's a tie they can be joint-mayors.
Agreed, number of pennants is a cooler tie-breaker. I had only put about 10 seconds of thought into the idea before I posted it :)
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I like these ideas. I think the second would probably work best, but perhaps determine the most powerful mayor by the number of penants in his city (rather than number of tiles) before the two mayor cities were joined? If it's a tie they can be joint-mayors.
Agreed, number of pennants is a cooler tie-breaker. I had only put about 10 seconds of thought into the idea before I posted it :)
Impressive! I've been so sleep-deprived for the last year or so that 10 seconds isn't long enough for me to have a clear thought about anything! ;)
EDIT: It also seems to be more in keeping with the game that since the number of pennants is used to determine the strength of a mayor, the strongest mayor ought to be able to oust the other...
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Rather than ousting the weaker mayor why can't he stay as a deputy mayor? I.e. If mayor one has 3 pennants in his city and mayor 2 only has 2, then the 2 cities join, M1 now it's worth 5 pennants and M2 is worth only 4. As he had less votes/subjects before the merger.
This way the stronger mayor outs still worth more, but it is still possible to oppose him with careful placements.
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Rather than ousting the weaker mayor why can't he stay as a deputy mayor? I.e. If mayor one has 3 pennants in his city and mayor 2 only has 2, then the 2 cities join, M1 now it's worth 5 pennants and M2 is worth only 4. As he had less votes/subjects before the merger.
This way the stronger mayor outs still worth more, but it is still possible to oppose him with careful placements.
I suppose there's nothing to stop you from doing it this way if you prefer, but personally I quite liked the idea of forcibly ejecting the weaker mayor from the city, perhaps using the catapult? :)
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Talking of the catapult, I have just bought it!!
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Talking of the catapult, I have just bought it!!
Nothing makes me happier than to find out someone bought it. :)
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Has the Catapult been the Element of the Week yet. It has great road tiles at least.
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Has the Catapult been the Element of the Week yet. It has great road tiles at least.
It has not yet, no. This expansion never did 'skyrocket' with the fans of Carcassonne. :@
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So far my favourite catapult variant has been: just score 5 points when you draw the fair tile, then use the catapult for BBQ tongs. I've got an unopened version if anyone is looking for a copy.
As for Mayors, I like them, if they're timed well they're great for stealing cities away from people. It's also good to have an extra meeple to play during larger games.
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As much as I enjoy my infuriating optimism in the face of elements, I regrettably must agree with the majority of opinions and say that the mayor feels a little pointless. It's a great idea, but as noted, as soon as a player uses his mayor, any other player interested in the city will simply use their's. Useful, I suppose, if you can get in and close it quickly, as pointed out.
I like the idea of only one mayor being allowed, but that seems fairly tantamount to essentially giving the city to whichever player is smart/lucky enough to get his mayor in first. The likelihood of another player bothering or being able to get enough followers in to over-power a mayor is slim, I think.
Overall, he has his uses, they're just easily outweighed.
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In my opinion, the mayor is the least powerful thing in the Abbeys and Mayors expansion. I only put him down if I am starting a city with at least 1 pennant in it as it is easy for other players to close it off and leave me without any points. I guess it is ok to risk that if you are out of other meeple.
My family plays with the house rule that cities (with pennants) with mayors are untouchable by other players. So no merging your city with another person's city that has a mayor. If there is a mayor, "U can't touch this."
The farm and the wagon are much more powerful and used more often. Situationally, the wagon can be more powerful than a regular meeple. My son loves trapping my wagon on a road or in a city I can't finish.
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Funny, I consider the mayor more powerful then the wagon. Must say, I haven't brought that expansion to the table yet, so only played on JCZ and therefore with foll expansion. I like to deploy it to any city with at least one pennant, so I have more regular meeples to spare for barn-connecting. (I do the same with wagon on streets.)
The risk in this, if you don't get it back quickly, you might get vulnerable to other sneaky attempts of hostile mayors. I remember an epic game, I deployed my mayor on the base game CCCC, needed a CRRF or similar to finish this city. In the mean time, another city of mine grow larger and larger. The opponent got into with his mayor, and it was tough waiting for the tile to finish my small city. If he could have finished the big city before I got my mayor back, I would have been without any chance in that city. Luckily, it was the other way round, and I too was able to get my mayor inside.