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Messages - TheSteveAllen
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406
« on: May 05, 2017, 02:59:13 AM »
A good example of what I mean is the use of the Count of Carcassonne with Traders and Builders, where closing someone else's city is rewarded in 2 ways.
I have made some impassioned pleas around here about playing the Count with certain expansions to allow it to thrive. Traders and Builders is one obvious example. I also think German Castles is another expansion that goes well with the Count:
Here are the two reasons why:
1. The count tile (and I suppose, the Wheel of Fortune tile too, for that matter) is a great way to get the German Castles out on the board right away. If you're looking to claim the castle for the potential 12 points, it makes sense to play it immediately - literally on your first turn - alongside the City of Carcassonne to give yourself a headstart on filling all the spaces needed to complete the castle. This in turn creates all sorts of interest right out of the gate, with lots of meeples on the board and bonus points available.
2. One of the problems with the Count (in my view) has always been that it's never really worth it to go into the cathedral or blacksmith quarters of the City of Carcassonne because cloisters and roads don't usually score enough points to make it a worthwhile move. But with German Castles worth 12 points as a cloister, and with the three-point bonus attached to all roads leading out of the German Castles, both of these features get a points boost and therefore become more valuable and more enticing to try to tie-up or steal via the Count mechanic.
So, in earlier posts regarding expansions that go well with the Count (which I like, even though most people don't), I focused on elements where finishing other people's features is advantageous (most obviously Traders & Builders, but also King and Robber Baron). Today's discovery is that I also think elements that boost roads and/or cloisters (e.g. German Castles, vineyards, inns) also go really well with the Count. German Monasteries might be the best of all presuming you can join one of them as an abbot at the end of the game from the cathedral quarter.
As promised I tried out Jungleboy's suggestion last night and it provided me with one of the most tactically interesting games of Carcassonne that I have witnessed so far. We used the base game with Inns & Cathedrals, Builders & Traders, King, Count and Robber Barron, The German Castles and the German Cathedrals. The start of the game was based around the German castles and German Cathedrals, with both players closing each other's short roads and small cities to get meeples inside the Carcassonne city to be able to rob some of the road and cloister points that we abundant at this stage. The game developed into a battle for cities and farms, with both of us gaining lots of points for 'small battles' along the way. The highlight for me came right at the end when, after blocking my opponent's builder (and 2 of my own meeples) in the big city, I finally got the CCRF tile that allowed me to close it. This gave me the majority of the silk, grain and wine tiles, as well as giving me the 'King' card and another 4 points added to my biggest farm. Unfortunately, my opponent brought in his big meeple from the city of Carcassonne and stole the 54 points for the city!! I strongly recommend this set-up to everyone to try out. I am certainly going to play it again, possibly with the robbers next time, to make it even more devious!  A big thumbs up  and thanks to Jungleboy for the suggestion.
407
« on: May 03, 2017, 03:10:02 PM »
Thank you for this detailed reply Jungleboy, I will try out the combination that you suggest tomorrow. I think that this will make a very interesting game, totally different from 'regular' Carcassonne shifting heavily the emphasis on completing features rather than just 'owning' them. I have a feeling that it will need quite a few trial runs to work out tactics, but I think that it may well be worth the effort.
Thanks too to Decar for showing his support for this topic. I am looking forward to his thoughts on this subject.
408
« on: May 03, 2017, 10:41:02 AM »
I will start a simulated mega-carc with over 150 different expansions, you will see some picture of the progress of the game soon. 
Of course, some will be impossible to play together.
Although I think that I would find this fun, I am thinking of combinations that make up a good entertaining game for about 2 to 3 hours, with about 150 to 200 tiles, where the rules of the expansions work well together. A good example of what I mean is the use of the Count of Carcassonne with Traders and Builders, where closing someone else's city is rewarded in 2 ways.
409
« on: May 03, 2017, 10:16:44 AM »
I hope that I am not necroposting here, but I would be very interested to know what expansions of Carcassonne work well together. I play virtually every day with the tiles in various combinations, and I have found that some of the expansions complement each other quite well and lead to a game which is even better than the sum of the parts. Recently we have been playing The CII base game with the abbot, the river, Inns and Cathederals, The Abbey and Mayor and The Watchtowers, and this really appears to be a satisfying combination that produces close and interesting games. I have also tried other combinations which do not work so well together. I would very much like to try out the Bridges, Castles and Bazaars with the tunnels, as this gives an almost 3D aspect to the game, especially if we were to include the fan expansion of tunnels 2.
If anyone has a favourite set of expansions that they know complement each other, I, for one, would like to try it out.
By way of illustration of what I mean, I have added this recent photo showing the finished board with lots of cities, roads, farms and other features evenly distributed. This, for me, is preferably to games which end up fighting over a large city or a single large farm. Here, everyone has a chance to win several little "battles", which is what makes the game both interesting and addictive.
410
« on: May 02, 2017, 02:44:24 PM »
After a long correspondence course with my friend Chooselife, we finally managed to meet up tonight for our round 7 match in the Basegame league. Unfortunately, the bout did not do justice to all the pre-match hype in the tabloids, but they were, nonetheless 2 fun games in which to be involved. I must, however, apologize to my opponent for so decisively shooting myself in the foot half way through the first game by trapping two of my own meeples. This comes in the wake of my disastrous miscount of farmers against Hounk in a previous round. I will keep to myself the fact that I was a Maths teacher for 7 years! The first game ended:- Chooselife  81 v TheSteveAllen  55 - (Home win) This game was all about a battle for a big city which Chooselife eventually won, courtesy of my meeples being sent off in the first half! The second game was closer and ended:- TheSteveAllen 90 v Chooselife 83 (home win) This was an evenly balanced game all about roads, cities, cloisters and farms, about equally. I was more pleased that I managed to get through 72 tiles without doing something stupid than I was with the actual win. Thanks to chooselife for not laughing at me in the first match, and for being sympathetic and letting me win the second! 
411
« on: April 28, 2017, 04:54:10 PM »
Having thought about this a bit more, how about a league where everyone plays home and away, and the home player picks one major expansion of choice. This might add a bit of variety.
412
« on: April 28, 2017, 04:45:58 PM »
Like halfling, I would like the opportunity to play the first expansions, as we noobies missed out the first time around. Sorry to be selfish! 
413
« on: April 11, 2017, 03:10:54 PM »
Rosco and I played our final game of the competition tonight and, for once using the BC&B expansion, we did not end up with a battle over one big field. This is the first time that I have seen this. The whole game was very close throughout and it could have gone either way, but the final result was:- TheSteveAllen 127 : Rosco  107 I think that I am starting to get the hang of this expansion but, unfortunately, it is a little bit too late. Thanks again to Rosco for the great battle, which I really enjoyed, and congratulations to Danisthirty for winning the competition.
414
« on: March 30, 2017, 11:06:59 AM »
Thanks Steve, they dont look too bad. The roads seem very white.
I have to ask, how long did it take you to accept the FRCR tile in the top left hand corner 
I think that you have just given me an insight as to why I keep losing my games! 
415
« on: March 30, 2017, 09:49:13 AM »
Question for those of you with a copy: did they fix the terrible watermarks?
Decar, photo as promised. I think you will agree that these look a lot better than the pre-release versions.
416
« on: March 30, 2017, 06:48:36 AM »
My watermarks appear to be sound. Will attach a photo when I get home.
417
« on: March 29, 2017, 02:49:28 AM »
Only 4 days from Cundco. Most impressed!
418
« on: March 27, 2017, 08:35:00 AM »
Thanks for this link BigBoss. I have sent this off to a friend of a friend for translation into English in the hope that it is done before my order gets here, (currently on its way from Germany).
419
« on: March 24, 2017, 03:50:10 PM »
Rich_The_Fish and I played our games tonight and they were both real nail-biters. The first game was:- TheSteveAllen 101 : Rich_The_Fish  97 This has to be the strangest game that I have played in that all the road and field tiles came out first, leaving us with a situation where farmers were almost redundant, as each field only contained one city, so it was not worth wasting a meeple on going for 3 points. In the end, the fields opened out slightly and I won that battle by a massive 12 points to 9!! The second game was equally close, but Rich is going to report on that one, I believe. The score, however, for the record, was; Rich_The_Fish 97 : TheSteveAllen 92 Thanks for both games Rich and best of luck in your future games in this league.
420
« on: March 23, 2017, 05:48:35 AM »
Fogarrach, You do not need to borrow or buy anything. You can play Carcassonne on line using JCloisterZone. It is free and runs in Linux, Mac and even Windows! http://jcloisterzone.com/en/Just make certain that you have Java installed. Good luck my friend!
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