Carcassonne Central
Carc Central Community => General => Topic started by: jungleboy on February 01, 2016, 02:12:15 AM
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The Completionism Poll is a weekly series where we ask how much of a completionist you are by breaking the game down into different expansions and elements. This week we look at Heretics and Shrines (also known as Cult), which has three different versions.
Cult was released as part of King, Count and Robber, with 5 tiles and the crown watermark. It was later released by Spielbox with the same 5 tiles in the same configurations, but with the Spielbox watermark.
Later still it was released by Rio Grande Games, but this time including 6 tiles, as part of Cult, Siege and Creativity with no watermark. The extra tile is a CRFR tile (i.e. the start tile, with a shrine).
So, how many versions of this expansion do you have? Does the difference in watermark between the King version and the Spielbox version matter to you? What is the definitive version of the expansion?
Vote in the poll and discuss your thoughts in this thread.
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I own the Cult, Siege and Creativity 6 tile version.
Being the most complete version I do consider it as the one to have on my collection.
I'm not a watermark "must haver" :P and I base my completionism of collection in having all tile arrangements & rules combinations possible so I'm not version/publisher/edition dependant. ;D
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I have the King, Count and Robber version and the Cult, Siege and Creativity version, so I voted that one 5-tile version and one 6-tile version is enough for me.
But it's probably a bit more complicated than that, and shows how silly my completionism is. My first version of this expansion was from King, Count and Robber. Then a little over a year ago I saw that Cult, Siege and Creativity was available. I wanted this only for Siege, even though I already had Cathars and Besiegers. I saw Siege as necessary but didn't see the 6-tile version of Cult as necessary at all, I just saw it as an annoying duplicate at the time. I'm not even sure I knew there was an extra tile. In any case, I obtained this version purely because it was attached to Siege. Yet why I saw Siege as a version I needed to get but didn't see the RGG Cult as a version I needed to get is anyone's guess.
Because most mini expansions are 4/6/8 tiles rather than 5, I would vote for the RGG 6-tile version as the definitive version. The lack of a watermark might make this an unpopular choice (thinking of whaleyland here), but as I said in the River discussion, the lack of a watermark doesn't bother me if the tiles themselves are very distinctive for separation purposes, and these obviously are with the shrines on them. So in the end I'm probably glad I have the 6-tile version even though I didn't care for it at the time that I got it!
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This is the poll I've been looking forward to!
I have the Cult, Siege and Creativity version, and the King watermarked version. I consider that to be enough as in my opinion, the Spielbox version was the same expansion re-released. Not that I would mind owning the Spielbox expansion, but I don't consider it necessary.
However, I have always wondered about whether the five and six tile versions should be considered re-releases, one simply having an extra tile, given that the other tile configurations are identical. I am interested to learn the general consensus. What would you use to play Mega-Carcassonne? Obviously you wouldn't play with the Count from the mini-expansion and from Count, King and Consorts, for example, so would you use the five and six tile versions of cult?
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To be different - I own both the Spielbox and the King, Count & Robber variant... so two 5-tile versions.
Would I be interested to get the 6-tile version? - sure - but I won't lose sleep if I can't get it, nor will I sell a kidney to get it :)
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One of my favourite expansions - it's worth having 3 versions just for larger games.
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Very interesting results so far with no clear consensus. It seems that there are a few different opinions here! Let's keep debating :)
What would you use to play Mega-Carcassonne? Obviously you wouldn't play with the Count from the mini-expansion and from Count, King and Consorts, for example, so would you use the five and six tile versions of cult?
Well I think the Count doesn't really lend itself well to multiple versions in the same game. But if you have a mega game with a lot of cloisters and you want to throw in all 16 cult tiles ... why not?
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I think the FCFR tile might be my favourite tile. I'm glad it's in all 3 releases.
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I think the FCFR tile might be my favourite tile. I'm glad it's in all 3 releases.
Yeah I really like this one too. And I think I'm right in saying that this configuration with a regular cloister does not exist.
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The CAR says not. Only Bazaar and CC2 come close.
A re-print of the 6-tiles + besiegers would make a nice expansion; especially as they work together so well.
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What would you use to play Mega-Carcassonne? Obviously you wouldn't play with the Count from the mini-expansion and from Count, King and Consorts, for example, so would you use the five and six tile versions of cult?
Well I think the Count doesn't really lend itself well to multiple versions in the same game. But if you have a mega game with a lot of cloisters and you want to throw in all 16 cult tiles ... why not?
This only issue I would have with that is that whilst Shrines can negate cloisters, they can also just be deployed with the same mechanic as a cloister, which means you could end up with way too many (cloisters or shrines) in a game, especially if you're playing with the Monasteries too! Unless you removed the base game cloisters like Monasteries suggests, but who wants to do that?
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I have two of the 6 tile versions and have no need to own the watermarks. I like having the 12 tiles because we tend to play in larger groups.
Now if the watermark had a tile variation that was unique, I would be all over it. Can't help it. :-\
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I have two of the 6 tile versions and have no need to own the watermarks. I like having the 12 tiles because we tend to play in larger groups.
Now if the watermark had a tile variation that was unique, I would be all over it. Can't help it. :-\
Yeah, I also value tile configuration much higher than watermarks, as I guess most of us (all of us?) do.
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I did, being rules-complete is definitely the goal, but it gets easier to find other bits and bobs.
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I'm mostly about tile configurations, but I will admit a certain fondness for watermarks, partly for the ease of sorting, but I still like them on tiles which are easily sorted anyway. I bought a new copy of Inns and Cathedrals several years ago because my previous copy didn't have watermarks. I later did the same with the King landscape tiles, because those were a pain to sort without watermarks. That also got me the King and Robber Baron tiles with the crown watermark, but I DON'T use those, I use my original ones from King and Scout because those aren't landscape tiles so have no need for a watermark! I realise this is highly contradictory. The mis-printed hill tile from Hills and Sheep was a thorn in my side until I got the Big Box 5 (ha-zah!) because even though it was easily sorted (because it has a hill) it bothered me because it didn't match the other hill and sheep tiles! I have cult tiles with crown watermarks, no watermarks and now Spielbox watermarks too, despite saying earlier that they were the same and it didn't matter to me. Humph. My River tiles, I and II, had no watermarks but different backs (why??!!) so they could be sorted with some ease, and the watermarks were consistent in that they both had none. Fine. However, now I have the River III, which is watermarked! So should I get the River II with the crown watermark? But that makes no sense because it's a river and the watermarks wouldn't match the others! BAH!
I don't really know where I stand on watermarks. I tell myself they're just for sorting then get annoyed when they're wrong.
That's not true. I know where I stand, I'm just not happy about it.
Which makes the Games Quarterly expansion my white whale.
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I place myself in a strange category because I started collecting Carcassonne stuff with the very first item that ever had watermarks: the Big Box. Thus, when I got GQ11 and the small box expansions (as well as The River which was included in my box!), I was annoyed and baffled that they didn't have watermarks. It just made sense to me that the tiles would be marked in some way. At the time, I added green dots onto the fields of all the GQ11 tiles as de facto watermarks, although that was never really satisfying. Cult, Siege & Creativity bugged me a lot since it was a new expansion that still didn't have watermarks. As soon as Count, King & Cult came out, I replaced my entire set of all three of the old expansions and gave the old ones to my brother-in-law, who didn't much care about the watermarks. Still, a bunch of the odd stuff didn't include them including The River, The Cathars, GQ11, CS&C, and, even much later, The School, The Windroses, and The Festival. Obviously most of these don't need the watermarks to be functional, but I really don't see any reason why they shouldn't include them anyway. The School I understand – it's just like The Count in that it is a large start tile. Likewise, The Festival was intended as an exclusive expansion, although thankfully it was later released on better quality stock, but I never like using features as watermarks. But The Windroses? Really? My biggest annoyance is the Darmstadt expansion which decided to put massive blue watermarks rather than the normal semi-opaque black ones. Why did they do this? So annoying! I haven't yet decided whether to just replace my River I with my new River III, but it is definitely something I'm considering. I just don't see any need for the old version anymore. My new one has watermarks. That's the first major sign that it is the definitive version. The only real exception is the CS&C Cult over CK&C or Spielbox Cult because of the extra tile.
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I'm mostly about tile configurations, but I will admit a certain fondness for watermarks, partly for the ease of sorting, but I still like them on tiles which are easily sorted anyway. I bought a new copy of Inns and Cathedrals several years ago because my previous copy didn't have watermarks. I later did the same with the King landscape tiles, because those were a pain to sort without watermarks. That also got me the King and Robber Baron tiles with the crown watermark, but I DON'T use those, I use my original ones from King and Scout because those aren't landscape tiles so have no need for a watermark! I realise this is highly contradictory. The mis-printed hill tile from Hills and Sheep was a thorn in my side until I got the Big Box 5 (ha-zah!) because even though it was easily sorted (because it has a hill) it bothered me because it didn't match the other hill and sheep tiles! I have cult tiles with crown watermarks, no watermarks and now Spielbox watermarks too, despite saying earlier that they were the same and it didn't matter to me. Humph. My River tiles, I and II, had no watermarks but different backs (why??!!) so they could be sorted with some ease, and the watermarks were consistent in that they both had none. Fine. However, now I have the River III, which is watermarked! So should I get the River II with the crown watermark? But that makes no sense because it's a river and the watermarks wouldn't match the others! BAH!
I don't really know where I stand on watermarks. I tell myself they're just for sorting then get annoyed when they're wrong.
That's not true. I know where I stand, I'm just not happy about it.
Which makes the Games Quarterly expansion my white whale.
Great response! I can just picture you arguing with yourself as you were writing it :)
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I place myself in a strange category because I started collecting Carcassonne stuff with the very first item that ever had watermarks: the Big Box. Thus, when I got GQ11 and the small box expansions (as well as The River which was included in my box!), I was annoyed and baffled that they didn't have watermarks. It just made sense to me that the tiles would be marked in some way. At the time, I added green dots onto the fields of all the GQ11 tiles as de facto watermarks, although that was never really satisfying.
My first item was the base game, years ago when I was younger and not quite as... let's say 'fastidious' as I am now, so when I got some expansions with watermarks, it didn't bother me at all. I didn't even sort my tiles initially, my first few expansions all sat in a big pile with my base game in the box. It was only when I started getting serious about collecting that the watermarks became important.
I'm mostly about tile configurations, but I will admit a certain fondness for watermarks, partly for the ease of sorting, but I still like them on tiles which are easily sorted anyway. I bought a new copy of Inns and Cathedrals several years ago because my previous copy didn't have watermarks. I later did the same with the King landscape tiles, because those were a pain to sort without watermarks. That also got me the King and Robber Baron tiles with the crown watermark, but I DON'T use those, I use my original ones from King and Scout because those aren't landscape tiles so have no need for a watermark! I realise this is highly contradictory. The mis-printed hill tile from Hills and Sheep was a thorn in my side until I got the Big Box 5 (ha-zah!) because even though it was easily sorted (because it has a hill) it bothered me because it didn't match the other hill and sheep tiles! I have cult tiles with crown watermarks, no watermarks and now Spielbox watermarks too, despite saying earlier that they were the same and it didn't matter to me. Humph. My River tiles, I and II, had no watermarks but different backs (why??!!) so they could be sorted with some ease, and the watermarks were consistent in that they both had none. Fine. However, now I have the River III, which is watermarked! So should I get the River II with the crown watermark? But that makes no sense because it's a river and the watermarks wouldn't match the others! BAH!
I don't really know where I stand on watermarks. I tell myself they're just for sorting then get annoyed when they're wrong.
That's not true. I know where I stand, I'm just not happy about it.
Which makes the Games Quarterly expansion my white whale.
Great response! I can just picture you arguing with yourself as you were writing it :)
Yes. So much arguing. I even edited the post several times before I was happy with it. Darn watermarks have got my number.
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My biggest annoyance is the Darmstadt expansion which decided to put massive blue watermarks rather than the normal semi-opaque black ones. Why did they do this? So annoying!
The watermark is the least of Darmstadt's problems. >:D
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Darmstadt should be in a separate completionist thread :p
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After one week of voting, this is the most even poll we have had in this series. The uber-completionists have a slight 'parliamentary majority', with 11 out of 26 people saying they own all three (9) or want to own all three (2). But 7 people said two versions are enough for their collection, while 7 more said that one version is enough.
This poll/thread will stay open and any future discussion of the Heretics and Shrines in terms of ownership/completionism is welcome in this thread, while for discussion of this expansion in terms of gameplay, head over to The Cult - Element of the Week #10 (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1261).
Edit: edited to clarify or possibly to confuse even more.
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Ah, using the UK political definition of "majority" to mean "more votes than any other option but not necessarily more than half" - you mean plurality :) (Thanks BBC Radio 4 More or Less) :)
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I voted "I own 1 version" since I have Expansion 6, but then I remembered I also have the Spielbox version somewhere (I must have given it as a present to some friend of mine). Anyway, I would like to get the Cult, Siege and Creativity set, just so that I can say my collection is really complete, but I won't go crazy if I can find it. ^-^
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I own all three versions, but I consider there to be only two different expansions (the 5 tile version and the 6 tile version). When I play Mega Carcassonne games with my intepretation of "all" of the tiles I do not use the ones from Spielbox.
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This is a nice picture which compares the printing of the Cult tiles for each printing.
(http://www.tehill.net/carcassonne/general/CultCompare.jpg)
Cult Siege and Creative
Spielbox
Expansion 6. The Count, King and Robber