Watermarks

[jungleboy]

Hi all,

There are quite a few threads that refer to watermark issues but I wanted to capture this in a single thread. Specifically, I'm interesting in representing each expansion with a watermark icon for storage/dividing purposes. There are obviously a few problems with this. This is what I have come up with so far:

- The first expansions didn’t come with watermarks. For some, later printings added watermarks, but for others, no watermark was ever produced. These include the the Count, the River II, Shrines and Hertics, the Cathars, 'Cult, Siege and Creativity' and the GQ#11 expansion (a magazine insert). The first three of these were later bundled together with the King and Robber Baron in the major expansion King, Count and Robber, which uses a crown watermark. But this watermark really only represents the King and Robber Baron expansion and I think many players would prefer to separate these four features in their collections (that is what I currently do). The Cathars, GQ#11 and Cult, Siege and Creativity never received watermarks, although the four Cathar tiles have an image of a Cathar priest on them.

- Apart from the Cathars, the different Spielbox magazine mini-expansions - the Tunnels, the Plague and Halflings I - all use the same icon (the Spielbox magazine icon, which is a pentagon) but they are unrelated expansions and this icon has nothing to do with the expansions themselves.

- There are several small expansions which have two versions and I’m sure people would prefer to separate them: the River I & II, Crop Circles I & II, Windroses I & II, Halflings I & II and German Monasteries / Dutch and Belgian Monasteries. Having an icon and a number 1 or 2 next to it might look a bit messy, but otherwise how can we label these separately?

- The base game itself doesn't have a watermark but I guess it can be represented with the C symbol.

Can anyone else think of other issues with watermarks and (most importantly!) does anyone have solutions for how to label expansions that don't have a unique watermark?

Cheers,
jungleboy

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1529.0

[Hounk]

The crown watermark for the sixth main expansion was something rather irritating for me as well. Especially because they even write in the manual, that these are strictly speaking individual expansions and they don't even recommend combining River II and Count. It comes close to branding all tiles of a Big Box with an unique "big box watermark".

[jungleboy]

I don't have a huge problem with the crown watermark on the tiles, because it's very easy to separate the River II, Count and Shrine tiles from the rest because of the unique features on those tiles. But I would still like an identifiable watermark/icon for all four parts for other reasons. I guess for the Count it wouldn't be too hard to make an icon that is a silhouette of the Count. But I don't know what to do about the River II to separate it from River II, or for the Shrines.

[Hounk]

But that's also true for the Spielbox expansions? Besides, there are quite a lot of expansions, which would not really need a watermark for identification reason. All with an individual icon like "Mage and Witch", "Goldmines", etc. (Where the small watermark is rather redundant to the more visible icon.) Cathars falls in the same category, but don't have any watermarks anyway. "The Tower" tiles can also be rather easy separated just by the feature itself, which is visible on all the tiles of the expansion. And I would not go for tiles with two watermarks, that would look rather messy. (With the exception maybe, if you would want to make a fan expansion, which combines two expansions, to indicate, that they are meant to be played both with these tiles.)

Besides, "Count" does not have any watermarks in the collection either. Probably, because they would distract too much from the "big picture".

[jungleboy]

But that's also true for the Spielbox expansions?

Yes, it is, you're right. But what I want to do is label dividers with watermarks/icons, where you can't see the faces of the tiles. So that's the reason that the crown and the Spielbox pentagon are problematic.

[Hounk]

Ah, OK, how about simply putting in this cases just the feature in color on the dividers? (I would not use monochrome fake watermarks, you can not actually find on the tiles anyway, this would only add to confusion, if somebody is looking for them on the tiles.) An example for Cult, quickly done in Paint just with the rubber and copy pasted afterwards below. The Halflings on  the other hand I would rather lable with a triangle plus the coresponding watermark.