Author Topic: Why Escape a Besieged City?  (Read 9260 times)

Offline danisthirty

  • (not thirSty!)
  • Owner
  • Chatelain Grand-Croix
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 6940
  • Merit: 293
  • "First to 4 points wins?"
    • View Profile
Why Escape a Besieged City?
« on: September 09, 2013, 08:24:17 AM »
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the rules but I've never really understood why you'd want to abandon a city just because it's been besieged (and because you have the opportunity to do so if you're lucky enough to place a cloister/ cult place somewhere useful). Obviously it won't be worth quite as many points, but if it's a ten-tile city with a couple of pennants for example it's still going to be worth 12 points or so.

I can see that if you end up with a knight trapped in a city that can't be completed then it may be helpful to get them back by laying siege to the city, but if a city is otherwise completable I can't see why you wouldn't keep playing for the points.

The only way I'd really want to escape from somewhere would be if the points value became negative rather than positive. Imagine that! Your opponent has a huge city worth 40 points, then - bang! - you place a Siege/ Cathars tile and suddenly it's worth -40. Then it becomes a desperate struggle for them to get hold of a cloister and evacuate the city before you can complete it! Is anybody aware of any expansions that would have this effect?

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=428.0
« Last Edit: September 09, 2013, 08:28:18 AM by danisthirty »

Offline Carcking

  • Duke Chevalier
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 1853
  • Merit: 33
  • I call Red!
    • View Profile
Re: Why Escape a Besieged City?
« Reply #1 on: September 09, 2013, 10:33:10 AM »
I'm with you on this. I never saw much value in it - and it always made me wonder what prompted the creation of the mechanic with the expansion - and then I wondered if at some point in the creation of the expansion maybe it was more aggressive than the final release, so that you would not want to remain in a besieged city...

I'm not aware of any expansion with that kind of a point swing as you describe - I'm a fairly strategic player and even for me that would be pretty harsh  >:D
I just drew the perfect tile for my MonKnighThieFarmer!

Offline JT Atomico

  • Marquis
  • ***
  • Posts: 428
  • Merit: 61
    • View Profile
Re: Why Escape a Besieged City?
« Reply #2 on: September 09, 2013, 10:55:41 AM »
I can think of a few situations were you might want to:
  • you are outnumbered in the city anyway so you wouldn't get points even if it did complete
  • you are in an incompleteable cathedral city that would score you no points
  • you've run out of meeples and want to try to fight for another feature next turn
But all of these situations are when you can't get any points or think you can get more points elsewhere. I agree that there is no reason to evacuate if you can score points and have no issue with meeples numbers.

Why not try the negative points thing as a variant? I think it would have the effect of making people very cautious of building large cities!

Offline danisthirty

  • (not thirSty!)
  • Owner
  • Chatelain Grand-Croix
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 6940
  • Merit: 293
  • "First to 4 points wins?"
    • View Profile
Re: Why Escape a Besieged City?
« Reply #3 on: September 09, 2013, 11:24:21 AM »
Thanks for your responses guys, I'm glad it's not just me who couldn't quite see why you'd do this.

Next time I play with the Kathars/ Siege tiles I'll try the following:

- incomplete cities which include one of the Siege tiles are worth nothing in the final scoring
- complete cities which include one of the Siege tiles are worth -1 per tile + -1 per pennant but are otherwise scored in the normal way (i.e. by majority of knights in the city)
- cities are scored in the same way as with Kathars/ Sieges for farms (6 points per city or 8 with pig)
- knights can escape from besieged cities if there is a cloister/ cult place anywhere next to any of the city borders (same as Sieges I believe)

Will let you know how it goes!
« Last Edit: September 09, 2013, 03:03:06 PM by danisthirty »

Offline JT Atomico

  • Marquis
  • ***
  • Posts: 428
  • Merit: 61
    • View Profile
Re: Why Escape a Besieged City?
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2013, 12:01:55 PM »
Next time I play with the Kathars/ Siege tiles I'll try the following:

- incomplete cities which include one of the Siege tiles are worth nothing in the final scoring
- complete cities which include one of the Siege tiles are worth -1 per tile + -1 per pennant but are otherwise scored in the normal way (i.e. by majority of knights in the city)

Sounds interesting, definitely want to hear how it goes! You could even be really mean and say that you lose 1 point per tile and shield for every siege tile connected. So if a city is under siege from two siege tiles it is worth -2 per tile and shield, etc.

Offline JT Atomico

  • Marquis
  • ***
  • Posts: 428
  • Merit: 61
    • View Profile
Re: Why Escape a Besieged City?
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2013, 01:19:50 PM »
On another note, I find it really weird that you still get any farmer points for a besieged city. The Cathars must be pretty terrible at putting a town under siege if the city is still supplied with food from every farm that it touches!

Offline Carcking

  • Duke Chevalier
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 1853
  • Merit: 33
  • I call Red!
    • View Profile
Re: Why Escape a Besieged City?
« Reply #6 on: September 10, 2013, 08:04:20 AM »
On another note, I find it really weird that you still get any farmer points for a besieged city. The Cathars must be pretty terrible at putting a town under siege if the city is still supplied with food from every farm that it touches!

I agree with this as well. During a period when there were beginnings of an uprising of the sentiment that farms were over-weighted and scored too high - they came up with a way to increase farm scoring instead of making use of the perfect opportunity to temper it. It puzzled me for sure.

Offline danisthirty

  • (not thirSty!)
  • Owner
  • Chatelain Grand-Croix
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 6940
  • Merit: 293
  • "First to 4 points wins?"
    • View Profile
Re: Why Escape a Besieged City?
« Reply #7 on: September 10, 2013, 08:39:28 AM »
@Carcking - I completely agree with you! I posted a new thread regarding my revised alternative rules for The Cathars which can be found here. Interested to know what you think of the adjustments for farms...

Offline Carcking

  • Duke Chevalier
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 1853
  • Merit: 33
  • I call Red!
    • View Profile
Re: Why Escape a Besieged City?
« Reply #8 on: September 10, 2013, 08:48:16 AM »
I can think of a few situations were you might want to:
  • you are outnumbered in the city anyway so you wouldn't get points even if it did complete
  • you are in an incompleteable cathedral city that would score you no points
  • you've run out of meeples and want to try to fight for another feature next turn

All good reasons to get out but I was looking for the connection between the creation of the siege expansion and the inclusion of the mechanic for escaping the city - it seems that maybe the original intent was more aggressive and there was a need for escaping - more than just desiring to get a follower back - maybe it rendered the city of no value, or threatened negative points. They may have watered it down to remove the negative effect but still left the escape mechanic in. Or maybe I'm reading way too far into it.  :o


Share via delicious Share via digg Share via facebook Share via furl Share via linkedin Share via myspace Share via reddit Share via stumble Share via technorati Share via twitter

  Subject / Started by Replies / Views Last post
xx
Escape from besieged city missing from CAR's "Order of Play"

Started by JT Atomico

2 Replies
7981 Views
Last post September 12, 2013, 12:34:45 PM
by obervet
xx
Escaping a besieged city (Flight)

Started by PapaGeek

3 Replies
672 Views
Last post October 13, 2022, 01:25:49 PM
by Meepledrone
xx
Whirlwind (portal) into a Besieged City?

Started by Ker42

1 Replies
1216 Views
Last post July 18, 2020, 02:33:55 AM
by Meepledrone
xx
When can I use escaped besieged meeples?

Started by PapaGeek

1 Replies
477 Views
Last post October 29, 2022, 11:58:06 AM
by Meepledrone
xx
Luckiest Escape!

Started by wallaceprime

0 Replies
526 Views
Last post June 20, 2022, 06:58:43 AM
by wallaceprime