Dear all,
This is a first installment of a series to discuss controversial interactions between expansions. Just wanted to show some cases I found in the darkest corners of the rules and start a discussion about how to address this situations.
Normally these cases involve interactions with mini expansions not covered anywhere. The only interactions documented lately are included in the C2 major expansions and they don't cover interactions with mini expansions. Even Big Box 6 contains several mini expansions and omits some cases that a any player can come across.
Moreover, the rules of the latest mini expansions contain the following paragraph (or a version of it) that makes us very happy every time a new mini expansion is released including it too:
This expansion has been developed for the Carcassonne basic game. All the basic game rules still apply in addition to the expansion rules below. You can combine it with other expansions - but at your own risk – that is, there will be no official rules for these combinations.
All in all, we have no hints in the rules or official clarification for these cases so far. So I think it would be interesting to discuss them and share our opinions.
Let me start this series covering the following topic...
Controversial Interactions #01 - Watchtowers and meeples in castles
As you may know, watchtowers score according to their type by taking into account features or meeples found on the watchtower tile and the tiles around it.
I would like to discuss here the watchtowers with the following symbol:
(http://wikicarpedia.com/images/e/e1/Watchtowers_C2_Watchtower_Type_1.png)
This watchtower type provides 2 points for each meeple in the neighboring tiles of the watchtower.
But what happens with meeples in castles overlapping any of those tiles?
So far I was following the basic rule applied for castles: since they are not placed on a particular tile, they are not considered for actions involving tiles: the dragon cannot eat any meeples in them, a tower cannot capture a meeple in them, they are not affected by the plague,... and so on and so forth.
However, I was reviewing the interactions between the Big Top (Exp. 10 - Under the Big Top) and castles (Exp. 8 - Bridges, Castles & Bazaars) some weeks ago and found this:
If at least one tile forming a castle is adjacent to the Big Top, a meeple in that castle will score points when a circus is scored.
My first though was: "Should a watchtower scoring per neighboring meeples consider those meeples placed in a castle?
What do you think? Can we extend this interaction in Exp. 10 to watchtowers?
Let me know your thoughts! Thanks!
You can revisit the rules here:
* Watchtower scoring: http://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/The_Watchtowers#3._Scoring_a_feature (http://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/The_Watchtowers#3._Scoring_a_feature)
* Big top interactions (check Exp. 8 ): http://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/Under_the_Big_Top#Circus_tiles.2C_animal_tokens_and_the_big_top_2 (http://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/Under_the_Big_Top#Circus_tiles.2C_animal_tokens_and_the_big_top_2)