Expansion: The Architect

[Gwommy]

I'm working on a hopefully mostly original idea of an expansion for Carcassonne.  This expansion will either add 18 double sided land tiles or 36 single sided land tiles.  If playing with the 36 tiles, only use 18 tiles and set the other 18 of the tiles aside.  Each tile set aside is lined up with one of the 18 tiles that are used in the game.  The expansion will also add Architect Meeple(one for each  color).  

How it works:
Your Architect is brought into play with the same rules as a builder.  It can only be deployed to a road or city and only remains in play as long as you have a follower already on the same feature.  When you draw a tile, if you draw a double sided tile and your architect is in play, then you may use either side of the tile.  If you use the 36 tiles, they will have to be labeled so you know which tiles corresponds to the other.  If your architect is not in play, you have to use the front of the tile.

The front of the land tiles will be pretty basic. The back of each land tile will be slightly different, such as a road turning in a different direction, or an extra pennant, or an inn on the lake, etc.

===EDIT===
Here's what I've came up with(I don't know how to change the files to PDF format:
Architect Rules: http://gwommy.tripod.com/carcassonne/ArchitectRules.doc
Architect Tiles:
http://gwommy.tripod.com/carcassonne/Architect1.jpg
http://gwommy.tripod.com/carcassonne/Architect2.jpg
http://gwommy.tripod.com/carcassonne/Architect3.jpg
http://gwommy.tripod.com/carcassonne/Architect4.jpg
http://gwommy.tripod.com/carcassonne/Architect5.jpg
http://gwommy.tripod.com/carcassonne/Architect6.jpg

The Architect does not score you any points directly, but have the choice to between using two tiles can help add some extra points to your score.

I'll come up with some tiles soon, in the meantime, I wanted to get some feedback.

[meepleater]

Nice idea!

How about the other side having the same city-road configuration, and has the bonus icon (pennant, inn etc.), so if you don't have the architect, you miss out on the extra points etc. the tile shows, but not miss out on a configuration. (Having the same configuration on both sides also makes it easier to find the corresponding tile in the 36 tile set).

[Gwommy]

I updated my first post with links to the first draft of the rules and tile pics.  Feel free to criticize, spell check, grammar check, etc.

[Gwommy]

I've created some clay meeple for this expansion.  Here's what I came up with:



Also, what's the next step for submitting this idea, or getting it added to the list of expansions?

[meepleater]

Novelty will add it to the list as soon as he ges round to it (but he never seems to get time for this any more  )

[Novelty]

Also, what's the next step for submitting this idea, or getting it added to the list of expansions?

It was added on the 11th, 3 days before the above post.

What's next is to type out the rules and make the tiles (if any) and the post it up for review.  You'll get some comments from lemme guess CKorfmann definately and maybe Scott, meepleater and if you're lucky Joff, but it's also where I'll probably (and unintentionally) do a "Simon Cowell" on the rules and probably the idea and drive you away forever, or something like that.  [I hope I don't  ]  Don't worry too much about it though - these days though, I barely have the time to read through badly written rules, so only meepleater will get special treatment  [Just kidding!  Actually meepleater's rules has been consistantly good the last few times around and I'm actually looking forward to LotR-TTT, although I'm not kidding about the "barely have the time" part.]  If you survive though, you get rewarded by getting your expansion on the Public Downloads list.

And I didn't realise we had an animated crying smiley (an oxymoron!) here.

[CKorfmann]

You'll get some comments from lemme guess CKorfmann definately...

Is that a good thing?  The guys look cool.

[meepleater]

Novelty-Thanks for the compliments, and reminding me that I still need to get around to TTT (I'm a bit busy, but I'll see if I can manage it today, although I do have two big assessments due soon, and I haven't started on either).

Gwommy- looks good, but:
1. Under Place a Tile, "architect land tile(labelled A1 thru T1)." There should be a space between 'tile' and '(labelled...'. It bracket seems to join onto the word 'tile'.
2. The second page requires the blue background
3. Maybe make everything from 'Version History' down on the third page, and make sure the web address is on the very last line on that page.
4. Under 'Ghettos', you put another player's follwer into the ghetto, not your own (so something like 'You may not put another player's architect into a Ghetto.

But looking really good, I like the idea!

[Gwommy]

Alright, I think it's ready for submission.  I still don't know how to convert it to a PDF, but I got it zipped up.
http://gwommy.tripod.com/Architect.zip

[Novelty]

You can get PDF redirect to make your PDFs.  It's free and simple to use.

"At the beginning of the game, distribute one Architect Meeple to each player of their own color." So the red meeple goes to a native american and the black meeple goes to someone whose ancestors hail from Africa?  Who gets to use the blue or green meeple?  Martians?

Side note, you may also remove the word meeple there.  My suggestion would be "At the beginning of the game, distribute one Architect of the appropriate colour to each player."

[Gwommy]

Cool, thanks!  That seemed to do the trick.

So, here's the final:
http://gwommy.tripod.com/Architect.zip

Or if you want the indivisual PDF files:
http://gwommy.tripod.com/Architect_Rules.pdf
http://gwommy.tripod.com/Architect_Tiles.pdf

[Novelty]

Congrats on the expansion Gwommy.  It's now on Public Downloads.  Also, as a sidenote, would you allow me to put the architect clay meeples image on the download page?

Edit: I just realised that there's no bee token in your expansion for the Lavendar tile.  Could you update the tiles to include the new bee token (and separate it from the rules)?  Thanks.

[meepleater]

Also, sorry to be a pain, but...

"The road on this tile continues around
the well and does signify a road
ending. It is a single road."

What's this supposed to mean? It sounds contradictory to me.

Just pointing this out so when you update the rules to add the bee token, you can fix this...

EDIT: Is it just me or does everyone else do the version history in reverse-chronological order?

[Gwommy]

Good find, Meepleater.  I also reversed the order of my version history.  I think people don't do it that way because it's a pain.  When you press enter, MS Word adds the next number, not the previous.  Then you go to change it and it loses its font properties.  Or maybe it's just because I'm not the best at using that program?

Anyway, everything should be fixed now, same links as I posted above.

[Novelty]

OK, I updated Public downloads.  Could someone check for me if it's the correct version?  Thanks.