I have been thinking of a way to make Scott's
suggestion work. Scott's original idea was "The intention is for encouraging players to build in areas where there is little activity." Taking his basic concept and modifying it a lot...
Expansion contains:
12 "walled tiles" (like the abbey) each with a small cottage in the middle. Let's call this the
Special Guest bastille tile.
To be played with:
1. The Tower
(although it will probably work well with Prison, The Constable, etc.)
Game mechanics:
Each player is given an equal number of the
Special Guest bastille tile (up to a max of 2).
During a player's turn, if they have captured at least one prisoner with the tower
or some other expansion, they may choose to play
the Special Guest a bastille tile and deploy any prisoner to the tile.
The walls means the tiles can be played anywhere since the edges don't have to match.
The prisoner's player loses the number of points = to the number of tiles surrounding
the Special Guest a bastille tile.
When a tile is played around
the Special Guest a bastille tile, the player that is on the tile loses 1 point as the tile is played.
Special Guests Incarcerated Prisoners cannot be removed by a tower or the dragon or by any other means except completing the 8 tiles around it. However it may be exchanged when playing with the Catapult (although why anyone would want to do that is a different story).
When
the Special Guest a bastille tile is fully surrounded (like a cloister), the player would have lost 8 points in total
(maximum at that point) and the follower on the tile is returned to the player's supply.
What this does:
1. Encourages players to build around the special guest tile, while keeping Scott's original idea of losing 1 point per tile intact.
2. Discourages the creation of holes around the special guest tiles - the player on the special guest tile would not want his meeple to be stuck there forever, and everyone else would be building there to make that player lose points.
3. Encourages a player to "buy back" their meeple after it is captured as soon as possible. That only costs 5 points as opposed to a potential 8 with the Special Guest tile.
Comments welcome. I settled on "Special Guest" since "Prisoner" was too boring and "Esteemed Prisoner" a bit of an oxymoron, but I'm still taking suggestions for a better name.
