River variations

[Scott]

1. Lay the river in reverse order, from lake to spring. No real advantage, but might be more desirable when playing the Count expansion to have the lake near the City of Carcassonne merely for asthetic reasons?
2. When playing with the River II, mix the fork in with the other river tiles to have it inserted at random.
3. When playing with the River II, select only one lake tile and use two spring tiles. Lay the river in reverse order. The fork can be placed randomly, or at some predetermined point. The end result is two rivers flowing into one which then flows into a lake.
4. When playing with the River II, start from the fork, playing tiles on all three branches. Play the spring and lake tiles at the end, or mix two of the three with the rest of the river before play to have two of the three branches end randomly.

[Gantry]

Does anyone really know what direction the water actually flows?   

[canada steve]

Doesnt that depend on which hemisphere you live in 

[wicke]

I just wanted to say that we have been using both rivers and had both rivers placed at random with only the springs and fork placed first, then all other tiles (except lake with volcano) placed at random, and then ending with lake with volcano.

BUT now last week I got hold of GQ11 (from ebay) and the new spring adds a problem, now we need to get rid of either one lake or the fork to be able to play all three springs.
I NEED ANOTHER LAKE...

Cheers

[wicke]

sorry, of course I meant that we now need to get rid of one spring or the fork

[revolushn]

we play with two forks and a straight river between them. The ends (two lakes, a spring and a volcano) then com out randomly. Makes for a big river, but with 300 or so tiles it works.

[EcoGuy]

Not sure weather to revive this old post or start a new one.  Anyway I thought I toss a new take on playing with the two river sets.

I start with one river and play it as normal to start.  Then one spring/lake tile is mixed into the remaining play tiles and remaining pieces are stacked at the side of the board.  Play resumes as normal until the spring/lake tile is pulled then the second river is played as it normally would be (or per any of the other variants, i.e. fork, build backwards, etc.)

I have had success with this method and adds more variety to the board, of course I have one friend who always wants to be difficult and play the second start piece where it would be impossible to complete.  In such cases majority rules and there is always somewhere to play the first tile.  Then play resumes as normal and if for some reason a river piece does not fit we treat it as with other tiles that if the piece does not fit it gets put to the side and play continues.

[CKorfmann]

That sounds like a good idea.  I like that variant.

[ecmcn]

Another river variant I like is the random river size. Start with the spring, and place ALL other river tiles in the draw pile, including the lake(s). When the river ends you're done - set aside the other river tiles. Can be disappointing if you like lots of river, but the added randomness can make things interesting, e.g. you can place a farmer along the "middle" of the river stretch and hope the lake gets drawn soon so you own the large farm around the lake.

Eric

[Gwommy]

I play the river set much like Ecmcn does.  Except I play with two springs facing the opposite direction at the start.  If playing with the Count, then I start the springs on the east and west sides of the City of Carcassonne.