Yes, they are the official English version by HiG
Some comments on them:
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2. Placing a meepleThe sentence in red is mistranslated.
After having placed a half-sized tile you may now place a Meeple on your tile according to the rules of the base game.
You may also place a Meeple on an adjacent triangular tile if there already is one.
The text should be something similar to this as per the German original text:
After having placed a half-sized tile you may now place a Meeple on your tile according to the rules of the base game.
You may place a Meeple even if there is already a Meeple on an adjacent half-sized tile.
So you can see how misleading the HiG English text can be at this point.
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3. Scoring a featureThe English rules include the following sentence regarding the scoring of completed features:
If you complete a feature by placing a half-sized tile, it is being scored according to the rules of the base game.
The German rules provide a slightly different meaning as they don't assume you complete the feature with the Halfling tile...
If you complete a feature with a half-sized tile, it is scored according to the normal rules.
So, again, we have a slight wording change that can drive you nuts trying to understand the intended meaning.
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Crop circle rulesThere is another mistranslation similar to the one present in the ZMG release of Big Box 6:
Place the triangular crop circle tile according to the rules. Afterwards you determine a kind of Meeple (knight, highwayman or farmer) and choose one of the following actions which all players (including yourself) must complete, starting with the player to your left:
Each player must either…
A) … take a Meeple from their supply and place it next to another one of their Meeples of this kind on the same land tile.
OR
B) … remove one of their Meeples of the determined kind from a land tile and put it back into their supply.
If a player does not have any Meeples of the determined kind, they cannot complete neither action A nor B.
The translation of original German rules would lead to the following translation:
Place the triangular crop circle tile according to the rules. Afterwards you determine a kind of Meeple (knight, highwayman or farmer) and choose one of the following actions which all players (including yourself) must complete, starting with the player to your left:
Each player either…
A) … may take a Meeple from their supply and place it next to another one of their Meeples of this kind on the same land tile.
OR
B) … must remove one of their Meeples of the determined kind from a land tile and put it back into their supply.
If a player does not have any Meeples of the determined kind, they cannot complete neither action A nor B.
This mistake may reopen the may-must discussion around the crop circles actions one more. The readers of the German rules will continue their lives quietly while the English readers would be scratching their heads as the C1 rules say something contradicted by the C2 rules.
After reviewing the intended meaning of the original German rules my understanding of these rules is the following:
* Half-sized tiles are considered individual tiles:
- You can place meeples on them no matter they share the same square space with another half-sized tile no matter if the latter has a meeple on it.
- You score features like roads and cities as per the usual rules even if they include half-sized tiles, that is, half-sized tiles count the same as regular tiles.
* The exception is how monasteries behave:
- Monasteries are completed when they the eight adjacent square spaces are occupied by regular square tiles or, by 1 or 2 half-sized tiles per space --- This is not a change.
- Completed monasteries always score 9 points, no matter how many tiles can be crammed into the 3x3 grid centered at the monastery. --- This is a return to the original intent of the rules from 2014 with an updated wording.
So it seems this was the original intent by HiG back in 2014 but somehow down the road it got misinterpreted. The discussion around if two half-sized tiles in the same square would score as 1 square tile for cities and roads was never in the rules. It seems to have popped up from the way monasteries considered tiles in their surroundings when half-sized tiles entered the equation.
Therefore, all the clarifications from 10/2015 seem to continue to be valid except for monasteries that go back to their original definition. The number of tiles around a monastery is irrelevant, just the number of occupied spaces.
This redefinition of how monasteries are scored with half-sized tiles has a domino effect on other interactions, even contradicting clarifications from 10/2015. HiG will not provide clarifications for all these interactions so we'll have to extrapolate from the given rules to cover this cases as best as we can. Affected interactions:
* Scoring of all monastic buildings: abbeys, shrines, German monasteries (with a monk), Dutch & Belgian monasteries (with a monk), Japanese buildings (with a monk) and Darmstadt churches should follow the same rules as monasteries
* Scoring of gardens: should follow similar rules to monasteries
* Scoring of the abbot when removed: should follow similar rules to incomplete monasteries
* Scoring of German monasteries: should be adapted to follow similar rules to monasteries (but scoring always 12 points when complete).
* Scoring of monastic buildings and gardens with adjacent double-sized tiles: should be adapted so they score 9 points when complete no matter if one or more double-sized tiles are occupying multiple adjacent spaces to the feature. This would contradict this clarification from 10/2015 where these monasteries would score according to the number of adjacent tiles:
Example:- Clarification from 10/2015: (A) scores 8 points, (B) scores 7 points
- Rules aligned with C2 halfings: (A) scores 9 points, (B) scores 9 points
Additionally, any feature or action considering adjacency from a tile should consider any tile placed on an adjacent square space:
- One regular square tile
- One Half-sized tile
- Two half-sized tiles sharing the same square space
- One half of a double-sized tile (as a consequence)
In general this affects:
- Areas of 3x3 tiles centered at a feature or figure (watchtower tiles, acrobat tiles, circus tiles, fruit-bearing tree tiles, bathhouses, Darmstadt churches)
- Areas of 2x3 tiles (castle fiefs)
- Areas of 4x3 tiles (area of a adjacency to a German castle)
- Adjacencies related to the placement of gold ingots
Other mechanics such the range of the tower, columns and rows for special monasteries with a meeple placed as an abbot, the trajectory of a flier, the movement of dragon, the movement of the flea tokens, etc. will follow the clarifications provided so far:
http://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/Halflings_(1st_edition)#Other_expansions
Please share your thoughts.