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Messages - PapaGeek

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151
Unofficial Rules / Re: Avoiding Analysis Paralysis
« on: January 22, 2022, 03:46:49 AM »
Our normal game after 22 river 1 and 2 tiles includes expansions 1 and 2 for a total of 114 tiles.  As the game progresses, the Paralysis grows.  Because some of the backs of some of the non-US expansion are slightly different, we play with each player having a stack of tiles so they can cut their stack randomly in half and drop an unseen tile from the bottom of their cut.

I don’t want anyone to have the opportunity of getting rid of a bad tile, part of the game is the random draw of your next tile.

I like the idea that if they play an Abbey or Halfling, they have to play the drawn tile next turn, but I think I would modify that to say that if they don’t play the tile on the next move, it will cost them 3 points!

Also, if we are playing with 24 Halflings 1 and 2, each player gets 2 Halflings and can draw a replacement when they do play one.

152
Unofficial Rules / Avoiding Analysis Paralysis
« on: January 21, 2022, 10:38:29 AM »
The third House Rule on the WikiCarPedia Base Game page says: "Take your next tile at the end of your turn, to give you time to think about placement and avoid analysis paralysis".

https://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/Base_game#House_rules

As our inclusion of additional expansions grows, we  suffer from analysis paralysis just about every game! 

A question for anyone who follows this house rule, how to you make this house rule interact with the rules for playing a Halfling or Abbey instead of drawing a tile?  The rules for those expansion say that you have to decide on playing the Halfling or Abbey BEFORE you draw your next tile!

Did you just say that playing the alternative tile comes AFTER drawing it, or do you do something else?

153
We got ours from Italy:

 

The Bazaar image does not have the American Flag, just some covered tables, and the garden is missing from one of the tiles, but everything else is the same and you can download the English rules from the web.

154
Official Rules / Re: Who changed the Dragon rules, and why?
« on: January 16, 2022, 09:40:30 PM »
I told everyone that I would give them a report on how things went with our newbie group after playing the Dragon with both the 2005 and 2016 rules.

We played 2 games with the Dragons last weekend, first just basic game tiles and Princess and Dragon tile, and the second game also included Traders and Builders. Both games followed the 2005 rules where the player who draws the Dragon tile gets to Place the Tile, Place a Meeple or Move the Fairy before the Dragon moves.

We played two more games this weekend, both games were played with the 2016 printed version of the rules where the dragon moves in phase 1B, before the player who draws the tile places it on the board. The only advantage that the player who draws the tile has with this version of the rules is that they make the first move of the Dragon.  Our first game included the basic game tiles, River I and II, plus Inns and Cathedrals.  The second game also included Traders and Builders plus the Bridges and Castles, without the Bazaars.

All four of us agree that, basically, moving the dragon immediately after drawing it, totally before the player who draws the tile can even place it on the board, makes the game, especially the Fairy movements, far more interesting.

Our house rules will be to follow the 2016 printed version of the rules as printed!

155
Official Rules / Re: Castle Scoring
« on: January 16, 2022, 09:42:38 AM »
Let me add another variation with another question to this thread!

If Red creates a castle hoping the Blue city will be completed for at least 12 points, but, one of the 6 neighboring fief spaces empty …



Then, Yellow fills the empty space with a tile that completes a 2 point road …



As I understand the rules, Yellow’s tile becomes a Neighboring fief tile and the Road becomes a completed neighboring feature, so Red is forced to score the castle for only 2 points.  The fact that the Yellow tile did not even exist before it became a neighboring feature makes no difference!

Also, if I am reading the rules correctly, Red will get just 2 points even if Yellow decides to place a meeple on the City portion of the new tile and nobody scores the insta-2 points for the completed road, except for Red who then has to remove the Red meeple from the Castle!

Is this correct by the rules?

156
Official Rules / Re: Castle Scoring
« on: January 13, 2022, 08:33:55 AM »
Quote
If, before red places his tile, blue places a tile in square 4 that completes a castle to the left of Red’s Castle: as I understand the rule, the new blue castle is not considered a completed feature so Red’s castle remains on the board.

Could you post an illustration of the situation? I'm not sure to understand how you imagine it  ???



Blue's city is now worth 16 points, it is a neighboring feature to Red's Castle so Red's castle will now be worth 16 points.  Blue's city is not a neighboring feature of Blue's Castle, but Red's Castle is a neighboring feature. Does Blue score 16 points because Red's Castle is now complete, plus 16 points for Blue's City?

This would not be the case in the footnote illustration because the location of both castles include Blue's city as a neighboring feature!

157
Official Rules / Castle Scoring
« on: January 13, 2022, 02:39:16 AM »
One of the rules that apply to castles on the WikiCarPedia page for Bridges, Castles and Bazaars is:

Two or more incomplete castles may be standing next to each other. If one of them scores points, it will be considered as a completed feature for the adjacent castles. All the castle owners receive the same number of points.

Footnote 18 example



This is the image that follows that rule, modified so that tile 1 is now an inverted tile 3!



The Wiki example talks about the scoring when Red places the tile on the right that completes the city.  My question deals with the blue numbers on the left side of the image.

If, before red places his tile, blue places a tile in square 4 that completes a castle to the left of Red’s Castle: as I understand the rule, the new blue castle is not considered a completed feature so Red’s castle remains on the board.

The Wiki illustration for footnote 18 uses a second castle that exists between tile 2 and 3, so tile 6 is part of both castles scoring fields.  In my example Blue’s tile 6 does not touch the city that is being completed, but it does touch Red’s castle that will score points when the city is completed.

So, when Red completes Blue’s city, which completes Red’s Castle, Red and Blue will each get 16 points. But, does the completion of Red’s castle also give Blue an additional 16 points for his castle?

And if that is true, does Red get 16 points while blue gets 32 points or do they both get 16 points or do they both get 32 points???

158
General / Help—I need help with acronyms
« on: January 12, 2022, 01:50:51 PM »
The game of Carcassonne was designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published in 2000 by Hans im Glück in German and by Rio Grande Games (until 2012) and Z-Man Games (currently) in English.

Our group of 4 neighborhood friends started hosting weekly game nights due to COVID and we were introduced to Carcassonne in June of 2021, so, we are definitely relative newbies.  My earliest recommendations to the on line groups was that all of the boxes sold should include a label: Warning: this game is extremely addictive!

Within the last 7 months, our weekly games have grown from the content of Big Box 6 to also include Expansion 5: Abbey and the Mayor plus Expansion 8: Bridges, Castles, and Bazaars plus the Halflings Minor Expansion. And our newest inclusions are River II and Expansion 3: Princess and Dragon which we had to order from Norway in November and it did not arrive until January 2022!

Our first attempt to play the expansion was based on the printed rules that came in 3 Nordic languages and the latest PDF from Z-man Games, but we also went on line to the forums where some of the posts seemed to contradict the printed rules!

As we went on line to ask questions, a lot of the responses from long standing members used abbreviations like: WICA, C1, C2, CAR, HiG, C1 rules, C2 rules, BB3, RGG and ZMG! And I’m sure there are other abbreviations that are normally used that we didn’t see!

So, here is my request as a newbie!  The Carcassonne Central forum home page includes a link for Help.  Is it possible for the advanced members to include two more items in the bulleted list of subpages?

The first would be a list of abbreviations.  I assume that C1 and C2 represent two separate phases that the game has gone through over time, when did the change happen and what caused it; do we see another change coming?  Plus what all of the other abbreviations mean.

The second would be a list of links to PDFs of the printed rules for each expansion in each phase.


No need to comment on this, but here is an example of how this type of information might be helpful to other newbies.  After making our posts, reading the current rules, and doing personal Google research into Carcassonne history, this is a link to the recommendations that our personal game night group will consider before playing Princess and Dragon this weekend!


http://www.papageek.com/car/Dragon.htm#PlacingDragonTile
 

159
Official Rules / Re: Who changed the Dragon rules, and why?
« on: January 11, 2022, 01:10:30 AM »
Just as an FYI, here is a link to the rule that we created for our Game Night Group based on all of the posts made on this forum:

http://www.papageek.com/car/Dragon.htm#PlacingDragonTile

Our thanks to all for their help

160
Official Rules / Re: Who changed the Dragon rules, and why?
« on: January 10, 2022, 08:00:25 PM »
Well, this has been a very active thread, I appreciate all the posts and I have learned a lot about how everyone has different ideas on how the Dragon should be played.  So, as for our four player group, this is how we are going to handle the Dragon on our next game night:

The Order of Play page on WikiCarPedia details the first two phases (Place a tile, Place a meeple) as follows, AND, the English version of the Princess and Dragon rules say that the movement of the Dragon happens in phase 1b.


 
Looking at the image, 1b works perfect for us.  1b is Draw a Tile.  If the movement of the Dragon happens within this phase no one can take any advantage of the movement.  It is literally happening randomly between the moves of two players. The player who actually drew the tile doesn’t even get to 1c Place the Dragon Tile until after the Dragon has moved.

This will leave the strategy of when does a player sacrifice placing a meeple for the advantage of moving the Fairy to either protect one of their own features or un-protect one of the other player’s features completely untouched. Some of the posts want the player who draws the Dragon to move the Fairy before the Dragon moves, which completely undermines that strategy.

So bottom line, in our next game the Dragon will move as soon as a player looks at their drawn tile and before they place it on the board!

161
Official Rules / Re: Who changed the Dragon rules, and why?
« on: January 10, 2022, 11:55:45 AM »
This could also be done without the creation of a phase 0. On the current CAR Order of Play page, 1. Placing a tile is defined as:

Step 1A: Begin Turn
There are no particular actions for this step.
Step 1B: Draw a Tile
a.   Randomly draw a tile.
b.   Show the tile to all players.
Step 1C: Place the Tile
a.   Place the tile. If the placement is illegal, you must discard the tile and go back to Step 1B.
b.   Note: any tile-based feature that is finished is considered complete at this time.

All you would  have to do is add an item c under Step1B: Draw a tile.

c.   If there is a symbol on the tile that requires special actions, perform them.

This would be where if there was a Dragon symbol on the tile, move the Dragon happens, then you move on to Step 1C: Place the Tile

162
Official Rules / Re: Who changed the Dragon rules, and why?
« on: January 10, 2022, 11:36:32 AM »
@Meepledrone: I also looked at all of this again, and I want to continue the approach that is currently printed in ALL of the rules that come with the expansion.  My answer below is a Phase 0!

My Conclusion: So what if moving the Dragon is step 1a in the Nordic community and 1b in the English speaking world.  It is still part of phase 1 and therefore happens before you place any meeples.  Why not work on that!

The answer to this issue is actually very simple.  The Dragon symbol on a drawn tile triggers the movement of the Dragon before anything else in the player’s turn.

Phase 0: Draw the tile and notice the Dragon symbol. The dragon immediately starts moving up to 6 times.
Phase 1: Placing a Tile
Phase 2: Placing a Meeple
Phase 3: Scoring a Feature

This way the movement of the Dragon is not part of any player’s turn.  It happens between the turns of two players and none of the players have any control over how or when the dragon moves.

If you look at the 12 Dragon tiles, they are just like a variety of tiles in the base game.  There are cities and roads and monasteries and even a garden.  If you make the change that I just suggested, after the Dragon moves (between turns) the player places the otherwise normal looking tile just like a normal tile. The Dragon symbol only effects what happens between turns, not what happens on anyone’s actual turn!


163
Official Rules / Re: Who changed the Dragon rules, and why?
« on: January 10, 2022, 09:23:38 AM »
Let me say just one more thing on the current printed rules.

The way the rules are written it is almost as if the designers of the expansion wanted the movement of the Dragon to be a completely random action.  When a player randomly draws a Dragon tile, the action of the Dragon is NOT part of that players turn!  The ONLY thing that that player is allowed to do before the Dragon moves is to place the Dragon tile wherever they want on the map.

Then the Dragon moves with no interference from the player who drew the tile.

After the Dragon moves, the player who drew the tile proceeds with all of the standard phases for their move.  They decide if they want to place a meeple or move the Fairy, then they score any points created by their placement of the Dragon tile.

If it were up to me, the only change I might consider is that the placement of the Dragon tile would happen AFTER the Dragon moves!  After all the placement of the tile is part of phase 1 and according to the printed rules, the movement of the Dragon is also part of phase 1, so it does not change the game at all if phase one is place then move or move then place!

164
Official Rules / Re: Who changed the Dragon rules, and why?
« on: January 10, 2022, 09:13:47 AM »
Why do you say: “HiG need to review the dragon rules, since it is clear that something is not right with the printed rules”?

So far we have only played 2 games with the Princess and Dragon that we received one week ago.  The first game was basic tiles and exp3 only, 102 tiles.  The second game also included 24 Trader and Builder tiles fir a total of 126 tiles. One of the 6 Volcano tiles came up on average every 21 moves and one of the 12 Dragon tiles came up every 10.5 moves.

Now, think about the strategy for the Fairy.  If you are playing by the printed rules, on average 10 players will have to make the strategic decision of placing a meeple on the tile they drew or moving the Fairy to protect their feature that is currently near the Dragon or to un-protect the feature of the player who is currently in the lead that is near the Dragon.

Why do the printed rules make this strategy important? Because the Dragon is going to move BEFORE the player who drew the Dragon tile is allowed to move the Fairy!  The Dragon moves in phase 1b before the player can move the Fairy in phase 2.

If the rules are changed so that the Dragon move in phase 2b, AFTER the player who drew the Dragon tile can move the Fairy, the strategy of do I deploy a meeple or move the Fairy during the average 10 moves between the Dragon movement makes no sense.  Who cares what I do with the Fairy when the player who drew the Dragon tile is the ONLY player who can make the final decision of where the Fairy will be before the Dragon moves!

It is definitely clear to me that the printed rules are right, changing the rules is not right!

If we do change the rules, should we also take the Fairy out of the expansion, because it has very little effect on the strategy any longer if the rules and changed that way?

PS: the link that you supplied requires a user/email and password.  How do I sign up for that?

165
Official Rules / Who changed the Dragon rules, and why?
« on: January 10, 2022, 01:07:24 AM »
In my current post about the Princess and Dragon expansion, a lot of the talk was about why the player who draws a Dragon Tile has the right to move the Fairy BEFORE moving the Dragon.  This one issue completely undermines the strategy and logic for when to sacrifice meeple placement so you can move the Fairy on your other turns during the game!

The PDF of the English version of the rules clearly shows that moving the Dragon is part of phase 1 of a player’s turn: 1. Placing a tile, then 1b. The dragon moves!



And when talking about the Fairy the printed English rules clearly show that “The fairy moves” is clearly part of phase 2, “Placing a meeple”. and that moving the dragon is part of phase 1b.



To me, as a relative newbie, this clearly states that moving the dragon is part of placing the tile and that moving the fairy is part of placing a meeple.  Since phase 1 has to happen before phase 2, you can’t move the fairy before you move the dragon.  This is one of the first things that we learn when we start playing Carcassonne, you can’t place a meeple on a tile in Phase 2 if you don’t have any meeples to place until after you score some points in phase 3.  You have to do the phases in order!

FYI: We tried to purchase an English version of Princess and Dragon back in November, but none were available so we purchased and received our Nordic version in early January.  That version comes with printed rule in 3 languages, all 3 languages, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish label “The dragon flies” as phase 1a.  and yes, the English version labels it as 1b, but ALL of the printed rules say that moving the dragon is part of phase 1.

Then we come to the WikiCarPedia version of the “Official Rules”.




The website has clearly moved “The Dragon Moves” from Phase 1a or 1b to Phase 2b.  In this “modified” version of the printed rules, the person who draws the Dragon tile can Phase 2 place a meeple or move the Fairy before Phase 2b moving the dragon!

We all know that all 3 Phases of your move have to be completed in order.  Changing the Dragon movement from Phase 1 to Phase 2 definitely allows the player who draws and places the Dragon tile to move the Fairy BEFORE moving the Dragon!

Who made the decision to move the Dragon Movement to Phase 2, and if this is an official move, why are all 3 of the printed versions of the rules that I received in January 2022 still saying that moving the dragon is part of Phase 1?


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