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Messages - DIN0

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31
News and Events / Re: Spiel ‘22 tile at Cundco this Friday (the 18th)?
« on: November 21, 2022, 02:43:12 PM »
The fact that it lasted this long is shocking! A change for the better - last year was trully ridiculous, just ten hours!

32
You should get little buildings - it's a must in a game like this. Also threre is one more C2 expasnion with no tiles to be potentially added - St. Nicholas scoring track.

33
I'm scared! Does this mean even less tiles for the advent sale? :o

34
General / Re: Does Anyone Play with Shrines?
« on: November 07, 2022, 01:46:14 PM »
Ahh yes, if @stepukiss is interested in why I think mayor is almost useless, that is the best place to find out my problems with that meeple. Maybe some day I will update the thread with more analysis (or if I am lucky a finally good use for mayor :D).

35
General / Re: Does Anyone Play with Shrines?
« on: November 06, 2022, 10:36:03 PM »
In general. If you have some legitimate use for it then please share it! I am looking for some viable use of the mayor even if obscure one.

36
The Marketplace / Re: WTS Carcassonne 2001 RGG (NIS)
« on: November 05, 2022, 03:11:47 PM »
Listen to Willem, he's right. Any box having the Spiel des Jahres award or any types of additions included cannot contain the 70 score track.

37
Official Rules / Re: The Plague questions.
« on: October 29, 2022, 03:31:20 AM »
Quote
Cool. I think I will skip this expansion
It may seem complicated when you write it down, but in reality this expansion is really simple and intuitive. It is one of the best in Carcassonne.

38
General / Re: I love the postman...
« on: October 28, 2022, 03:06:35 AM »
...because after all, intact maps are more valuable than intact feet  >:D

39
General / Re: I love the postman...
« on: October 27, 2022, 03:37:50 PM »
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All seems good so far. What's your concern?
Someone tripping over the rug tearing the maps.

40
General / Re: I love the postman...
« on: October 26, 2022, 01:45:09 PM »
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But apart from maps hidden under the rug I don't have anything else in that room
Are you sure that is safe?  :o

41
General / Re: Does Anyone Play with Shrines?
« on: October 23, 2022, 09:07:14 AM »
Thanks for the reply @kothmann ! I can elaborate on why the cloisters are so bad. But first I should say that I do not think they are useless - they are situational but paired with randomness, making them too much of a wild card to be used effectivelly most of the time.

On the surface level, 9 points for a single meeple is quite good, basically a farm with three cities and you get a meeple back. However, overall the total amount of points contained in cloisters is the lowest in the base game: only 54 points total. Contrast that to the roads - they have a point content of 62 points, and although only a maximum of 46 can be utilized out of this, roads are still superior for other reasons. Next are the cities with a point content of 118, with a maximum of 116 being achievable in real game - more than twice the amount. The highest point content is packed in farms with a whopping 126 points, all of which are fully utilizable, though not always present on the map for obvious reasons.
Now you might think that finishing cloisters is easier than the other features because it happens almost passively and can leech off other features construction. But this is where the main danger lies - cloisters are by far the easiest features for your opponent to sabotage. There are seven different opportunities to block a cloister and the enclosed nature of its completion process makes it super-vulnerable to trapping your meeple. Nesting multiple cloisters next to eachother like many players like to do is practically begging your opponent to trap them all with a single tile placement. Not only that, they can lead other features such as roads or cities into this gap leaving even more meeples stranded on the board until the end of the game! I have personally witnessed four meeples being trapped at once in this manner several times, once even at championship setting.
Stranded monks could still be worth a lot of points akin to farmers, but depending on the point in game this happened this may seriously disadvantage your meeple supply.
Like I said, cloisters are the ultimate red herrings of Carcassonne - a cone of Carcassonne-flavored ice cream you randomly find at the side of the road, but then you reach out to grab it only to find your hand crunched in a bear trap.

Now about the (lack of) support from HiG.
Cloisters were already the weakest as I described, but let's look at how each expansion added/substracted from their overall strength/usefulness. I will also analyze the cloister to tile ratio during the history of the game.

River I - neutral, adds 1 cloister in a slightly more predictable manner.
Exp1. - improves roads and cities, does nothing to improve cloisters, adds one cloister.
Exp2. - again new elements improve roads, cities and this time farms as well. Cloisters are the only feature left out. Adds one measly cloister - the original low cloister to tile ratio (8.33%) lowers further (7.14%).
King  - adds one cloister, but the expansiions is entirely and heavily road/city-centric boosting the value of these features even further apart from cloisters.
Count - does not add any cloisters. Introduces way to devalue cloisters further by, for the first time ever, allowing majority battles over this previously initial claim exclusive feature.
Cathars - first ever "addition" in usefulness, but not in scoring (and no new cloister tiles). Cloister have now been demoted to escape ticket from more profitable features. Tired of being trapped on your devalued city, which would probably still score more points than a cloister? No worries! You can now use actual cloister to escape and score your big points elsewhere becasue it's not like you have anything better to do with a cloister tile right?
River II - adds 1 cloister, boosts roads and farms. Packs more city points via a pennant.
Exp.3 - slight net positive, but indirect and only if you look for it. Adds two cloisters, but being the expansion with highest number of tiles, the ratio is now very low at 6.88%. Princess devalues cities - finally a negative to one of the other features. Magic portals are convenient for all features, but most for the cloisters, which can now be occupied outside of the turn they were placed. Dragon affects all features equally, so no discrimination there. Fairy is the same.
Exp. 4 - nothing for the cloisters except indiscriminate danger. One cloister present in this expansion.
GQ11 - neutral.
Exp. 5 - this expansion actually does something for cloisters (sort of). While the Barn provides even more power to farms, the cities do not benefit from this expansion outside of pennant-rich tiles, beacause the Mayor is the most useless meeple in the game. Wagon is useful overall, but cannot reach farms balancing out the Barn somewhat. It provides another way to reach empty cloisters. The most notable addition are abbeys, which function identically to cloisters, but have the enefit of fitting anywhere, being unblockable, completely predictable because you choose to place them whenever you want and by design into already highly profitable space. Exp. 5 (sort of) improves the cloisters by introducing a better version of the cloister.
Cults - The biggest blow against the cloisters yet - an expansion purely designed to devalue them. Luckily for cloisters this expansion was badly designed and is thus not very effective at its job. Not counting cults as cloisters, the ratio is at its all time lowest at 6.75%.
Exp. 7 - oh look a positive thing to say about the Catapult! It is completely neutral toward the cloisters in this mean world. The madness of the rules is indiscriminate and it itself has the base game cloister/tile ratio of 1/12, raising the overall ratio to 6.83%.
WoF - interesting. The ratio is increased to 7.12%. It would have been more but the 16 tile plate balloons the tile count. If we only look at the WoF itself (and without the 16 tile plate) it has 9.72% (7/72) - a ratio I would have preferred to be in the original base game. Having active monks in cloisters (and abbeys) is finally rewarded by 2 points to each by inquisition. Unfortunatelly this is random because of the wheel, but it still makes even stranded monks useful. The other features have bonuses of their own however and those are more powerful. At least roads do not get anything.
Tunnel - no impact other than lovering the ratio slightly to 7.04.
Exp. 8 - castles are mostly neutral, bridges improve roads and farms, bazaars potentially improve the predictability aspect of cloisters. Ratio climbed back to 7.37%.
CCI - cloisters are the only feature left out of the rules... again.
Plague - indiscriminate danger, but the monks are the only meeples who cannot flea from the plague, so good luck scoring any.
La Porxada - city centric, potentially massive city point gain. Switching option would be wasted on a cloister.
Festival - now you can at least rescue your stranded monks.
Phantom - does not affect ratio, the most useful meeple can make even cloisters better is used properly.
School - neutral.
Mini 1 - another way to invade uninvadable cloisters.
Mini 2 - smallest cloister and score a follower are nice, but other features get this and more from messages.
Mini 3 - purely road centric expansion.
Mini 4 - finally something which clearly benefits cloisters! The gold mechanics themselves are feature neutral, but the tiles around them are clearly designed in such a way that cloisters can get the most out of them. This expansion has 50% cloister ratio bumping the overall ratio to 7.71.
Mini 5 - only road and city centric.
Mini 6 - neutral but bad for the ratio.
Mini 7 - just like CCI, CCII leaves out cloisters.
Little buildings - neutral in all regards.
Windroses - neutral.
Besiegers - like cathars, just worse ratio.
Russian promo (Izbushka and Bogatyr part) - neutral.
Exp. 9  at last! In the 11th hour of C1 and the 15th year of the game, the original cloisters finally get a dedicated improvement. The vineyards add to the subpar points of the original cloisters and a lot of them can be amassed. A single cloister now has potential for 33 points. If you got this expansion in BB5 the river there also adds a vineyard. The sheep indirectly improve fields but are moreso their own mechanic.
German, Dutch and Belgian Monasteries - a renaissance of cloisters is upon us. These new and improved ones have extra ways to score and if you add them instead of replacing the originals, they drastically improve the ratio to 9.62%.
Halflings I - has a cloister.
Halflings II - has vineyard, which is compatible with said cloister. A single cloister can thus score 36 points.
Darmstadt - very good for cloister ratio, better versions of normal cloisters.
German Castles - road and city centric.
Labyrinths - road centric.
German Cathedrals - road centric.
Russian promo (Solovei razboynik and Vodanoy part)-  Razboynik attacks roads, Vodanoy everything else, including cloisters, but players are more likely to use it against farmers and knights. Could be bad for nested cloisters though.
Abbot - the second direct boost to cloisters gives them their first dedicated meeple. The abbot solves the easy trapping problem and makes this feature much more dynamic. It also provides access to gardens, increasing the "percieved" cloister ratio.
Spiel 14 - neutral.
CutCassonne - neutral, good internal ratio.
Spiel 15 - neutral.
Japanese Temples - very good for ratio, more improved cloisters.
Watchtowers - focuses on all features except farms, but is quite good for cloisters - first element to reward nested cloisters.
Spiel 16 - neutral.
St. Nikolaus score track - neutral.
Markets of Leipzig - feature neutral, but cloisters benefit the most from their effect.

I am going to stop here because many expansions tht follow I have not used that much, but they should be fairly obvious.
In the attachment I provide a graph illustrating the overall cloister/tile ratios for all expansions over the years. Mists over Carcassonne provided the largest drop in the history of game, but the ratio is still in the respectable zone. Hopefully we will not revert to the dark ages of the C1. Cloisters are decent right now and there are enough options to make a cloister-centric game out off. With all other monastic buildings the balance is there, but it is still baffling it took 15 years to seriously attempt to improve cloisters.

42
General / Re: Few random pictures and thoughts
« on: October 17, 2022, 12:29:10 PM »
@Snearone these are really awesome! Please consider contributing these into the Carcassonne Central Edition (if the tiles are still available).

43
That seems plausible. So the actual map being sold was not designed by CZ forum member.

44
The Marketplace / Re: WTB - Many different expansions and special items
« on: October 15, 2022, 12:07:22 PM »
Ah, you're right, I forgot about the red one! Well @Sir Lose-a-Farm you have a lot to consider here.

45
Is that actually true?

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