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Topics - asparagus

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1
General / Carcassonne on reddit
« on: August 23, 2016, 09:21:46 PM »
There is actually a whole subreddit. The latest one is a "pregnancy announcement":

https://www.reddit.com/r/Carcassonne/comments/4z4r95/carcassone_style_pregnancy_announcement/

2
I thought of this question when I realised how many people from this website were in the UK championship. We were bowled over by two games in particular:

First of all there was evolution. This did quite a good job of modelling the struggle for survival and as a game had many valid strategies for success.

Secondly was Völuspá. This is a tiling game themed around Norse mythology. Rather than matching tiles as in Carcassonne the game feels a bit more like a 2-dimensional card game.

We also liked (but not enough to buy):

The Magnates: a game of power - we have Polish connections so Polish history was intriguing.

Terra Mystica - quite good but extremely heavy.


3
Reviews & Session Reports / Asparagus makes a meal of it
« on: April 30, 2016, 12:52:53 PM »
I want to start reporting back on my Carcassonne games as we play such a variety of combinations.

This time we (I and my daughter) played just base game plus towers. It's actually our favourite for duels at the moment. We don't take it personally and we neither of us feel we have mastered it. I have one all of the tower games so far - usually by a large margin. It's the only combination where I currently feel confident about beating her. Actually I only one by two points so may be she's catching up on me even in my stronghold.

This game ended up hinging on a 24-point farm. Black (my daughter) was making three attempts to join on. I calculated that one of these was already doomed. After a bit of tile-counting I blocked another. But she had 2/3 chance of getting the last monastery and in any case could remove one of my farmers with a tower. So I carefully placed a tile to block the monastery and capped the tower.

Immediately after I took the photo my phone started updating and I feel upset at how long that takes. I can't post the photo till it finishes. I feel far more angry at the phone upgrade than at the capture of any of my meeples.

4
General / Are you a cardboardist or a squarist?
« on: April 17, 2016, 04:39:46 PM »
I have tried to coin the terms for greater clarity here: http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2631.msg38878#msg38878

For clarity

Cardboardism is the idea that for the purposes of scoring and movement, a tile is a piece of cardboard.
Squarism is the idea that for the purposes of scoring and movement, a tile is a square.

Here is another attempt to spell out what is meant: http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2633.msg38953#msg38953

5
Official Rules / Merging outbreaks
« on: April 14, 2016, 01:16:37 AM »
I came across an unexpected situation whilst playing the Plague. TLDR: My interpretation of outbreaks led to the impossibility of placing a new flea.

We had Outbreak 1 spreading out from the edge of the board. When outbreak 2 came out it was placed on a sort of peninsular of tiles behind outbreak 1. So we had in a line outbreak 2,  a single active flea tile, outbreak 1 and the rest of the active flea tiles. So I deemed that the two outbreaks had merged and so flipped over outbreak 1. This meant that most of the fleas had to be turned over as inactive as they had no connection to outbreak 2. So now there was only one outbreak and there was nowhere to place new fleas. It could have easily been resolved by placing new tiles next to outbreak 2 and with two such tiles the inactive fleas would have been reactivated. However noone felt this was in their interest. Was I doing something wrong here?

6
General / Reflections on Artwork
« on: June 11, 2015, 08:02:13 AM »
When I look at the Carcassonne 2.0 artwork I think "How did someone manage to fine-tune their puke so it covers such a small part of a Carcassonne tile?"  In this case we know a change of artist was involved.

However I am struck by a certain similarity to how people reacted to art changes in my favourite webcomic : The Order of the Stick. It started like this:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html.

In 198 the artist added extra details to the artwork. Look at the extra line in Varsuivius' cloak.

There was a guest strip where the guest artist made a joke about the characters' lack of noses: http://www.giantitp.com/Images/GuestWeek2005/oots0302.gif

In 947 the artist did  a major art upgrade. You can see the colour of the characters' hand-skin  when before they were just lines. Now the fans go crazy. Lot's of people object.
But the artist makes it utterly clear it is his artistic decision: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19138164&postcount=6

8
Anything Else / Erfworld
« on: June 09, 2015, 03:28:00 PM »
One of the two webcomics I follow is Erfworld. The premise is that there is a hexagonally tiled game world, where one side as a last dying gamble casts a "summon perfect warlord" spell. This summons an avid war gamer from our world (or something like it). He saves the side because he is a deep tactical, strategic and lateral thinker.

All this talk of Carcassonne spin-offs made me think of an Erfworld-inspired nightmare. There is a farmer who has spent his whole life hard at work lying on his back. Then one fine turn his field is extended - by a tile covered in snow. A few turns later the farmer's life is further disturbed by a column of AT-AT walkers heading towards him.....

9
General / Compatible Graphics in Games?
« on: June 08, 2015, 11:51:48 PM »
(Udo Schmitz) will present us the new Carcassonne StarWars.

Should I be pleased or upset that HiG is producing stuff I have no interest in buying? But their business model looks so wrong to me. I have never played magic the gathering but as I understand the following have been achieved:

1.) All cards are compatible (albeit not all of them at tournament level)
2.) No cards that have been privately sold have had their market value undermined by fiat from the central company.
3.) All cards have consistent art work.
4.) They managed to restructure the economy of the game without upsetting purchasers of previous cards.
5.) The business model is sustainable fueling interest both in cards as part of a game and as collectibles.

Why can't we just have one consistent artwork and game mechanics framework with a mixture of rare  artistically collectible cards and mechanically interesting expansions?

10
Spiel 2015

Friedhelm Merz Verlag - Internationale Spieltage SPIEL'15 in Essen

http://www.merz-verlag-en.com/index.html

when: 08. - 11. October 2015

where: Germany, Messe Essen

open times:
Thursday to Saturday, October 8 - 10, the convention is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.,
on Sunday, October 11, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Tickets will be available from July 2015 on
------------------------------------------------------------
The organization for the Championship - runs by HiG and Spielezentrum Herne

German Carcassonne Championship

Spiel 2015 in Essen
Saturday 10. October 2015
---------------------------------------------
Carcassonne World Championship

Spiel 2015 in Essen
Sunday 11.October 2015
---------------------------------------------
The members of the community meets each other since some years at the Spiel 2015 in Essen.

when: Thursday 08. October 2015 - at 12:30pm

where: Hall 1 - HiG - Tournament booth and CundCo booth.
            (more information follows)

Carcassonne-on-Tour (Udo Schmitz) will present us the new Carcassonne StarWars.

11
News and Events / UK Games Expo 2016
« on: June 08, 2015, 12:20:06 PM »
https://madmimi.com/p/69cb46?fe=1&pact=30720561771 3rd -5th June But note stuff happening on Thursday evening.

12
Unofficial Rules / Question about pilgrimage
« on: August 01, 2014, 08:16:54 AM »
I think I like this pilgrimage expansion. It is thematic and subtly makes cloisters more interesting.

http://www..com/community/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=156

However inevitably I have questions:
  • Squares around the occupied site are worth 2 if they do not contain a city. I take it that when they do contain a city they are worth zero. Is this correct?
  • Overlaps count for both sides as per their respective rules. is this correct?
  • It seems to me that the heretical challenge rules are not all fully worked out. I am guessing a challenged monk/heretic may not go on pilgrimage. A pilgrimage can only be challenged by an opposite pilgrimage not a single cloister/shrine.
  • What about flier and Count interactions? Are they immune from being attacked in this way? Would that not be overpowered?
  • Finally vineyards. I would reckon they count as normal but not in any overlap.

13
Official Rules / prisoner ransom interactions
« on: July 22, 2014, 02:11:06 PM »
Suppose a blue robber is sitting next to a green scoring figure. Green redeems a prisoner from red. Thus green moves back 3 spaces.   Am I right the blue robber is obliged to move back three spaces to remain on the same square as the green figure?

Suppose a blue robber is sitting next to a green scoring figure and a yellow scoring figure. Green redeems a prisoner from red. Thus green moves back 3 spaces.   Am I right the blue robber can choose whether  to move back three spaces to remain on the same square as the green figure or to stay put with yellow?

Suppose a blue robber is sitting next to a green scoring figure and a blue scoring figure. Blue redeems a prisoner from Green. Thus green moves forward 3 spaces and blue back 3.   Am I right the blue robber scores 2 and so this is a way of redeeming prisoners cheaply?

Suppose green redeems a prisoner and moves a scoring figure back from 38 to 35. Does this trigger a dispatch again providing a way of redeeming prisoners cheaply?

Do the answers apply to all  negative scores such as bazaar auctions?

14
Official Rules / Phantom/Fairy interaction
« on: July 21, 2014, 03:56:53 AM »
The CAR seems pretty clear that a player could move the fairy and then play the phantom. I can see that this might be the correct interpretation. But I am not entirely sure.

The reason for my concern is that AFAIK the wording is different for the fairy than for other "move wood" actions. Most of the rules state that you can "do X instead of placing a follower". For the fairy the wording is "If the player does not deploy....". I would have thought that this different language also applies to the phantom.

I think it would be nice if the CAR was correct on this as the fairy needs all the love she can get.

15
General / Carcassonne spin-offs
« on: July 15, 2014, 01:56:36 PM »
I have no interest in the variants of Carcassonne (or at least the incompatible ones). So I have to ask rather than find out for myself: Are the variants anything other than just rebranding? Could you for example merge all the rules of the variants back into the main game?

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