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Mayor - the failed concept

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PapaGeek:
The Mayor was anything by a failed concept for me in one of the games we played last weekend!

We were also playing with Inns and Cathedrals, two of the players were working on a large city with a Cathedral and about 10 tiles with 5 coats of arm.  When it came to my turn they had closed all sides of the city except one.  I placed a city edge at 90 degrees next to their single needed tile and placed my mayor on it, zero coats of arm, so it was useless where I places it.  Then, the first player did not draw a city tile.  The second player drew a 3 sided city tile which he decided not to place on the possible connection that I made, then I got lucky and drew the two sided city tile, with coat of arms, that I needed!  The city they worked on for a long time was suddenly mine and I thanked them for all of their hard work and the points that I got!

The final score was 12 tiles plus 6 coats of arm times 3, I scored 54 points!

Part of the game is building features for yourself, part of it is joining in on someone else’s hard work, and part of it is taking features away from others.

kothmann:
Oh there you go!  Just be sure you connect the Mayor before the completion square is surrounded so the opponents can’t close it with the Abbey.  Nice.

DIN0:

--- Quote ---We were also playing with Inns and Cathedrals, two of the players were working on a large city with a Cathedral and about 10 tiles with 5 coats of arm.  When it came to my turn they had closed all sides of the city except one.  I placed a city edge at 90 degrees next to their single needed tile and placed my mayor on it, zero coats of arm, so it was useless where I places it.  Then, the first player did not draw a city tile.  The second player drew a 3 sided city tile which he decided not to place on the possible connection that I made, then I got lucky and drew the two sided city tile, with coat of arms, that I needed!  The city they worked on for a long time was suddenly mine and I thanked them for all of their hard work and the points that I got!

--- End quote ---

Yes, this is certainly one of the few ways one can actually use Mayor - last minute forced joining to a city without opponent Mayors. Kothmann mentioned it his previous post and I agree it is plausible. But it is too circumstantial and can be averted in too many ways - the Abbey, placing the separating tile you mentioned, placing an ideal Halfling etc. It is a good opportunistic usage if you can manipulate it into such situation and have necessary luck at the right time. But I cannot proclaim it as something that makes the Mayor a good and functional piece in consideration of all its problems.


--- Quote ---Oh there you go!  Just be sure you connect the Mayor before the completion square is surrounded so the opponents can’t close it with the Abbey.  Nice.
--- End quote ---
Well of course  :D but even if we squint and disregard the possibility of other players both surrounding and filling the final gap, leaving the city extendable or reachable creates opportunities for other Mayors joining.

I will also continue to try and think of something useful.


--- Quote ---We played a Mayor variant years ago where the Mayor stayed in a city and scored points at the end for every farmer in a neighboring field.
--- End quote ---
Interesting idea! Not exactly a direct fix to the Mayor, but very good unrelated ability. Reminds me of 1st edition farm scoring.

DIN0:
Ok, so there are two things I think are worth exploring. Both are related to Carcassonne Maps:
1) Germany Map + Chips = the chips allow you to upgrade one of your meeples to increase its majority value. The ability to do this at any given moment stems entirely from how the player played the game up until that point and it is fully under his/hers control. Depending on how it works, this could be beneficial to the Mayor.
Here the rules are unfortunately quite vague, they state: "During a scoring an upgraded Meeple counts as 2 Meeples in the respective area (like the big Meeple of the 1st expansion)." This makes perfect sense for a normal meeple and all other meeples who have base majority value of 1. However it does not make it apperent as to what happens when you upgrade a Big Meeple of a Mayor.
It all comes down to how the big meeple anility works in the first place (something we did not need to discuss nor clarify until now). Is it a +1 bonus, or x2 bonus, or is it replace the current value with 2 bonus? Depending on which one of these three it is the results would be: a) Mayor becomes N+1, Big Meeple becomes 2+1=3; b) Mayor becomes N x 2, Big Meeple becomes 2x2=4; c) Mayor becomes 2, Big Meeple remains 2.
Options a) and b) benefit Mayor and Big Meeple, option c) disadvantages Mayor and is neutral toward Big Meeple.
The wording of the Chip rule and the original Big Meeple rule is only partilly helpful - it states that the meeple in question counts as 2 meeples This might indicate a x2 bonus. It then goes to clarify that it works "like the Big Meeple from Exp. 1"  which would indicate replacement for 2 bonus or +1 bonus.
But in reality it merely tells us that the chip upgrade gives the affected meeple the ability of a Big Meeple. Since no meeple type aside from the Big could have this ability until now, we simply do not know how exactly it works. Based on the wording it would seem to be: "take the meeple in question and count it as two copies of itself". The original Big Meeple does this to regular normal meeple - the bigness is an inherent permanent upgrade. The chips would then ugrade it further by making it the equivalent of two Big Meeples. Likewise the upgraded Mayor would become an equivalent of two Mayors whose strength depends on the pennant count.
If this is the case mayor would become truly useful on the German Map with Chips.

2) Great Britain Map + Chips = the second idea is minor but has potntial and is more concrete than the previous one. On this map you can buy additional turns by sending your meeples away to the Isle of Man. You get them back back by paying the price in chips. This makes Mayor more interesting in several ways. You can send it away without losing a valuable piece to get the extra turn. Or you can wait until opponent does so and attack with yur own Mayor. The availability of necessary chips is largely under the players control, so one could deprive them of what they need to get the Mayor back. Alternatively, you can launch a surprise attack by getting a double turn and by clever chip play get the Mayor back right away and use it with the extra tile for innvasion.

So these are my two proposition on how to actually make better use of the Mayor. Number 2) is definitelly possible, but provides minor yet versatile benefits. Number 1) depends on how the Big Meeple rule actually works.

kothmann:
It seems like this thread is morphing into a Variants brainstorming?  That's excellent!

So, I did some googling for other ideas.  Along the way, I found this quote in @Walleyland's "Barbarian Report" on Expansion #5 on BGG, supporting the original argument:

--- Quote ---Coincidentally, the mayor meeple, which looks like a sumo wrestler meeple, is relatively useless unless you get lucky. It is worth exactly the amount of pennants in a city. Therefore, if the mayor is in a city with no pennants, it is worthless (literally). When a mayor is in a city with a lot of pennants, the odds are that no other player has gone near it, except with their own mayor, negating the entire mayor effect. Thus the mayor rarely plays an active part in Carcassonne and, for me at least, sits on the sidelines picking up small cities when the opportunity arises.

--- End quote ---

The mayor was also featured as @Walleyland's Element of the Week #15, with most of the comments being unfavorable.  I want to just take this opportunity to say that @Walleyland's contributions to BGG & CC have been a treasure trove--really amazing for stuff that is often 7-10 years old.   :(y)

Anyway, in that thread, @jungleboy threw out a couple of suggested variants:

--- Quote ---Maybe we could experiment with some house rules to try to change this dynamic. Two that come to mind are:
- The mayor can only be used once in the whole game (like the big follower in the Ark of the Covenant), so choose wisely!
- Only one mayor can be in any one city at a time, so the first person to add their mayor has an advantage. If two different cities, each containing a mayor, join up, the city that had the most tiles before they joined is the one whose mayor stays, while the other mayor is booted out but can be replaced by a regular follower if desired.

--- End quote ---
Note that @danisthirsty suggested pennants instead of tiles as the Mayor tiebreaker.

I'm going to try to make time to play-test the following Variant:
--Mayor can be placed that in a city that contains: no other Mayor AND no knights belonging to the player placing the Mayor.
--If cities with Mayors merge, the Mayors share the city, except that a Mayor that is merged into a city with knights belonging to the same player is removed from the city and returned to the player.
--Mayor stays in city until the end of the game, when it scores for each opponent's farmer in a neighboring field, with the score for each farmer being equal to the number of pennants in the city that the Mayor occupies.

So, this Mayor is a bit like the Pig, but requires that a player NOT already occupy the feature.  I think this could be quite interesting.  It allows a player to defend against a large city without creating a runaway battle that leads to megacities.    Limiting the points to opponents' farmers prevents a player from dumping otherwise useless farmers around a large city at the end of the game.  And the Mayor requires interaction with other players, which I like.  Each player having only one Mayor is well balanced with the number of pennants in the game, and makes it a minor modification, so it doesn't overwhelm the basic mechanics, but can still swing the game at the end, which is how I like expansions to be....

Edit: Added link to Barbarian Report on BGG.

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