Allowing follower placement on ANY unclaimed tile

[SupraLance]

I would like to get some feedback from others regarding a house rule I recently ran across, where players are allowed to place a follower onto any unclaimed feature after laying a tile on their turn, rather than being restricted to placing a follower on the tile they just laid.  It seems to change the game a lot, especially with the abbots as all gardens get claimed quickly.  Has anybody else played this way, and if so, what problems did you run across?  Is it a good idea or a terrible one, and why?

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=3223.0

[What If?]

I haven´t tried it, but it sounds more terrible than fantastic. The change is too great and it seems to punish daring players more, I see no redeeming feature, what is the pro-argument?

[SupraLance]

I guess the pro-argument is more options to choose from in the "place wood" phase, and all the gardens get scored eventually since if you don't claim it, someone else will on their turn.  I personally don't like it, but this is how they play and I'm having trouble convincing them to try it the "right" way...  So looking for either good arguments I can use why there way doesn't work as good or is less fun, or if maybe I'm wrong and they are onto something I'm just not seeing yet

[Decar]

Well, I think a good argument is to play the game as intended, then decided if you want to house-rule something.  House-ruling really should be left until you've atleast understood a game or you're a game designer looking to understand gaming mechanics.  I very much doubt the average gamer is experienced enough to determine a rule is wrong from one or two plays of any game; but you're friends might be special.  That's not to say they're out-and-out wrong either: sometimes a mistake or alteration can lead to something better.

Also bear in mind, Carcassonne has had 3 (some would say 4) adjustments to the rules over it's 17 year history.  The mechanics have been tweaked to balance play, at least in the Designer's mind.

Here's some game breaking consequences I can think of:

It totally over powers farmers;  Just drop them in the largest farm you can, regardless of the tile you got and better yet you can drop them on the best place to glom later on too... only 1-tile away.

Using the Big Meeple from Inns & Cathedrals will be over-powered too, you could just drop it in a vacant city near your opponent, making it much easier to glom on.

The Builder could just be added to any city/road you've already got without having to consider how it's joined on.  It's overpowered again.

Does that mean you can drop the pig where you like it to, on your last turn to get some more points?

The ruling totally negates the Dragon from play.  Play move, take meeple out of opponent's city.  Opponent puts meeple back in city on their next move. 

It also makes magic portals useless.

That's my take on the base game and first 3 expansions; heck knows what happens moving on.  Obviously your friends will just argue that, the wealth of expansions designed with the actual rules in mind were wrong, so they can just make up their own stuff to work around it.  Good luck with that 

[Erreth]

I would have to agree, that is a pretty game breaking rule change.  Half the fun of Carcassonne is the strategies to get into a unclaimed feature or sneak yourself onto the opponents. 

To add to Decars' list the Flying Machines mini expansion would be less usefull, I'm sure many other things would be broke as well.

[ny1050220]

To add to Decars' list the Flying Machines mini expansion would be less usefull, I'm sure many other things would be broke as well.

I totally agree that one should not be allowed to land a meeple on any unclaimed feature, but I imagine most of the times the Flyers are used to steal a big city (or maybe roads?) that is already claimed.

To add to the original discussion, I think if one really wants to try the "ANY unclaimed feature" rule, start with just the phantom. In my opinion, the phantom is very often used to get some "bonus" point when you finish two features with one tile. So, if one really wants to fly their phantom somewhere else, the phantom may get stuck there. Also, if one really goes with this, I'll suggest they make the portals now "anti-portals", say, if they draw the portal tiles, one cannot deploy any meeple/builder/pig, or, one cannot fly their phantom to other tiles.