Carcassonne Central
Carc Central Community => General => Topic started by: lucian on April 26, 2018, 08:52:52 PM
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In some carcassonne PC/phone games, they usually come with river2 and claim this one is the most desired.
However, boardgames almost always come with river1.
So, I'm just curious, if only use one river expansion, which one is more popular.
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In theory the river II is better because of the two branches and the end of one branch being capped with a city to separate farms. River II also supplies a volcano for the dragon. However a couple of early River bends can make tile placements tricky or impossible leaving a stunted and nasty looking start to the game.
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Hey lucian, thanks for suggesting this poll! :) :(y)
I'm not really a big fan of either river, but if I had to choose I'd choose River 2. The problem with River 1 (as I see it) is that you don't really have any placement options beyond how the tile is oriented. The fact that River 2 includes the branch immediately after the spring means that you have a choice of where you're going to put it, as well as how it's going to be oriented. At least until one branch is terminated anyway!
As Halfling touched upon, the fact that it incorporates features from other expansions (#1: an inn, #2: a pig herd, #3: a volcano) also helps to better integrate it into the game imho. Or at least provides the options to do so, even if you choose to ignore them.
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I've always thought River 2 was the improved - an analysis was done back in the day... here: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12081.phtml
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an analysis was done back in the day... here: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12081.phtml
Good article by Shannon Appelcline; thanks for that, Decar.
One minor clarification, lest anyone get a tad confused: Shannon over-counted the number of initial field segments. This seems to suggest that he thought the city overpass divides the fields, but in fact it doesn't. (Source: CAR 7.4 footnote 253.)
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We enjoyed the River when we first received Carcassonne. It doesn't get much play time any more, so I guess we don't particularly enjoy either. River 2 is ok, River 1 is ok as long as it uses the spring from Games Quarterly.
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I'm not really a big fan of either river, but if I had to choose I'd choose River 2. The problem with River 1 (as I see it) is that you don't really have any placement options beyond how the tile is oriented. The fact that River 2 includes the branch immediately after the spring means that you have a choice of where you're going to put it, as well as how it's going to be oriented. At least until one branch is terminated anyway!
Yeah, river1 has only one placement to put the tile, however, I remember there is a house rule that it uses spring tile as end tile, and uses a random river tile as the start tile, in order to give player one more option as river2. I think it works well and maybe better than river2, because there is no branch to disturb the later game.
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I myself prefer River 2 for the mere fact that it contains a volcano and a pig herd, so it adds to the other big expansions.