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Topics - Hounk

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16
Anything Else / Question to the English native speakers
« on: May 31, 2015, 02:27:19 PM »
When I learned English at school, we were told, that the expression "a couple of" normally mean a few, not literally "a couple". A few years ago, my brother-in-law, who is from the United States disagreed with that and told me, that even "a couple of days" means ALWAYS two days and more recently, a colleague from BFI I met at a summer school last year, told me the same. Which surprised me even more, because I thought it might be a difference between American and British English, but it seems not, because he really is British.

Now I found this post from Rosco, who is British, too, and there were more then two pictures coming after:
Here are a couple of photos.

So I would like to finally know, what's about this expression.

17
Other Games / Coconuts
« on: May 26, 2015, 11:20:57 AM »
Now, that is a childs game for age 6 up, but it might be interesting for all the fans of the Catapult expansion as well. No, to be honest, I thought about posting this, because there are quite a few people with kids in pre-Carcassonne age in this forum, which might be interested. I bought the game for the son of a friend for his 6th birthday, after I saw, it's ranked 2nd on BGG in category "Children's Game", while first place goes to "Loopin' Louie", which looked to be for an even younger age, has complains on the internet, to get broken quite quickly, and is maybe pushed by the fact, that it's featured in a comic book by Alan Moore, and therefore "kult classic" to it's higher rank.

So "Coconuts" (or "Coconuts Crazy", like it's called in German), was my pick, and it seemed to be a good one. I played a few games myself with the boy and his mother, and she told me, the game hit the table since quite often. It's a dexterity game, and the child got very good in it, actually wins most of the games, without the mother having to "force it". I think, that's always good on a game for children, when they can compete with adults in a true way. And it is quite a funny game, which adults can enjoy quite, too.

18
JCloisterZone FAQ, Suggestions & Bug Reports / Placing Abbots
« on: April 24, 2015, 04:46:43 AM »
According to CAR Abbot placement on a German Monastery should be legal, even if it is already surrounded by 8 tiles. Jungleboy tried this on two occasions in our weekly online game, once by flier, once per magic portal, and it did not work. Also, I could not move in a wagon as an abbot (only as a monk, since this GM was not completed as a "cloister" yet), after finishing a road with it. According to footnote 503 (with globe icon), this should be a legal move as well.

19
JCloisterZone FAQ, Suggestions & Bug Reports / Issues of the AI
« on: April 03, 2015, 03:46:59 AM »
I think, a topic about strange behavior of the AI might be suitable. In the particular game attached, Adda intrigued me with her ability to battle for a farm. I always thought, AI only notice, it's worth placing a farmer, if at least three cities are finished in the farm. But she managed, to place the farmer in the top right corner without any city in this area and connect it with the main farm, before I could block.

However, the AI seems not to know, that a cathedral city is rendered worthless, if not finished by the end. I noticed on different occasions, that it happily continues adding precious tiles to an unfinishable cathedral city and yesterday in this game, it even placed the cathedral on it's last turn to a very valuable unfinished city of it's self, although there had been other possible spots to drop it. (Most prominent the unoccupied tile next to the farmer mentioned above.)

20
I tried an online game against somebody not in the forum. (His nickname's Niko.) Unfortunately the connection was lost. Probably my fault, because I was driving by train and there might have been a tunnel. However, after I got signal again, I still lost connection to the server. I saved the game and quit, Niko wasn't around any longer. But it seems to me I couldn't have loaded the game by playing online anyway, only with somebody to host. True?

21
General / Carcassonne for 8 Players
« on: January 26, 2015, 02:55:49 PM »
Yesterday I ordered at CundCo among other things two sets of meeples (white and violet) and also some spare parts to support 8 player game with (most of) the expansions. So I ordered 2 Abbeys, which are obvious needed, but also 2 tower pieces (thinking 4 pieces per person would be enough for 7 or 8 players) and 4 bridges and castles. I asked, if they agree, and the lady answered, I should order 10 tower pieces, so that even with 8 players the ratio is the same like with 6 of 5 pieces per person.

So what do you think about that? (Except, that I should not consider 8 player games at all.) Plus: do you think I should calculate at least 2 bridges and castles per person in a 8 player game, or would be one of each sufficient, so that I would not need to order any of them at all.

22
Anything Else / Sniping on eBay
« on: January 22, 2015, 07:36:33 AM »
I recommend "sniping" if you want to be successful at eBay. That means, that you place your bid just a few seconds, before the auction ends, preventing other bidders to raise their offer once more. I never put a second offer on a running auction and snipe whenever it is possible (for me to be online, when an auction ends).

For that, it is important to estimate in advance, what you are max. willing to pay for the product. It's best to calculate this at least an hour before the auction ends. (If the retailer tells the shipping costs to your region, otherwise you have to ask him and give him/her naturally more time, to answer you.) And once you figured that out, stick to it. There is a wonderful picture of a German auction of an Ikea voucher worth 50€ sold for 64 €. (That means, there had been two idiots: the "lucky" one and one, who was willing to pay 63 €.)

So don't let yourself been carried away, because somebody else was willing to pay more. If you know before, what it's worth for you,then let himor her have it! And look out for the next auction.

23
Official Rules / The princess, the mayor and the wagon
« on: January 22, 2015, 03:06:12 AM »
CAR states clearly, that the princess can also remove mayor and wagon. However in footnote 152 it mentions, that this is from Big Box 2 & 3 rather than from the stand alone expansion. I wonder, if this is still the recent edition of the rules. I bought the most likely newest HiG print of the stand alone expansion, it claims "(c) 2005, 2013", so it is definitely newer than the big boxes, and still it even specifies, that the princess removes knights. Although the rules have a quite big paragraph of expansion interactions up to 8th expansion ("The dragon does not remove followers from a castle") it does not seem, that the princess attract in any way mayors or wagon drivers, because that should be mentioned explicitly or the "knights" in the rules substituted with "followers".

Oddly enough, the paragraph about interactions between princess and other expansions provides two rules (I try to translate from German as accurate as possible):
  • If a player removes the last knight of a player from the city, in which also the builder (2nd exp.) of that player is placed, the builder is also returned to the player.
  • If a player removes the last knight of a player from the city, he is also not allowed to move (place) another figure like the builder and pig (2nd exp.), mayor, barn and wagon (5. exp.) or fairy.
While the first sentence is a little contradicting to what I was writing above, because of course, the builder should stay in the city, if the last knight is removed from the city, if there is still the mayor or wagon of that player in control of the city, the second regards the other figures (followers or not) as "non-knight". So I would assume, that according to rules, more recent than Big Box 2 or 3, the princess can not remove mayor and wagon.

24
Unofficial Rules / Final scoring in "By Order of the King"
« on: January 11, 2015, 03:30:43 AM »
  • Is it correct, that the unfulfilled cards have no influence on the determination of the 10 bonus points for fulfilling the most orders? Let's say somebody fails on three orders but fulfills five of the eight cards, he or she draw during the game and somebody else fulfills four quests, and never took more cards, the first person will be "awarded" with a penalty of only 20 points rather than 30.
  • Does "keeping the dragon card till the end of the game" counts as fulfillment of an order in the final scoring or rather not?

25
Upcoming Scheduled Games / Anybody wants to play a JCloister-Game now?
« on: January 03, 2015, 01:06:59 PM »
Would like to play:
* I&C
* T&B
* Siege
* Cult
* River II

Would play all of them or cut some, if preferred.

26
General / Colour of different expansions
« on: December 31, 2014, 10:06:33 AM »
I discovered "Carcassonne" earlier this year and first got myself a Big Box (the #4 with the 7 mini expansions). Although I did not have the opportunity to mix and match all of the options, I considered buying most of the other expansions earlier than on first thought, because they likely get out of print in the old version.

Now I bought the 6th HiG-expansion with King & Robber Baron, River 2, Count and Cult and what strikes me a little is, that the fields of the Big Box are all very dark green, while the ones of the expansions are very light. I thought, I read somewhere that only the tiles of the "Spielbox" magazine are not really matching in colour. Is this a general issue of this expansion or this big box? Or are there options to change them to something better matching?

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