This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Topics - PapaGeek
1
« on: May 22, 2023, 12:26:55 PM »
I was just introduced to the fan-expansion “The Coast” on the board game geek forum. This is the link to the PDF for the rules and tiles: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?action=downloads;sa=downfile&id=309And this is a quick pic of the 30 expansion tiles:  But I do have a couple of questions on some of the road tiles in this expansion. Three of the roads terminate normally on the coastline:    But one of the roads actually runs into the Ocean:  So question 1: does the road actually terminate at this point so that the road can be scored when the other end is terminated? Or do you have to wait until the end of the game to score the road? And, if you do have to wait, would an Inn on that road force it to be worth zero at the end of the game? The second road questions deals with the two city tiles that have a short road leading to the edge of the Ocean. If you are playing with Phantoms, or if someone already owns the city, when you place these tiles, can you place a meeple on that road and score an instant one point?   This is a very interesting fan-expansion. Our group will be talking about it during our next weekend game. If we decide to give it a try we will have to order more blank tiles. And, we will have to make up our own rules on how the River and Ocean tiles will be played when we are using one of our Center Scoreboards.
2
« on: May 11, 2023, 10:45:53 AM »
Not sure what forum to post this thread on, but this is sort of a Community Rule for us!
Our neighborhood group of four owns a long list of Carcassonne Expansions, including quite a few fan-expansions. Our “normal” game usually included a few of the expansions with about 130 tiles to be played after the River tiles.
Then we found the City Gates and Water Wells and the total hit 170 and we are thinking about bringing back Under the Big Top and maybe more which would raise the tile count to almost 200.
But, the games are getting too long, so we started thinking about how to make the games end sooner. After reading and posting a few forum threads, this is what we are thinking about.
In general, game play is basically divided into two phases. The more adventurous play when there are a lot of tiles still available, and the more conservative play when the tiles are about to run out.
Our thought is to set a time limit on the game, but we don’t want to eliminate the almost out of tiles phase. So think of it this way:
It is about 8 PM and we want the game to end around 10 PM. We put together as many expansions as we want and totally ignore the size of the tile stacks. We set an alarm on one of our cell phones for 9:40 PM. When the alarm goes off we merely hit the snooze 5 minutes button and keep playing. 5 minutes later after the second alarm we hit the snooze button one more time and wait for the third alarm.
Then we turn off the alarm and, starting with the player whose turn it is, each player will take exactly 3 more turns. When the game ends, we place all the remaining tiles on the side, and start the standard end of game scoring process. Finally, we divide all the tiles into individual Expansion stacks and put everything back in the boxes.
We will definitely have an extremely interesting adventurous phase at the start of the game, then we will have one or two or three or … warnings that the conservative play is about the happen and the “playable” tiles will definitely run out. But, the important thing is that the game definitely took about 2 hours.
So, for everyone else who wants to try this “Community Rule” your group merely has to decide how many 5 minute warnings you get before starting how many final moves.
One thing that is very important for this process. The player who is currently making their move is the first player to start making X more moves. If that player is able to finish their move then the X more moves starts with the next player, delaying the game becomes an advantage because that player would get one more move than everyone else.
3
« on: May 01, 2023, 06:08:36 AM »
We just added 15 more fan expansion tiles to our standard 4 player game this Saturday, bringing the total to 24 river tiles and 174 standard tiles.
As a pure coincidence, there was a Board Game Geek forum post on Sunday related to making the games quicker by “Playing with less tiles”.
We don’t want to play with less expansions, so we are considering 3 ways to make our games shorter:
A. Set a timer and the game ends after exactly 2 hours.
B. The game ends when the first player reached 150 points.
C. Before the game starts, take 25 or 50 tiles out of the random stack and put them on the side.
This would also give us the opportunity to add more expansions back to the game to make it even more interesting, without making the games extremely long!
So, my question to the group is: does anyone else have any ideas on how to play games with a lot of extra expansion shorter?
PS: the new expansion that we added was The Wells. Great expansion, the roads in that game, on average, scored just about as many points as the Cities!
4
« on: April 29, 2023, 11:59:49 AM »
Does anyone know the year that meepleater first introduced The Wells fan-expansion?
5
« on: April 15, 2023, 01:21:00 AM »
Our group started playing Carcassonne in 2020 because COVID basically forced us to limit our social group gatherings. We all started with Big Box 6 and, as we got addicted to the game, expanded our game nights with a variety of standard and fan expansions: - Flying Machines, both the BB6 Road tiles and the fan-expansion City tiles
- Exp5: Abbey and Mayor with Barn and Wagon
- C2 fan version of Besieged City tiles
- 20th Anniversary tiles
- The Phantom
- Princess and Dragon
- Goldmines
- The Tower
- Halflings 1 & 2
- Under the Big Top
- Our own C2 version of The Festival tiles
- Our own Center Scoreboard start tile
We are always looking for other expansion that are played with basically standard tiles. It seems as if a lot of the newer expansions seem to include odd shaped tiles and cardboard tokens that are placed on the tiles. While writing this post, I found three downloadable C2 images for “The Wells” on Carcassonne Central. That is exactly what we are looking for; the images are just tiles, they all have standard BB6 City, Road & Field edges, and they merely add another feature that could easily have existed during the initial settlement of the region around 3500 BC: Water Wells. Thanks in advance for any other suggestions you can provide!
6
« on: April 09, 2023, 04:16:05 AM »
The footnotes on the Festival page state that your removed meeple can be: “All of your own figures are meant here, including normal and large meeples, wagon, mayor, builder, pig, barn, shepherd, phantom, abbot meeple, ringmaster, and guard meeple."
And then: “If the Festival is used to remove a meeple, the Phantom can still be placed on that turn.”
So, the question is, can you remove the Phantom from the board, then use it as the second meeple placement?
My guess is that you can’t place it at the end of your turn if you did not have it in your stack at the start of your turn.
If it is not legal, it could make an interested house rule!
7
« on: February 13, 2023, 09:22:04 AM »
Both of the arrow symbol actions start with the wording “Instead of placing a meeple on the tile just placed” which clearly states that you can’t do the action and also place a second meeple on the Anniversary tile.
The Phantom rule for placing a tile is:
After placing a tile, the player may deploy the phantom to it as a second follower (on a second feature). Thus, in one turn the player may deploy two followers to two different features of the tile he or she just placed.
There is no mention of the Phantom on the 20th Anniversary page. Does the Phantom allow a player to place their normal meeple according to the Arrow’s action, then, if the player also has their Phantom available, place their phantom on the Anniversary tile if the feature is unoccupied?
8
« on: February 11, 2023, 09:07:21 PM »
 The double meeple arrow says “You are allowed to add your meeple next to any of your previously-placed meeples in the playing area, so there will be 2 (there can be a maximum of 2 meeples at a time).” The only mention of the “Large” meeple is in footnote 6 which talks about how the second meeple added to a feature is to “pay homage to the large meeple”. So the question is, are you allowed to add your “large” meeple next to any of your previously placed meeples? If so, it would seem to contradict the “maximum of 2 meeples at a time” provision.  But I would think that the single meeple arrow with the curved line would allow you to place your large meeple on any unoccupied, incomplete feature.
9
« on: February 03, 2023, 11:08:15 AM »
This is a very interesting expansion. The player who draws a Bards tile has to give an advantage to all of the other players, not your own advantage!
Does anyone have any of the images of the 7 tiles that were part of the Bards fan expansion?
Yes, the tiles only exist in C1 format, but the link provided on the WikiCarPedia page for the Bards expansion only pops up an error message that we don’t have “permission” to upload the file so we can see the tiles!
It would be interesting to see what features were on the original Bards tiles.
10
« on: January 26, 2023, 08:59:28 AM »
When you expand a feature that has your builder on it, you get a second / additional / extra turn.
The 20th Anniversary Expansion includes 5 tiles that will give you an extra turn after you place that tile with its arrow pointing to another tile.
The Saint Nicholas Scoring Board has two point values that will give you an extra turn if you are the first player to reach 24 points or last player to reach 6 points.
Are there any other features / expansions that allow you to draw and place another tile during your turn?
11
« on: January 16, 2023, 07:28:12 PM »
When you need a specific tile edge to place against another tile edge, what features are available in Carcassonne to modify the edge(s) of the tile you are placing, on the tile you are placing your tile against?
The first thing that comes to mine are the Bridges from Expansion 8. You can only place one bridge on the board each turn, but you can use a bridge to modify a single xFxF tile into an xRxR tile.
The second tile I can think of is Abbey tile from Expansion 5 which can only be placed in a four sided hole, and it automatically makes all four sides of the Abbey fit against all four sides of the hole.
The third thing I can think of in the standard games are the Halfling tiles. The basically change the shape of the hole they are being placed into so you only have to match two sides.
There is also one other, non-standard, expansion created by kothmann call Old City. His personal expansion includes wooden Wall and Gate pieces that can be placed on the edge of a city tile to allow a field or road to be placed directly against the city tile.
Does anyone else know of any other expansions that allow for the edges of the files to be modified as they are played?
12
« on: January 16, 2023, 01:59:27 AM »
For about the last 24 hours, every time I follow my bookmark, or type in www.wikicarpedia.com, what I get back is a blank page. I've tried this on two browsers on my PC and also on my phone. Is there a problem with the site?
13
« on: December 26, 2022, 08:12:54 AM »
How do I create a user ID for WikiCarPedia?
I'm trying to ask a question about the 20th Anniversary Expansion tiles.
If a player places an mini-expansion tile with the arrow pointing away from the tiles to get 2 points, when another player places a normal tile against the arrow, they get to perform the arrow function.
What happens if they place another mini-expansion tile with the arrows pointing toward each other? Can they perform both arrow functions? AND, if they can, can they choose the order in which they perform the functions?
14
« on: December 25, 2022, 11:25:25 PM »
Our neighborhood group of four recently discovered the 20th Anniversary Expansion tiles and can’t wait to try our first game with them. But the rules that interact with other expansion are not exactly clear. The Wiki page clearly says: “You can combine it with other expansions - but at your own risk – that is, there will be no official rules for these combinations.”
The rule for placing a meeple on an incomplete unoccupied feature along with the rule pairing with another meeple do not describe which meeples they are talking about; Standard meeple, Abbot, Large meeple, Phantom, Ringmaster, Mayor, and Wagon.
The rules say that you can either place your meeple on the 20th anniversary tile or follow one of the special rules. What happens if you are using Phantoms in your game? Can you do both?
The rules talk about only allowing a paired meeple to reach a maximum of 2 meeples on a single tile; can you use the large meeple for pairing? Can you use the large meeple when you take control of an unoccupied incomplete feature?
If I place a normal tile that completes an unoccupied incomplete feature, I can place my meeple on that tile to claim it and score it. What if my 20th Anniversary incomplete feature tile completes an unoccupied monastery or garden, can I place my meeple on the garden of monastery? OR, do I have to place the 20th Anniversary tile elsewhere, take the monastery, then complete it later?
15
« on: November 26, 2022, 07:11:28 AM »
We learned about the Bards fan expansion in a recent Carcassonne Central forum thread, and it sparked our interest! https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=3008.msg44824#msg44824Each Bards fan expansion tile allows a player to tag a single feature with a bonus similar to the Inns and Cathedrals expansion, 1 point bonus per tile when the feature is scored, but, the tag has to be placed for the next player. https://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/Bards_of_Carcassonne_(Fan_Expansion)Over 60% of all Carcassonne games are played with only two players, so there is a reasonable chance that the tagging player could get the bonus. In a four player game, the chances will be close to zero! So, we decided to make up our own house rules for the four or more player games that we play each week. Since we play with four or more players, we always use one of the Center Scoreboards that we created: https://www.papageek.com/car/Scoreboard.htmAnd we made up our own house rules for creating the Bards bonus features. We do not use the bards tiles, but we start off each game with a scoreboard with 2, 3, or 4 Rivers, and combine all of the River 1 and River 2 tiles into a random stack. As each player plays a random river tile, if the tile they are playing does NOT contain a feature on which they can place a meeple, the player is allowed to select any unoccupied feature on the rivers or the center scoreboard and place a 1 point bonus marker on it. If we are not playing that game with Gold Ingots or Ferries, that is what we use for plus 1 point markers. When a random player selects and plays the River Tile that closed the last river, if that closing tile does not also have the River 2 city feature, they can place another 1 point marker if they want, and then the next player is the first player who can choose to expand one of the 1 point bonus features. There are 5 standard River 1 and 2 tiles that do not have features on them, plus 4 source and termination river tile without features, and, if house rules allow it, 3 tiles with only a Monastery or Garden in the center of the tile. When the last river is closed, there will be a random number of river tiles still unplaced, so, depending on that day’s house rules there could be up to 9 or 12 bonus features available for each player as the random normal tile game starts. Almost all of our games include the Inns and Cathedrals expansion, so having additional features with 1 point bonuses during the game, that are worth zero if unfinished at the end of the game is something we are already used to. The additional Bards rule that multiple 1 point bonus can be added to the same feature makes the scoring even more interesting!
|
Show Posts