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Topics - PapaGeek
31
« on: June 03, 2022, 07:49:08 PM »
Would this be a legal move?
I draw a CCRR tile which I can add to the City that contains my Builder. The tile also completes an unoccupied road. Two of my opponents are also building a large shared city on a different location on the map.
I do not place my meeple on the newly completed road, instead a place a Tower Floor on a tower base that is next to shared large city and capture one of my opponent’s meeples. Then I place my Phantom on the completed road to score an instant 3 points and get my Phantom back.
Now for my Builder Second Turn:
I am lucky and draw a tile that will complete what was the large shared city at the start of my turn. Instead of placing the second turn meeple, I place another Tower Floor on the tower base and capture the second opponent’s meeple from the large city. Finally I place my Phantom (which I just got back) on the new tile to capture the large city for myself. Then, in the second turn scoring phase, I score the large city and get my Phantom back.
This sounds too good to be true, but I think it does follow all of the rules!
32
« on: May 25, 2022, 09:06:32 AM »
When you are playing with The Tower AND The Flier expansions, it is possible that the tile that you choose to attack after placing your tower floor could have more than one meeple on it.
Do you capture all of the meeples on the tile you choose, or do you have to select which meeple you are going to capture?
PS: to the admins: The “Other expansions” section of the WikiCarPedia page does not mention The Flier (Flying Machines)!
33
« on: May 25, 2022, 12:48:09 AM »
If red has captured a blue meeple, then if blue captures a red meeple, the prisoner exchange is automatic.
But what would happens if?
Red captured a blue meeple, then green captures a red meeple: what happens when blue captures a green meeple? Can all 3 players agree on a 3 way prisoner exchange? Or does each player have to wait for their turn to do individual buy backs?
The rules say that the 2 way exchange is automatic! Is the 3 way exchange also automatic?
34
« on: May 06, 2022, 10:23:48 AM »
When our group introduces new players to the game, one of the first things we talk about is the Next Move Strategy! Each turn in Carcassonne is divided into 3 phases: 1. Draw and Place a tile, 2. Place a meeple and 3. Score a feature. When you start playing Carcassonne your primary objective with each New Tile is how you can score the most points with it - how to maximize your point scoring. As you continue to play Carcassonne, you start to develop strategies for how to maximize your points while minimizing your opponent's points! Eventually, you start to think about your Next Move, then you start thinking about your opponent's Next Move! The Next Move Strategy A large part of the Next Move Strategy is understanding what tile could be drawn for making that Next Move. Memorizing the lists of what tiles are included in every expansion of the Carcassonne game and then combining those lists to know what tiles are available in the current game you are playing is nearly impossible except for the real experts who have played thousands of games. So, if the Next Move Strategy doesn't depend on that level of understanding, what does it depend on? Your Next Move and your opponents Next Move will be more difficult if the Next Move Tile has to match 2 sides instead just 1, 3 sides instead of just 2, and 4 sides instead of just 3 makes it extremely difficult! If the first player in a new basic game extends the road with a RFRF tile and the second player draws a CCFF tile, how should they place their tile? What does the Next Move have to do with it?   Placing this tile as shown in the first example will require your Next Move tile to match the existing board on two sides while placing the same tile as shown in the second example will only require your Next Move tile to match the existing board on only one side. 44 of the 72 Basic Game Tiles have a city on at least one side while only 25 tiles have a city on one side with a field on an adjacent side. But you don't have to know the exact numbers to know what your best move is! The odds of randomly picking a tile that you need is considerably reduced by the number of sides that your tile has to match! OK, you chose the best placement of your tile for your game, but your opponent also knows about the Next Move Strategy, so when they draw their RRFF next tile, what should they do? Do they place their tile to reduce the chances of another player completing their feature, or place their tile to complete or extend one of their own features, or, is there a way of doing both at the same time?   Yes, both placements of your RRFF tile as shown will cause your opponent to match 2 sides instead of one on their Next Move, but... The one on the right leaves you needing only a 1 sided match for your Road - ?- but the one on the left might also force your opponent to help you extend your Road! Ever wonder why the more games you play, the longer it takes you to make your Next Move? The expansion of your Next Move Strategy is the primary way that you become a better and better Carcassonne player. As you grow in the game you start looking at the Next Next Move, etc. And, there is also an extremely important reason for expanding your implementation of this strategy, when you limit your opponent's opportunities to complete their features, you are also trapping their meeples on the board, hopefully for the rest of the game! The very first topic in The Book of Carcassonne, Chapter 8: Advanced Strategy; is " The Art of the Trap", how to trap your opponents meeples on the board! It talks about Digging Holes, how to create 4 sided empty spaces that are impossible or at least nearly impossible to fill, and using these holes to trap your opponent’s meeples on the board. It then talks about the situations when you should or should not consider digging holes, and of course, some of the strategies used to defend against having your meeples trapped. One final thought that is extremely important: If you don't win, learn. Sometimes the tiles are against you; this is an opportunity to analyze the game you just lost and learn something from it.
35
« on: April 07, 2022, 01:09:25 AM »
Your Green robber plus Yellow’s and Red’s robbers are all on the scoreboard with the Red, Blue, and Yellow scoring meeples. You score a city that you share with Red worth 20 points, and your tile also completed a road that Blue owns for 5 points.
Yellow will only score 3 Robbed points. Blue will score 5 road points. Red will score 20 city points and 3 Rogue points. Red decides to move the 3 Rogue points first, then score the 20 city points.
Does Green have the right to move his robber to follow Red’s 3 Rogue points, then score 10 robbed points from Red plus the 20 points for the city?
36
« on: March 30, 2022, 07:46:00 AM »
Let me see if I understand the Robber rules correctly.  Blue has created a Cathedral City with 3 goods tokens so when Red places the Robber Tile, the City will be completed and Blue will score 21 points. During the placing a tile phase, Red gets to place his robber next to Blue’s scoreboard meeple, and every other player also gets to move their robbers there also. Then, in the scoring phase, Blue will get 21 points and every player with their robber on Blue’s scoring meeple will also get 11 points. Red will also get the 3 goods tokens for completing the feature. Blue can’t get the extra 11 points because he can’t rob himself! But, this is Carcassonne, so it can’t always be that simple. If the game is also being played with Messengers, Blue also has a messenger on the scoreboard and all of the other players will have to decide to either put their Robbers on Blue’s Scoring Meeple or Blue’s Messenger. Then Blue gets to make the decision for which group of players gets the robbed 11 points! And of course, anyone who does score robbed points has to return their robber to their supply.
37
« on: March 27, 2022, 08:44:50 AM »
We just finished our first Scoreboard Center Messenger game and have a lot of messenger questions.
The Big Box ZMG rules include:
CAUTION: You can only draw message tiles when your meeple and messenger are alone. If another player’s meeple or messenger is on a dark space when you land there, you do not draw a message tile.
But WikiCarPedia, footnote 1, says that this constraint is not in the original HiG rules. So, you do get a message even if another meeple or messenger is already on the same dark scoring space.
WikiCarPedia also added the phrase (and only on your turn) to the condition for when you get a message when you land on a dark space.
So, our primary question deals with the situation when a player completes a shared feature where multiple players score the points. If another player’s meeple can land on a dark space, does that other player also get a message?
Both rules are relatively clear that if placing your tile completes multiple features that allows both your meeple and your messenger to fall on dark spaces, you only get one message, not two. But if your tile completes a builder feature and that score places you on a dark square, you immediately get a message, then if on your builder second turn, or even on your message second turn you can complete a second feature that again lands you on another dark space, you do get a second message. This also means that on your initial turn, then your message turn, then your builder second turn, you could actually get three messages on your turn!
We also include a house rule when we played the game. The actual rules say that after reading your message you should place the message face down at the bottom of the stack. Our rule says that when you get a message, randomly choose a message from the face down stack, then place it in a second stack face up. After all 8 messages have been taken, turn over the stack and shuffle the messages into a new face down stack. Even our tile counter have no idea what the next message will be, except for the 8th message for each stack, and we are considering doing the shuffle after the 6th message is read!
The game was played with both rivers, Traders and Builders, Inns and Cathedrals, and the Fliers and it lasted over 2 hours. The Messages are a definite plus in our opinion!
38
« on: March 21, 2022, 08:41:33 AM »
Sorry for the duplicate post, but it took me 11 days to complete and publish the Carcassonne Variant that I would like to share with everyone. Let me start with a little history. Our group plays Carcassonne every weekend with 4 and sometime 6 players, and we wanted to start using The Robber and/or The Messenger mini expansions, but, since these expansions are played with extra meeples on the Score Board, the players on that end of the table would have a definite advantage. So, we found a C1 example that would put the score board where everyone could see it, posted it on Carcassonne Central, and the first response was to ask for a C2 example. As my username indicates, PapaGeek started work on creating the following C2 examples; one with basic tiles, one for the River 1 expansion, and one for the River 2 expansion. Don’t try to use these examples, the resolution is way too low!  Basic Game  River 1  River 2 Then, I created a way for everyone to customize their own Score Board Start Tiles. I did all of this on my Windows 10 PC, using Firefox, Microsoft Word, with an HP Office Jet Pro 6968 printer. Here is the link to the webpage that contains all of the instructions on how to set up and use Microsoft Word / Firefox and the full sized examples you can print. http://www.papageek.com/Tile1/index.htmThis page also contains a link at the end that will allow you to Build Your Own (BYO) custom Start Tile. If your browser, printer, word processor, or operating system uses different settings, let me know and I will update the instruction on the webpage! PS: I am a computer Geek. I built and programmed my first computer for the US Army in 1967. If anyone would like to contact me to help translate my Carcassonne Variant webpage from Geek Speak to Normal Human English, the help would be appreciated!
39
« on: March 18, 2022, 08:17:58 AM »
The Rules for (1) Shortest Road: say that if I have a highwayman on more than one road, I have to choose the road that is worth the fewest points, then score it as I would during final scoring. The footnote (2) says:
The scoring for Messages 1, 2 and 3 only considers those points related to the feature. No bonus associated to any meeples placed on the feature are taken into consideration, since the focus of this message is scoring the feature. Those bonus points for meeples would be scored when the feature is properly scored.
SO, what does this all mean if one of my incomplete roads has an Inn on it?
Let’s say that the road has 3 tiles so far. When I am looking for my road with the fewest points, does this road count as 6 points, 3 points, or 0 points? If it does count as 0 points, am I forced to choose it as my road with the fewest points making my message worth zero?
And while we are at it, How does Message 2 work with a city with a Cathedral?
40
« on: March 10, 2022, 10:21:29 PM »
I recently made a post about not wanting to play the Robber or Message expansions when there are more than 2 players. Both of these expansions are played with extra meeples on the scoreboard, and the players not sitting next to the scoreboard would have a definite disadvantage. Wouldn’t you know it, Meepledrone came back with the logical answer, place the scoreboard in the center of the table! And he gave me a link to a starting tile that allowed this to happen, but the image was using C1 tile graphics. So, as my name indicated, PapaGeek, I found a way to create basically the same starting tile with C2 tile graphics. This image is only half resolution:  If you print the full sized image on a letter size sheet of paper with 1/8 inch borders, paste the paper on thin cardboard and cut it to size, it will be exactly 6 tiles by 4 tiles in size. If you want the link to a JPEG file that is full resolution and all of the details on how the file was created, here is the link to a webpage I created for everyone to look at. NOTE: The page is pure HTML. There are no external Script or CSS file. All of the necessary CSS coding is in the HTML file. http://papageek.com/Tile1/
41
« on: March 03, 2022, 05:41:38 AM »
Footnote 445 in the latest Annotated Rules, S_CARv7.4, printed on May 22, 2015 states: The placement of a princess tile (Princess & Dragon) with removal of a knight from the city cannot be used as a first “follower move” and be followed by placement of the Phantom (e.g. into the now-vacated city). As per the rules for the princess, “if a knight is removed from the city, the player may not deploy or move any other figure.” [This combo would be too powerful in allowing city stealing. –ed.]While the WikiCarPedia page for Exp 4: The Tower; in the Other expansions (Phantom) section, gives the example:  Where Blue owns the city, Red places a Tower Tile, then places a tower floor on the NEW tower tile to capture Blue’s meeple, then the Red Phantom is placed on the Tower Tile to steal the City. This example is not in the Annotated Rules, and it sort of goes against the princess example that is in the Annotated Rules, but I do like the aggressive nature of what WikiCarPedia is suggesting. But let’s take this a step further!  In this example, Red’s new tile is not a tower tile, it is a trader tile that will complete the city. But, there is also a tower base tile with one floor next to the city, placing the Blue meeple in range when Red’s initial meeple placement is used to add a second floor to the existing tower to capture the Blue meeple, allowing Red’s Phantom to be placed on the new trader tile which allows Red to steal the city! If WikiCarPedia is saying that the first example allows a player to steal a city, can the second example also be used to steal a city?
42
« on: February 27, 2022, 08:44:34 AM »
The last two major discussions with our local group have both been related to the printed rules that come with the expansions which do not match what is being said on WikiCarPedia!
The printed rules that we just got with “Exp 4: The Tower” were printed with the Step 2. Placing a Meeple saying: “After placing a tile that has a tower foundation, you may perform one of the four following actions:" while WikiCarPedia was saying: “After placing your tile, you now have 4 actions to choose from: [1]” with footnote 1 saying:
Some printed ZMG rulebooks contain a different version of this sentence, including an additional restriction by mistake:
"After placing a tile with a tower foundation, you may perform one of the four following actions:[...]"
The original rules by HiG do not mention that these actions require a tile with a tower foundation.
This error was corrected in the PDF version of the rules.
Our previous problem with printed rules was for the placement of a dragon tile where the English rules said that the Dragon moved in step 1B and the Danish rules said that the Dragon moved in step 1A. The latest Annotated Rules say: “A player who places a dragon tile may deploy a follower or move the fairy as usual. Then (before scoring) the game is interrupted—the dragon is on the move!” which clearly puts the dragon movement in step 2 after the meeple is placed or the fairy is moved.
So, my simple question is: Why aren’t the manufacturers of the games, in the US and Europe at least, required to have the rules verified before they print them and include them in the expansions that they are selling?
We buy the Expansions, start playing according to the rules that come with the expansion, then sometimes wonder why the rules are that way, so we check Wiki and find out we are playing with the wrong rules! Some of the players want to continue what we were doing while other want to follow the actual rules!
43
« on: February 21, 2022, 01:44:36 AM »
There were four players in our first game with Towers, so we each started the game with 7 Tower Floors. There are 18 Tower Tiles, so on average each player should drew 4 or 5 tiles. Before playing our first game with The Tower, my understanding of the rules was based on the WikiCarPedia and Zman PDF wording:  Which says "After placing your tile, you you now have 4 actions to choose from:" 28 floors on 18 towers, so I was expecting some of the towers to get relatively high! Then, we read the printed rules that came with the expansion:  Which says "After placing a tile that has a tower foundation, you may perform one of the four following actions:" So, what are the correct rules? Is the game limited to 18 OR LESS tower floors which can only be placed one at a time only when placing a tower floor tile? We played two games with Towers and only one of those towers had two floors on it! OR, are we allowed to place all 28 floors wherever we want, creating multiple towers with 3 or 4 floors?
44
« on: February 20, 2022, 01:23:03 PM »
We will be playing our first Tower game in about 2 hours, and as I go over my previous Barns and Roads post, another question comes to mind! Yes I understand that a Barn cannot be removed when placing another tower floor, the question is about placing a Barn on a Tower Tile!  Not sure where I read it, but when placing the first tile from the Inns and Cathedrals expansion, you cannot place a Barn on the upper right corner of this tile because even though it is an FF corner, the Barn would be placed over a portion of the City and that is not allowed. You can however place a Barn over the lower right corner when the other 3 FF tiles are also present. This brings me to three Tower Base tiles. I would say yes that you can place a Barn on any of the four corners of the first Tower Base Tile when the other 3 FF tiles are present, but what about the second Tower Base Tile? Can a Barn be placed on the lower right corner which would cover part of the Tower Base? And, if the answer is NO, you can’t place the Barn where it would overlap the Tower Base, then is the answer NO you can’t place a Barn on the lower right corner of the fourth tile, but you can place a Barn on the lower left corner?
45
« on: February 19, 2022, 08:23:29 AM »
Footnote 4 for the Tower expansion is very specific: “Tower foundations and towers built on top are separate features from roads, cities and fields. Towers are not part of any of the features they stand on or "touch" (they are not part of a city or field touching them), so there is no interaction between them:” Looking at 4 of the tower expansion tiles:  I assume that the road on the first tile continues to the city so there are two fields on that tile. As for the other 3 tower tiles; Does the tower base terminate the road segments and divide the tiles into multiple roads and fields?
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