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Messages - DLloyd09
61
« on: January 08, 2015, 10:45:54 AM »
They look to be the size of two (100-point) and four (200-point) regular scoring tracks
62
« on: January 08, 2015, 09:02:50 AM »
63
« on: January 08, 2015, 08:22:19 AM »
My reservation with including bits from other strategy guides found on the internet is that I don't always find them very helpful. This is a personal thing, but much of the advice will be obvious to anyone who has played more than a handful of games, and a lot of the rest is questionable (in my opinion at least - or maybe I’m just being unnecessarily pedantic?). For example, a few of the writers seem to be under the impression that cloisters are like a golden ticket that mustn’t be wasted because of the potential for scoring points. I don’t agree with this as the risk of permanently losing a meeple is too great. I have problems with the assertion that you shouldn't place farmers too early either as I think this depends entirely on how the game develops. This isn't up to me though, nor should it be, so if anyone else disagrees with this then feel free to chime in now!
I think one of the great things about developing a collective strategy guide is that personal biases can get thrown out. For example, I frequently will play on a cloister if I get it, particularly if I think I can get 7+ points at the end scoring, even if I can't finish it off, as those points add up awfully fast. But I also like to play a field early, especially if I draw some good small-city tiles early on. I don't think a strategy guide like this needs to contain a definitive "best" play for all situations. Rather, if someone writes an impassioned and well-reasoned article defending early field play and someone writes an impassioned and well-reasoned article explaining why early field play is a disaster, I don't see why both of those couldn't end up in a guide. Ditto for always playing a cloister/rarely playing a cloister, and lots of other things that I'm sure we all disagree about. Might it be possible to make this a wiki that gets incorporated into CarcC? That way it could be more of a living document and also set up easy navigation across articles.
64
« on: January 05, 2015, 07:57:32 AM »
The ability for the player drawing the dragon tile to move the fairy before the dragon moves AND to then decide the initial trajectory of the dragon with the first move is enormous. It means that the main determiner of who will lose meeples to the dragon is not which player uses the fairy the best, but which one draws the dragon tiles at the right time.
I completely agree; this is definitely the biggest weakness of the expansion--makes the fairy extremely powerful, but all that power is based in luck.
65
« on: January 01, 2015, 10:08:35 AM »
Happy New Year!
66
« on: December 31, 2014, 09:29:52 AM »
Kettlefish has a good suggestion here. The only problem is deciding what order to place the minis. Spielbox should all go at the end since HiG doesn't do FAQs for them usually (Cult and Halb so Wild excluded, of course). This could fix the Corn Circles I/II and Cathars/Siege/Besiegers problem by allowing them all to be in sequence with each other.
I agree with kettlefish's suggestion too. As for what order the minis could go in, perhaps in chronological order of release, but also grouping related expansions together so they aren't scattered? Not entirely sure of the exact way this would be formatted, but something like: - The River (2001)
- The River II (2005)
- The River III (2014)
... - The Cathars (2004)
- The Siege (2008)
- The Besiegers (2013)
Alternatively, perhaps all the small expansions could be organized in alphabetical order by the name of the expansion? Especially for newer folks, it might be easier to find things that way than by chronological order, and the chronological release list could just stay on as an extra reference page near the back?[/list]
67
« on: December 29, 2014, 07:57:01 AM »
Thanks for this great info, Decar, dan, and jungleboy! It will definitely help going forward as we play through the expansions  We played the base game with just The Tower last night... my husband hated it, although not only because I won 135-84. I think it's really, really aggressive for a two-player game. Much more so than the Princess and the Dragon. I really did like how much it changed placement strategy though, as I often found myself sacrificing the possibility of bigger point gains in exchange for smaller, safer ones. I wonder if in addition to varying the number of tower pieces for each player as the rules require, it might be worth taking some of the Tower tiles out too. 18 is... a lot. Maybe play with just 6 of them, randomly drawn, for a two-player game, 9 for three players, etc. It would also add an element of not knowing exactly what tiles are coming, which is always interesting. I'm definitely planning on keeping some notes on the various combinations, and hope to eventually be able to report back on the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'll also have to keep an eye out for deals on some of the minis, because I'd love to incorporate those at some point, too!
68
« on: December 27, 2014, 06:28:01 PM »
Hey everyone!
My name's Doug. I've been lurking on the forum for a while, but this is my first post here. I've owned base Carcassonne as well as I&C and T&B for about a year, and I play it fairly regularly. For Christmas, I received all of the major numbered expansions I didn't own (#3 through #9) except for Catapult. I just played my first game of Princess & the Dragon and it was a completely different dynamic than I'm used to! My husband eked out a win of 143-142. I hope I didn't miss any fairy points for myself!
Anyway, we both agreed that playing that expansion on its own it's very "concentrated". With 30 tiles in the expansion, the new elements come up a lot. Still though, we like to play all of the expansions on their own first, to get a feel for the new mechanics in a vacuum, and so we'll play through the Tower up through Hills & Sheep just to see how things work individually.
After that though, we're going to want to start combining expansions to lead to a more balanced game. We love playing the base game with I&C and T&B, and feel it's exceptionally well-rounded to play with both of those. To that end, I'd like to ask you all: What are your favorite combinations of expansions other than pairing I&C and T&B (and why?). Most of our games are just 2-player games, but we also do 4-player games occasionally.
Feel free to also include mini expansions that I don't yet own, if you think any of those merit inclusion in this list, and thanks in advance for your advice!
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