Decar and I discussed the 3D Starting Landscape with its designer at Essen. We tried to cover some of these issues, but she told us that many open issues would require house rules. She tried to do her best during the design process, but couldn't address the many issues when reading through the rules without a previous background in Carcassonne.
She couldn't provide an official answer about expansion interactions, but we could close the issue regarding the back side toucking the castle panorama: the edges touching the panorama are not contrained by whatever is printed on the box and those edges ae considered open (no edge is completed closed by the castle panorama).
We discussed what happened to a monastery placed on the 3D starting panorama, trajectories for fliers, the dragon and so on... But she couldn't provide an answer. I explained my recommendation to her, but she could not decide if there was a better or wose approach. So HiG will not provide any official answer beyond this.
My recommendation, in order to solve any issues is:
A) Vertical sides only count for scoring cities and roads (considered as extra tiles) and for field connectivity.
B) Vertical sides do not count for monasteries, flier trajectores, dragon movement, etc. For these and other mechanics, you would only consider the top view. Thus, no vertical sides would get in the way.
C) No meeples or figure may be placed on a vertical side.
With this in mind, The answer to you questions would b as follows:
1) The landscape doesn't contain lines: if the dragon goes on it, does it eat all the meeple on the landscape?
Or shall we consider every 90° carton bending as a line? So it would only eat meeple on the floor he goes?
Vertical sides ar counted as square tiles when scoring cities and roads. However, the dragon may not land on vertical sides; it will follow the square grid as seen from the top. The dragon palced on the 3D Starting Landscape may be to an adjacent tile on the table or vice versa without taking into consideration any vertical sides.
2) Thanks to a portal or flying machine, I'm allowed to place a meeple on a feature located on the landscape, and I want to place it on a vertical side of the landscape. Am I allowed to do so?
If so, how shall I place the meeple to make it obvious it's placed on a vertical side?
Meeples cannot be placed on features shown on vertical sides. You may only use features on tiles visible from the top view. This may seem a limitation, but it will spare you from weird situations.
3) The dragon moves toward the landscape, and my next move is to place it on the landscape. How shall I place it when it reaches vertical sides? Dragon laying on the side to show it's currently on the vertical side of the landscape?
Ignore vertical sides. The dragon would follow the square grid as seen from the top view. No meeples can escape the dragon either, since meeples are not allowed on vertical sides.
4) I use the catapult with a seduction token (or a precision token, a close question could appear), with a target close to the lanscape. There is also a meeple on the landscape, and the token ends up between the target meeple and the meeple on the landscape. How should I consider the distance between the token and the meeple on the landscape? In a straight line as the crow flies? Or measuring every flat (vertical and horizontal) lines to reach the meeple?
Use the top view when playing with The Catapult. Vertical sides will be ignored, as if playing on a table with the usual 2D setup.
HiG made an experiment with the 3D Starting Landscape in order to test if tile holder boxes could be integrated into a regular game. Due to their size, they have to be placed on and edge of the table to minimize their impact on the board.
My recommendations above will help you make the most out of the 3D Starting Landscape without running into a lot of issues whn dealing with expansions.
Hope this helps.
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