Carcassonne Central News #9 - January 2022WelcomeHello there, and welcome back to another edition of "Carcassonne Central News" – the imaginatively titled monthly newsletter summarising the last month of toings and froings here at Carcassonne Central. It's been a little while since I last wrote one of these, over six years in fact! But it's something that I've always wanted to come back to, and now seems like as good a time as any to get the ball rolling again. I've tried to keep it fun and light-hearted, so there's lots to read and enjoy, and a few challenges along the way. I do hope you enjoy it, and look forward to seeing your feedback – good
, bad
or ugly
– below...
Under Starter's OrdersAs always, we start at the start with something to help you get your games started! Fans of Squid Game may remember the Glass Bridge obstacle where the contestants had to make their way across a bridge via a series of 50/50 guesses; each guess being between a stable pane that would support their weight, and a fragile pane that would break as soon as they stepped onto it. Thankfully Carcassonne isn't often this dangerous, but I thought it might be fun to mimic this using Carcassonne tiles and meeples in order to create a quick and easy pre-game game to establish a triumphant starting player.
Start by taking ten unseen Carcassonne tiles and placing them face down in a grid that is five tiles long by two tiles wide. This is the bridge! Take one meeple from each player and place them all at one end of the bridge. Everyone chooses one of the two face-down tiles directly in front of the meeples, and puts their meeple on top of their chosen tile. Tiles may be shared by more than one meeple, but both tiles must have at least one meeple on them. As soon as all meeples have been placed, the two tiles are turned over and evaluated based on the number of distinct features on that tile (including fields). The tile with the highest number of distinct features is safe and any meeples placed here will proceed to the next round. Any meeples on the tile with the least number of distinct features are plunged into certain disappointment. If both tiles have the same number of distinct features then any tile that has a pennant is safe, otherwise both tiles are stable and all meeples survive. Repeat this across as many stages as necessary (I suggested five but draw more tiles as required if your meeples are especially good at Squid Game) until just one meeple remains. The player owning that meeple may then choose either to receive €455 billion or to be the starting player. If you don't have €455 billion, they must choose to be the starting player.
left: the six meeple are split equally between the first two tiles as a shady stranger looks on from the other side
middle: disaster for Green, Yellow and Pink as their tile contains just 2 distinct features vs. the 3 on the other tile
right: two rounds later, Blue emerges victorious as his ccrr with pennant beats Red's plain old ccrr
Forum NewsArguably the biggest news we saw this month was about how
Carcassonne Central is now under new ownership. Not that there was anything wrong with the old ownership, it was more just that Gantry wanted to pass on the mantle and give someone else a chance to steer the ship. So that's what Decar, Meepledrone and I are now doing, although not literally as the vast majority of my limited ship steering experience has involved crashing. We can't wait to find out what the future has in store for our beloved CarcC though, and are doing everything we can to make sure it involves as much fun and collaboration as possible!
As the news above exploded all over Facebook and Twitter, the forums were starting to feel like the 1000th episode of a popular TV program, with no shortage of cameo appearances from some of the forums regulars of old who came back to the site to say hello, to thank Gantry for his years of hard work and to wish us all the best for the future. I won't try to list all the names that brought a smile to my face, but I will mention that kettlefish and Scott were among them. Scott in particular took the time to share a little about
where his life took him when he felt the call to step away from Carcassonne Central for a few years. I won't spoil it, but it's been quite the journey and it was wonderful to read about it.
As far as we know, 2022 looks like it could be another big year for Carcassonne. With new-artwork editions of the basegame and latest Big Box scheduled to be released later this year, you certainly wouldn't be alone if you've ever wondered why there are so many "different" versions of Carcassonne that seem so similar, or what the differences between all the boxes actually are. Yet there's never been a suitably thorough and detailed account of
Carcassonne's chronology... until now! Decar (with some help from Willem) has pulled out all the stops to put together this well-written and easy to understand history including details (and plenty of photos) of box art, scoretracks, international deviations and many other points of interest along the way.
I'm not a big Instagram user personally as I'm usually so hungry by mealtimes that it won't occur to me to take a picture of my lunch until I've already mostly eaten it, and I've been advised by the Police that I could face prosecution if I continue posting 200 selfies a day as - apparently - they "scare children"
. Thankfully, others have found more productive ways to use Instagram, so if you're not following them already please be sure to visit
The Carcassonne Museum by Willem and
MP Works by MMike. Neither of them ever seem to post photos of what they're about to eat, or selfies, but they do post a lot of fantastic Carcassonne content so please show your support by following them anyway.
Although there was too much in the way of news and discussion for me to summarise
everything here, it would be remiss of me not to draw attention to Melvin Quaresma's awesome
Carcassonne Everywhere project (you are hereby implored to make the most of this opportunity to be part of it), exciting news about the upcoming
MSO Grand prix and Mind Sports Olympiad 2022, and finally Decar's insightful
interview with Board Game Arena which takes us behind the scenes of one of the most significant online boardgaming platforms that's used by millions of boardgamers around the world (he posted it in February but I'll allow it because it's such a great read).
What Happens Next? (
by Decar)
It's Black against Green in the Carcassonne World Championship final, and you're playing Green! Black draws the first tile and takes an easy 4 points with a cfff. Hate it when that happens! You go next and it's an fffr cloister which you drop on the east end of the road across the start tile, claiming the cloister with your first meeple of the game in the hope that it comes back to you quickly. Black's next turn, and it's an ffrr corner road. He extends the road across the start tile with the open end facing South and claims it. Now it's your turn again, and you've got a crrf to play. What's the plan boss?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on what your next move would be, and why. I have something in mind, but I also have an open mind, so share your thoughts and let's help
GREEN become Carcassonne's next world champion!
Member of the MonthThe purpose of this little section is to recognise the efforts of those forum members who have championed some of the ideas and initiatives that have benefitted our community throughout the month. Everyone can contribute something (or lots of things) and we're very lucky here in that most people do! All things big and small are appreciated; whether it's acts of generosity such as we've seen from
The-Edge with his recent giveaways, or simply just by exuding the sort of enthusiasm and positivity that
kothmann and
Challa007 have been demonstrating so consistently, it all adds up to making our little corner of the internet something that we can enjoy all the more and be truly proud of.
While we (the admin team) do try to recognise and consider everyone's individual efforts, some efforts are rewarded in different ways, for example by awarding forum badges to individuals who have contributed significantly in specific areas. Recently, Decar announced on
this post that
oldbonz and
Wolnic have both been awarded the "Author" forum badge which you'll now see just below their name alongside any of their forum posts. This is somewhat overdue considering how long they've been with us, but please join me in congratulating them both for the creativity and outstanding artwork that they've both been responsible for over the years.
Our Member of the Month for January though, is someone who promised us last year that he was working on a number of Carcassonne projects that he planned to share with us throughout 2022. This said, he was apparently so excited about the first of these that he couldn't quite wait until January before sharing his
Carcassonne Game Notation with us on New Year's Eve!
Based on this, I'm sure I speak on behalf of the majority of our members at the moment when I say that I'm very much looking forward to his next project already, and am happy to name
DIN0 as our Member of the Month based on this and his many contributions elsewhere across the forums. Congratulations to you, and thanks for all your hard work!
Carcassonne Knowledge Tester (
by Meepledrone and/ or one or more of his imaginary friends)
Dear boys and girls,
Supervisor Nick wanted to share with you some insights about scoring. He noticed during the Advent Quiz that a few answers showed some issues when scoring roads or cities with complex layouts.
The issue stems from the fact that you may get distracted with the shape of the feature and count the same tile multiple times. This may happen when the same tile has several segments connected to the feature. When you score a road or a city you always count the number of tiles, not the number of segments conforming the feature.
Let's have a look at the following examples showing a road loop with some surprises. The tile bottom right contributes twice to the road loop but we are used to that configuration and we count that tile only once automatically, because it is easy to spot. However, we may get fooled if the tile contributing multiple times to the road is not at one end.
The roads in the following examples have 7 tiles, no matter the configuration of the tile at the center (the tricky one
). Let's check each example:
*
Example A: The 4-legged roundabout on the Spiel 18 tile is counted only once even if it connects several road segments, one of them even looping back.
*
Example B: The tile at the center has two separate road segments connected to the same road. Even so, the tile is counted only once.
*
Example C: The tile at the center has two separate road segments, one of them featuring a printed bridge, which allows one road to pass over the other without actually meeting. Both road segments on the tile are connected to the same road, and the tile is counted only once.
*
Example D: This example features a wooden bridge. It will behave in a similar way to the printed bridge featured in Example C.
Therefore,
Red would score 7 points for each of these roads no matter their configuration (7 tiles x 1 point/tile), since the tile count is what matters, not the total number of road segments in the road.
This said,
Supervisor Nick would like to check you've been paying attention. How many points would
Red score for this city?
Have fun!
Forum Statistics | Jan 2022 | | 2022 to date | | Jan 2021 | | 2021 to date |
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HomeworkNow settle down everyone, SETTLE DOWN, or we'll all be here until half past three... OK? Good.
A previous homework that I set in an old newsletter required you to build the most valuable complete city from tiles in the basic game in order to discover that the most valuable city possible weighed-in at an impressive 84 points! But while city points are always important for keeping your score ticking over, sometimes lots of small cities are better than one big city, especially when farmers are concerned. So, with this in mind, the challenge I have for you this month is to arrange the tiles from the basic game only into some configuration that yields as many farmer points as possible. But to make it more interesting, I'm going to allow everyone three farmers and your score will be made up of the combined score of the three of them. We'll be going over your answers in class next month so please be sure to submit them before then! Here's a hint:
DON'T put them all on the same farm
The Last TileThanks so much for reading January's newsletter, and thanks to Decar and Meepledrone for their contributions too of course. Naturally we hope you had a fun time reading it, and that it gave you plenty of Carcassonne food for thought, but it's your newsletter too so don't feel compelled to accept this collection of our collaborative efforts if there's anything else you'd rather see; let us know! I still have plenty of ideas for extra features I'd like to include in future newsletters, but haven't got round to writing yet, so please help to make sure I'm heading in the right direction by leaving a comment below, and I'll be sure to take your feedback on board.
Before I finally sign off for the month though, I'd just like to leave you with these words of wisdom from Siegbert Tarrasch (Polish Chess player: 1862 - 1934). He was actually talking about Chess when he said them, but I feel it applies just as much to Carcassonne (and most games):
"One doesn’t have to play well, it’s enough to play better than your opponent."
See you at the end of February!
Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5724.0