Here are some screenshots and a quick summary of how I felt the game went:
To be perfectly honest, I did enjoy this game but I really felt that the towers spoiled it. Whether or not this is actually the case remains to be seen, but it seemed to me like the majority of the captured meeples belonged to me and I struggled to keep anything on the board in the first half of the game. Even when I tried to defend certain meeples by putting other meeples on top of towers ("capping" them?) the capper meeples would just get captured and then on the next move I'd lose the meeple I was trying to defend. I never actually ran out of meeples somehow, but at one point the other 3 players were sharing 6 of my meeples between them.
I did eventually complete the city in question but this was only because of a lucky tile draw rather than any amount of skill, tactics or planning...
The bridges really added an extra element to it although the castles were largely ignored, as was the builder for some reason.
Quote from: danisthirty on October 23, 2014, 03:41:17 PMHere are some screenshots and a quick summary of how I felt the game went:Quick!
Quote from: danisthirty on October 23, 2014, 03:41:17 PMTo be perfectly honest, I did enjoy this game but I really felt that the towers spoiled it. Whether or not this is actually the case remains to be seen, but it seemed to me like the majority of the captured meeples belonged to me and I struggled to keep anything on the board in the first half of the game. Even when I tried to defend certain meeples by putting other meeples on top of towers ("capping" them?) the capper meeples would just get captured and then on the next move I'd lose the meeple I was trying to defend. I never actually ran out of meeples somehow, but at one point the other 3 players were sharing 6 of my meeples between them.If you don't like the tower, so be it. It's certainly true that the majority of followers captured were indeed yours! But playing with the tower is a skill. You need to consider where towers are, and where towers could appear, with every tile placement (and especially every meeple placement). If there is a tower anywhere in the row (within say 4-5 tiles) of where you want to place a meeple, you probably shouldn't place it there unless it's a feature you think you can close quickly. And if you do place what you think is an important meeple (i.e for a big farm or city) on the board, then you should try to make it tower-proof in your subsequent turns by placing non-tower pieces around it where possible.
Quote from: danisthirty on October 23, 2014, 03:41:17 PMI did eventually complete the city in question but this was only because of a lucky tile draw rather than any amount of skill, tactics or planning...But luck is part of any Carcassonne game, not just games with the Tower. This is the part of your dislike for the Tower that I don't really understand. If you play with I&C and you set up a city with a gap with four city sides so that you can complete it with a cathedral, then it's luck as to whether or not you draw one of the cathedrals or one of your opponents does. Anytime you try to join a city it's luck as to whether your opponent draws a two-city tile to block you out of it before you draw a 2+ sided city tile to jump into it. If you try to join someone's farm late in the game, it's luck as to whether your opponent draws a tile that can block you out of it or whether you draw the tile you need to join it, etc etc. At its core, the game combines skill and luck, and I think this is still true with the Tower.I would say that using tower tiles to good effect by placing them near opponents' meeples, and using your tower pieces wisely (which I didn't do last night given that I ran out at a crucial moment) is skill, tactics and planning.
This was an absolutely epic move that deserved better! The Phantom must have risen another notch in Dan's Carcassonne Pantheon after that!
Quote from: danisthirty on October 23, 2014, 03:41:17 PMThe bridges really added an extra element to it although the castles were largely ignored, as was the builder for some reason. This was my first ever game with BC&B (I only bought the real-life expansion last week) and I quite enjoyed it. I think the bazaar variant on JCZ worked quite well, and the bridges did have a big impact.
Thinking about it now, perhaps Traders and Builders doesn't go that well with the Tower - or at least the builder part. The builder is about extending cities/roads and usually keeping them unfinished for longer as a result, whereas the Tower is about finishing features quickly before your meeple gets kidnapped, so they are not really compatible in this way. The trade goods become important with destructive expansions though, because fewer cities seem to be completed and the scores are lower, so the value of the goods rises.
When we play, we use a rule which I thought was THE rule, but according to jcloisterzone I am wrong. We play that the first tower block can only capture meeples on the same tile as itself. Then 2 blocks includes 1 tile in each direction horizontally or vertically and 3 blocks is 2 tills etc.
The same happened in Latvia and, I suppose, in all EU countries. So why don't we stick to the previous time? I think everyone will agree.
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