Carcassonne Central
Carc Central Community => General => Topic started by: Whaleyland on July 10, 2015, 12:38:18 AM
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ELEMENT OF THE WEEK: LITTLE BUILDINGS
After a week break, the Element of the Week is back, but this time with more obscure and/or recent expansions. The game has definitely taken strange turns in the past ten years, so these expansions may not be in your knowledge bank, but that doesn't make them any less official (or does it?). So as we conclude this series over the next few weeks, feel free to express any form of praise or criticism you may have for these off-beat elements.
This week, we present LITTLE BUILDINGS, an expansion released by Spielbox Magazine. With The Phantom, it is the only other tile-less expansion released for Carcassonne. The expansion contains 18 buildings, equally distributed between three different sizes: Sheds, Houses, and Towers. Each player gets a set of three (one of each). During a player's turn, if they do not place another "piece of wood", they may place a Little Building from their supply on the just-placed tile (doesn't matter where, but don't cover features, if possible). Whenever that tile is involved in scoring, add +1 point to the score for each building on it. Any player can score bonus points for any building.
Unlike most other Carcassonne expansions, this one includes a variant that many prefer to use. Instead of each building being worth +1 point, the buildings have scaled values. The Shed scores 1 point, the House scores 2 points, and the Tower scores 3 points. This makes use of the buildings much more strategic than with the original rules. In any case, Little Buildings adds a bit of a fun element to the game without drastically altering anything major. In this regard, it was probably the lightest of the Spielbox expansions except for Windroses (which began with Hans im Glück anyway). Is it worth buying? That isn't for me to say. I own it but include it rarely in my normal games, but others may disagree. Discuss your relationship with Little Buildings and how you optimise your use of this strategic element.
Next Week: Darmstadt :-\ :o >:(
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bhà!I don't know what to say... I play with little building 2 times... I find it a little bit out of contest...
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I like it and I think my pimped version adds another 3 dimensional look to the map. It can also have a huge effect with end game scoring of farms.
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I’ve never actually played with these, despite owning them, and don’t know if I ever will. It seems like a very light expansion in terms of additional materials, rules and strategy but like I say, I’ve never played it...
As much as anything else, the idea that they’re “little” buildings seems odd as they’re huge compared to the genuinely little buildings that can be seen on the tiles themselves (i.e. the ones at road junctions).
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I actually played with them twice, despite not owning them. But they are on JCZ, too. ;) Like Rosco, I like them. You have to be more cautious, than you might think on first sight, wile placing, otherwise the opponent(s) might benefit more then yourself from them. Never played with Tunnels yet, but am not as sure, if the buildings do not add more strategy then them.
However, I don't think, the 3-2-1 rule add much more strategy to this, it's just a little tweak, that with some buildings it get even more important, to set them in the right place, then other, but the basics are the same. Nevertheless I think, I like this variant even more, although I played each one only once.
I kind of considered to buy this one in wood and print out the rules for my collection, but hesitate, because kettles hint regarding a Tunnel reprint might include this as well. What I don't like that much about them is the artwork. Does not really look like medieval France to me, so a graphical update or (can be abstract) wooden pieces would be appreciated.
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We always include these in our games. They are off to the side and a minor element that only get into play once in a while.
I have also been able to pimp it for a 3D effect with more components from a thrift game.
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I think I'd be more likely to buy/use these if they were actually Wood.
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It kinda isn't compatable with Big Box 5 if you tend to play with a full set(3 for 6 players but there's 8 players in BB5 as well as sameness concerns for buying two). Though, I think you can either nab pieces from Monopoly (hahahah, sorry) and/or Catan, since they seem to be player agnostic (as it acts as a +1/+2/+3 point(s) for that tile, not player), or probably find something more thematic for it, or just borrow euro cubes and declare what each cube represents at the start of the game if you're going off of the scoring difference variant. I'd probably do Monopoly House for Shed, Mono hotel for house, and u-build industry/residential for tower (stack of 3 or 4 to make them more tower like). If I like it and it goes over well with my family, I'd import a set from Cundco to support them.
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Same goes for many elements, even from big expansions, like tower pieces, abbeys, bridges and castles. And the extra colours include just the expansions featured in big box anyway, so no mayor, robber, etc.
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Yeah, that's also true, Hounk. I know that MeepleSource does sell the extra colored sets for Expansion 5 and Cundco does sell 'replacements' for some of the wooden bits too (They did mention to use the replacement wood part order for getting individual Robbers and Women on the color set pages IIRC). Just was more thinking out loud on how to do this mini without double buying, though double buying would work if you have 12 sets for players (Oh man!). Just that there is a way for me to introduce this mini to my folks before springing on importing it.
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Realistically , how often do you play even 6 player games? Let alone 8 or 12!
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That's true, though I'm interested in playing carc with 4 members of my family, so there's that. A big box 5 might be in my future depending on how the game goes over with the family, but hey, color choice even if we never get enough for a full 8 player game. Also, just was joking about a 12 player game.
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7 or 8 happens about once a month at my regular games night.
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I myself setup my game for up to 8 players, including tower pieces, etc. 6 player was the max. we've done yet, but for the next Christmas sessions it's not quite unlikely, that we will have a bigger round and I build it up for that, not just for colour variety. As I wrote, I do not own this expansion to date, but I quite like it, and if I get it at some point, I will go for 8P as well with them. It's easier to achieve then with Phantoms for instance. You just have to order two copies or go right for wood pieces, which you can order in sets of 8 as well as of 6.
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You could be like me Hounk and make your own phantoms by glitter coating them after you painted or dyed them. Which reminds me, I just got my glitter nail polish in and I have 5 prepainted meeples waiting to be phantomed.
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I enjoy the little buildings, but we rarely play with them. They add more strategy than initially meets the eye, if played well you can score them three or even four times. Couple this with the variation and it can net you a few points. In bigger games though, it's not really worth the trouble. We usually end up dishing them out and them forgetting to use them. Every now and then a player sticks one down, everyone else follows suit and then they're forgotten about again.
We tend to include them if we've decided to have a simple game, just the base and maybe one other.
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Looking at ebay for this expansion, it was more than I wanted to pay for some cardboard castles that don't even match the style of my game.
But one of the suggested items on ebay was some spare parts for Catan, which made me investigate into seeing if there was any game piece I could re-purpose to be a "Little Building." So I bought a few sets of neutral colored (brown) buildings from Catan for 7 dollars. (http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Settlers-of-Catan-Replacement-Game-Parts-Settlement-5-Pieces-Brown-/311561320282?hash=item488a80775a:g:nn4AAOSwXshWs6en)
They work perfectly. I can't use the variant where different buildings are worth different amounts, because all the buildings look the same (I suppose I could tab a dot of paint on them if I wanted), but we still play with them being +1 point whenever the tile is scored.
We distribute them every game, they're always used in play, but we never seem to ever actually place them. Maybe once or twice they actually get used, but it's not like keeping them around actually slows the game down or anything.
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Creative solution. For the record, you can buy Little Buildings on CundCo's website. Still, I like your idea. I'm sure there are other wood bits out there that could double as different sized-buildings, too. I've found that in my games, when we have extra placement options like Abbeys, Castles, Bridges, Little Buildings, German Castles, Halflings, etc., we rarely place them. I mean, usually one or two will make it out on the board, but for some reason that's it. Not sure why we're so opposed to placing non-draw bag elements. Even special meeples and non-meeples, like Pigs, don't always get played.