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Rule question about The Tower

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jungleboy:
Hi all,

I just played with The Tower for the first time several days ago and enjoyed it. But there was one aspect that both players were a bit confused about. The situation was:

A tile had three towers on it and to prevent a fourth piece going on it (which would have eliminated an important meeple for her four tiles away), my opponent placed a meeple on top of the tower to close it. However, an adjacent tile was also a tower tile, so I was able to place a tower piece on it on my next turn to take the meeple she had just placed on top of the tower as my prisoner.

My question is: is the tower that just had a meeple removed from it still in play? Could I then put an extra tower piece on it to imprison the meeple she was originally trying to protect? Could this cat-and-mouse game continue, whereby she puts a meeple on top of the tower only for me to imprison it on my next turn, etc? Or does that tower, which was closed when she placed her meeple on it, remain closed even after the meeple itself was taken prisoner?

Thanks for your help!

Nick

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=527.0

Carcking:
Great question!

Yes, the cat and mouse game can continue until you run out of tower sections or she runs out of followers. If you run out of tower sections she will have won in protecting her very important follower on the board. She will then have to work at getting her followers back by capturing yours at various points, or ransom them back for three points each.

@obervet - I would say there is a little gray area there - the CAR states that when "a follower is deployed to the top of a tower,177 the construction of the tower is finished and it may not be built any further."(page 62). There is no specific mention that it is reopened when the follower is removed from it. The reader may be lead to thinking that he must further identify the tower as "finished" even after the follower is removed - which I believe is the basis for jungleboy's question.

jungleboy:
That was indeed the basis for my question, and thanks for the answer! But should I now infer from your edited reply that it's not certain one way or the other if the tower remains closed after the meeple on top of it is imprisoned?

Carcking:
My opinion would be that it is more certain that the tower is re-open for construction. It is impractical to "remember" which towers ever had a follower on top. True, this is not official so to that extent it can be said to be uncertain, but not in a practical sense.

obervet:
An interesting question. I agree with you, Carcking, and I have added a footnote to the upcoming version of the CAR. There's not an "official" clarification, but the intent seems to be that the follower blocks placement of additional tower pieces, so if there's no follower there, building can continue. I suspect that the reason for the ambiguity is that there was no mention of removing followers from towers in the initial rules (and the initial RGG rules actually forbid it). When the part of the sentence allowing capture of followers on towers was added, the rule-makers never went back to clarify the first part of the sentence.

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