Carc Central Community > Reviews & Session Reports

The Barbarian Report: The Robbers Review

(1/3) > >>

Whaleyland:
With The Robbers, the Carcassonne Minis series is technically over, though the bonus tiles constitute an additional expansion in themselves. Regardless, the Robbers add an interesting element to the game that is both revolutionary and rather simplistic.

Fat Little Meeples Waiting For Some Gold
* A Wealth of Bad Icons - I find it funny that I'm complaining about the same thing in the same spot as my previous expansion review, but the point still stands: stop adding strange and overlarge icons to my Carcassonne landscape. There are better ways to implement mechanics that basing it off of tiles that decrease in importance as more tiles/expansions are added. The new icons look terrible and a bit creepy, depicting a Robber's head on a bag of gold. Ugh. Furthermore, linking abilities to tiles means that sometimes the ability cannot be used. In a 2-player game, we drew four robber tiles while both are Robbers were already out. In a 3+ player game, that means a player could move their Robber to a different meeple, but not so in a 2-player game. Wasted opportunities, all because the ability is linked to a specific tile.
* Fields Galore - I'm not really pleased with the tiles in this little box. Of the eight new tiles, two are straight roads and two are curved. Another is an intersection, and the remaining three are cities (one with a road). All of these tiles are vanilla tiles. Give us something new like with the previous expansions! Adding more vanilla tiles to the mix just makes the game more homogeneous.
* Robbing Does Not Begat More Robbing - It seems obvious that robbery does not initiate further robbery. That would just be confusing. But having new meeples on the scoring track, stalking opponent's meeples and "stealing" from them whenever they gain points is made significantly more confusing by having to remember that points earned from robbing do not earn another robber points. For two people, this isn't too difficult to track. For six people, nightmares abound.

Creeping Up to a Victory
* Sharing is Caring - Despite the name "robber", the little meeples don't actually "rob" anything. They simply share half the points of the player who earned them. Honestly, I think robbing may have been a better way to go, but that also would have made the game much more aggressive. In any case, the mechanic is fairly sound (see above for exception) and players can even switch which meeple they are following if another one ends up on the same space as the one they are stalking.
* Universal Suffrage - Also unlike previous expansions, when a robber tile is drawn and placed, ALL players get to place their Robbers in turn order. No one is left out in the cold, waiting for their lucky draw from the bag. This is especially important for large games with many players. It also means that someone usually will be able to benefit from the robber tile, even if not the player placing the tile.
* Underwhelming Odds - A feature I find good with this little expansion is that, while player can basically sift off other players' points, its pretty difficult to win that way. In fact, it's impossible in a 2-player game. One player will still get the majority of points so the other player will move up, but not as much. This makes the mechanic helpful for stragglers, but not game winning. Normal strategy and lucky draws will still be required for victory.

Inconclusion
Despite my reservations, I actually liked this expansion quite a bit. It surprised me by its relative simplicity, its easy of use, and its universality with other expansions. Indeed, most of the Carcassonne Minis can be played with other expansions without any real conflicts, which is a great thing that some expansions are not so good at. If you do not plan to purchase all the Minis (which you should), I'd recommend this as one of the items to choose. It doesn't clutter the board (except the score board) and adds a simple little mechanic to the game. Play with The Messages and you can double the amount of meeples you can stalk and "steal" from.

Playability: A-
Affordability: A
Compatibility (with other expansions): A
Aethetics: C
Learning Curve: A-
FINAL GRADE: B+

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=34.0

Scott:
I imagine in a six-player game, the act of having everybody place their robber could be quite time consuming if some of the players have analysis paralysis. Who has the highest value feature soon to be completed? That's who I'd want to follow.

Fritz_Spinne:
> when a robber tile is drawn and placed, ALL players get to place their Robbers in turn order

Only the next player (in turn order) who doesn't use his robber is allowed to use him additionally to the active player.

If the active player used his robber yet and gets a tile with robber-icon, he can place the robber next to another scoring meeple.

Leven:
Now I checked the rules again, and you may be right. So I'm afraid I also misunderstood the rules so far. We always played it the way that Whaleyland mentioned: all players (in turn order) placed their robber if it was still in their stock. This interpretation seemed reasonable because it decreased the influence of luck (which player draws the tile with the robber symbol). Maybe we can call this a house rule then...

Scott:
I just compared the RGG rules to the CAR, and I think I can see how the RGG rules could be misread.


--- Quote from: RGG ---The next player in player order who still has his robber in his play area may similarly place his robber.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote from: CAR ---The next player whose robber is still in his or her own stock may also place his or her robber in the same way.
--- End quote ---

The phrase "play area" was not immediately obvious to me because I think of the whole table as the play area.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page