Hello everyone,
I am quite new to the world of Carcassonne and this forum (a year and a half) and I enjoy immensely playing the game and reading the various posts. It’s a great community; a big thank you to all contributors!
Hi JohannesD!
Congrats for your first post! Glad to hear you are enjoying the forum.
I would be really grateful if someone could answer a couple of questions I have concerning the deployment of the Phantom. Up to now I haven’t been able to find the answers neither in WikiCarpedia nor in this forum, but maybe I haven’t been searching the right way.... So, please consider the following situations:
a. By placing a tile in one’s turn, two unoccupied features are completed. Can the player deploy a meeple and the phantom on each feature respectively and score points for both? I know that you can place a meeple in a feature you just completed, immediately score it, and then return the meeple to your supply. Does this apply to the phantom as well, it being the second meeple placed on a second just (or perhaps already?) completed feature?
The phantom behaves as a regular meeple but with special placement rules. The turn sequence goes as follows...
1. Placing a tile - Draw tile and place it taking into consideration any possible actions triggered at this point
2. Placing a meeple - Place a wooden meeple, a wooden figure or a token, if you decide so and you are allowed (you cannot have removed a knight with a princess tile). Note that at this step other actions are possible: removing an abbot, removing a meeple with a festival tile,...
- Place your phantom, if you decide so and you are allowed (you cannot have removed a knight with a princess tile)
- Perform other actions related to shepherds and/or fruit-bearing trees.
3. Scoring a feature - Score any features completed and remove the meeples on them
So, as you can see, you can occupy up to two features with direct placement and, of course, score them both. If you use a magic portal or a flying machine with one wooden meeple or the phantom, it can only land on an incomplete feature that cannot be scored on this turn.
As Gagoune commented, have a look to the Order of Play and select the expansions you want to analyze to see how they affect the turn sequence:
https://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/Order_of_Play b. By placing a tile in one’s turn, one unoccupied feature is completed and another feature on the just placed tile remains incomplete e.g. a road is completed and the monastery on the tile is incomplete. Can the player place a meeple on the incomplete feature (i.e. the monastery in the example aforementioned) and then the phantom on the just completed feature (i.e. the road) and score the points, or must the player deploy first the “normal” meeple to the just completed feature and then the phantom to the incomplete feature?
The restrictions for the phantom only affect the placement order of the phantom but not the order the features have to be occupied. The phantom has to be placed as second figure but you can decide any valid feature for it (incomplete or just completed). During a game, you may prefer to place the phantom on a feature about to be score of that would be easily completed, so you can get it back as soon as possible. But this falls on the strategy side in order to increase the odds to occupy and score more features.
The placement restrictions of the phantom will allow you to occupy a city just vacated and completed with a tower piece but will not allow you to place the phantom as a farmer and then a pig in the same field or place the phantom in a city and then the builder. The phantom will be placed after placing a meeple, a pig, a builder, a tower piece, removing an abbot...
To see an example using a tower piece and a phantom to take over and score a city, check here (scroll down to section The Phantom):
https://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/The_Tower#Other_expansionsI hope my questions are clear and that I haven’t confused you. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you beforehand.
Johannes
Your questions were perfect. Hope my answers helped too.
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