Author Topic: Using M&Ms to flag cities during the game  (Read 1171 times)

Offline PapaGeek

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Using M&Ms to flag cities during the game
« on: December 01, 2021, 05:36:36 AM »
Yes, being able to track which farmer is supplying which cities is something that each player is supposed to do on their own during the game, but it becomes time consuming during games with multiple expansions when the number of tiles gets larger.  Add to that the bridges that join fields across roads, and the time consumption expands greatly.

It is definitely not in the rules, but we are considering the use of M&Ms as a way of flagging each completed city with the matching color of the player(s) who control them. Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow are easy, we would use Brown for the Black player and Orange for the Pink player as needed!

If, for example, a city will be scored twice at the end of the game, by Red on one side of the road and Blue on the other side of the road, when the city is completed it will get two M&Ms.  Two M&Ms of the same color tells everyone that we have to join those two fields or that player will score those cities twice.  Two Reds and one Blue tells Blue to be careful that Red does not join the farms or he might lose his farm!

Again, this is definitely not in the rules, but it might speed up the game.  And of course, it will be fun when you place your barn and get to eat all of the other player’s M&Ms!

What are your thoughts on this?


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Offline Allograft

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Re: Using M&Ms to flag cities during the game
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2021, 08:06:37 AM »
It is creative indeed. I think you've made the strongest case yet for sleeving one's tiles.
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Offline Meepledrone

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Re: Using M&Ms to flag cities during the game
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2021, 09:13:43 AM »
This could be an option but keeping track of what cities score for each player's farmers during the whole game can also give you away when connecting or occupying fields in stealth mode, especially during a field cold war, since you are explicitly revealing your positions.

What I usually do is to score fields at the very end so no other meeples but farmers stay in the playing area (minimum visual noise). I use a bunch of small dice to mark those cities bordering a given large field when scoring it. Then I count the dice while removing them, score the field and proceed with the following (large) field. You can use different die faces to indicate different cases: 1 pip -> normal city, 2 pips --> castle, 3 pips --> besieged city...
Questions about rules? Check WICA: wikicarpedia.com

Offline kothmann

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Re: Using M&Ms to flag cities during the game
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2021, 09:36:00 AM »
Two Reds and one Blue tells Blue to be careful that Red does not join the farms or he might lose his farm!
Suppose Blue has 3 farmers in field A, while Red has 1 farmer in each of fields B and C.  All 3 fields supply a city.  If I understand your idea, the city would have 2 Red M&Ms and 1 Blue M&M, but in this case it is Red who has to be very careful!

I agree that farm strategizing can slow the game down, but I am wary of any surrogate for the actual scoring rules, for fear that players may rely on a misunderstanding of the surrogate.

Interestingly, your idea would work elegantly for the original farm scoring rules, if you used 1 M&M per farmer!  I have a lot of friends and family who struggle with farm connectivity and scoring.  Maybe I'll try using V1 farm scoring with this delicious scheme for keeping track!

Thanks for sharing!


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