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Topics - Decar

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16
General / Where were you in 2012?
« on: January 31, 2022, 01:50:35 AM »
Ten years ago was a long time ago. For many it was a significant year.  Many believe that Nostradamus thought the world would approach destruction, and any Mayan's still using their calendar would suffer from an equivalent Millennium Bug because no one added some more pages.

In 2012, I married my now wife, bought a house, and we 'rescued' our dog.  So all in all an excellent and significant year.
I also started using Kickstarter, which rekindled my love of board games, which ultimately made me end up here.

What happened in your 2012?

17
General / A complete (?) Carcassonne version history
« on: January 15, 2022, 02:34:20 PM »
Hi everyone, I've been a little busy fraternizing with another forum.  Some of you may have seen it already.

A lot of people have been asking, what's the difference between various versions and boxes of the Carcassonne base game.
So I thought it was about time produce a little guide to help people either coming into the world of Carcassonne, or maybe not so familiar with all the changes that are hard to track here.
Primarily, I don't like to see people disappointed, so I think it helping people to understand what they have, or what they intend to buy is a beneficial thing to have. Hence why I thought hosting on BGG was a good idea. I also thought it was worth mentioning some of the more unusual things from around the globe too.... and as with anything Carcassonne, next thing you know it's worth mentioning something else tangentially related.  So it soon became an even greater task, and Willem (and his Museum of Carcassonne) quickly came on board to help, the majority of the images are from his very very very extensive collection. Danisthirty also took a couple of good ones too.

It was a really fun exercise to do, and I learned of a few things I wasn't aware of, and often chronology gets lost in the haze of time. Big big thank you to Willem for his meticulous archival process.
 
I'll be bringing the information over here in the coming days, but if you can't wait you can read it on BGG—A complete Carcassonne version history.
If you're a member of BGG please give it a thumb, I also accept Carcassonne Central merits  ;D

18
General / Help from Hong Kong
« on: January 02, 2022, 02:13:25 AM »
This is a bit of an odd request, but thought I'd give my #1 online community a try.

I'd like to order something from Hong Kong, but it's only available to people living in the region.  (It's not Carcassonne related).

Does anyone live in Hong Kong and be willing to help order the item to their address and have it forwarded to the UK?

Many thanks!

19
News and Events / Merry Crimbo 2021
« on: December 24, 2021, 12:57:44 PM »
I'd just like to wish (and not one I'd regret hopefully) everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Over the next year, may your Carcassonne collections approach completion. May the tiles always draw in your favour. May friendships prosper across the globe, and in traditional British verse I wish you pockets full of money, and a cellar full of beer.

20
Other Games / Fire & Stone
« on: July 24, 2021, 06:07:14 AM »
Just a heads up for those who follow Klaus-Jürgen Wrede's other games:




In Fire & Stone, players lead their tribe through the Stone Age. They scout new lands, harvest nuts and mushrooms, and finally build villages. The aim of the game is to have the most successful tribe by exploring new lands, building huts, and gathering resources. With the invention of new tools and techniques like ship building or pottery, the expansion of your tribe can even be accelerated.

Each space the scouts can enter contains upside-down discover tokens. When a scout moves on one of those tokens for the first time, the token is revealed and triggers an effect. From now on these tokens can be used as a player action with a different effect. By the end of the game, the player who made the most victory points with villages and accomplishing tasks wins.


Coming from Pegasus Spiel later this year. Essen perhaps?


21
Anything Else / Be careful what you wish for...
« on: June 01, 2021, 01:03:19 PM »
One of the great things about Carcassonne Central is the community, and how people from all across the globe all seem to have fallen in love with 45mm square tiles that depict the South of France (Don't mention halflings).

So, while this is off-topic, I thought it would be a fun little game to play.

The game starts by making a wish, and the next person replies granting their wish, but reminding them of the impact of their desires, before making their own wish.
It's a faux pas to forget to make a wish, but someone else can start the thread off again.

For example:

> I wish I did not have to work.

>Granted. But the world is now overrun by an evil synthetic intelligence that perceives all humans as a threat to its existence.  You have to fight to survive.
> I wish ...

So I'll start:

I wish I claimed that cloister

22
General / Pre-orders for Carcassonne 20th Anniversary UK
« on: April 08, 2021, 02:25:01 AM »
As I'm always looking for the opportunity of a merit,
I've collected a few pre-order URLs for Carcassonne 20th Anniversary edition in the United Kingdom.

In no particular order.

Boardgameguru - £40 + £3.75 postage
 https://www.boardgameguru.co.uk/carcassonne-20th-anniversary-edition-101422-p.asp

Zatu - £43 + £3 postage... buy 5 for 5% off etc [I've had terrible service in the past, and Rich The Fish reports bad preorder handling]

Board game hut - £46 + free postage
https://www.theboardgamehut.co.uk/product/carcassonne-20th-anniversary-edition/

ChaosCards - £50 + free post
https://www.chaoscards.co.uk/prod/c/carcassonne-20th-anniversary-edition

Thirsty Meeples - £41 + £4 shipping (free over £50)
https://thirstymeeples.co.uk/products/carcassonne-20th-anniversary-edition

Tritex Games - £40 + £4 postage (free over £50)
https://www.tritex-games.co.uk/product/games-carcassonne-20th-anniversary-edition

Boardgameextras - £42 + £3.50 postage
https://www.bgextras.co.uk/carcassonne-20th-anniversary-edition-i4954.htm

GamesLore - £40 - £3.0/4.29 postage  (up to 10% discount on larger orders)
https://www.gameslore.com/acatalog/PR-Carcassonne-Board-Game-20th-Anniversary-Edition.html#SID=152

Titan Games - £40 + £2.99 postage
https://www.titangamestore.co.uk/game-store/Carcassonne-20th-Anniversary-Edition-preorder-p331795040

MeeplesCorner - $41.95 + £4.99 postage
https://meeplescorner.co.uk/product/carcassone-20th-anniversary-edition-board-game/

Rules of Play - £45 + free postage (OR £40.50 with GEN-BGPRICES) code.
https://rulesofplay.co.uk/products/carcassonne-20th-anniversary-edition

Dice and Destiny - £41.99 + £3 postage
http://www.diceanddestiny.co.uk/products/carcassonne-20th-anniversary-edition/

My general personal experience:
GamesLore have been reliable when I've used them in the past and probably the cheapest if you're considering multiple copies, perhaps in a bulk order.
If you order 3 or more GamesLore works out cheapest currently at around £40 per copy. If you order 7 it drops to around £37

BoardgameExtras is always really reliable, so the extra couple of quid is well spent imho.

Zatu has terrible customer service

23
General / Anyone ever notice this on the Tower box?
« on: April 07, 2021, 10:02:34 AM »
Saw this for the first time today and wondered if anyone else has noticed:



The new artwork Tower has a shopping cart with tiles in it.

One tile is a Besiegers tile in the old art work. And a Spiel 14 tile, that was only limited for short time!

Anyone else notice any oddities like this?

24
News and Events / Carcassonne USA Maps and Chits available in BGG store
« on: January 25, 2021, 10:07:13 AM »
Looks like the Carcassonne Maps for USA East and West, and chits are now available in the BBG Store.

This is is great news for our members in the USA who didn't wanr to pay extensive shipping rates from Germany


https://boardgamegeekstore.com/search?q=carcassonne

25
News and Events / Fjords - Grail Games
« on: October 26, 2020, 12:58:40 PM »
Long time HiG / Rio Grande fans will know of Fjords
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15511/fjords

Well Grail Games is working on a new edition, new artwork and co-designed with Phil Walker-Harding, who will be adding some content, while maintaining the original gameplay.  Sounds promising!

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/322564/fjords

Increasing player count from 2 to 4 players.
PWH is producing 5 mini expansions that add flavour to the game.

26
General / If you could ask Klaus-Jürgen Wrede one question
« on: August 26, 2020, 03:35:56 AM »
I'm running this on Twitter at the moment and thought it would be nice to ask the question here too:

If you could ask Mr Klaus-Jürgen Wrede one question—What would it be?

27
News and Events / New version of 7 Wonders
« on: July 31, 2020, 12:28:12 AM »
Many moons ago we voted on 7Wonder being our favourite not-Carcassonne game. Asmodee have released images of the new version of 7 Wonders.

They've only gone and updated the art work!

https://store.us.asmodee.com/catalogue/7-wonders-new-edition_3062/

Generally, I'm ok with the design changes but what's most concerning is they've decided to change the card backs. At least that's something Carcassonne got right. Now old and new are not compatible.

28
During the COVID-19 pandemic, forum old timer, and good friend Rich_The_Fish and I have been playing a few games of Dominion online.

We've not played for a very long time, but thought it was time to check out: https://dominion.games/

The base game is always available for free, but during the pandemic they have been kind enough to cycle the expansion, so it was a great chance for us to try some of them.

If you're not familiar, Dominion is the 2009 Spiel des Jahres winner, and said to have invented the deck building genre.
Every player starts with an identical deck of 10 cards, each turn you draw 5 cards then use a card in your hand to play an action. Then use coins to buy more cards.  After that you clear-up and discard any cards you've bought or not used during the turn. Then you draw back up from your deck.  When your deck is empty you shuffle your discards, so your deck cycles and changes over time.
The aim is to buy cards that give you Victory points before the game ends, that can be triggered in a few different ways.
Each game is played around 10 different Kingdom cards that perform different actions, so the trick is to find the efficient way to beat your opponent in scoring.

Neither Rich or I are experts, we're very much casual players, and we enjoy exploring what the cards have on offer.

The Dominion Games website has implemented the 2nd edition base set, that I'm not yet familiar with either.

First game: Base game + Prosperity

The Prosperity expansion introduces Colony and Platinum cards.  This can drastically alter the behaviour of many strategies, as these cards are much harder to acquire.

Cards:
Royal Seal, Vault, witch, Expand, Peddler, Moat, Remodel, Laboratory, Market, Mint



It took us a while to work out how to best use the cards.  I realized expands is a great way to turn Gold into Platinum and Platinum into Colonies.  I went for a very straight forward Laboratory, Market combo. Rich tried to use the Witch to slow me down, but 2 lucky Moats protected me for a lot of the game, and Expand allowed me to turn them into Silver.

Game 2: Base game + Prosperity – Rematch

We thought we'd play this again as we were both familiar with the cards.




I went for the same strategy, but also used Expands to manipulate Estates and Duchy cards.  It looks like Rich over invested in Silver, that's dangerous to do when there's Colony cards to be had.  If i recall correctly, I forced Rich to take Provinces over the last Colony card. A sign that the end is nigh!  Much closer game this time around!

Game 3: Base game + Alchemy

Alchemy adds a new currency (Potions), that are used to buy specific cards. We played the suggested set: Potion Mixers



I realized pretty quickly that, the Alchemist is a pretty dangerous and repeatable engine, and although Rich picked up a Bureaucrat, I was essentially immune.  In this game, I could use remodel to acquire 2 Provinces in one turn to ramp up the pressure for a convincing win. The University and Golem made a great combo too.  I essentially had 2 different engines running.  By the end of the game, I could play every card from my deck :D
I completed one turn with 26 coins and 5 buys, which is mostly devastating for Rich who's system failed to materialize in this game.

Game 4,5,6: Base game + Guilds + Cornucopia

These are two smaller expansions that offer cards that do something when you overspend and introduces the concept of coffers (money you can spend on a later turn).  We played the suggested set: Baking Contest

It took us quite some time to read all the rules on the cards.  The guild cards have some quite complex effects.  On my first game I misfired a masterpiece, then misfired a stonemason, and basically killed any chance I had of catching rich in the first 5 turns of the game.  It was a pretty devastating defeat.

So we had a second game, this time I focused a bit more on the baker, and getting gold.  It was no good though because Rich had worked out how to use the masterpiece to purchase a lot of silver.  He stormed ahead, I was left floundering buying 1 or 2 Duchy.  It was pretty embarrassing.

So we played once more,  I fancied trying to use the Tournament to pull a prize to either slow Rich's Big Money strategy, but before I could blink Rich was on the war path again claiming all the provinces going.  The game was over really quickly, 16 or 17 turns.

For the first time, I'd not enjoyed a game of Dominion, I couldn't see a proficient way to go faster than Rich's solution.  So I spent another 90 minutes researching the cards to find some alternative means.  It's safe to say Dominion is a complex game, and after a bit of research, the key is to build a more finely crafted deck, rather than floundering buying action cards with little result.  If I get chance to play this again, I might play better.  But with so many combinations to try, I may have to try other games first.  Well played Rich, you found a mighty fine card to batter me with after our Alchemy game earlier :D

Overall

I'm really quite impressed with the Dominion games implementation.  When playing complex strings of cards, it does a great job keeping track and visualizing options.  Although I always find digital versions of deck builders much harder to keep track of the cards in your deck and discard piles.  Dominion games has a subscription service that offers all the Dominion expansions for 4€ – 5€ per month.  If I was playing more regularly and with other people I could be tempted, only one person needs to subscribe to access the cards.  Although not extortionate, when compared to other online services, BoardGameArena comes in at about 2$ per month, it's hard to compare.  The implementation of a complex game is solid, but it's up against variety.

Have you been playing anything online with friends during the pandemic?

Rich, DanIsThirty, and I have manged to play a few games on BGA.  Troyes, Targi, and even Carcassonne.

Rich has also introduced us to Welcome To too, it's a great draw a card and write game, that's as therapeutic as it is intensely infuriating.


29
Upcoming Scheduled Games / Dominion online game
« on: March 26, 2020, 03:34:49 PM »
Dan, RichTheFish and I hooked up this evening on our slack channel to play a game.

Rich couldn't even upgrade to a premium account on BoardGameArena because there are so many games taking place.

So we decided to sign up to dominion.games.

It's a really great implementation, although I don't appreciate the subscription model for accessing the expansions. So we played a random selection of basegame cards.

Here were the results:

As you can see, my deck was nowhere near sharp enough to compete with Rich's

Great game guys, looking forward to a rematch soon.

Hopefully no one thinks we should migrate to another popular forum.

....Edit: Should have captured the buy row:


Artisan (6), Bandit (5), Market (5), Moneylender (4), Council Rooms (5)
Moat (2), Harbinger (3), Merchant(3),  Workshop (3),Gardens (4)

30
It's time for our 5th annual Gencant contest!

For those of you who don't know:  GenCon is the largest tabletop-game convention in North America by both attendance and number of events.
However, lots of people, like me, can't attend this large convention.

Since 2015, Carcassonne Central has takes part in the large 'unconvention' that uses social media to unite those not attending Gencon—GenCant
More details here: http://www.gencant.com/history/

History of GenCant at Carcassonne Central
In 2015, we attempted to break the high-score using a Carcassonne base-game.
In 2016, I shared a solo-variant of Carcassonne called:  Carcassonne: Solomo
In 2017, I shared The Abbot's Walk
In 2018, I shared The Knave of Carcassonne

This year I share: Carcasonne: The Invaders.

I am going to publish the rules later today, subscribe to this thread to get updates ASAP!

Post your entries on this thread, provide a photograph of the board and score-track before final scoring.

To post on Twitter include: #GenCant2019 #Carcsolocon @Carcassonne in your tweet.

Keep your eyes peeled for The Invaders!

Results

Leven 87
Meepledrone 85
Rosco 81
TheSteveAllen 48?  --> Possibly
RichTheFish 14  :o

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