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Messages - kothmann
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331
« on: October 12, 2021, 08:00:10 AM »
Place tile [0;-3] and try to invade to city on left side by placing meeple on city (left corner).
Another interesting suggestion! We'll call it F1...  Yellow placement to field will blocking all his 4 meeples on board for long time (due 2 meeples on field....
Oops--Yellow meeple at [-1;1] is a thief and [3;1] is a monk, so Yellow would only have 1 farmer after B, C, or F1.
332
« on: October 11, 2021, 05:14:32 PM »
See the series introduction here. <--Last WeekJCloisterZone File. Introduction: Continuing with the game from Week05, 5 turns later... Configuration: Base game only (72 tiles & 7 meeples per player) Players: Black, Gray, Red, Yellow (order of play as listed, alphabetical by color name). Score: B=8, G=8, R=8, Y=8 Previous Turns & Scoring: 1. B[ 1; 0] FFRR / thief / 2. G[ 0;-1] FRRF / thief / 3. R[ 2; 0] FCCF / farmer / 4. Y[-1;-1] RFRF / thief / 5. B[ 0; 1] RRCC / knight / 6. G[ 1;-1] RFFR / / 7. R[ 2;-1] CFFF / knight / R+4 8. Y[-1; 0] CRRC / knight / 9. B[ 0; 2] RFRF / farmer / 10. G[-1;-3] RRCC / knight / 11. R[ 3; 0] FRRC / knight / R+4 12. Y[-1; 1] RCCC / thief / 13. B[ 0;-2] RCRR / knight / B+8, G+8, Y+8 14. G[ 4; 0] RFRR / farmer / 15. R[-2;-1] CFCC / knight / 16. Y[ 3; 1] FFFF / monk / 17. B[ 1; 1] RRFR / thief / 18. G[ 3;-1] RRCF / thief / 19. R[-2; 0] CCCR / / Current Decision (photo below): Yellow has now drawn a CRFR tile. Where should they place the tile? Should they place a meeple and if so, where? Feel free to comment on previous moves, but the emphasis is on Yellow's current move.  Option A (photo below) [-3; 0], FRCR, meeple as knight in the city.  Option B (photo below) [-1;-3], CRFR, meeple as farmer in field next to city.  Option C (photo below) [ 3;-2], CRFR, meeple as farmer in field next to city.  Option D (photo below) [ 3;-2], CRFR, meeple as knight in the city. (Yellow scores 4 points)  Option E (photo below) [ 5; 1], RCRF, meeple as knight in the city.  Option F (none of the above) Please describe a better play in your reply.
333
« on: October 11, 2021, 03:06:58 PM »
Easily one of the most tactical and even strategic Carcassonne expansions yet.
Yes! Super interesting. You are playing a card game on top of Carc! In a two-player game, as the Gifts are distributed, you will eventually know exactly what cards are in your opponent’s hand! Early in the game, you could “bluff” by not sweeping a road in the hope that the opponent would think you don’t have that card? I think the “take 2” cards are relatively weak. “Cash out” gives a disincentive to huge city fights, which I think are often unpleasant. “Change the lie” lets you invade a city with just one tile—wow! I think “Synod” is a great complement to Abbot. And “Road Sweep” seems to make roads really important. I may make my own temporary set of Gift cards with an old deck of playing cards and give it a try… Thanks for sharing this! Link to English rules for anyone who missed it: https://cundco.de/media/pdf/ff/fb/1b/Gifts-EN-carc_mini-2021_geschenke_regel_PROD-EN.pdf
334
« on: October 07, 2021, 06:03:01 AM »
Option A does have merit, but for me the current state of play requires Red to either claim a farm invasion opportunity (to secure the likely big farm) or ensure the big city scores for them whether completed or not and whoever else is involved.
Yeah, I think that's right. So E or H2. I’d be interested to hear how the play through turns out.
The situation given is Red's 4th turn. I decided to self-play test until each player had made 7 turns, figuring that would give a decent sense of how things were evolving. I played each of E and H2 ten times, alternating options, and saving a screen-shot at the end. Here is the folder with images of the final positions (file names indicate option and game number): Week05 Option Comparison. In Option E, I made it Red's highest priority to merge with the Black and Yellow city, but that only had happened 5 times in 10 attempts. Most of the time things were pretty messy in the west, as expected. I kind of hate the aesthetics of the landscape when Red takes Option E.  In Option H2, the Black and Yellow city had completed once as a shared city, and seemed likely to complete more than half the time. This took longer than I expected, but still the fear that it would happen without E is totally confirmed. My conjecture that it would often be taken by one player was optimistic--it seemed most likely to be shared. Both Gray (Green in JCZ) and Black were able to join the farm a total of 15 out of 20 games. Not much difference between the options. Red seemed more likely to retain control or share control of the farm with H2, as expected. But it isn't clear how valuable the farm would be, having only 2 or 3 completed cities in all games at the point I stopped. I think it tended to have better potential for more cities with H2. One more interesting observation is that there isn't really a great place to put a FFFF cloister in Option E, but [-2;-1] is a good spot in H2. That happened fairly often, and I think those games were usually pretty good for Red. I suppose awareness of where a cloister might go, even if placed by an opponent, is a good thing to be thinking about? If you look at Option E, game 8, Yellow and Gray (Green) managed to cooperate and build a 12-point city in the east. It contained no CCCx tiles. I think those tiles are poison in multi-player games! Unless you play then to merge two cities, they make it very difficult to complete a city, particularly if you have opponents trying to block even a little bit. And getting greedy to take all the points in a shared city might not be your best option, because then the opponent will try to re-invade, and you might both get stuck with 2+ meeples in an unfinished mess instead of both grabbing 8-12 points and getting the meeple back. My overall conclusions: - I was wrong. Option E was better. You have to stop the big city.
- Make sure your opponents perceive you to be vindictive, so they won't get greedy when you are sharing a medium-sized city.
JCZ rocks.
Yes, really great for this sort of experimentation. I hope to try online games soon...
335
« on: October 06, 2021, 07:09:31 AM »
I chose @unclewill's H2. Option A is my second choice. Option E is my third choice, possibly without a meeple. I agree with everyone else about the other options. Since E is the clear winner, I'll start by saying why I didn't choose it... The big worry for Red (and Gray) is that Black and Yellow will complete their shared city, which would be worth at least 16 when completed. If Red doesn't play at E, it feels very likely that either Black or Yellow will be able to play at [-2;0], with subsequent invasion being quite difficult and completion coming shortly afterward. I agree that having Black and Yellow both score 16+ is very bad for Red and a play at E is solid defense. But then I wondered if [-2;0] is really where Black or Yellow would play? If they get a CFxx tile, they could place it at [-2;-1] and try to take all the points, like this (after Red takes Option H2):  The odds of getting a CFxx are (21/56) (thanks JCZ)--almost any tile that could play at [-2;0] could also play at [-2;-1], and Black and Yellow each have a chance. I think it is much less bad for Red if this happens: only one opponent scoring 20 is better than 2 opponents scoring 18? That's my conjecture. Plus whoever ends up winning the whole thing will have to place all the tiles themselves, with everyone else trying to block that city. Maybe that means that Yellow wouldn't do this? I suppose @unclewill's notion that you have to consider your opponents is quite important. If Red plays Option E, I don't think it should be with an expectation of sharing the points for a completed city. The city in the west is likely to become a giant incomplete mess, with one or two players eventually winning the points with at least 2 meeples as knights. It is one of those awful fights where there are maybe 10-12 points at stake, so you can justify investing another meeple, but then someone else does too. I might want to avoid the fracas and just place the tile without a meeple. I set up this situation hoping that option A might be compelling. I've been exploring some advice that @danisthirty gave as part of tip #3 in his 4-player strategy post: basically, you can place your CCCx tiles with no expectation of completion, as long as they are placed to be easy to expand and difficult to invade. It can be worth one meeple to have a place to put your city tiles that can't go anywhere else. And maybe you'll end up completing it, but it is okay if you don't. At least that's what I think he said. So, that's why I like option A--opponents are busy elsewhere, so hopefully it is easy for Red to just add some more tiles and end up with useful points at the end? I'm going to self-play this in JCZ and see if I change my mind. Hopefully I will also find an interesting question that arises as after Red plays the group consensus of Option E. Stay tuned for week 06...
336
« on: October 06, 2021, 06:27:21 AM »
@Bumsakalaka’s alternative 'H1?' of adding to Grey's city at (FCCC -2,-2)... or my 'H2' preference (CFCC -1,-3)
Here are the corresponding images (quick and easy with JCZ, with Gray-->Green): Option H1 Option H2
337
« on: October 04, 2021, 12:25:16 PM »
See the series introduction here. <--Last Week Next Week-->JCloisterZone File. (Thanks @Bumsakalaka for the template last week!) Introduction: A different game from weeks 01-04... Configuration: Base game only (72 tiles & 7 meeples per player) Players: Black, Gray, Red, Yellow (order of play as listed, alphabetical by color name). Score: B=8, G=8, R=8, Y=8 Previous Turns & Scoring: 1. B[ 1; 0] FFRR / thief / 2. G[ 0;-1] FRRF / thief / 3. R[ 2; 0] FCCF / farmer / 4. Y[-1;-1] RFRF / thief / 5. B[ 0; 1] RRCC / knight / 6. G[ 1;-1] RFFR / / 7. R[ 2;-1] CFFF / knight / R+4 8. Y[-1; 0] CRRC / knight / 9. B[ 0; 2] RFRF / farmer / 10. G[-1;-3] RRCC / knight / 11. R[ 3; 0] FRRC / knight / R+4 12. Y[-1; 1] RCCC / thief / 13. B[ 0;-2] RCRR / knight / B+8, G+8, Y+8 14. G[ 4; 0] RFRR / farmer / Current Decision (photo below): Red has now drawn the CCCF tile. Where should they place the tile? Should they place a meeple and if so, where? Feel free to comment on previous moves, but the emphasis is on Red's current move.  Option A (photo below) [ 5; 0], CCCF, meeple as knight in the city.  Option B (photo below) [ 3; 1], CCFC, meeple as knight in the city.  Option C (photo below) [ 2; 1], CCFC, meeple as knight in the city.  Option D (photo below) [ 1; 2], CCCF, meeple as knight in the city.  Option E (photo below) [-2;-1], CFCC, meeple as knight in the city.  Option F (photo below) [ 2;-2], FCCC, meeple as knight in the city.  Option G (photo below) [-2; 0], CCFC, meeple farmer in the field.  Option H (none of the above) Please describe a better play in your reply.
338
« on: October 01, 2021, 05:22:21 AM »
I treat each expansion as a collection of modules and add those modules individually rather than considering each expansion as something that needs to be added whole.
Great recipe. Add house rules to taste! We also added 3 Abbeys; 2 for my youngest daughter, 1 for my eldest and 0 for me. Who won?! I like “dynamic handicapping” for kids: in the next game, the previous winner gets one fewer Abbey and the previous loser gets one more. Dad always gets none. Anyway, not sure I have added much but it is fun to talk Carcassonne with you all.  Nice to see you back on the Forum.
339
« on: October 01, 2021, 05:01:23 AM »
I would have loved to have been more involved from the start if I'd been aware that these strategically minded posts were being made , but I haven't been visiting the forums so much lately.
. Welcome back. So glad you found it! B …high risk, and fairly low reward
C is … attacking the most valuable farm
I see the risk of B, but I’m not clear on how to evaluate a farm at this stage. Both farms are currently worth 6, and obviously the lower farm is very likely to connect to the other football city. But Yellow has strong motivation to complete the city cap at [-1;1], so then both farms would be 9. And Gray has incentive to complete the city in the west, which would further increase the value of the Gray farm. Is it just that the lower farm looks easier to grow in the east, as part of the war with Black for control? I have the feeling this is one of those things that you just learn to recognize with experience? [when Yellow chooses C]…grey is hindered because it prevents his farm merging onto the main one.
When Yellow invades the lower field, it is with the expectation of committing 2 or 3 meeples to winning the lower farm? So why not promote a merger and win the whole thing? I think this is why most responses favor H over C? (If Yellow goes that route, they want to be sure to close off their upper farm to prevent it from merging, since all the cities are also in what is currently Gray’s farm?) …if an all-out farm war were to erupt…
I think this is the challenge for me—being too averse to a farm war. It feels like a lose-lose proposition in a 4-player game, and I can’t tell when it is okay to risk a war—in other words, I have difficulty judging “what the tiles will allow.” I think my current philosophy is: avoid farm conflicts early; make my own farms difficult to invade and relatively small so they aren’t an attractive target; and prevent other farms from merging or growing to be huge, so that my opponents won’t be willing to place a 2nd farmer preemptively. And then pick a farm or two to invade near the end, when my opponent can’t or won’t prevent me from sharing the farm points. But of course you can’t always achieve these goals. …black has more meeples committed elsewhere… Interesting. Thanks again to everyone who replied for very thought-provoking ideas. Week 05 in the works…
340
« on: September 29, 2021, 03:28:42 PM »
(idea was let to know, that online game in 5.x branch is HERE!)
Are there detailed instructions for playing online? I would like to connect with my family for a game.
341
« on: September 29, 2021, 10:42:48 AM »
I’m still wondering if I am too reluctant to fight the farm wars in a 4-player game….
The consensus is pretty clear--everyone except me thinks it is best to invade the lower field, one way or another, with the favored choice being H. I played the game out a few times in JCloisterZone (Thanks @Bumsakalka!) and it seems that Black will almost always re-invade the field (add a second farmer) from wherever Yellow didn't. In other words, if Yellow chose H, Black chooses either E or @unclewill's J. My notion that Yellow would still be able to enter the field from the east ("this field is still pretty open...") seems to be quite wrong, because I had a hard time adding a second Yellow farmer. I could do it eventually, but Black could also add a 3rd, etc... New cities were not forming in the east as quickly as I had imagined, because there is quite a bit of action elsewhere and once Black has a second farmer, nobody else wants to put cities there. Red and Gray are then happy to use separate the two fields (A, B, C, or D), so Black's farmer doesn't win everything. And Black is trying to make something happen with the large city in the north. In the end, the lower field was usually only worth 9 or 12 points. In short, if Black decides to fight for the lower field, they seemed likely to win it or at least tie in a very protracted battle. (UPDATE: I did manage to get Yellow to win the field once, with 3 farmers to Black's 2.) Gray's strategy typically evolved toward adding lots of small cities and and extra farmer in their field, with Red contesting that. The Yellow field at the top that I thought was pretty isolated would often open up to the northwest and sometimes merge with the Gray field. The upper field(s) usually ending up being worth more points than the lower field. (Update: my original post said Black would often win, but that doesn't seem true after more playing.) Of course, this is self-play, so I'm likely to be trapped in my own thinking. But I'd be really eager to see if anyone else played it out and had the Yellow invasion of the lower field work out well. When I tried it, it felt like Yellow invested a lot without a great return. I haven't tried playing Yellow to the end with Option D yet... Update: Played a few times with Option D. Yellow finished last every time, by a lot. So, invading the lower field does indeed appear to be the least bad option.  Cheers.
342
« on: September 29, 2021, 09:31:00 AM »
For those, who want to check this situation also online. Here is file for new version of JCloisterZone 5.7.101.
This is so great. Thanks again. It worked perfectly for me playing all 4 players myself. Great way to experiment! A few questions for anyone who is a JCZ expert (or maybe I just need a link to the user's manual?): - I don't see an "undo" option? After I place the tile, if I change my mind, can I put it somewhere else?
- There is a banner that says: Game was created in development mode. Tile draw order is predefined. How can I access "development mode" to setup games like this?
- Is there an AI opponent?
Next week might be a new situation--different game. I hope it isn't too much work to setup another one? Enjoy Indeed! Thanks again so much.
343
« on: September 29, 2021, 05:41:45 AM »
Fixed the link. Thanks.
And Wow! Thanks so much for putting these into JCloisterZone. I just downloaded it this weekend. I’ll give these files a try and let you know how it goes. +1 merit from me!
344
« on: September 27, 2021, 08:26:02 PM »
I chose D.
I want to play at [-2;-2] because I hate big farm wars, so I want to make it very likely that the upper and lower farms are separated. This narrows it down to A, B, C, or D. I did not notice that Red will not be eager to play at [-2;-1], for the reasons @Bumsakalaka gives. So, only Black and Yellow want to play there, and, again echoing @Bumsakalaka, there are just 4 tiles remaining that can fill that gap as it is. Another consideration is that there are 11 CRxx tiles remaining that Gray might play at [-3;-1] to create a hole at [-2;-1] (because the RRRR tile is already played) while enlarging the Gray city. If you took C, you could still connect to the bottom farm via two tiles connecting around the bottom. But overall, I think the best option is D (no meeple). Patience is a virtue?
I see the value of H, and agree that is a good choice for invading. Even if [3;-2] is never placed, there is still a good chance to connect via [3;0] and [4;0]. Or just extend the farm out to the east with more cities. But because this field is still pretty open, I don’t yet feel pressure to commit to the battle which would surely ensue. I like Yellow’s mostly isolated farm at the top and think it is okay to hold off on invading the other farms.
I also think it isn’t terrible for Yellow to just claim a road, to go with their city and farm. So either G or I don’t seem like bad plays to me. G has the advantage of making life a bit tougher for Black.
I’m still wondering if I am too reluctant to fight the farm wars in a 4-player game….
345
« on: September 27, 2021, 06:38:20 PM »
I don’t own and have never played with the tunnel. So, my comments are all thought experiments with respect to the proposed changes. - Suppose I place a tunnel tile in such a way that a road on that tile leads to a hole in the landscape (RCFC, RFCF in base game) and I place a token on that road. I have now created the threat of placing another tunnel tile, if I draw one, and placing the matching token to link a road with an opponent’s meeple to the hole, trapping that meeple. The proposed rule change would not prevent this? Maybe that is okay, but it seems to create a new and ominous threat for placing meeples on roads? The proposed rule change would not stop this, right?
- I agree with @Willem’s comment that “at least one opportunity” seems to make it difficult to place a token on an opponent’s road, with the hope of placing another token on a future turn that would allow you to join that road. This would seem to be one of the most useful applications of the tunnel? Is it accurate that the rules do not allow a player to place 2 tokens on the same turn? That would seem to be the only way to salvage a steal?
- What if there are multiple players on an occupied road that are trapped by an opponent? May any one of those players claim the token whenever they wish? How do we keep track of when a player has had “one opportunity” so we know that the opponents may now steal?
- I count 11 tunnels with 12 tokens. Is it illegal under the proposed rules to place the 11th token, because it could never be completed?
Now I’ll really go out on a limb with my own suggestion. I like @Whaleyland’s idea of “not having Tunnel tokens be player-specific”. They could be a shared resource. In that case, perhaps token placement would be in lieu of placing a meeple—it should cost something to place a token. Finally, what if a player could only place a token on a road on which that player has a meeple? You have to start your invasion from your own road, and you can only trap if you are willing to trap your own meeple at the same time? It seems like players would often end up cooperating to increase the value of road, which would be a good thing, in my opinion. I’m not voting in the poll, because I think you have to play with variants to give them a fair shake. There are probably reason that my rules wouldn’t work. But if I were voting, I would pick “change the rules, but not with the proposed change.” Thanks for posting. This is interesting. Actually, it kind of makes me want to get the tunnels, but they are about 100 Euro on BGG! Yikes. Maybe I can fake it with existing FRRR tiles…
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