Scoreboard in the center of the table.

[Scott]

That introduces the problem of whether the dragon or tower or similar removal mechanics can remove meeples from the start tile, because the start tile is also the scoreboard, and if you allow them to remove from the scoreboard, say goodbye to your point tracking meeple. emoji code23]

The City of Carcassonne start tile has landscape features too, but you cannot and need not be able to place meeples on them. All of the features can be extended and occupied as you place tiles around it.


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[PapaGeek]

The scoreboard start tile is a custom variant, wide open to house rules.  I’m certain that everyone who will use this variant will agree that dragons, towers, etc. cannot remove scoring meeples from the board!

Again, the primary purpose for the scoreboard start tile is so that the players sitting next to the scoreboard in a game with more than 2 players do not have an advantage when playing with The Messenger or The Robber mini expansions.  I want all players to have a better view of the scoreboard, not a way to attack it!

Another way to avoid all of this is to design your own start tile with pure field tiles in all 16 surrounding tile spaces. I designed the variant so that everyone can design their own custom scoreboard start tile!

[donaroriak]

Quick question: if you use this, how do you address Monastery scoring? It sounds like connecting a Monastery with the scoring track gives a lot of opportunities to gain an easy 3 points with no guaranteed gaps in that row.
Does anyone use house rules (e.g. no connecting Monasteries to the scoring track tiles, or not counting the points for those tiles), and if so can you comment on how they affect the overall game balance?
Many thanks for this awesome design!

[kothmann]

You could treat the scoreboard like a giant Abbey that is immune from attack.  The interior does not award points for monks.  Also allows players to decide how much interaction they want at the start of the game because initial tile placement is unconstrained by edge compatibility.

[PapaGeek]

We actually created these boards because our normal games are four players and we also invite other couples to join us bringing the total to six players.  When the scoreboard is on one side of the table it becomes very difficult to explain the game to new players.

The scoreboards are enclosed in 16 different tiles around the edges, and yes we consider them as normal tiles when you place a Monastery or Garden next to them.  Also, we do allow fliers to fly over the edge tiles and even land on them.

We now have 9 different versions of the scoreboards published on our personal Carcassonne website at:
https://www.papageek.com/car/Scoreboard.htm

[donaroriak]

We actually created these boards because our normal games are four players and we also invite other couples to join us bringing the total to six players.  When the scoreboard is on one side of the table it becomes very difficult to explain the game to new players.

The scoreboards are enclosed in 16 different tiles around the edges, and yes we consider them as normal tiles when you place a Monastery or Garden next to them.  Also, we do allow fliers to fly over the edge tiles and even land on them.

We now have 9 different versions of the scoreboards published on our personal Carcassonne website at:
https://www.papageek.com/car/Scoreboard.htm

Yup, thanks for making this available in so many variants! I am loving it for playing with my 3 kids. I printed the right variant for me (2 rivers) and taped it onto the back of the original track, adding a small strip of cardboard under the extra length - this way I can fold it to fit in the original base game box but still have it raised at the proper tile height.

In our fist couple of games with the new addition, one player drew two or three Monasteries in the early stages and took immediate advantage of available field spaces on the track to get a head start (almost always completing the other surrounding tiles quickly), so I worry that this may be a bit OP. Normally, less than half of monasteries get completed in our games.

This is why I was thinking about not scoring Monasteries on the tiles that are part of the track (so max 6 points if placed next to it) in order to reduce the luck of the draw and encourage playing them in riskier positions.

[donaroriak]

Pics or it didn’t happen