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Messages - Christopher
16
« on: May 09, 2016, 12:03:00 PM »
Big Box Two is my favourite. I think it has the best mix. Three would be my second, then one. Four I thought was strange. Big Boxes had big expansions up to then, apart from the river, but this had six minis. Bizarre. I'm not a huge fan of Big Box Five, because of the random additions to the River. I didn't really understand the reasoning. The weird base game/Wheel of Fortune mix was also odd. I understand the reasoning behind this, you wouldn't want two copies of the base game. But having wheel tiles which you use in a base game but ignore if playing normally? Weird.
17
« on: May 09, 2016, 11:31:28 AM »
I was wondering on this again, and I had a thought: Given that the base game has a reasonable mix of cities and roads, with slightly more roads, do you ever draw a mix which is too heavily weighted? Say, too many roads and too few cities? It's statistically unlikely, but I wondered if you'd ever found that. If so, did you just play through? Everyone alters their play a little? One thought was that you could, potentially, end up with not enough road ends or city caps. Could case problems.
Also, having the base game vanillas and WoF vanillas means you have almost a double base set and doubles of a few others from other expansions. Is that deliberate, or just what you happen to have and it does't matter?
18
« on: April 29, 2016, 04:53:13 AM »
Right, okay. Is that 100 vanilla tiles added, or x number of vanilla tiles added to bring the total to 100? I agree. Whilst they may be intended to emphasise a feature, I can't imagine that has a great deal of effect on game-play. I suppose having played each expansion with it's intended tiles and a mix, you've never seen much difference? Roads are plentiful enough that BC&B can't matter too much, the trade token tiles are obviously all cities so having extra vanilla cities doesn't seem necessary, and it's not difficult to use a shepherd on any other field. Definitely. Last year I posted some stuff about cloister ratios because I found the same thing as you. It was interesting to see how the ratio changed in different expansions. Most expansions have one, some have two. The Flyers, The Ferries and The Mage and the Witch have none, whereas the Goldmines has four. I have spreadsheets which count how much cloisters you have according to the expansions and suggest how many to add or remove. So, for the vanilla mix, I can see that needing attention. Presumably you count up how many you have and redraw if you have too many? Six would be right for 75 tiles. It would be interesting to see how the number changes as you add expansions which don't have the vanilla tiles. It would be different to normal. So, I&C has one cloister, but it's vanilla, so that's already in your pool. P&D, on the other hand, has two cloisters on expansion tiles, so those would remain in. What else... one cloister with a tower foundation, one with a fair, one in each river, one in the festival, four in goldmines. I think that's it, though I would have to check. If I adopt the mix in this way, I may have a separate cloister pool which we draw from separately to get the right number. I am very interested! It sounds brilliant, and it's a very different take on the game. I posted in it a month or so ago  I did wonder if maybe you didn't get the notification, which is why I mentioned it here! 
19
« on: April 29, 2016, 12:58:05 AM »
Well, I do play with base game vanilla tiles, but they are mixed with all the expansion vanilla tiles. But yes, each game is a mix (it makes tile counting virtually impossible). And yes, I use the tiles to top up after tossing the expansion tiles in the bag, so your math for I&C is correct. There could always be vanilla tiles from I&C in the mix of vanilla, but they would be there through random selection.
I use 75 tiles because that's what I ended up doing for my campaign series. The first scenario of each campaign only uses 50 tiles for a very short thematic game (with only one basic expansion). The last scenario is an epic game with 100 tiles and a bunch of expansions thrown in and players holding tiles (and generally abbeys, halflings, German Castles, etc). I decided for the other eight scenarios of each campaign, 75 was a good number that was close to 72 (the base game tile number) but easier to remember. It divides evenly in groups of 3 and 5, which is better than the inherent imbalance of the playable 71 tiles – a prime number – with basic Carcassonne. 72 playable tiles would be ideal, since it divides evenly by 2, 3, 4, and 6, but I wanted to keep things as simple as possible since so many other things were complicated. Generally, the smaller number of tiles enhances the power of expansion tiles and keeps the games to no longer than 45 minutes, which are both preferred.
That's very interesting. Yes, of course. Base game vanilla tiles may end up in game, but only through random selection. What I meant to say is that you don't get the base game then add your expansions, you get your expansions (with expansion tiles only) then add the vanilla afterwards. That reduces the vanilla to expansion ratio, increasing their prevalence; allows addition of multiple expansions without creating a very long game; prevents tile counting; adds an extra element of variety to each game. Wow! I like this idea. If you assume that the vanilla tiles released in each expansion are simply new configurations according to the inspiration of the designers, rather than being in any way related to the expansion in question, then it doesn't matter which vanillas you have. That seems most likely. So, the particular vanilla tiles including the funny symmetrical tiles released in Hills and Sheep are not related to the features of hills, sheep or vineyards, they just happened to have been released in that expansion. Do you adjust the number if you are adding more expansions? For example, if playing a game with I&C, T&B and P&D, would you just use 17 vanilla tiles (30 P&D, 20 T&B and 8 I&C makes 58, 17 to 75) and play with the very low vanilla to expansion ratio? Or would you increase it if playing with that many? So many questions! I really love this idea. I'm going to try this for my next few games. I was reading about your Open Draft variant, too, it sounds brilliant.
20
« on: April 28, 2016, 05:08:40 AM »
Yup, my mix includes every vanilla tile released including all those you mention, the 53 vanilla Wheel of Fortune tiles (from the original edition), and the Labyrinth. That makes 101 vanilla tiles plus the 71 from the base game, so 172 total. Each time I play, I randomly pull 75 of them, or rather top up to 75 after adding in any expansion tiles I'm playing with.
That's interesting. So you don't play with the base game vanilla tiles? You pick expansions, then add a random mix of vanilla tiles each time? Also, is that 75 including the expansions? So, if playing with I&Cs, you'd have the eight inns and cathedrals, then would add 67 vanilla tiles? You wouldn't have the base game or the vanilla tiles from I&C? When you say the expansion tiles you're playing with, that is just the expansion tiles, without vanilla? Then each game has the 'expansion tiles' plus a random mix of vanilla from all of the expansions. Is that right? Also, why 75?
21
« on: April 28, 2016, 04:57:16 AM »
This means vanilla tiles are:
- Inns and Cathedrals
- Trade goods
- Rivers
- Cults
- Vineyards
- Hills
- Siege tiles
- Darmstadt
- Ferries
- Fliers
- Games Quarterly
- Monasteries
- Wind Roses
I dub these Vanilla+ tiles.
Good idea! Vanilla+ it is. It being any tile which does not trigger an additional action for the player. Probably a loose definition though. The only tiles I wasn't sure about are magic portals and fliers. Technically they're just follower placement, but there's obviously a bit more going on.
22
« on: April 28, 2016, 01:08:52 AM »
Breakthrough!
I've had a thought which I'm going to apply to my methods of calculating tower piece, bridges and castle tokens. I'm still going to use the base game ratios and probably the 'vanilla' tile methodology, but I'm going to increase the numbers in increments. This will save having to do additional calculations with every game, and will allow smaller large games to remain consistent.
Eureka!
Instead of giving more of each feature as you add tiles, the numbers of features will go up upon reaching a threshold. I'll still use the calculations from before, but you won't add more features until you reach a certain number of tiles. For example, it might be three castles up to 100 tiles, four up to 150, five up to 200, and so on. Those aren't calculated values, just an example to give an idea. I can try to base the numbers around the 170 tile game, too.
I'll post again when I have some numbers!
23
« on: April 27, 2016, 12:56:40 AM »
I don't own any spin-offs, so I haven't seen lots of these before! I have voted for Over Hill and Dales, because I really like the art on the scoreboard. The people getting up to various things around it are a nice touch. My second vote should have been Goldrush, because I think the colours and the figures are brilliant. However, I wanted be to facetious so I voted for the Dice Game! I love pen and paper games, so I'm a big fan of any game that dispenses with a scoreboard and makes you improvise! I would also have considered voting for the Winter Edition, because I like the theme, but I voted for that in the previous score track poll (and got in trouble )
24
« on: April 25, 2016, 06:34:24 AM »
What if it is the hill from halflings? You could potentially play the barn touching one halfling and then later add the one with the hill which promotes the whole tile to a hill! What then?
The game ends immediately on a technicality and you defenestrate your rulebook.
25
« on: April 25, 2016, 05:00:56 AM »
The statement about stability of base under a barn was mentioned in answer 9 in Clarification of rules from Kettlefish in this section of the forum.
The base ground for the barn has to be stable - that means in the middle all tiles have to touch each other - no quarter is empty in the middle - all tiles have farm in the middle for the placement of the barn.
So all tiles should have farm under a barn. Tiles with hills have farm in the corner so a barn can be placed on such tiles.
Do we know this, or are you extrapolating from the rules? What I mean to say is, has barn placement on a hill been confirmed? Or I am I being daft in thinking there's a possibility it can't, like asking if a barn can be placed on tile with a vineyard? Because of the nature of hills, and because of the physical deployment of the tile beneath, resulting in a raised area, it seems to me it could be something which isn't allowed.
26
« on: April 24, 2016, 06:49:02 AM »
Hello, hello! Now, I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find it. If anyone else can, feel free to merge the posts! Anyway, I've just knocked up a 'vanilla tile mix.' I thought it would be useful for padding out larger games if there are too many expansions. Or for playing longer basic games. I wanted to gather opinions on this. I'm certain lots of you already have similar things! What do they consist of, and what do you use them for? My vanilla tile mix contains all of the vanilla tiles from the expansions. So, it has: - Ten tiles from Inns and Cathedrals
- Four tiles from Traders and Builders
- Twelve tiles from Abbey and Mayor
- Five tiles from King and Robber Baron
- Four tiles from Bridges, Castles and Bazaars
- Two tiles from Hills and Sheep
- Ten tiles from Games Quarterly
That totals 47 tiles. It also has the weird base game/wheel of fortune mix from Big Box 5, minus the ones with numbered wheels. That way, it adds more tiles from the expansions and removes a few of the base game mix. That mix contains (I think, I haven't counted them, I've worked it out from the CAR) 65 tiles. Bringing my vanilla mix to a total of 112 tiles.
27
« on: April 24, 2016, 01:49:11 AM »
The roofs....are blue!
Is that why they chose blue???
29
« on: April 23, 2016, 03:40:54 AM »
Can KJW wish for a nicer field colour too?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
And different coloured towers?
30
« on: April 23, 2016, 03:39:00 AM »
Thanks Postie! Thanks Cundco!
(I've recently admitted to myself that I only post about a quarter of Carcassonne things I receive on this thread. Mostly because I'm on a bit of a Carcassonne spree at the moment, and posting everything the postman delivers might make me realise. I think I've made about three Cundco orders in as many weeks)
(It's also partly because I'm too lazy to take photos most of the time, and, as Decar is always quick to remind me, without photos, it didn't happen!)
(I'm still lying, it's about three orders in the last week alone)
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