The River – Element of the Week #2

[Whaleyland]

ELEMENT OF THE WEEK: THE RIVER

As an attempt to keep this forum someone on topic, each week a specific expansion element is chosen from among the various expansions that have released over the years. This is an opportunity for you, Carcassonne's biggest English-language fans, to discuss techniques and problems you have encountered over the years regarding specific expansion elements. All forms of critique – from the most positive to the most resolutely negative – are encouraged.

This week's element is THE RIVER & THE RIVER II (the first of which is included in most copies of Carcassonne while the second is a part of Count, King & Robber [Expansion #6]). The beauty of a river meandering through the board is obvious, but how does it affect gameplay for you? It scores no points and Followers can't be placed on it. The entire River (or Rivers) has to be placed at the beginning of the game even before other tiles are added. What is this madness? Discuss your relationship with The River and The River II, as well as your strategies for taking advantage of these expansions.

Next Week's Topic: The Pigs 

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1075.0

[Paul]

I've mostly considered the River as a cosmetic expansion for Carcassonne. It's not much planning rather than who gets their farm out first and who is lucky to get the city or roads tiles.
  The cloister river tile rarely gets completed due to tough road combinations when using few expansions.

Nevertheless, I like the expansions and I keep collecting duplicates whenever I can.

The original post does bring up an interesting idea. A scoring variant for it when it gets completed. One or two points for each follower on a River tile after it's completed, for example (including farmers).

We usually play with the strict outwards rules, i.e. no U-turns (also known as the Amazon River amongst my friends'n'family) whatsoever. There are pros and cons to this. It's harder to get in on someone else's feature early on which is both good and bad depending on how you see it. 

I chose 'usually just place the tiles' and always go for a feature if I have not placed a follower on an early River tile.

[kettlefish]

Here in Germany wasn't the river in the box of the base game.

The river was a give away at Spiel in Essen many years ago.
For all the Carcassonne fans who wasn't at the Spiel - HiG put a download file on their homepage.
HiG has still the download file on their home page:
http://www.hans-im-glueck.de/fileadmin/data_archive/Downloads/fluss.pdf

[Whaleyland]

Here in Germany the river wasn't in the box of the base game.

Grammar checked you. But you are correct, although The River was included in Big Box 1 in Germany as well as the US (though not advertised as included). Early editions of Big Box 2 included it as well, but I think they ran out someway through the packaging process.

[SRBO]

I use them to start a good field if i have the chance.

[kettlefish]

Here in Germany the river wasn't in the box of the base game.

Grammar checked you. But you are correct, although The River was included in Big Box 1 in Germany as well as the US (though not advertised as included). Early editions of Big Box 2 included it as well, but I think they ran out someway through the packaging process.

The River was never a part of the BigBox 1 or the BigBox 2 in Germany.

Thanks for the Grammar correction. 

[danisthirty]

Thanks for this topic whaleyland! 

I will usually use River 1 or River 2 (rarely both together because of the number of tiles) purely because it expands the starting area of the game beyond the usual crfr starting tile. This provides players with many more options right from the start and the game can settle into a pace determined by the players rather than something overly competitive with lots of meeples clustered closely together and everyone competing for the same huge city simply because it was the best thing to do at the time.

As I understand it, u-turns are only explicitly forbidden if they are immediate (i.e. there are 0 tiles between the 2 bends). This seems to cause a lot of confusion and personally I'd prefer it if there was an official ruling to say that the river must always extend away from the source and should never turn back towards it. I guess there will always be exceptions though and this is where a lot of the confusion can come from.

As expansions go I appreciate this because it's easy to play, it doesn't conflict with any of the other expansions too much and I like how it affects the overall landscape.

Next Week's Topic: The River

As much as I like it I'm not sure I'd want to discuss it two weeks in a row! 

[Whaleyland]

Next Week's Topic: The River

As much as I like it I'm not sure I'd want to discuss it two weeks in a row! 

Corrected. Next week: THE PIGS! 

[Paul]

Because there is actually a chance that the river will become incomplete, we do not allow any U-turns at all.

My cousin played a game with me on my mobile phone, the old .apk version and he managed to make the river incomplete after his second river tile! Lol.

Luckily, the program discarded every river tile after that placement and we could continue the game with the regular tiles.
  We took a screenshot of it, if interested. Don't have it on me atm.

[quevy]

If you can try to take over the field with the pigs when I use the 2 rivers, a point in the city is something too good not to consider.

[Gerry]

I usually lay out the entire river by myself before we start playing.  I use it to spread the game out along the table so nobody gets crowded and we can each just enjoy working on our own structures.  To me it is one big long starting tile.  I have the most spare time and like to get it all set up so we can start playing straight away without worrying about the shape of the river.

My main frustration is the way it is sometimes included in the base game and sometimes not.  I ended up printing extra tiles from the HiG site before I realized that it was included in the Count expansion.  There is no mention on the front of the Count box that it includes the river and I was doing my choosing from amazon and other web pages.

[MrNumbers]

I've mostly considered the River as a cosmetic expansion for Carcassonne. It's not much planning rather than who gets their farm out first and who is lucky to get the city or roads tiles.
The cloister river tile rarely gets completed due to tough road combinations when using few expansions.

My opinion is very close to Yellow's. "I usually just place the tiles". In competition games I am very cautious in placing followers on the river tiles. But there is an exception: if we play with some "eating" expansions (Dragon, Plague, Tower), I place followers almost at every River tile I can!

[jungleboy]

But there is an exception: if we play with some "eating" expansions (Dragon, Plague, Tower), I place followers almost at every River tile I can!

I noticed that you placed a farmer on the river fork in all three of our attempted World Cup semifinals featuring the dragon. But this farmer did not help you in the very short game that I won 3-2. 

[MrNumbers]

But there is an exception: if we play with some "eating" expansions (Dragon, Plague, Tower), I place followers almost at every River tile I can!

I noticed that you placed a farmer on the river fork in all three of our attempted World Cup semifinals featuring the dragon. But this farmer did not help you in the very short game that I won 3-2. 

But in last attempt it gave me 42-point farm

[Tacita]

When I use The River I always use the tile from GQ11 as fountainhead and I always use the lake from River 2 if we are going to use the dragon (which is not very often). However, with all the various starting tiles one can choose from today (School, Rose etc), it seems that we have more or less abandoned these small expansions.