Capture before Completion?

[danisthirty]

According to the Order of Play section in the CAR, when playing with The Tower it looks as though followers are captured before completed features are scored. Does this mean that if a tile with a tower foundation is placed such that it completes a feature that this feature will go unclaimed/ unscored if any follower on the feature is directly adjacent to the tower tile being placed (and the player placing it chooses to use a tower piece to capture the player)?

I've only played with The Tower once and since I wasn't aware of this, we played that if you place a tile with a tower foundation then any features this tile completes are scored before the person who placed it has had a chance to capture any followers. It was a low enough scoring game as it was and if I'm correct in my understanding of the order of play then our scores would have been even lower!

Has anybody else found that games work better if you allow players to complete before capture or is it generally better to stick to the official rule in this case?

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=465.0

[wicke]

This sounds to me as two opposing questions in one.
Of course the tower makes scores lower,
but everyone is free to make house-rules.

[danisthirty]

Thanks for your response Wicke. I suppose it's fair to expect lower scores from any expansion that allows you to remove your opponents followers and I was expecting this to be the case before we started our game.

Personally I thought that the game felt quite well balanced when we played The Tower with our unintentional house-rule that allowed us to complete before capture, so I was quite surprised to see that this wasn't how it should be played according to the official rules. Regardless of scores I think I could have found the game rather frustrating if we'd played properly, and yet it's usually me who gets berated for always wanting to stick to the official rules! In this case I'm in no doubt that it would have made for a less enjoyable game, and consequently I was interested to know if anyone else has any similar house rules.

Any other opinions?

[Scott]

Does this mean that if a tile with a tower foundation is placed such that it completes a feature that this feature will go unclaimed/ unscored if any follower on the feature is directly adjacent to the tower tile being placed (and the player placing it chooses to use a tower piece to capture the player)?

Yes, the placement of the tower piece and removal of adjacent follower all happens during the "move the wood" phase.

Has anybody else found that games work better if you allow players to complete before capture or is it generally better to stick to the official rule in this case?

I'm not sure that the game works any better or worse by playing this differently, but it would certainly make people feel slightly better about it. I'm not a big fan of aggressive expansions, and neither are the people that I used to play with back in the day.

[danisthirty]

Thanks for the clarification Scott.

I agree with you about aggressive expansions. Whilst I like the way that the strategy is changed by their inclusion, making progress in a game by scoring points is part of what makes it so enjoyable. As such I think our "completion before capture" house-rule is one that we're going to stick with in future games that include The Tower. After all, if we're not playing to enjoy ourselves then we're playing for the wrong reason (in my opinion)!

[obervet]

As such I think our "completion before capture" house-rule is one that we're going to stick with in future games that include The Tower. After all, if we're not playing to enjoy ourselves then we're playing for the wrong reason (in my opinion)!

 

[wicke]

I have always thought that there are way too many negative (aggressive) expansions.
We often just use the tiles for the tower, the princess and the dragon, the plague, the cathars and so on and now I have Die Belagerer on the way as well.

I have found that leaving out the rules completely work better than using a part of the rules.
To allow capture by the tower at one point in the game and then not allow capture at another time doesn't seem right to me.
That can lead to misunderstandings and all sorts of problems.
For instance I saw one variant on BGG where they played with the builder but only when completing a road, not for just adding to a road and not for cities at all.
Very strange variant.

[danisthirty]

That's a good point Wicke. It doesn't feel like we're being inconsistent with the rules though, just choosing to evaluate any turn that involves laying a tower piece in a different order. Other than this we're still playing it in the same way...

[wicke]

Yes, I have no problem with that.
It's great as long as all players around the table concur.
My experience is that when you start fiddling with the rules, there might be some disagreement and then you're forced to go back to the original rules.

But we have a couple of house-rules as well, but not anything concerning the tower.