Castles in Germany and The Festival in C3

[DrMeeple]

Hahahaha maybe because is C23 version    The Jordan’s version. 
You are welcome Meepledrone!! 

[Scott]

The tile images on the "updated" rules sheet are still C2. 

[Meepledrone]

So lazy, right?

[Bumsakalaka]

Anyway maybe that image for rules clarification is not so good.
1. Prime directive
2. Same result in when applied C1 and C2 rules
But who knows I'm waiting for results

Odoslané z SM-A202F pomocou Tapatalku

[Weetek23]

The fact that HiG did not replace the C2 tiles with the updated C3 tiles in the rules tells a bit about how lame this whole C2/C3 conversion is so far. I was disappointed some weeks back by the fact that C3 version of the Festival still bears the now long time obsolete number 15 and still has no watermark but I apparently had too high expectations. How much work would it take to put updated tiles on the rule sheet? And yet...
The only thing that I am now curious about is which of earlier miniexpansions will eventually be converted into C3 art, but my bet is that no other than those already existing as C2, any C3 Besiegers or even remakes of some of the earlier Spielbox minis would be a genuine surprise. What is the point of producing almost same editions that only bear few extra houses is to anyone´s guess but I am definitely not in.

[Meepledrone]

The case of the German castles C3 is rather odd:
* The tiles were actually revamped to C3, featuring more texture to the graphics and clipped city buildings.
* The rules are in C2 format, keeping the original C2 graphics but they updated the copyright date and the wording to make it more inclusive (less noticeable in German than in English). The didn't bother to include any clarifications discussed with them on Discord in february 2021 about scoring monasteries adjacent to a German castle or roads looping back to the castle tile. (No Prime Directive at all but regular basic game stuff).

So you have C3 tiles with C2-ish rules. IMHO, a very lazy move in various ways as you can see.

[ymbuser]

Let's review what we got:
- Corner radius design of C3
- New city prints matching the clipped and detailed design of C3

What we did not but definitely should have got:
- Rules in C3 template with updated clarifications
- Although being minor, adjustments to grass colour palette and texture to match the brighter design of C3

In conclusion:
All in all I am happy with the conversion of this mini to C3, because mismatches in city style with my C3 base game really stand out, which rightfully was the primary detail modified in this reprint. However, it is such a pity that HiG did not show the dedication to make it a full C3 reskin. I would have loved it if the tiles featured more C3 characteristics, for instance dirt detail surrounding the castles (similar to the C3 base game for farmhouses and monasteries) or stone wall details along some of the road sections. I expect more 'lazy' reskins will follow in the future, when certain mini's in C2 design run out of stock, but I will not get my hopes up for any modifications beyond new city prints featured on the tiles.

EDIT: Interestingly, for some of the tiles HiG decided the watermark should be relocated. The fact that they seemingly reconsidered and put effort into this detail but totally skipped over the other aspects is very astonishing.

[Meepledrone]

You know... artists may be capricious 

Marcel surely wanted to do more but he was given 15 minutes top for the rework. So just cities and symbols... enough to get crazy hordes submitting orders like there is no tomorrow!!!

[kothmann]

The city walls on the tile at top left of the photo, and the tile to the right of that, have exterior buttresses?  I would have thought this would be avoided because the whole point of the towers sticking out from the walls was to allow defenders in the tower to shoot at attackers?  The space between buttresses would seem to give cover to the attackers?

I’m in the US, so I have no real first-hand knowledge of city walls, other than occasional trips across the pond.  Basically everything I know about fortification came from reading this:
https://acoup.blog/2021/12/10/collections-fortification-part-iii-castling/

Anyway, curious for other thoughts on these external buttresses…

[ymbuser]

I think it is rather a stylistic choice in order to enhance the level of detail, which is fine if you ask me. But indeed, having visited the city of Carcassonne myself, I can confirm exterior buttresses are not part of the line of defense.

[Meepledrone]

If a wall requires external butresses, that means that wall is weak and can collapse by destroying its butresses... Not very good in terms of defending the city.