Dear all,
The people at HiG have made a great effort to arrange the rules of Carcassonne in a way that all actions are arranged in 3 phases happening in chronological order:
1. Placing a tile2. Placing a meeple3. Scoring a featureThis works fine most of the time, but some expansions add actions that bend this structure. For example, you may find scorings happening in phases other than
3. Scoring a feature. This is the case of the abbot, when it is removed and scored early, that happens in phase
2. Placing a meeple.
This may seem irrelevant in a normal game but timing is important when The Abbot is combined with other expansions like The Messages, since the abbot scores in a separate round of scoring than all completed features (for example a completed monastery or garden with an abbot
)... But this is a different story (if you want to know about rounds of scoring you may check
this post) .
My point is that the rules of The Abbot arrange the actions in a slightly different way. They rename phase 3 to
3. Scoring with the abbot and put together the scoring of a completed monastery/garden happening in phase 3 along with the early scoring of the abbot happening in phase 2.
This is the original arrangement of the rules:
The Abbot (excerpt of original rules)1. Placing a tileWhen placing a tile with a garden, you must place it so that it its edges match the edges of tiles already in play.
2. Placing a meepleWhen placing a tile with a monastery or garden, you may place your abbot onto the monastery or onto the garden. You may, of course, place a regular meeple onto the monastery, or other features, such as roads, etc. You may not place a regular meeple onto the garden.
3. Scoring with the abbotWhen the monastery or garden occupied by your abbot is surrounded by eight tiles, you score 9 points (just like a regular monastery scoring).
On your turn, you may decide to not place a meeple during the
2. Placing a meeple phase, and may instead return your already-placed abbot to your supply. If you do so, you score immediately as many points as the garden or monastery your abbot occupied is worth at that time, exactly like how monasteries are scored during the final scoring.
Final scoringDuring final scoring, incomplete monasteries or gardens occupied by abbots are scored the same way as those occupied by monks.
I was wondering if it would be better to rearrange the rules in the following way to phases match the exact chronological order of actions. IMHO this new arrangement would help reader to understand better the sequence of actions and combine this expansions with others.
The Abbot (proposed arrangement)1. Placing a tileWhen placing a tile with a garden, you must place it so that it its edges match the edges of tiles already in play.
2. Placing a meeplePlacing a meeple or your abbotWhen placing a tile with a monastery or a garden, you may place either a normal meeple or your abbot. The normal meeple is placed as usual whereas the abbot must be placed on the monastery or garden you've just placed.
Removing and scoring an abbotIn addition, the abbot has a special property. On your turn, you may decide to not place a meeple during phase
2. Placing a meeple, and may instead return your already-placed abbot to your supply. If you do so, you score immediately as many points as the garden or monastery your abbot occupied is worth at that moment, which corresponds to the value of the feature at the end of the game.
3. Scoring with the abbotWhen the monastery or garden occupied by your abbot is surrounded by eight tiles, you score 9 points, as in the basic game. The garden is therefore scored the same as a monastery.
Final scoringDuring final scoring, incomplete monasteries or gardens occupied by abbots are scored the same way as monasteries occupied by monks.
What arrangement of the rules do you prefer? All your comments are welcome.
Cheers!
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places a tile that completes a small city occupied by him and another city occupied by 
.
