Carc Central Community > Official Rules
Who changed the Dragon rules, and why?
PapaGeek:
In my current post about the Princess and Dragon expansion, a lot of the talk was about why the player who draws a Dragon Tile has the right to move the Fairy BEFORE moving the Dragon. This one issue completely undermines the strategy and logic for when to sacrifice meeple placement so you can move the Fairy on your other turns during the game!
The PDF of the English version of the rules clearly shows that moving the Dragon is part of phase 1 of a player’s turn: 1. Placing a tile, then 1b. The dragon moves!
And when talking about the Fairy the printed English rules clearly show that “The fairy moves” is clearly part of phase 2, “Placing a meeple”. and that moving the dragon is part of phase 1b.
To me, as a relative newbie, this clearly states that moving the dragon is part of placing the tile and that moving the fairy is part of placing a meeple. Since phase 1 has to happen before phase 2, you can’t move the fairy before you move the dragon. This is one of the first things that we learn when we start playing Carcassonne, you can’t place a meeple on a tile in Phase 2 if you don’t have any meeples to place until after you score some points in phase 3. You have to do the phases in order!
FYI: We tried to purchase an English version of Princess and Dragon back in November, but none were available so we purchased and received our Nordic version in early January. That version comes with printed rule in 3 languages, all 3 languages, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish label “The dragon flies” as phase 1a. and yes, the English version labels it as 1b, but ALL of the printed rules say that moving the dragon is part of phase 1.
Then we come to the WikiCarPedia version of the “Official Rules”.
The website has clearly moved “The Dragon Moves” from Phase 1a or 1b to Phase 2b. In this “modified” version of the printed rules, the person who draws the Dragon tile can Phase 2 place a meeple or move the Fairy before Phase 2b moving the dragon!
We all know that all 3 Phases of your move have to be completed in order. Changing the Dragon movement from Phase 1 to Phase 2 definitely allows the player who draws and places the Dragon tile to move the Fairy BEFORE moving the Dragon!
Who made the decision to move the Dragon Movement to Phase 2, and if this is an official move, why are all 3 of the printed versions of the rules that I received in January 2022 still saying that moving the dragon is part of Phase 1?
Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5658.0
Meepledrone:
Hi PapaGeek,
I rearranged the rules on WICA to match the correct order of actions and also to include the full turn sequence for the volcano and dragon tiles for a simpler reading. This was done according to:
* The wording of the rules in C1 and their clarifications provided by the CAR.
* The wording of the rules in C2 (ignore the numbering)
* The Turn Sequence included in Big Boxes 1-3
* The discussions on Discord in January 2021:
https://discord.com/channels/732545299351994379/740546221592018986/805832048878026812
After a hectic month on Discord in early 2021, HiG retreated to work on the 20th Anniversary Edition and Paleo and we never got a conclusion to this discussion (and many others). Have a look at the two excerpts about the turn sequence and the dragon and their conclusion: HiG need to review the dragon rules, since it is clear that something is not right with the printed rules... But this will take some time. The discussion started with abbot and the dragon... just to let you know. There are witnesses on this forum of how difficult is to get a clear answer that does not generate a chain reaction firing several alarms each time...
Why do the printed dragon rules still reflect this incoherence? The same reason as Big Boxes 6 or 7 do not reflect that an abbot can use a flying machine after the proofreaders gave HiG a heads-up back in 2017... It may be a mix of human errors, bad timing and business priorities as well as people leaving the company and their knowledge going away with them: Georg Wild (C1 rules), Christof Tisch (C2 rules)... So new people take over but they lack the background and some possible To-Do lists affecting the rules and replicate previous errors unaware of them (for example, BB6 --> BB7)
These errors are not something new. They may be also seasoned by mistranslations that affected the C1 rules by RGG and ZMG, this time messing up the fairy (RGG and ZMG) or the dragon sequence (RGG). ZMG has maintained some of these errors and even added new ones to the BB6 rules: odd sentences (the pig removal), "may" turned into "must" (crop circles), added or removed restrictions (messages, robbers)... You could also check the early printed rules of The Tower, where placing a tower floor was totally mistaken...
EDIT: Added more comments about mistaken printed rules.
PapaGeek:
Why do you say: “HiG need to review the dragon rules, since it is clear that something is not right with the printed rules”?
So far we have only played 2 games with the Princess and Dragon that we received one week ago. The first game was basic tiles and exp3 only, 102 tiles. The second game also included 24 Trader and Builder tiles fir a total of 126 tiles. One of the 6 Volcano tiles came up on average every 21 moves and one of the 12 Dragon tiles came up every 10.5 moves.
Now, think about the strategy for the Fairy. If you are playing by the printed rules, on average 10 players will have to make the strategic decision of placing a meeple on the tile they drew or moving the Fairy to protect their feature that is currently near the Dragon or to un-protect the feature of the player who is currently in the lead that is near the Dragon.
Why do the printed rules make this strategy important? Because the Dragon is going to move BEFORE the player who drew the Dragon tile is allowed to move the Fairy! The Dragon moves in phase 1b before the player can move the Fairy in phase 2.
If the rules are changed so that the Dragon move in phase 2b, AFTER the player who drew the Dragon tile can move the Fairy, the strategy of do I deploy a meeple or move the Fairy during the average 10 moves between the Dragon movement makes no sense. Who cares what I do with the Fairy when the player who drew the Dragon tile is the ONLY player who can make the final decision of where the Fairy will be before the Dragon moves!
It is definitely clear to me that the printed rules are right, changing the rules is not right!
If we do change the rules, should we also take the Fairy out of the expansion, because it has very little effect on the strategy any longer if the rules and changed that way?
PS: the link that you supplied requires a user/email and password. How do I sign up for that?
PapaGeek:
Let me say just one more thing on the current printed rules.
The way the rules are written it is almost as if the designers of the expansion wanted the movement of the Dragon to be a completely random action. When a player randomly draws a Dragon tile, the action of the Dragon is NOT part of that players turn! The ONLY thing that that player is allowed to do before the Dragon moves is to place the Dragon tile wherever they want on the map.
Then the Dragon moves with no interference from the player who drew the tile.
After the Dragon moves, the player who drew the tile proceeds with all of the standard phases for their move. They decide if they want to place a meeple or move the Fairy, then they score any points created by their placement of the Dragon tile.
If it were up to me, the only change I might consider is that the placement of the Dragon tile would happen AFTER the Dragon moves! After all the placement of the tile is part of phase 1 and according to the printed rules, the movement of the Dragon is also part of phase 1, so it does not change the game at all if phase one is place then move or move then place!
NGC 54:
--- Quote from: PapaGeek on January 10, 2022, 09:23:38 AM ---Let me say just one more thing on the current printed rules.
The way the rules are written it is almost as if the designers of the expansion wanted the movement of the Dragon to be a completely random action. When a player randomly draws a Dragon tile, the action of the Dragon is NOT part of that players turn! The ONLY thing that that player is allowed to do before the Dragon moves is to place the Dragon tile wherever they want on the map.
Then the Dragon moves with no interference from the player who drew the tile.
After the Dragon moves, the player who drew the tile proceeds with all of the standard phases for their move. They decide if they want to place a meeple or move the Fairy, then they score any points created by their placement of the Dragon tile.
If it were up to me, the only change I might consider is that the placement of the Dragon tile would happen AFTER the Dragon moves! After all the placement of the tile is part of phase 1 and according to the printed rules, the movement of the Dragon is also part of phase 1, so it does not change the game at all if phase one is place then move or move then place!
--- End quote ---
Although the printed rules (https://images.zmangames.com/filer_public/da/30/da30ce4e-814e-427c-b97b-2be3501961e1/zm7813_carcassonne_exp3_rules.pdf) say "1b.", they also say "Dragon tiles are placed exactly like those in the base game. Unlike Volcano tiles, you are allowed to place a meeple on a Dragon tile. Then... the dragon moves!". "Then" is after "you are allowed to place a meeple on a Dragon tile".
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