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31
General / Element of the Week #56 – The Labyrinth
« on: April 15, 2017, 04:53:42 PM »
ELEMENT OF THE WEEK: THE LABYRINTH

Each week, a specific element from an expansion or spin-off is chosen for deeper discussion. This is an opportunity for you, Carcassonne's biggest English-language fans, to discuss strategies and problems you have encountered through the years regarding specific expansion elements. All forms of critique – from the most joyous to the most scathing – are encouraged.

This week's element is THE LABYRINTH. As an expansion, this two-tile release in 2016 marked the passing of batons between the old art and the new. Two tiles with identical purposes and arrangements, one illustrated by Doris Matthäus, the other by Anne Pätzke. As an element, there is only really one tile to consider. The Labyrinth is basically a four-way Road. All Roads going into the Labyrinth are considered the same and, therefore, it has no special rules. But naturally there are official variant rules for this visually unique tile, so why are we even bothering with the "official" rules?

The official variant rules for this element were released by Hans im Glück shortly afterwards. Basically, when a player places the Labyrinth, they can claim the maze with one of their Followers. It does not matter if there are other Followers on connected Roads. When all the Roads in the network are completed, the Labyrinth is scored. The whole Road network is considered in determining who has the majority of Followers (including the Follower on the Labyrinth). Furthermore, the victorious player receives 2 points per Follower of any player on the Road network. Thus, the stakes are raised quite high. Now granted, there is a distinct advantage to the player who draws the Labyrinth – they can choose where to place the tile and automatically get to claim the title (if they so choose). That means they often can begin with a +2 advantage over anybody else who tries to sneak into the Labyrinth. But if you are the daring type, you can place it on a tile with somebody else's Follower and try to increase the amount of the completion bonus.

Discuss your relationship with The Labyrinth, as well as your strategies for taking advantage of this element.

Next Week's Topic: Equipment (from Star Wars)      C:-)  :-X

32
General / Element of the Week #55 – The Falcons (from The Castle)
« on: April 08, 2017, 08:12:38 PM »
ELEMENT OF THE WEEK: THE FALCONS (from Carcassonne: The Castle – The Falcons)

Each week, a specific element from an expansion or spin-off is chosen for deeper discussion. This is an opportunity for you, Carcassonne's biggest English-language fans, to discuss strategies and problems you have encountered through the years regarding specific expansion elements. All forms of critique – from the most joyous to the most scathing – are encouraged.

This week's element is THE FALCONS (from Carcassonne: The Castle – The Falcons). For being the titular aspect of this expansion, the Falcons are a strangely simplistic element in an otherwise superb expansion. Basically, Falcon aeries are marked in the middle of some of the new tiles. When a tile with an Aerie is scored, that player collects one Aerie token per Aerie on the scored feature. At the end of the game, the player with the most Aerie tokens scores points equal to the number of spaces found in the largest unfilled section of the board. Confused? Underwhelmed? Yeah, I get that.

There is an extra thing, though: the Falconer. Each player has a new Falconer figure that can be played instead of a normal follower (although they cannot be used on a feature that scores instantly). The Falconer functions just like any other meeple except, if there are aerie tokens earned during scoring, the Falconer earns one extra token for that player. So the net result of this is...players get an extra follower that sometimes gets a bonus but cannot be used as versatile-y as other followers. Still underwhelmed? Yeah...

Discuss your relationship with The Falcons, as well as your strategies for taking advantage of this element.

Next Week's Topic: The Labyrinth       :o    >:D

33
Reviews & Session Reports / The Barbarian Report: Under the Big Top
« on: April 08, 2017, 03:58:32 PM »
There have been a few years now since a last major expansion released, and those have been somewhat troubling years. New art, strange promotional expansions with a decidedly German theme, lots of spin-off games. Thus, it is somewhat reassuring that Klaus Jürgen-Wrede is returning to his classic, award-winning game for yet another full-sized expansion. At least, that's what I was thinking until the name of the expansion released: Manege frei! (crudely translated as "Under the Big Top" in English). Accompanying this was the rather anticipated announcement that it would only be available in the new art style. My hope diminished, my dreams faded, and my expectations evaporated. To my mind, I immediately wrote this one off as The Catapult 2.0. An initial look at the rules, though, made me think again about the idea. Maybe...just maybe...the expansion wasn't as bad as it seemed...

Anachronisms Abound in 13th Century France
 :'( Cartoony Art for Cartoony Themes – It seems strangely appropriate that the first full expansion exclusively available in the new art is also one whose theme does not fit well with Carcassonne. While the Middle Ages certainly had its bard shows and jongleurs, it did not have traveling circuses the likes of Barnum & Bailey or *shutters* Cirque de Soleil. But with the distractingly vibrant colour palette of the new artwork, the circus theme seems to fit. It is like our beloved Carcassonne had a snow storm of ***FABULOUS***! In this case, that's not a good thing. Let's just say that this current reviewer decided against the purchase and used existing tiles to replicate the expansion in all its glory.
  :o A Ringmaster of Idle ThoughtsCarcassonne has its fair share of relatively useless Followers. The Mayor from "Abbey & Mayor" comes to mind as one of the most useless pieces in the game. Granted, the Ringmaster does a bit more – for all intent and purposes the character is just another follower, thereby lessening the difficulty of the game – but its special ability of scoring 2 points for each adjacent "circus"-themed tile is pitifully short-sighted in a game that counts 10 full-sized expansions among its ranks (and countless smaller expansions). Basically, this mechanic only gives a bonus through sheer luck if you are playing with multiple expansions, because the odds of one of the 20 "circus" tiles being located near your Ringmaster are so low. Even when just playing the game with the expansion, the benefits of +2 points hardly outweighs placing a tile in a more opportune place.
 :-\ Let's play JENGA! – The Acrobats, though, is where this expansion really treads into "Catapult" territory. Yes, people stack meeples while waiting for their turn. It's an age-old thing to do while idle. But turning that into an actual mechanic is just dumb, not because the idea itself is bad, but because its implementation is awful. First, you need three meeples. Second, they need to sit there until the pyramid is completed. And third, they score 5 points each when the pyramid is done. OH WAIT! You have to wait until later in the game to collect those points because everybody needs to be able to see the stupid little pyramid you just made on the tile. This idea is short-sighted in so many ways. First, the high likelihood that your followers will get stuck in an incomplete pyramid is so high that no amount of points, especially a mere 5 per follower, could justify such a build. Second, this mechanic simply doesn't work with 2 players. There just are not enough followers available to the players to sacrifice three to do it. And if one player builds the base, there is little motivation for the other player to complete the feature. They would lose a net of 5 points, while not completing the feature would lock two of their opponents meeples out of the game (especially if the feature is surrounded, cutting it off from ever being completed. There simply is no scenario where the Acrobat idea is a better option than literally claiming anything else, including a Road.

Who Let the Zoo Out? (Who? Who? Who?)
 ;) The Countryside Moves – You could say that all new expansions add tiles, and you would be correct, but this expansion adds 20 entirely new tiles, which is quite nice. Granted, a lot of those tiles have old worn configurations, but there are some nice new treats as well, from Roads that bypass Cities to some new dead-ends in fields. If you are looking for a source of new tiles, then this is certainly not a bad one. And if you are a fan of the new art, then these tiles have new buildings, new graphics, and new watermarks, so have at 'em.
 :-* Extra Meeples Never Hurt Anyone – Despite complaints above, the introduction of the Ringmaster will be something a lot of people like. It is a new, mostly-standard follower (thus making it slightly less costly to attempt the Acrobat option) and it includes a nice new design of a meeple with a top hat (because those were a thing in the Middle Ages). In addition, there is also the lovely Big Top neutral meeple in this game, that genuinely looks cool and can fit snugly under the Bridges from "Bridges, Castles & Bazaars" (which is probably why the hut from Hunters & Gatherers wasn't just used for it). The crimson colour of the Big Top is also rather nice, although it matches a bit too closely to the Dragon for my tastes.
 ;D Inside the Clown Car – But the real gem of this set and the real reason any reasonable Carcassonne fan (of the new art) should buy it is the primary mechanics of this expansion: The Circus. There are 16 chits included in this expansion that number in value from 1-7. These are placed upside down on new "circus tent" tiles when they are placed. The new Big Top figure then goes on top of the newly-placed chit to signify that the Circus is in town at that site. Whenever a new "circus tent" tile is drawn, the a new chit is pulled, the Big Top is moved, and the number under it is revealed. All meeples in the 8-tile vicinity of the chit score that many points instantly since they were "drawn to" the circus. The mechanic actually works quite well and did indeed encourage us to place figures near it, when possible. At one point in our game, a single player scored 21 points for placing three meeples around the 7-point Big Top. Just to add to the fun, cute depictions of six different animals are placed on the tiles, representing the types of acts performed under the Big Top. While the theme of this mechanic may be a bit dumb, the implementation is spot-on. For this reviewer who prefers the original artwork, he will be re-appropriating his "Catapult" tiles for use in this mechanic from now on. 16 custom chits are already in the design stage to make a custom "Jongleurs" expansion. It is simply that good.

Inconclusion
So is the box worth it? Well, if you are a fan of the new Carcassonne artwork, there really is no reason not to buy this expansion. The new meeples and the Big Top mechanic make the expansion worthwhile even if the Acrobat mechanic is dumb and the function of the Ringmaster is subpar. If you don't own the new art, you may want to recreate the Big Top mechanic using existing tiles rather than purchasing this new expansion. One critique not mentioned above is that the footprints of the Big Top and the Acrobats on the tiles are pretty ugly. The artist attempted to make it look natural by giving the footprints a dried wheat colour, but it doesn't work. So using these tiles without the expansion will expose those areas and may negatively impact the visual quality of your game board. It certainly turns me off to the expansion in an unexpected way. Also, the expansion was more difficult to explain than usual, which is not generally a good thing.

SCORES
Playability: B
Affordability: B+
Compatibility (with other expansions): B
Aethetics: C-
Learning Curve: C+
FINAL GRADE: C+

34
General / The Cathedrals (in Germany) – Element of the Week #54
« on: April 01, 2017, 04:12:43 PM »
ELEMENT OF THE WEEK: THE CATHEDRALS (in Germany)

After a long hiatus, Elements of the Week are back to help users catch up on the newest elements in our favorite game. Each week, a specific element from an expansion or spin-off is chosen for deeper discussion. This is an opportunity for you, Carcassonne's biggest English-language fans, to discuss strategies and problems you have encountered through the years regarding specific expansion elements. All forms of critique – from the most joyous to the most scathing – are encouraged.

This week's element is THE CATHEDRALS (in Germany). Much like the German Castles element, this one is a bit of a cheat since it really includes two interconnected elements: Archbishops and road bonuses. Each Cathedral has a few Roads coming out of it and those Roads score +1 point per segment, a là the Inns in Inns & Cathedrals. But unlike that expansion, these ones keep the bonus at the end of the game for unfinished Roads, so you will always score 2 points for Roads connected to a Cathedral, and you do not have to be the player that placed the Cathedral to gain this benefit...so double win, right?

The other side of the Cathedral is that a Follower can be placed directly on a Cathedral and become an Archbishop. Now this is where the element really shines. The Archbishop scores 1 point per Road connected to the Cathedrals – gotta bring in the devoted Roman Catholics somehow (unless there is a little Catharism going on). This bonus works even at the end of the game, so the only risk is that the Roads will be short and the Archbishop's episcopate stilted. But still, lots of Roads is probably a safer bet than a single Road worth double-points. Or not. This is definitely one feature from Hunters & Gatherers that has been long needed in Carcassonne.

Discuss your relationship with The Cathedrals (in Germany), as well as your strategies for taking advantage of this element.

Next Week's Topic: The Falcons (from The Castle)     :neutral-meeple: :white-meeple:

Disclaimer: I could not find the official rules for the expansion anywhere, so please let me know if there are any errors and I will quickly correct it. Cheers!

35
The Marketplace / Old Tile Art Sighting in Melbourne
« on: June 17, 2016, 10:23:27 PM »
Mind Games in Melborne, Australia, still has original copies of the minis, A&M, H&S, and BC&B. Get them while you can!

36
Carcassonne has had some small expansions over the years, but nothing is smaller than a single tile, and that's what The Labyrinth (technically) is. Released as a part of the inaugural issue of Spielbox's SPIEL DOCH! magazine, this expansion also marks the first (and probably only) time that an expansion is released concurrently in the old art and the new. But what can a single tile really add to your Carcassonne game?

It's a Nit-Picky Way of Life
 :oConfirmed Insanity – It is official: I am insane. Why, you ask? Because I once again am complaining about the dark grass behind the Doris Mathäus artwork. Why can't Hans im Glück OR Spielbox get this colour matching issue resolved? Just like German Cathedrals, the Labyrinth art is horrendously dark, possibly the darkest of any single expansion ever released for the game. It undermines the otherwise beautiful nature of the expansion in a very negative way. I mean, the Carcassonne 2.0 tile matches almost seamlessly with the old art colour, so why couldn't they do the same for the actual old art tile? This will baffle me until my dying day. Remind me if I start a game company to spend OCD-level amounts of time making sure the colour matches perfectly. It is that important to me.
 :'(The Lonely Life – This expansion is honestly a really weird one because it is only composed of a single tile. And regardless of any magical properties that a tile in this game may have, it still is only a tile. Once it's on the board, the die is already cast. And this tile, according to the printed rules, does nothing more than what a similar tile in (out of all expansions) The Catapult did: it is a four-way Road where all four branches have to be completed to finish it. That's a pretty powerful tool to randomly hand to one lucky player. Yes it can be undermined, but even a half-completed four-way Road is pretty powerful. This expansion could have a few tiles around this same theme – some 3-way and 4-way tiles to shake things up a bit. But no, we just get one. Woot.
 O0Regression to the Old Ways – This is less of a complaint for the expansion and more for its distribution: why did Spielbox go to all the effort of releasing English-language versions of its magazines three years ago and then suddenly decide that with this new magazine, which apparently will also include expansions and quite honestly looks possibly more interesting than Spielbox Magazine itself, they would not translate it into English too? Yeah, I get that it is a German company and the bulk of their customers are German-language readers, but I know quite a few people who enjoy reading the English magazine and clearly there is a market for it, especially since the English market has no decent game magazine these days. I'm kind of ticked that I had to pay so much for a German magazine just to get two tiles when the company's main magazine is released regularly in English. Hrumph.

Something to Satisfy Players New and Old
 :yellow-meeple:Doris Rules! – Yet another expansion in the old style with Doris Mathäus is nothing to scoff at. While the tile is dark, she did not draw it that way and her stylised C-shape using roads, cottages, and trees is excellently rendered and depicted. While the "labyrinth" nature of the tile is not as strong with her tile as it is with the Carc2.0 tile, it still gets the theme across and would look excellent on a Carcassonne board were the colour matched.
 :blue-meeple:Official Variants for Life – While the basic rules for this expansion are uninspired, I do appreciate Spielbox's attempt at making a better alternate rule. Instead of just acting as a single massive Road, the tile can be claimed by a Robber regardless of whether a Robber is already on one of the connected Roads. It is now a race to see who gets the most Robbers on the network. Whoever wins receives the points for all the Roads, as is expected, but they also score 2 points per Follower on the network, which is a very nice perk. Groaming in on other people's Roads while scoring big is a pay out I like. Again, I wish there were more tiles that were capable of this trick, but it is fun all the same.
 :green-meeple:One Tile for Every Style – This is a mixed bag, but I do appreciate Spielbox's attempt to satisfy both new and old fans of Carcassonne and I think they did an especially good job here (sans the colouring). The Carc2.0 tile is surprisingly well done and matches both the new and old art almost seamlessly. With it, players do have two playable tiles, so it is not a complete waste even if you generally only play with the old art. I don't expect future expansions to include both old and new art, but it is nonetheless appreciated in this instance.

Inconclusion
I am not sure what inspired Spielbox to release this strange little expansion with stylised labyrinthine C's taking center stage. There is much to complain about, from the poor colour-matching and lame rules to the German-only magazine and obvious shift to Carcassonne 2.0 artwork, but the fact of the matter is that this expansion could have been much worse and it contributes to both art styles and to both advanced and beginning players with its rules variant. Thus everyone is equally satisfied, even if there is plenty to be dissatisfied about. In the end, my biggest complaint is the cost of buying and shipping the two tiles, but the old art tile is now a permanent part of my vanilla tile mix and will see frequent use in the games to come.

SCORES
Playability: A
Affordability: D
Compatibility (with other expansions): A
Aethetics: B- (A- for art, C- for colour-matching)
Learning Curve: A
FINAL GRADE: B

37
General / The Pig Herd – Element of the Week #53
« on: April 18, 2016, 08:54:55 PM »
ELEMENT OF THE WEEK: THE PIG HERD

Each week, a specific element from an expansion is chosen for deeper discussion. This is an opportunity for you, Carcassonne's biggest English-language fans, to discuss strategies and problems you have encountered through the years regarding specific expansion elements. All forms of critique – from the most joyous to the most scathing – are encouraged.

This week's element is THE PIG HERD (from The River II). The Pig Herd was a rather sly element introduced alongside The River II, thus making it the only element that is restricted to play by a different specific element (hence why this series skipped it until now). The mechanics of it are virtually identical to the Pig meeple introduced in Traders & Builders in that the value of the particular Farm with the Pig Herd increases by 1 point per completed City. But it is still considered a unique feature from the Pig meeple, and so a Farm with both a Pig and the Pig Herd stack to produce +2 points per completed City at game end. That makes for quite the valuable Farm! Granted, it does not stack with Barns, but nonetheless, the Pig Herd can become quite valuable when placed. What makes the tile even more unique is, since it is linked to a River expansion, the placement of the tile is very limited and, if a player claims it immediately, they risk trapping their Farmer in a low-value (or valueless) Farm.

It should be pointed out that one of the most commonly-house ruled tiles in Carcassonne is using these rules for a similarly-stylised farm included in The Mini Expansion from Games Quarterly. While technically that is just an FFFF tile with nothing unique about it, the fact that the expansion clearly uses a derivative of this art suggests it is, to most people, the same feature. Thus, if you own that expansion, feel free to house rule it in as a second Pig Herd or a Pig Herd when not using The River II.

What are your thoughts on the Pig Herd tile? Is it too random who gets it? Too dangerous to claim? Do you just ignore the rules or not worry too much about the tile? Let us know your experiences when playing with the Pig Herd and any strategies you have used that have maximised the potential of this strategic element.

38
Another year, another Germany-themed Carcassonne promotional expansion. Anyone else tired of these yet? Well, at least they are proving to be well thought-out (lookin' at you, Spielbox expansions). Following the trend of the other three Germany expansions, this one introduces a new take on Cathedrals, completely ignoring the original Cathedral concept introduced in Expansion #1 way back in 2002. But is this expansion a worthy addition to your Carcassonne game? Let us find out...

Darkness in the Land of Green
 >:D The Shadow of Death – Lo, we walk unto these lands of darkness and, behold! Before us was a great cathedral, abandoned in the Field. Yet again, Hans im Glück has dazzled us with their inability to adequately colour-match the art between various expansions. I have heard all the excuses but one simply does not see such disparity between colours in other games. The fields in this expansion are as dark as they have ever been, and even the Cathedrals themselves are darker because of it. This is becoming (or has already become) unacceptable. I can understand why Spielbox struggles with colour-matching – they are making the tiles on commission – but the publisher should spend the time to make sure the printers are getting things right before print-running an entire new six-tile expansion that doesn't even match the darkest of other Carcassonne tiles.
 C:-) Germany Invades France yet Again – It is becoming a trope now that the German game companies basically control the French game market, but nothing visualises that quite as much as a French-themed game receiving its third expansion composed entirely of German-themed game pieces. Meanwhile, the French distributor of Carcassonne has not yet released a single French-themed promo expansion. This is getting ridiculous. Let's just call the game Germany now, or Bavaria even. The poll selecting the tiles was even biased in that it only allowed Cathedrals from the modern state of Germany, not from the Holy Roman Empire, so historically-important cathedral cities like Metz, one of the Imperial Electorates, were left in the dust. I'm just glad Cologne (Köln) and Aachen were included in the mix (sorry Trier, maybe next time).
 ???( Cathedrals...in the Country? – Just another rant about geographic silliness, cathedrals are by definition city-oriented entities. You will not see them in the countryside except in the rare cases where a city has been destroyed or abandoned, which is extremely rare. As the seat of a metropolitan bishop, a Cathedral should have a City feature somewhere on each tile, even if they are not within that city (although I feel that it could easily have been portrayed built into the City wall so that the Roads went to the Cathedral, but the Cathedral remained technically part of the City). While the rules actually acknowledge this fact, I feel that the expansion should have either been City-focused rather than Road-focused, or it should have found a creative way to include Cities as a part of the new feature.

Stairway to Heaven
 :white-meeple: Doris and the Amazing Technicolored Landscape – Doris Mathäus has again dazzled us with an unexpected visual treat with these tiles. Each Cathedral stands apart from its peers as a unique work of art and architecture. There is also a pretty fair balance between early medieval (Romanesque), late medieval (Gothic), and Renaissance structures, so no architectural style dominates. The use of little cottages and Roads around the Cathedrals heightens the visual quality of the images as well. Too bad the art turned out so dark because of poor printing...
 :gray-meeple: Behold, the Power of Transportation Infrastructure – With this expansion, we once more get a bonus to the Road mechanic of the base Carcassonne game. This is good as Roads are often the least valuable and, therefore, least desirable feature to claim. The Cathedrals act as Inns (from Inns & Cathedrals) in that they add +1 point per segment of each Road. But they are better than Inns because at the end of the game, they still score 1 point per Road segment as usual, rather than turning the entire Road to 0 points. Huzzah! Even stranger, Roads that loop back to the Cathedral get to count the Cathedral twice, once for each end of the Road (although, honestly, I will never play with this rule because it breaks the fundamental Carcassonne law that tiles are never counted twice).
 :orange-meeple: The Archbishop Cometh – More importantly, this expansion adds the long-awaited (you know you've been waiting) Archbishop (why not just Bishop?) option to your meeples. Now, when you place your Follower on a Cathedral, it becomes the Archbishop of whatever Cathedral that is, and the Archbishop scores for the entire connected Road network in a means similar to Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers. For each Road in the network, either at the time the network is completed or at the end of the game, the Archbishop scores 1 point per tile. The network is completed when the last adjacent Road is completed (in other words, it does not continue beyond villages and other Road-stoppers). I love this option so much, I wish it were included in some more public expansion and called something like The Taverns or the Toll Roads or something, since Cathedrals still don't really belong in Fields.

Inconclusion
This expansion has a lot to offer, but it also has numerous issues to overcome. The premise of the expansion is troubled, its implementation both geographically and production-wise are both poorly done, and its limited availability is unfortunate. That being said, Doris Mathäus's artwork is amazing, anything that improves the value of Roads is excellent, and the new Archbishop option is great. With an expansion like this, you will suddenly find yourself much more interested in your Road planning and claiming.

SCORES
Playability: B
Affordability: B- (due to mandatory shipping fees)
Compatibility (with other expansions): A
Aethetics: B (A for art, C for colour-matching)
Learning Curve: B
FINAL GRADE: B

39
Reviews & Session Reports / Campaign Sessions – Campaign 1: Scenario 1
« on: February 26, 2016, 04:54:57 PM »
I finally printed out my own campaign series for Carcassonne a few days ago and just began the full 50-scenario series last night. Honestly, we aren't to a great start. The first campaign only uses 50 tiles, 6 Followers, and just the Windroses as the expansion. That's quite a lame beginning, it seems. Windroses is an expansion in desperate need of a rules boost and even the variant we tried came out ineffectual. We tried the recently-suggested variant where the features score bonus points when players score something within the last-placed quadrant, and we also played that the tiles must all be oriented in the correct direction. Neither of these ended up working well, though. Two of the tiles we literally could not orient properly, so at the end of the game we each just played them as normal tiles (no bonuses at all). I totally forgot to award either of us the three-point bonus for placing the other two tiles (although they canceled out anyway). And rather unfortunately, we never ended up completing a single feature that was in an active quadrant. How this happened is beyond me. Regardless, the bonus points still did not motivate us to complete features in the active zone and forcing the correct orientation just ended up being a struggle in futility. We both were even more over the expansion than usual when the game was done, which is saying something since it's been on my least favourite 5 expansions since it first released (least favourite five from best to worst: King, Count, Windrose, Catapult, Darmstadt).

Only one Farm on the whole map worth taking (12 pts) and in the end, it was a tie for it. Most of the points came from Cloisters, which my opponent nabbed the most of. My points were coming from a few Cities that didn't get completed. Overall, pretty poor game compared to some of them.

Campaign #1 Running Score:
Me: 6 pts (Raw: 129)
Opponent: 10 pts (Raw: 117)

40
Official Rules / Cloister Placements After the Fact
« on: February 24, 2016, 02:44:47 PM »
This may seem pretty obvious, but if a Cloister and a Shrine are in the middle of a challenge, can another Cloister or Shrine be placed within the 8-tile periphery of either Cloister or Shrine?

My hunch is no, since a Cloister or Shrine cannot be placed in such a way that it can be rivalled by two or more Shrines or Cloisters (respectively), but still...

41
Element Match-Ups are a new series of weekly challenges for all members of CarcassonneCentral. These threads are intended for members to test these combinations without the interference of other elements or expansions. We want to know what you think about the pairing. Consider this a quasi-scientific survey in that you are only playing with these two elements and the base game — nothing else! New match-ups are released every Friday-Saturday (depending on time zone), but the old pairings will always be there so never hesitate to add your two cents worth to the discussion (even if the thread is over 180 days old!).

This week our elements are THE FERRIES (Carcassonne Minis #3) and THE TUNNELS (from Spielbox). These are two expansions that both impact roads in curious yet different ways. While Ferries allow players to alter routes by moving a ferry between one or two alternate ports, the Tunnels allow players to choose their exits, thereby allowing Roads that span the entire board. Between the two of these, the Roads become a much more strategic element and longer Roads, which will score more points, may be possible. However, Ferries also have a habit of cutting Roads short and Tunnels may never get done. Try out these two similar expansions and see how they interact. Do they work well together or do they get in each others' way?

The elements are set, the challenge is issued, and now it is for you to decide whether these elements work well together or are terrible companions. Summarise your experience below in however much detail you wish, and feel free to share any strategic advice you have for other players taking the challenge.

42
Reviews & Session Reports / Star Wars Carcassonne Session
« on: February 14, 2016, 02:05:07 AM »
We just sat down and played our first game of Star Wars Carcassonne tonight and I must say I am a bit underwhelmed, although this doesn't surprise me in this instance. The game played quite predictably with all the quirks of a Carcassonne spin-off and few of the surprises. I'd say the game plays most similarly to Ark of the Covenant, in that it is a nearly-identical game with simply a tweaked mechanic.

The game began simple enough but I took the opportunity to fight for the first played planet. I won it and another later in the game. The planets still score like cloisters but there are quite a few more of them (12 maybe?) so that makes a big point swing in the game. The use of the allegiance markers also swings the game a lot since each scores essentially like a pennant but score on planets and routes as well as asteroid fields. While I didn't really strategically use the allegiance markers, I didn't really have to since they are on so many tiles. And each one adds 2 points regardless of when they are scored!

The fighting mechanic, which attracted me at first, felt a bit more forced than I thought it would. It just felt like you either had to fight for something (rather than just groam) or aggressively invade a planet. In either situation I felt kind of mean for doing it, although I did lose my fight for the big asteroid field which I had no part in building to begin with. The mechanic just kind of fell flat for us.

Lastly, with us both being Star Wars fans, the choice of planets (or moons) was really bad. Seriously, Hans im Glück couldn't ask a single Star Wars fan what the top 12 most important planets are? Very bad job HiG and it makes the game look even more like a property rather than a fleshed out game set in the Star Wars universe. The theme felt tacked on and it didn't even look visually that great. And while the meeple stickers are kind of fun, they are all the same, have big ugly LFL(c) logos on them, and don't look great on the meeples.

While I will eagerly buy the expansion for this game, it will be partially because the base game is so uninspired and uninteresting, regardless the context. The battle mechanic is interesting but not that great, and the overuse of pennants makes score inflation run rampant (my score was 146, hers was 141 – both too high for a base game).

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Element Match-Ups are a new series of weekly challenges for all members of CarcassonneCentral. These threads are intended for members to test these combinations without the interference of other elements or expansions. We want to know what you think about the pairing. Consider this a quasi-scientific survey in that you are only playing with these two elements and the base game — nothing else! New match-ups are released every Friday-Saturday (depending on time zone), but the old pairings will always be there so never hesitate to add your two cents worth to the discussion (even if the thread is over 180 days old!).

This week our elements are THE SHEPHERDS (from Hills & Sheep [Expansion #9]) and THE RIVER (III) (from Big Box 5). When the Big Box 5 released, Hans im Glück rather boldly decided to stamp new sheep symbols on a number of River titles, thereby making the expansion unique to the box. But the real question is: does the addition of these symbols mean that The River (III) and The Shepherds are intended to be companion expansions? The Shepherds grow off of fields, every expanding their flocks of sheep, while The River is a one-time tile bomb across the landscape of the board. Together, do they make a better experience than apart? Do people really use the pre-printed sheep on The River tiles? Who on earth thought this was a good idea?! Let the world know.

The elements are set, the challenge is issued, and now it is for you to decide whether these elements work well together or are terrible companions. Summarise your experience below in however much detail you wish, and feel free to share any strategic advice you have for other players taking the challenge.

44
Element Match-Ups are a new series of weekly challenges for all members of CarcassonneCentral. These threads are intended for members to test these combinations without the interference of other elements or expansions. We want to know what you think about the pairing. Consider this a quasi-scientific survey in that you are only playing with these two elements and the base game — nothing else! New match-ups are released every Friday-Saturday (depending on time zone), but the old pairings will always be there so never hesitate to add your two cents worth to the discussion (even if the thread is over 180 days old!).

This week our elements are THE PIGS (from Traders & Builders [Expansion #2]) and THE BARNS (from Abbey & Mayor [Expansion #5]). This is a fairly obvious combination, but one that is in fact contradictory since a field cannot have a Barn and a Pig on it. A Barn replaces all Farmers on a field for a slightly higher-scoring permanent claim on the field. The Pigs, in contrast, boost the impact of a Farmer on a field, which means it gets removed when a Barn is placed. However, both Barn and a field with a Pig score the same points! Which is better? How did these two fair when played together? Let the world know!

The elements are set, the challenge is issued, and now it is for you to decide whether these elements work well together or are terrible companions. Summarise your experience below in however much detail you wish, and feel free to share any strategic advice you have for other players taking the challenge.

45
It's a new year, and I'm blowing the lid off of the former match-up rules. Now ANY element from ANY expansion can be paired to really test the limits and compatibilities of Carcassonne. As before, Element Match-Ups remains a new series of weekly challenges for all members of CarcassonneCentral. These threads are intended for members to test these combinations without the interference of other elements or expansions. We want to know what you think about the pairing. Consider this a quasi-scientific survey in that you are only playing with these two elements and the base game — nothing else! New match-ups are released every Friday-Saturday (depending on time zone), but the old pairings will always be there so never hesitate to add your two cents worth to the discussion (even if the thread is over 180 days old!).

This week our elements are THE CASTLES (from Bridges, Castles & Bazaars [Expansion #8]) and THE HALFLINGS I (from Spielbox Magazine). Each of these does something really unique in Carcassonne. The Castles allows a player to take a 2-tile City and raise them above the tiles to create Castles which score for the next completed adjacent feature. The Halflings are triangular-half tiles that in this case feature 8 half-Cities which can be used for Castles. Now, when the power to create a Castle is literally in your hands, will you build one? Who knows?! Try out this pairing and see what results. You may be surprised.

The elements are set, the challenge is issued, and now it is for you to decide whether these elements work well together or are terrible companions. Summarise your experience below in however much detail you wish, and feel free to share any strategic advice you have for other players taking the challenge.

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