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Mayor - the failed concept

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DIN0:
With the current discussion on the 5th major expansion ongoing, I decided this was ripe time to post the topic i had in mind for a long time.

Let's discuss the titular component of this expansion box - The Mayor.

Mayor is the first of the highly specialized meeples tied to a specific feature-type, namely the cities. It's main function is simple enough, it is meant to serve as a guardian of your main big city you are currently working on. The intention is that if used correctly, Mayor would thwart the invasion efforts of the opposing players by making it so demanding and resource expensive, that such tactic would quickly become inviable. With such overwhelming support, the city would be guaranteed to be in the ownership of the Mayor-player when completed and net great points, or if not completed trap a lot of enemy meeples for the cost of one (Mayor).

All of this sounds very good and promising on paper, but this is where the problem comes. The concept is good, however its actual implementation is an utter failure. Let me elaborate...

Mayor can only be deployed to a city and its majority value equals the number of pennants (shields) in the city it occupies. This has potential to grant it tremendous majority strength. Other players would surely need a lot of meeples to overpower a Mayor right? Not exactly.
Let's look at the way a typical city invasion usually occurs.
Player A establishes a city with a single meeple.
Player B places a nearby city tile and places their own meeple with intention of joining.
Player A places a tile inconveniencing Player B by making the joining more difficult.
Player B lucks out and draws a tile he needs anyway and joins the cities into one. Both players have equal strength 1A=1B.
Player A does not intend to go down that easily and prepares a new nerby city segment with a big meeple. He succeeds in joining it to the big city. 3A>1B.
Player B now needs at least two meeples to neutralize the majority of Player A, and an extra meeple to gain majority of his own.

This goes on until the city is completed and one of the players gains majority and points. Other player can join too in the process. The players go back and forth by joining in individual meeples (or rarely more than 1 by single tile placement if set up beforehand), which translates to majority values of 1, or perhaps 2 if using big meeple. Majority is generally gained/lost by increments of 1 or rarely 2. Larger the increment and/or the number of increments, larger the necessary amount of actions (tile and meeple placements), thus total value change requires an equivalent amount of setup.

How does Mayor change this dynamic?
Let's modify the previous scenario with the Mayor included. Player A builds a city with two of his normal meeples. Player B invades by joining a big meeple catching up 2A=2B. Player A in subsequent turns joins in the Mayor. The city already has an X amount of pennants (let's say X is an arbitrary number bigger than 5). Player A just swung the majority largely to his side by minimal effort, which is the intended function of the Mayor.
Player B is now in a position where she needs a very large investment to overpower Player A. Or does she?
Player B proceeds to join a city segment with her own Mayor. Since all Mayors draw their strength from the same pennants, Mayor B will have exactly the same strength as Mayor A, effectivelly neutralizing it on the spot.

And this is the problem with Mayor. It does not matter how many pennants there are in the city and how powerful your Mayor becomes as a consequence. All the opponent ever has to do is to invade with their own Mayor and the advantage will be lost instantly with the same minimal effort. The increments by which the majority changes, regardless of how large, are always the same for all Mayors.
There is no difference between a normal meeple and Mayor fighting for the majority: its is either +1A=+1B; or +XA=+XB. You gain majority by one tile/meeple placement, then opponent catches up by one tile/meeple placement, equal effort.
This effectively negates any special privileges Mayor has.

When there is big city on the map, the opponents WILL try to join in. Original owner would want to increase his/her presence in that city and Mayor is the obvious choice, but it is rendered functionally useless because opponents can just proceed with the invasion with their own Mayors, making the process no different from when just normal meeples where included.

So how does the Mayor change the dynamic of city invasion? He doesn't - at all.
If you want to effectively use your Mayor, you would have to wait until the opponents are already using their Mayor in a city of their own. But why would they do that? Surely not for defensive purposes, that would mean they are trying to defend a big city, which would just invite the other Mayors including yours. They wouldn't waste their Mayor in a small city either because then they couldn't join in with the others Mayors in some different large city when opportunity arises, leaving them out of big points.
Even if one or two players did have their Mayors stranded, chances are remaining enemy Mayors will invade anyway.
There is one other situation when one could use the Mayor ability with no fear of it being negated - that is when every single player has their Mayor deployed in their own city. But by that point, if used correctly no one will even try to invade the other's Mayor-ruled mega-cities. Additionally, when such cities are completed and scored, big point gains will roughly equalize each other, making the Mayor usage once again inconsequential.

So the only two optimal ways to use Mayor meeple are either the opportunistic invasion leading to all mayors being in the same mega-city negating each other, or each Mayor being in their own city where no one gains any advantage from them. This makes Mayor completely useless.
The only instance where Mayor's intended function would be used effectivelly is when opponents make suboptimal play. In other words, if all players play well or at least decent, Mayors end up in one of two situations where they are useless, and it is always a bad idea to play them otherwise.

So far I described how the special ability of Mayor is useless, but it is actually far worse then that. One could argue that if not for its special ability, Mayor could at least be used as an additional meeple. This is where the specialization comes to haunt the Mayor once again. It can only be played in a city, so its overall usefulness is reduced significantly. And when inside the city, not only does it not provide any advantage, but it can very easily be worse than a normal meeple. Since it draws its value from the number of pennants, if there are 0 in the city Mayor alone cannot score any points upon completion. This forces the player to make the cities with Mayor bigger and more valuable which in turn invites others for invasion, where Mayor once again fails to do its job.
So you effectivelly end up with a meeple without any special ability, which can only be placed specifically in a city and even there it is worse than a normal meeple. :o

One has to reach to other expansions and combinations in order to look for some kind of saving grace for this meeple, but do not be surprised to be dissapointed even there.
There is some invading potential when combined with the Count of Carcassonne or Flying machines. A surpise attack with massive majority value can be advantageous, but it only prolongs the inevitable equalization by the enemy Mayor, or Mayor-Count counter strategy.

There is the interesting tidbit about Mayor being able to be the Knight in the castle from Exp. 8, but this curiosity is useless, because the castle cannot be scored due to no pennants. The only exception to this is playing with carcassonne Maps, which do in fact have convertable small city segments with a pennant, so one could have a Mayor in castle here which can be scored. But keep in mind these special segments are always located on the edge of the map, making the value of th castle lower because of the reduced castle area. So while somewhat viable if you wish to make such castle but not dedicate a meeple that could better be used somewhere else, this is still not a major advantage. The fact that the best way to use Mayor is to make it a throwaway piece that shall not be missed if its castle will go wrong (and only when playing with Maps), does not paint a pretty picture for this piece of wood.

So because of all I described, I consider the Mayor to be the most useless splinter of wood to ever be introduced to the world of Carcassonne. And yes that includes the Catapult - I genuinely consider it to be more useful than Mayor.

 :orange-meeple: :orange-meeple: :orange-meeple:

So now that we established all that is wrong with the Mayor, is there a way this could have been averted or corrected?
I propose a modification that could have been made when concieving the rules,one that actually allows Mayor to do what it is supposed to:

General rules Mayor remain the same with one adjustment - the pennants in the game are subdivided into six colors based on the player color. When a Mayor is deployed to a city, it only gains value based on the pennants of the same color. This way, Mayors inside the same city have different values and this number can be adjusted by adding additional pennants of the chosen color. It creates further tactical decisions when deciding where to put your Mayor.

Of course this might introduce few difficulties of their own such as the need to keep the number of pennant colors at least roughly equal. But it's not like this is impossible - games like Bang! the card game have been doing something like this for years. Each expansion there seeks to keep the suits of the cards balanced and percantages at their set values. This could surely be solved when it comes to Carcassonne.
Another issue might be the fact that Mayor comes in the 5th Expansion, so there would be a lack of foresight from the previous material released. In the original C1 release perhaps, but what about C2? There is a lot of foresight and forward planning in C2 already, the farmhouses and sheds, the robbers at the roads. All of these are elements that had no function upon first release and then for some time, but were clearly included with some function in mind later down the road. Not to mention the still as of yet unused water towers. All of C2 material could have easily included pennats of six colors from the very start and only make use of them when Exp. 5 was re-released in C2.
Changing or adjusting the functionality of already existing elements from C1 in C2 is no new concept either - look at the wagon. The fact that its change occured in the very expansion where the Mayor comes from makes this a no excuse situation.

One would hope there is still a chance for this amazing concept with a failed implementation in the future.

And if someone can find some special niche actually useful usage or interaction with the Mayor please post it here. Other ideas for adjustments to the basic rules are also welcome.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5458.0

kothmann:
I mostly agree with you, don’t like the Mayor and never use it.  Actually, I don’t like any specialized meeples.  I don’t even really like specialized tiles.  For example, Inns could be replaced by giving each player small wooden houses that are placed on a road under certain conditions..  Base tiles + regular meeples + “fixed wood” expansions make a great game.

But let me try to mount a defense of the poor Mayor.  To score, a big city has to close.  And to close, it has to be one tile away from closing.  If you mount a Mayor invasion at that moment and get lucky to draw the connecting tile before your opponents are able to block or counter, you can glom on.  If your opponents have concluded that their Mayor is useless for defensive purposes (per your analysis), you might get an outright steal.  And of course it isn’t all luck.  You can try to set up favorable conditions, such as getting two road edges facing the completion square, so that when you place your city cap with the Mayor, the only tile that fits will be a CCRR, of which there are 5 in the base game!  (Mayor tiles include a CCRR city splitter, perhaps to counter this very idea?)

In other words, when playing the mayor, follow your advise about the barn:

--- Quote --- ...put in the work, be creative and just get better.  Come up with a counter-strategy and select the right expansions to make it work. That is the beauty of Carcassonne, you can always find ways to adjust and balance the game.
--- End quote ---
;)

Your idea to fix the Mayor is interesting, but it seems too unlikely to me that a player would be able to exploit the pennants of their color.

Here’s another thought: what if the Mayor worked similarly to the barn?!  Some sort of restriction on when a Mayor could be placed, perhaps only if a city has at least 3 pennants, for example, a Mayor can be placed in a city with other meeples.  The player with majority control when the Mayor is placed scores for a completed city, and all non-Mayors are returned to the players.  Any time other meeples join the city, they score for an incomplete city and are returned.  The Mayor only scores once and is never returned.  This would give players strong incentive to avoid mega-cities, which I think would be a good development.  There may be other reasons this wouldn’t work...

Since I don’t use the wagon either, maybe it should do the same thing for a road...

Anyway, thanks for such a detailed and interesting post.  Really enjoyed thinking about it.

Bumsakalaka:
Yeah. All of expansion change basic game. And that's the point.

Invasion is one of the regular strategy of game. And you have to count with it.

or

You don't like Mayor. What's the problem, don't play it. There are plenty of expansions (large / mini / fan) which can enlarge you game experience.

Choose only expansions you like. Don't you like whole large expansion, then choose only part of it.

Enyou the game.

DIN0:

--- Quote ---But let me try to mount a defense of the poor Mayor.  To score, a big city has to close.  And to close, it has to be one tile away from closing.  If you mount a Mayor invasion at that moment and get lucky to draw the connecting tile before your opponents are able to block or counter, you can glom on.  If your opponents have concluded that their Mayor is useless for defensive purposes (per your analysis), you might get an outright steal.  And of course it isn’t all luck.  You can try to set up favorable conditions, such as getting two road edges facing the completion square, so that when you place your city cap with the Mayor, the only tile that fits will be a CCRR, of which there are 5 in the base game!  (Mayor tiles include a CCRR city splitter, perhaps to counter this very idea?)

--- End quote ---
Thanks for the response!
Your proposed scenario is certainly plausible, but I do not believe it is sufficient to grant Mayor a strong role. If one were to set up a situation where one tile is necessary to complete a large city, and that tile would simultaneously lead to joining of enemy Mayor, the city-owner can purposefully evade this by filling the gap by their Abbey tile (which is once again included in the very same expansion ::)), which would cut off the invading Mayor. And since they would see the enemy Mayor coming, simply by turn order, they could do this beffore it had a chance to join.
Although I do agree with your surmission that one could take advantage of the "no use in deploying a defensive Mayor" conclusion of the city-owner. Perhaps there could be a set up with an incomplete, non-extendable, Mayor-free big city, needing a last tile to completion, where one could use a flying machine with their Mayor to invade the metropolis. Then the Abbey would not help and the original owner would need to rely on a random chance of drawing another flying machine and sucessfully landing in their city.
That could work, but I am not convinced that as sufficient for a stable role of flying invader. One, this could be quite situational (although not extremely rare), two after the first time someone pulled this off, it would incentivise other players to include Mayor in their big cities devolving the meeple back into a formality.


--- Quote ---In other words, when playing the mayor, follow your advise about the barn:
--- End quote ---
Well I did do that  :D after all I included some potential scenarios in my post as well, but I was unable to find anything reliably or consistently viable, no real niche. There are many ways to counteract the barn, one can let imagination loose on that one, but built something up as a ueful piece is more difficult than counter an already useful piece. Anyway, this is something I hoped others would propose (as you did).

There is something else that comes to mind and that is to make an anequal playing field by capturing Mayor(s) with the Tower. This would create actual opportunities to make use of your own. But this would have to be timed really well, because it is easy enought o reclaim your Mayor from captivity - exchange or straight up ransom payment.


--- Quote ---Your idea to fix the Mayor is interesting, but it seems too unlikely to me that a player would be able to exploit the pennants of their color.
--- End quote ---
That was a simplest solution thatcame to mind. I agree there are certainly better ways to do this by not using the pennants altogether. Pennants being six colors would dillute the useful ones in terms of Mayor value and that would need to be solved by inflating total pennant quantities. Then again this exact "problem" may prove to be another strategic choice (majority value vs point value of the city with risk of stronger enemy Mayor), but this would have to be tested.


--- Quote ---Here’s another thought: what if the Mayor worked similarly to the barn?!  Some sort of restriction on when a Mayor could be placed, perhaps only if a city has at least 3 pennants, for example, a Mayor can be placed in a city with other meeples.  The player with majority control when the Mayor is placed scores for a completed city, and all non-Mayors are returned to the players.  Any time other meeples join the city, they score for an incomplete city and are returned.  The Mayor only scores once and is never returned.  This would give players strong incentive to avoid mega-cities, which I think would be a good development.  There may be other reasons this wouldn’t work...

Since I don’t use the wagon either, maybe it should do the same thing for a road...
--- End quote ---
I do not think making them barn equivalents for other features would be possible. The barn relies on the fact that fields are never complete, which is not true for roads and cities.


--- Quote ---Anyway, thanks for such a detailed and interesting post.  Really enjoyed thinking about it.
--- End quote ---
Thanks, I am glad you enjoyed it. I am looking forward to further constructive discussion.

kothmann:
Yeah, right after I posted I remembered the Abbey!  Was hoping you wouldn’t notice.   8)

In our small games, we don’t use the Abbey either!  And I don’t have flying machines.

I don’t think there should be any problem with having pieces that get placed once and remain.  In fact, I prefer it to different types of meeple.  Making more things work like bridges, pigs, barn (olacement rule only) makes the game better I think,

We played a Mayor variant years ago where the Mayor stayed in a city and scored points at the end for every farmer in a neighboring field.  Don’t remember other details but I like that idea — works well for a central city with several bordering fields.  I suppose you could also award points for a barn in a neighboring field to balance the barn...or maybe the mayor scores whenever farmers are temoved from a barn field...

fun stuff

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