Carc Central Community > Strategy Guide

Meeple Trapping

<< < (2/2)

danisthirty:

--- Quote from: Durbs on January 16, 2015, 05:11:32 AM ---Nice article :)

Discussing expansions would obviously bloat this considerably, but two basic-but-important tiles.

Inns & Cathedrals - Where you mention a trapped meeple will still score, if there's a inn or cathedral involved (often by yourself following the trap ;) ) they will render a trapped meeple worthless.

Abbeys - Very useful for un-trapping, so larger cities will require a double-trap (to the head...)

--- End quote ---

Hi Durbs, welcome to the forums!

Thanks for your comment too!  :(y)

Both good points. I did give some thought to your first point at the time and didn't elaborate on this as my purpose was to cover just the basic game really. The whole area of trapping meeples becomes much less important when you start throwing in expansions, especially those that allow you to return a meeple in some way (Princess & Dragon, Tower, Festival, Corn Circles, Plague etc) although it's still a good tactic for slowing your opponent down if a good opportunity presents itself.

Abbeys do tend to ruin things when it comes to trapping your opponent's meeples! The only thing you can do to prevent them from being rescued using an Abbey is to attempt to block at least one of the spaces orthogonally adjacent to where your opponent needs to play their Abbey in order to prevent them from playing it. This is more effort than it's worth in most cases, but it's worth thinking about.

Another difficulty is bridges as these can allow your opponent to escape traps fairly easily. Here's an example of this I created for the last newsletter:




--- Quote from: Hounk on January 16, 2015, 05:42:25 AM ---I think, you can rather ignore the GQ11 or the Festival tile, but generally speaking this two points from the pennant city tile would be really just a gift in base game and in more games then the other way round even give a tiny chance to escape? (Of course, CCFR or leaving the place open adds options to red to at least further expand his/her city.)

--- End quote ---

Obviously it depends when the tiles are played. In the first half of a basic 72-tile game I would almost always be very happy to give 2 points away if it a) traps my opponents meeple and b) ensures that their city remains closed. If it was the last tile or two of the game then I probably wouldn't bother.

Hounk:
Sure, I think, placing this tile would be a good example, how to not only trap the meeple, but also block the city at the same time. Still, the way the article is written in my opinion gives the wrong impression, that by placing this tile, the meeple is finally trapped, while it is not the other way round. I must confess, that I somehow did not check the "non word" unextendable. I think writing it like that, would make the point better clear to an unexperienced reader:
4. This is the final nail in the coffin for red. Whilst the tile could have been oriented with either the city or a field facing into the hole, and would trap the meeples in both cases, pointing the city towards the hole also means that the city is unextendable (not being a word).

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page