Carcassonne Central: Advent Quiz MMXXI

[Meepledrone]

Question #5B: The Grinch feels generous today ...and wants to give away some extra points with two additional questions about yesterday's case. Are you ready for them?
1) How many points does Yellow score? (0-1 points)
2) If not choosing to score for the city, how many points would have scored Red? (0-1 points)




Answer #5B: This question covers additional scorings happening in Question 5.

Since no additional information was provided in the question, 3 possible scenarios may happen regarding the fairy assigned to the Yellow Mayor:
A) It is Red's turn and the fairy does not move, the one assumed by default for this question
B) It is Red's turn and the fairy is assigned to the castle lord
C) It is Yellow's turn, so the fairy does not move.

Depending on the scenario, the outcome may differ.

Let's see how these scenarios affect the answer.

1) The scoring of the Yellow Mayor:

The Yellow Mayor occupied a city with no coats of arms, so it will score 0 points for the city, even if its worth 11 points as we saw earlier.

Based on the scenarios, Yellow will score the 1-point fairy bonus at the beginning of the player's turn in scenario C. This will not happen in scenarios A and B.

Additionally, the scoring of the city triggers the scoring of the fairy assigned to the mayor in scenarios A and C. So Yellow would score 3 points for the fairy even if the mayor cannot score points for the city. In scenario B, Yellow would score 0 points.

2) The castle scoring for the unoccupied road:

Instead of scoring for the city, Red could have also chosen to score the 2-tile road just completed.

This road is worth 5 points (2 points for the road + 3 points for the German castle)
- 2 points for the road (2 tiles x 1 point/tile)
- 2 bonus points for the German castle at the end of the road.

The Red Castle Lord would score the same points the road is worth in this case, that is, 5 points.

Scenarios A and C do not affect the Red's scoring, but scenario B will grant Red the 3-point fairy scoring bonus.


Bottomline:
1) The scoring of the city occupied by the Yellow Mayor would be as follows:
- Scenario A: Yellow will score 3 points for the fairy
- Scenario B: Yellow will score 0 points
- Scenario C: Yellow will score 4 points for the fairy (1 point at the beginning of the player's turn + 3 points when scoring the city)

2) The castle scoring for the road would be as follows:
- Scenario A: Red would score 5 points for the castle if choosing the road
- Scenario B: Red might score 8 points (5 points for the castle + 3 bonus points for the fairy, if assigned to the castle lord)
- Scenario C: Red would score 5 points for the castle if choosing the road

[Meepledrone]

Question #6: The Gingerbread Man placed this tile completing the road. It's Yellow's turn. How many points will each player score?




Answer #6: Yellow places a tile completing the road and closing the field with the two shepherds. Since it is Yellow's turn, no flock action will be triggered for Blue or Red. However, since the field with the shepherds is completely surrounded, action '''Guide the flock to the stable''' will be automatically triggered before scoring the road.

1) Scoring the shepherds and their flock:

Note that even if the Red Shepherd is placed on a hill tile, hills do not affect shepherds. Hills only affect meeples. Therefore, Blue and Red will score the total points for the shared flock of 4 sheep total, that is, both players score 4 points each (4 sheep x 1 point/sheep).

After this, the shepherds will return to their owners's supply and the sheep tokens will return to the bag for future draws.

2) Scoring the road:

Blue and Yellow share the road, however the Blue Meeple is placed on a hill tile, so Blue has the majority in the road. As a result, only Blue will score 8 points for the road (8 tiles x 1 point/tile).

Note:
- Vineyards do not affect roads.

Bottomline:
- Blue scores 4 points for the sheep + 8 points for the road = 12 points (as two separate scoring events)
- Red scores 4 points for the sheep
- Yellow scores 0 points

[Meepledrone]

Question #7: How many points will Yellow score in this scenario? Please indicate which set of rules you are applying: C1 or C2.




Answer #7: This tile placement completed the monastery occupied by Yellow. Depending of the rules applied, the result may differ:

>> C1 rules

The first edition considers that monasteries are scored considering each tile individually. So we have to consider all the tiles occupying or overlapping the space with the monastery and the 8 adjacent spaces. In this case we have 8 tiles:
- 2 square tiles
- 4 Halfling tiles
- 2 double-sized tiles

We should also consider any vineyards on those tiles too. In this case there is a vineyard on the Halfling tile sharing the space with the monastery tile itself.

Therefore, Yellow will score 11 points for the monastery (8 points for the monastery + 3 points for the vineyard):
- 8 points for the monastery (8 tiles x 1 point/tile)
- 3 bonus points for the vineyard (1 vineyard x 3 points)

Bottomline:
- Yellow scores 11 points

>> C2 rules

The second edition considers that monasteries are scored considering the spaces occupied by the monastery and any tiles on the 8 adjacent spaces. A space can be occupied by:
- 1 square tile
- 1 Halfling tile
- 2 Halfling tiles sharing the same space
- 1 half of a double-sized tile.
In this case, the monastery is completed and its 8 adjacent spaces are occupied, so it is worth 9 points, no matter the types of tiles occupying the space of the monastery or the 8 spaces surrounding it.

We should also consider any vineyards on those tiles too. In this case there is a vineyard on the Halfling tile sharing the space with the monastery tile itself.

Therefore, Yellow will score 12 points for the monastery (9 points for the monastery + 3 points for the vineyard):
- 9 points for the monastery (9 occupied spaces x 1 point/space)
- 3 bonus points for the vineyard (1 vineyard x 3 points)

Bottomline:
- Yellow scores 12 points


Notes:
* Monasteries do not score bonus points for neighboring German castles. German castles only provides bonus points to roads and cities.

[Meepledrone]

Question #8: How many points would each player score in this after-the-game scenario Santa Claus prepared for you?




Answer #8: This uncompleted city has a cathedral. This means each tile is worth 0 points at the end of the game. However, the Mage bonus is applied after the cathedral, so the city will be worth 5 points (0 points for the city + 5 points for the Mage):
- 0 points for the city (5 tiles x 0 points/tile for the cathedral)
- 5 bonus points for the Mage (5 tiles x 1 point/tile)

The city is occupied by a Yellow Mayor and a Red Meeple. Since the city has no coats of arms, the mayor has 0 majority votes and cannot score points for the city. So Red has the majority and will score 5 points for the city.

Bottomline:
- Red will score 5 points.
- Yellow will score 0 points

[Meepledrone]

Question #9: It's Blue's turn. Before placing this tile, the player opens a Synod gift card and places the Blue Abbot on this monastery. After placing the tile, Blue decides to remove the abbot right away. Three questions:
1) How many points will each player score? (0-5 points)
2) Who will receive gold ingots? (0-1 points)
3) Can Blue receive a gift for extending this road? (0-1 points)




Answer #9: These are the answers to the questions:

1) When removing an abbot we are scoring a figure, not the feature the abbot is placed on. This means that no majority applies in this case even if Yellow would have the majority in the monastery. Since the monastery is not scored, Yellow does not get any points.

For the same reason, this scoring does not trigger the scoring of the castle. So Red does not score any points either.

So only Blue will score 7 points for the abbot (7 tiles x 1 point/tile).

2) No player will receive gold ingots, since no feature was completed and scored.

3) No, Blue cannot receive a gift. The tile placed extends a road but is not occupied by any player. If the road was occupied by Red or Yellow, Blue would be able to receive a gift.

Bottomline:

1) Only Blue scores:
- Blue will score 7 points for the abbot.
- Red will score no points.
- Yellow will score no points

2) No one will receive gold ingots when the abbot is scored.

3) Blue cannot receive a gift in this case.

[Meepledrone]

Question #10: The Grinch places this tile on behalf of Yellow, who wants to score this road network right away. The Grinch has two questions for you:
1) Which ferry position should Yellow choose to close the road and prevent any player from extending and scoring it in the future?  (0-1 points)
  a) "/" to connect the top and left road ends.
  b) "\" to connect the top and right road ends.
2) How many points would each player score in this case? (0-5 points)

Notes:
* Please apply the Advanced Variant rules for the Labyrinth tile.
* We are not considering a game with The Tunnel mini expansion.




Answer #10: When the tile is placed, the road is still uncompleted. However, Yellow can move the ferry on the lake because the player just extended a road connected to the ferry. This allows Yellow to close the road and trigger its scoring.

1) Choosing a ferry position:

Option a) would complete the road network in a way that the ferry would not be connected to the right road end, making it impossible for any player to move the ferry by extending the road occupied by Blue.

Option b) would complete the road network in a away that the ferry would be connected to the right road end, making it possible for any player to move the ferry by extending the road occupied by Blue and reopening the road network, allowing  the players to extend the road network and score it again.

So option a) would be the right one in this case, since Yellow would not allow other players to score the road network again.

2) Scoring the road:

This road has 11 tiles and a number of features to be taken into account:
- The road ends at a watchtower, which will be scored first. Red has a meeple on this tile, so this player will score points for it.
- The road also has a tunnel going through a city gates tile, which counts as a straight road segment in this case (no tunnel tokens involved in this scenario).
- Two tiles of the road feature farmhouses. These tiles will not be considered for the tile count due to the Peasant Uprising scoring tile.
- Some tiles have signpost symbols that will have to be evaluated. There are only 3 correct signposts, belonging to two types (straight and left). Using a [X,Y] coordinate system with [1,1] representing the tile bottom left, we have the following cases:
  - Tile [1,1]: 2 correct signposts
    - The black arrow is correct (straight ahead through the tunnel)
    - The blue arrow is correct (turning left on the roundabout tile)
  - Tile [2,1]: 0 correct signposts
    - The black arrow is wrong (the road turns right)
    - The red arrow is wrong (the road goes straight under the bridge)
  - Tile [2,3]: 0 correct signposts
    - The black arrow is wrong (the road ends on the next tile)
    - The blue arrow is wrong (the road goes straight under the bridge)
  - Tile [3,3]: 1 correct signpost
    - The black arrow is correct (the road continues straight ahead through the labyrinth)
    - The read arrow is wrong (the road seems to turn right but it ends half way on the adjacent tile)
- The tile with the bridge contributes twice to the road but is only counted once.
- The ferry is assumed to in the "/" position.
- The completed road has 1 Blue Meeple, 2 Red Meeples and 2 Yellow Meeples, but the Yellow Meeple top left is placed on a hill tile, so Yellow has the majority. The second Blue Meeple will not be on the road network once the ferry is moved.

The scoring of the road will be as follows:
- Red will score 4 points for the watchtower (4 tiles with roads x 1 point/tile)
- Yellow will score 25 points for the road (9 points for the road + 6 points for the correct signposts + 10 points for the labyrinth):
  - 9 points for the road ( (11 tiles - 2 tiles with farmhouses) x 1 point/tile = 9 x 1 points)
  - 6 points for the correct signposts (3 correct signposts x 2 points for two correct signpost types)
  - 10 points for the labyrinth (5 meeples x 2 points/meeple)
- Blue and Red score no points for the road.
 
Bottomline:
1) The correct position for the ferry "/", that is, option a).
2) The scoring will be as follows:
- The watchtower:
  - Red scores 4 points for the watchtower
- The road itself:
  - Yellow scores 25 points for the road
  - Blue and Red score no points for the road.

[Meepledrone]

Question #11: The Gingerbread Man placed this tile on Yellow's behalf. How many points does the player score?




Answer #11: This tile is placed on a island square with 2 coats of arms. This means that the player scores points for the tile placement. Additionally the tile completes two features: a monastery and a road.

1) Points for the tile placement:

Yellow will score 4 points for the tile placement (2 coats of arms x 2 points)

2) Points for the monastery:

Yellow will score 1 point for the monastery and 1 point for each adjacent tile. When playing with a Carcassonne Map, monasteries take into consideration regular land tiles, and pre-printed large city tiles, so no printed ferry routes or printed road or city segments abroad are considered.

In this case, the monastery is placed on a border with no adjacent tiles. The ferry route is not considered as an adjacent tile. So the player scores 1 point for the monastery (1 tile x 1 point).

3) Points for the road:

The road has several elements:
- 4 tiles (including the one with the monastery)
- 1 ferry route, counted like one additional tile.
- 1 road segment on the border, counted as one additional road tile.
- 2 coats of arms worth 2 points each.
The road is the worth 10 points ( (6 tiles x 1 point/tile) + (2 coats of arms x 2 points) = 6 + 4 points)
So Yellow will score 10 points for the road.

Bottomline:
- Yellow will score 15 points (4 points for the tile placement + 1 point for the monastery + 10 points for the road)

Notes:
- No Carcassonne Maps rules variants were considered for this scenario, just the basic rules.

[Meepledrone]

Question #12: The Snowman places this tile completing the city. It's Yellow's turn. How many points does each player score?

Notes:
* The fairy is assigned to the Blue Meeple.
* We are assuming Yellow does not move the fairy. If you consider it, no problem.




Answer #12: This question may lead to two different results depending on the fairy:
A) The fairy does not move, which would be the default option in this case.
B) Yellow assigns the fairy to their meeple.

The completed city is occupied by Yellow alone, so this player will score 8 points for it (4 tiles x 2 points/tile) (Scenario A and B).

Yellow could receive 3 extra points if the player moved to fairy next to their meeple (Scenario B).
 
Blue has a meeple on a tower which foundation is within the city, but it is not part of the city. So this player will not participate in the scoring and the Blue Meeple will stay put. The fairy assigned to the Blue Meeple on top of the tower will not provide any bonus points either.

Notes:
- It is Yellow's turn so Blue cannot receive the fairy 1-point bonus at the beginning of this turn.

Bottomline:
- Scenario A: Yellow does not move the fairy
  - Yellow will score 8 points for the city
  - Blue scores no points.
- Scenario B: Yellow moves the fairy
  - Yellow will score 11 points (8 points for the city + 3 points for the fairy)
  - Blue scores no points.

[corinthiens13]

Thanks Meepledrone for this first batch of answers! 

Those questions were great and fun to solve (or to try solving). Despite Carcassonne93's sayings :

Question #10: Another too easy question.

Question 10 was a really complicated one, not hard in rulings, but difficult to count everything without missing anything

[corinthiens13]

For question 5, WICA's order of play makes clear that the "bad neighborhood" tile afects tile count only and not bonuses (too sad I missed that  ).
But the expansion's page states:

Bad Neighborhood | During the scoring of a city, these completing city segments are not part of the scoring and do not get you any points

"are not part of the scoring" makes it ambiguous... A link to the "other expansions" section should be added there.
And in the "other expansions" section, I think a phrase saying that bonuses not involving tile count are not affected should be added to remove any ambiguity (or the list of unaffected bonuses be completed), don't you think?

[Challa007]

Thanks Meepledrone for these first answers and all the detailed explanations. 
Its so sad, half of my answers up to here were wrong and mostly due to silly mistakes: overlooked the inn, overlooked the vineyard, took a red shepherd for a yellow one, missed the +1 fairy bonus at the beginning of a turn, .... 
With this kind of sillyness, even the deepest study of the WikiCarpedia obviously does not help ... 
haha, at least I got question 10 right. The bigger the difficulty the bigger the attention .... 
Very wicked indeed, Meepledrone, very well done! 

[Meepledrone]

Thanks Meepledrone for this first batch of answers! 

Those questions were great and fun to solve (or to try solving). Despite Carcassonne93's sayings :

Question #10: Another too easy question.

Question 10 was a really complicated one, not hard in rulings, but difficult to count everything without missing anything

My pleasure. I love this question... It took me a while to put it together in order to exploit many nuances especially related to The Signposts. I went through several iterations (and simplifications ) until I was happy.... You cannot imagine how much I enjoyed it.

For question 5, WICA's order of play makes clear that the "bad neighborhood" tile afects tile count only and not bonuses (too sad I missed that  ).
But the expansion's page states:

Bad Neighborhood | During the scoring of a city, these completing city segments are not part of the scoring and do not get you any points

"are not part of the scoring" makes it ambiguous... A link to the "other expansions" section should be added there.
And in the "other expansions" section, I think a phrase saying that bonuses not involving tile count are not affected should be added to remove any ambiguity (or the list of unaffected bonuses be completed), don't you think?

I will review the wording. It mainly deals with tile count for the basic scoring per tile, but the rest of the scoring stays intact. If those tiles were eliminated in full, that also would affect meeples placed on them, and this doesn't happen, as you can see on the Peasant Uprising example, were the meeple occupying the road is on a tile with a farmhouse that does is not considered for the scoring.

 
Example 4: Due to the Peasant Uprising Red only scores 4 points for their road. All road tiles marked with X do not score any points.

If you check the Reference Scoring Pages you can see the scoring tiles are applied in detail in each case:
https://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/Scoring_During_the_Game

Since the scoring tiles are defined with the rules of the basic game in mind, they are applied affecting elements found there:
- Majority
- Tile count and points per tile when scoring the core part of the feature, that is, tile count x point per tile
- Value per coat of arms
And then you add some feature-level bonuses added once the core feature scoring is calculated.

No other bonuses or mechanics are affected during scoring:
- Meeples or other figures considered in the scoring: Fairy, Mage, Witch...
- Bonuses affecting any tiles: Bathhouses, Little buildings, German castles...
- Dependencies with other features: Castles...

This way, we stick to the expansion layering approach where dependencies between expansions are kept minimized within the base game boundaries when possible (majority and core feature scoring is the minimum overlap possible in this case). This was discussed some time ago, of you remember when discussing the tile count affecting:
- German cathedrals
- Mage
- Markets of Leipzig
We agreed that the additional "tile count" due to multiple road segments on a German cathedral tile would affect the basic scoring of roads but not the tile count used for bonuses such as the Mage or the Wainwrights quarter bonus which would only count actual tiles.

Check the scoring examples in this and subsequent messages to see what I mean:
https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=4356.msg64547#msg64547

[Meepledrone]

Thanks Meepledrone for these first answers and all the detailed explanations. 
Its so sad, half of my answers up to here were wrong and mostly due to silly mistakes: overlooked the inn, overlooked the vineyard, took a red shepherd for a yellow one, missed the +1 fairy bonus at the beginning of a turn, .... 
With this kind of sillyness, even the deepest study of the WikiCarpedia obviously does not help ... 
haha, at least I got question 10 right. The bigger the difficulty the bigger the attention .... 
Very wicked indeed, Meepledrone, very well done! 

Ha ha ha!

The devil is in the small details!

I just hope you enjoyed the answers so far.

Beyond nailing the answer, the ultimate goal is to understand the rules while having fun. And there is no better way to do it than by practicing and exploiting the nuances scattered all over.

The quizzes highlight things that caught my eye or interactions that seemed interesting while working on WICA.

[NGC 54]

Question #10: The Grinch places this tile on behalf of Yellow, who wants to score this road network right away. The Grinch has two questions for you:
1) Which ferry position should Yellow choose to close the road and prevent any player from extending and scoring it in the future?  (0-1 points)
  a) "/" to connect the top and left road ends.
  b) "\" to connect the top and right road ends.
2) How many points would each player score in this case? (0-5 points)

Notes:
* Please apply the Advanced Variant rules for the Labyrinth tile.
* We are not considering a game with The Tunnel mini expansion.




Answer #10: When the tile is placed, the road is still uncompleted. However, Yellow can move the ferry on the lake because the player just extended a road connected to the ferry. This allows Yellow to close the road and trigger its scoring.

1) Choosing a ferry position:

Option a) would complete the road network in a way that the ferry would not be connected to the right road end, making it impossible for any player to move the ferry by extending the road occupied by Blue.

Option b) would complete the road network in a away that the ferry would be connected to the right road end, making it possible for any player to move the ferry by extending the road occupied by Blue and reopening the road network, allowing  the players to extend the road network and score it again.

So option a) would be the right one in this case, since Yellow would not allow other players to score the road network again.

2) Scoring the road:

This road has 11 tiles and a number of features to be taken into account:
- The road ends at a watchtower, which will be scored first. Red has a meeple on this tile, so this player will score points for it.
- The road also has a tunnel going through a city gates tile, which counts as a straight road segment in this case (no tunnel tokens involved in this scenario).
- Two tiles of the road feature farmhouses. These tiles will not be considered for the tile count due to the Peasant Uprising scoring tile.
- Some tiles have signpost symbols that will have to be evaluated. There are only 3 correct signposts, belonging to two types (straight and left). Using a [X,Y] coordinate system with [1,1] representing the tile bottom left, we have the following cases:
  - Tile [1,1]: 2 correct signposts
    - The black arrow is correct (straight ahead through the tunnel)
    - The blue arrow is correct (turning left on the roundabout tile)
  - Tile [2,1]: 0 correct signposts
    - The black arrow is wrong (the road turns right)
    - The red arrow is wrong (the road goes straight under the bridge)
  - Tile [2,3]: 0 correct signposts
    - The black arrow is wrong (the road ends on the next tile)
    - The blue arrow is wrong (the road goes straight under the bridge)
  - Tile [3,3]: 1 correct signpost
    - The black arrow is correct (the road continues straight ahead through the labyrinth)
    - The read arrow is wrong (the road seems to turn right but it ends half way on the adjacent tile)
- The tile with the bridge contributes twice to the road but is only counted once.
- The ferry is assumed to in the "/" position.
- The completed road has 1 Blue Meeple, 2 Red Meeples and 2 Yellow Meeples, but the Yellow Meeple top left is placed on a hill tile, so Yellow has the majority. The second Blue Meeple will not be on the road network once the ferry is moved.

The scoring of the road will be as follows:
- Red will score 4 points for the watchtower (4 tiles with roads x 1 point/tile)
- Yellow will score 25 points for the road (9 points for the road + 6 points for the correct signposts + 10 points for the labyrinth):
  - 9 points for the road ( (11 tiles - 2 tiles with farmhouses) x 1 point/tile = 9 x 1 points)
  - 6 points for the correct signposts (3 correct signposts x 2 points for two correct signpost types)
  - 10 points for the labyrinth (5 meeples x 2 points/meeple)
- Blue and Red score no points for the road.
 
Bottomline:
1) The correct position for the ferry "/", that is, option a).
2) The scoring will be as follows:
- The watchtower:
  - Red scores 4 points for the watchtower
- The road itself:
  - Yellow scores 25 points for the road
  - Blue and Red score no points for the road.

I ignored the land surveyors...

[corinthiens13]

Me too, I ignored the hill and land surveyors, then I corrected my answer to include the hill but still forgot the land surveyors