Carcassonne Central

Matt, where did you get the original images for your cover page? I wanted to try and make a new compilation cover for you, since there have been four official expansions (well, two and two compilations) since the last official CAR release, I thought it may be nice to get an updated cover. Especially since you have gone away from having the blue borders and the cover page still includes it. However, when I began editing the expansion covers, I discovered that your images don't have any of the obstructions on them: no expansion title hangers, no Hans im Glück or Rio Grande Games logo, no cityscape on the bottom and top borders. Nothing.

Where did you get those clean images? Do you have copies of them, preferably in higher resolution than the current cover images? Do you have or know where to find copies of the newer covers, specifically Catapult, Count, King & Cult, and Wheel of Fate? Do you mind if I try to make a new cover page? Thank you!

I think those are the big box cover images.  The Big Box 2 will have the Count, King & Cult image, but that's about it.  Catapult & WoF would probably be hard to find.  However, having said that, the book might produce a good cover for WoF.

Ah, you're probably right. Now on to find a high quality cover scan of the boxes! I probably will have to edit my own for Catapult, because that will NEVER be included in any Big Box, unless they make a Big Box X: Worst Expansions edition.  ;)

Pages does work extremely well. It's control of styles is far superior to Word. And I'm only using the '06 version (just never got around to upgrading). You have to be a little careful with the graphics, in so far as they should be start fairly small. I originally used tiffs, and even the compressed PDFs were huge.

Novelty is right, they're basically the Big Box images—the CAR started out as a translation of that only. Then I started tucking more expansions in as I needed them, but in the end that was overwhelming. Too much effort to create. So the current cover is just a screen-shot of the more complicated page in the original CAR, and takes up much less space—which has always been a goal of the 5.0 beta.

I don't theoretically have any problem with a new cover. The current one could potentially look out of date, since I stopped adding the newest expansion. But on the other hand, it does have recognition, and that's no small thing.

I mentioned using the grey version of the wheel in a desktop, and it might be possible to do something similar as a new cover. Also, the new expansion really promotes the 'vines' from the back of the tiles, which adds an interesting new flavour.

I understand your concerns and don't intend to increase the dent of your new CAR, which indeed should be smaller to make it more usable (and printable!). The good news is, I have high-res copies of the Catapult and Wheel of Fate expansions, so I can mess with them properly, then shrink them to fit neatly, but in a size-conserving fashion, on the cover with the rest of the expansions.

I do have two requests, though:
1. Assuming you have a copy, could you scan the cover of your Big Box 2 (the German edition) rules and send it to me (or if there is no copy of the cover on the rules like BB1, take a quality picture of the box)? HiG hasn't updated their file for Big Box to include the new version; they still have BB1. I can't find any quality scans without distractions of A&M and CK&C.

2. I was also wondering how you would feel about removing the random boxes for the mini-expansions from the cover of the CAR, since they are now all nicely packaged together in the CK&C, which is, after all, a German-only expansion (except for its inclusion in BB2)?

I am really looking forward to this new release and want to help in whatever way possible. Anything to get away from working on my master's thesis!

I don't own either BB1 or BB2. Haven't seen the rules for BB2, actually. The images I used are screen-grabs from the HiG and RGG versions of the rules. (Open in Preview, zoom to required size, use Grab to... grab. Edit in GraphicConvertor).

Fine. No problem at all. As I said, I felt the cover was getting out of hand, so let it be. It felt like it represented Carcassonne + a bunch of expansions well enough. But if it can represent better, I'll have no hesitation at all.

I can understand that ;D. But seriously, thanks for the contribution. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Oh, if you're on a Mac and have Pages, I could send you the old CAR file with all the images... Might be easier to see what I did and get hold of them as well (Right click, show package contents.) Let me know if that would help.

Sounds good. I have Pages. I never use it, but it sounds like I may now. I feel rather dumb for not using it earlier for the graphic-intensive Catan CARA. It seems this may make things much easier. Send me what you have and I will try to tease some parts out of it. Thanks!

Okay Matt, I have a draft of my cover proposal done for you. It's a pdf and I placed it in its space from your Pages document. Check it out here (http://www.whaleyland.com/downloads/coverproposal.pdf). I can make edits in Photoshop if you need them. Otherwise, I can send you a copy of this in jpg. I can definitely compress it for you, so don't worry about the file size right now. Cheers!

What, no CS&C cover art?  ;)

I didn't include it for two reasons: 1) The expansions included in CS&C are already included in some form in the other expansions; and
2) It has no actual art, rather it is just a box with tile graphics on it, and since it is the only mini-expansion left and is mostly redundant with other expansions, I thought it was not necessary. If others or Matt disagree, I can include it in, but I would do something like I do with the GQ11 and Carcassonne Almanach magazines, having them peak over the edge instead of in the middle. Tell me what you all think.

I miss the blue background.  The light blue makes everything looks "dirty" somehow.

Also missing is the River I.  I guess you might as well add a row of boxes for RI, R2, Count, King and CS&C.  They don't have to be really big - perhaps you can fit them onto both sides of the Abbey image.

The only other cover that is missing is:
(http://images.boardgamegeek.com/images/pic134810_md.jpg)

Edit: To be a completist, you should have the HiG Almanac as well ;)

lol. But are we talking about completism here or are we talking about having a nice, functional cover page to the CAR? I mean, sure I can add all the stand-alone expansions, but let's face it: River II, King, Count, and the various parts of CS&C were all available in some form in CK&C and the Carcassonne Almanach. River I is a slight oversight, but the RGG version of the base game has included that mini-expansion consistently for years and HiG has all but forgotten about it since it originally released. Personally, I place it as part of the base game when thinking of boxes. The Cult tiles included in the HiG Almanach don't even have their own entry in the CAR since they are identical, save the watermarks, to the CK&C edition. Finally, concerning the Kreivi ja Kuningas compilation: it is virtually identical in components to CK&C, minus the Cult, and the artwork doesn't seem to even be done by the same artist that does the other Carcassonne art. I don't really feel it is necessary to include KjK on the cover, its just a compilation and isn't sold by HiG or RGG.

In other words, the only things I really am considering still adding to the cover is CS&C and the River I boxes, just because they have merits of their own. The other boxes are unimpressive and add nothing that isn't already available in an official, full-sized expansion. The reason I decided to keep the blue background was simply because Matt still was using it. I am perfectly fine with replacing it with the Carcassonne blue background, but I want Matt's permission to do so first, since he is concerned that old fans may question the continuity of his CAR if it's cover is too radically changed. Changing the background colour I consider a radical change from the well-known blue-white fade.

I like it. Considerably less cluttered than the current version. And I think that the blue shade behind the image should remain - continuity, as you say.

Is this is meant to be updated with every new expansion, and would you be prepared to do it? I mean, what would be your intended arrangement for a further expansion?

(Split this into a new thread, btw).

Yes, it is imminently update-able. I'd be happy to keep updating it, and I could also upload my template somewhere in case, for whatever reason, I become unable to continue work on it.

Concerning future expansions, the size of the images from a new boxes are one concern. Tower and Catapult are both 1 1/2 times the height of the usual expansion box and so take up more space. Basically, if/when they come out with another expansion after Wheel of Fate, I would probably make all the images smaller (I've already done this twice, but then changed my mind about the layout) and place them in rows of 4, instead of the current 3. I'd probably put the first next expansion beside A&B, the one after that beside a reduced Wheel of Fate, and then after that, I'd probably return to three rows and put four expansions in the side columns. But nothing is concrete, because new expansions can come in many forms and mini-expansions that aren't part of compilations may begin to litter corners such as I have done with the two magazines. The simplest fix with a new expansion would just to push things closer together, lose my carefully-measured gaps and re-create a montage as before, albeit one with an underlying order.

The only things I have left to do with it, before I send it off to you, Matt, is add the River I and CS&C boxes to the areas beside A&B. I decided that Novelty had a point there and the area around A&M could use something anyway. I also need to repair the top-right corner of the base game image because I forgot to fill the gap left by the moving of the "rules" caption. The Tower could still use a little vibrance/hue control (I've corrected it like four times now, but it still appears flashier than the other images!). Also, Matt, do you know the color code for the blue background that you use (well, the darkest part of it, at least)? I want to make sure I get the exact right shade of it since I just eye dropped the color from an area near the top of your CAR pdf. Maybe that is why Novelty thinks it is so...dirty...

My remaining unrepairable grievances with the cover are: a) the fact that I can't isolate an image of the Wheel of Fate from that expansion, as the wheel is obscured on both the box and the book and is not the same image as the one from the tile (either side of it); b) the Rio Grande Games and Hans im Glück logos on the Catapult and Wheel of Fate respectively; and, c) the slightly diminished quality of the Catapult cover, mostly in the bottom right corner, from a lack of high-res image captures on Google Images.

I don't actually. I have the colour saved, but it isn't a 'websafe' colour or anything. Best way to duplicated it is probably to open the old CAR doc I sent in Pages, open colours, and use the spyglass to identify it...

I was just kidding, thus the  ;).

Okay, Matt, here's the updated cover. I fixed a number of the issues I addressed on it, including adding River I and CS&C to the areas beside the A&M. I also tinkered around and got the top-right corner of the base game image fixed. I forgot to add the shadow to the Carcassonne logo, so added that and also added a glow to all the images except the base game's. It is designed to fit perfectly centered on your Pages document within the box allocated for the cover. It will need to be stretched, but that's because Pages shrinks the document, not because it is too small. I designed it to fit your image pixel-for-pixel, although I think I am off by one pixel on the bottom. I'd recommend placing the image in the top-left corner of your Pages box and dragging the image from the bottom-right corner until the dragon's wing is butting against the right-side wall. That's what I did on the preview two days ago.

If there are any problems anyone sees with it, just post it here and I will be happy to try and correct them. Otherwise, I'm calling this done!

(http://www.whaleyland.com/downloads/coverpage.jpg)

Cool. The only problem I've found - and it's entirely my fault - is that it doesn't match the page dimensions of the current CAR. The document I sent you was with the old (larger) size, and the newer CAR uses B5. So the image is a little short. Still, I've zoomed it a bit so that it fits length-wise, which at the same time means that it is now wider than the 'box' into which it should fit. But since we're abandoning the blue borders, that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for your efforts on this! :) :) :)

Well, I was kidding about the C,S&C, but it looks good.  Good job Whaley!

Well if you want, I can slide all the images down a little bit. I always thought that the top was a little higher than I wanted and that the images crammed into the title header a bit more than I wanted. Send me over the Pages document for your new rules, and I will refit them in, if you'd like. I mean, if I'm going to be updating this for future expansions anyway, it wouldn't hurt. Making things bigger is never a problem. It's making them smaller that's the pain.

B5 format? What is that anyway? Is it comparable to the US Letter size finally?


I know you were joking, but you had a point and I had a gap so I took it. Heck, there IS an entry in the CAR for CS&C so I may as well include a box image for it.

If you would like to that would be excellent. I mean, it's great as it is, but if you were slightly dissatisfied anyway  ;)

Sorry, I meant A5. And that's half A4, or 14.82 x 20.99 cm. I think the original CAR was a custom size matching the HiG rules, but I can't remember.

Sure link/email me up!

Here you go: http://mjharper.macbay.de/CARnew-big.pages.zip

That's the very latest file with your 'stretched' cover included, and the Overview under maintenance ;)

Okay, here's (http://www.whaleyland.com/downloads/newcover.jpg) your new cover draft. Since you are going away from the backgrounds on everything and removed the frames from the cover page, I decided to re-implement them, but in gold, to match the color of the Carcassonne title and your footer notes/page numbers. The cover looked too loose without a frame around it and, since we decided to keep continuity by keeping the gradient shift blue-white for the cover, I added the frame for further visual appeal. The image is now 100 pixels longer so just place it and size it as you like. I put it at 0.25 x 0.25 margins when I tested it, and that seemed to fit quite well, but choose your own margins, I'm just making a cover!  ;D Thanks for letting me do this. I hope everything works and looks fine now.

Nice work. I like the new cover :)

I like it too. Great job!

Good job.  It looks good and not "dirty" like the first pass!  I have no idea what you did, but it does look cleaner and sharper!

I've made a slight update to the previous draft, just to reflect the fact that Carcassonne - Almanach, which included the Cathars expansion, was not the first issuance of that expansion. It was actually Spielbox Magazine 2004 Issue (4?). Therefore, I have replaced the happy little Almanach image with a less fun but more appropriate Spielbox 2004.4 image (or whatever the correct issue was, I checked when I added it). Without further ado, I present you with CAR Cover Draft 4 (http://www.whaleyland.com/downloads/newcover2.jpg). I hope that the new version meets with everyone's approval. If you prefer the other image, Matt, feel free to use that instead. I kept the old image on my template in case of such a decision.

(http://www.whaleyland.com/downloads/newcover2.jpg)

Awesome. Yes, the Spielbox cover is less impressive than the Almanac, but the only reason I used that in the first place was because I could scan my copy. And the overall design of the cover is great.

Many, many thanks  :) 8) ;D

Wow... looks very good... the last cover was a bit all over the place but this is well ordered...

Great job....well done!
Thanks.
 ;)

I forgot that I changed my old domain so all my old links are dead. I have yet to restore that server, but is has given me an opportunity to update the CAR cover from a few months back anyway. Here (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/newcover3.jpg) is my new cover draft which includes Spielbox 6/09 for Der Tunnel expansion. I believe all the other expansions I included on the old version. This link shouldn't die like the last one.

New copy of the cover updated:

(http://www.whaleyland.com/coverpage.jpg)

Updated include the new sleeping guy in the top-right corner, a new version of the Crop Circles circle which has been moved over and enlarged slightly, a new version of the BC&B expansion without the HiG logo in the corner, the removal of the HiG logo from the corner of the WoF expansion, the addition of Spielbox 2010/6 magazine in the top-right Spielbox bunch, and the moving of Games Quarterly to between the two Spielbox Almanacs. Let's see what happens next! I suspect one more mini-expansion, which will go in the top-left, but I'm out of room for more large expansions.

Where'd the sleeping guy come from?

The corner of the box, apparently. I didn't notice him forever but he has been there all along. I admit, it was rather weird going "wait, there is a guy sleeping under a tree on the Carc box?" All German editions include him but he's not present on English editions:

(http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic688255_lg.jpg)

Could you include another line of magazine covers above the currently spielbox line int he top right?  Would it fit?

Yeah, another line would fit but I'd probably place them above the Catapult and Tower first. Three could go above the Catapult and another two above the Tower. But by then, I'm pretty sure HiG will have another two or three large expansions, and that's a whole different problem.

The Wheel of Fortune logo can be resized to the same size as the others and that might give you space for at least one more logo there, if not two or three more... maybe...

Excellent work as always.

So, a new problem has developed with the release of these two new expansions: The Entourage and Carnival have no covers at all! Carnival only has a little fireworks thing inside the rules booklet, while Entourage is completely transparent casing with a no-art rules sheet. The only place I can think to grab some art for that expansion is from the display case, but that's going to be difficult. Any ideas? I was thinking maybe using the Anniversary Logo to count as The Celebration expansion:


In fact, perhaps that graphic should just count for both. Looking at the display boxes, the art is all recycled. Perhaps there is something new on the back of one of them, but the fronts are all old. Any other suggestions?

This looks appropriate I think.  Sooner or later, we'll run out of room for everything.  I'm not convinced that the cover needs to be inclusive of 100% of the content, but I also recognize that may not be a popular opinion.

I figure as long as I can do it without making it look TOO cluttered or small, I might as well include everything. But yes, at some point there may just be too much. Perhaps clumping the baby Entourage expansion with the inclusive Celebration expansion all under the banner of "10th Anniversary Expansions" may be for the best.

I'm inclined to agree :-)

Actually, I was thinking you could do the same thing in the rules document itself, since both expansions are quite small and neither require a high degree of FAQs. Indeed, Celebration seems to address the only FAQ I can think of for that expansion, and Celebration is pretty straightforward.

Edit: Okay, here's the new cover. I had a few minutes. It is identical to the old one except I added the Anniversary logo to the top corner and moved Crop Circles to next to the Tower. It also replaced the Crop Circles image (again) with the stamp from the cover above. Good quality find, btw, Novelty. That's the nicest Carcassonne cover I've seen in a long time. Anyway, image above is updated and here's another copy just to clarify: