Carcassonne Central

Before I move onto LotR2- The Two Towers I would like to propose this expansion, Reservoirs and Granaries:

(http://i585.photobucket.com/albums/ss294/meepleater/LakesandGranaries.jpg)

The Reservoirs are on 5 or more tiles (depending on the expansions), and a follower may be deployed as a irrigator. At the end of the game, each irrigator gets:
5 Points for the Reservoir
2 Points for every other Reservoir that is orthogonal to the Reservoir
2 Point for every other Reservoir that is on the same field as the Reservoir
4 Points for every Reservoir that is both.
So If a Reservoir has 2 Reservoirs orthogonal, and 2 in the same field, and 1 of the orthoganal ones is also one of the ones in the same field, you would get 5 (for the Reservoir the irrigator is on) + 2 (the orthogonal only Reservoir) + 2 (the same field only Reservoir) + 4 (the Reservoir that is both) = 13 points

The Granaries (5 or less tiles, depending on the expansions).
These have a few effects on cities- a completed city with a granary and a seige scores full points (because it provides grain during the seige), however an incomplete city with a granary and a seige is still worth nothing at the end of the game. A city with a granary in it scores no points for farmers, but a city with a granary and a seige scores 3 (or 4 with a pig/ pig herd/ barn) i.e. cancels out the effect of the seige.

3 new siege tiles are also included

Any comments/ queries before I type up the rules?

EDIT:
v0.1 of the rules: http://www.mediafire.com/?1duqczyjnjy

EDIT2: Changed lakes to ponds

EDIT3: Changed ponds to reservoirs

I love the lake tiles and the little granaries, but I found the scoring a little complicated.  I know that when we play a huge game of Mega-Carc, it already takes forever for us to do the final scoring.  I wouldn't want to add more complicated scoring to that. 

You could call them ponds instead of lakes.  I think it might be a few too many points though, especially with 10 of them. 

The only concern I have with grainaries is that there are more of them than there are siege tiles (unless you use Cathars too).  There seems to be too great a potential for all of them to be cancelled out.  Not sure how I feel about that.

Personally, I don't find the scoring all that complicated (not when compared to 1st edition farms), but maybe I can find some way to simplify it.


Good idea. I'll change it to that for the next version.


Well, the meeple is there for the whole game, like a farmer, and I wanted it to be worthwhile giving a meeple for the whole game.
The reason I chose 10 of them, is that in a game of mega-carc, there will be so many large roads, fields, cities etc. that lakes would not get many points. Maybe I should add something about using less lakes in a smaller game.


I considered that, but I don't think it would be that big an issue. What if the same player that keeps putting your city under seige gets most of the granaries? What if the granary you drew doesn't fit onto the besieged city. What if your knight has already escaped? That's one of the reasons that I added the 5 point bonus, so if you don't add it onto a besieged city you still get a small bonus. Also if you have a city in an opponants farm with a pig and pig herd, and you don't want them to receive the points for that city, as long as the city is not beseiged, then you will gain 5 points (for the granary) and deny them 5 points (at the end of the game).

If any player feels that there are too many, they can always not use some of them.

Thanks for all of your opinions, I shall have 0.2 ready very soon...

EDIT: v0.2: http://www.mediafire.com/?y0jikmmjxnz

I have changed my mind and solved the granary/ siege problem a different way. I added 3 more sieges.

v0.3: http://www.mediafire.com/?m4momxyu3jg

You may have solved one problem, but might you have created another?  ;)

Just a suggestion, but wouldn't "Reservoirs and Granaries" sound better than "Ponds and Granaries"?  I think Reservoirs sounds more agricultural and would match better with granaries.  Just a thought.

From lakes to ponds to reservoirs... oh well, I was getting bored  ;)

I agree...

(Hopefully) one of the last versions along with the tile pdfs at: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=3348d38f6a3deb85c79b87b207592a1c2ae6b27d539189905be6ba49b5870170

If no one has any objections, this could be ready to become 1.0

My apologies for being late with the comments but here are my quibbles:

Minor quibble: The tiles are a lot blurry than I expected.  They might not print out clearly.  Do you think you could fix it and make them clearer?
Personal quibble: I'm not sure I understand the final scoring part of the rules.  Do you think you can provide some examples?  Thanks! ;D

What part of final scoring don't you understand, reservoirs or granaries?

The reservoir part mostly.  It would also be nice to have an example in the rules for the granary part too.

Also, the term irrigator sounds too modern for Carcassonne.  There's nothing wrong with it but perhaps a more suitable name can be found.

Sorry to add this now, and I don't know if you care at this point, {dh but I thought it was worth noting. A reservoir is usually created by
This leads me to believe that a "reservoir" should have a river or stream leading to it, but it's probably just a nit-picky observation and you can do what you want with the info. That being said, Cisterns and Granaries has a nice ring to it... and I'm sure you'd be really excited to change the name again, right?  ;)  :(3

I don't know if cistern would be right, as the idea that they are naturally formed, not built. i think I mentioned in the story that they were filled up by heavy rains. But, if others agree I'll change it *again*.

Btw, does anyone know of an alternative name to irrigator?

From what you've described, I think Ponds could possibly be better.  Reservoirs sounds better, but it's up to you.  We've been kicking around the aquaduct idea in the Roman Influence expansions thread.  Maybe that would work for your irrigator?

It's not an aqueduct (but I had considered that). I agree, reservoirs sounds better, I'll just leave it the way it is for now.

(btw, for the roman influence expansion, I remember having an idea which I liked, but disregaded it as being "too roman". As soon as a roman influence expansion is made, I can't for the life of me remember what the idea was  :-\

Then I guess the technical term we are looking for is "puddle," or perhaps, "really big puddle." I think that sounds nice, don't you? Really Big Puddles and Grainaries  8) Aw yeah.
 ;)
As for naming the follower played on the water feature... With the story you have now I think you should stick with "boatman" or change it to "boater," since in the story the water is only there as a result of the rain and the followers are there just for the fun of it.

If, however, you want to change the story, and say the people built cisterns (or reservoirs) to guard against drought or something, then it makes more sense to call the water feature in question a cistern, and the follower on that feature a "mason."

Keep thinking!  We could use some ideas.

What do people think; should I:

*change reservoirs to cisterns, change the artwork and the story to fit
*change reservoirs to cisterns, don't change anything
*change reservoirs back to ponds
*leave it as reservoirs, change the artwork and the story to fit
*don't change anything

I would appreciate your input...

I'm thinking ponds just because I think it fits the artwork, not because it was my idea.  I guess it fits the story pretty well.

I think I'm inclined to agree with you, just making sure no one disagrees?

How about 'Aquaducts and Granaries'.  ;D  - Only joking haven't been here for a while so just thought I would add to the confusion. But got yo admit Cisterns just wouldn't be my choice - reminds me too much of a loo. Even 'Waterways & Graneries' has a better ring to it.
Don't forget that Carc might need some stage 4  water restrictions to cope with any drought.

I think I should probably finish this up, so I left reservoirs at it is. I added an example for reservoir scoring. I don't think irrigator is too modern a term, it is a waterer.

Unless someone else has a major problem with reservoirs, here is is: http://www.mediafire.com/?oyzzzrz3yzy

Added to Public Downloads.