Carcassonne Central

So I've been thinking about a new series of mini-expansions in the tradition of Joff's Medieval expansion.  Since I was able to locate the author of the solazy expansions and with the possibility of the Coliseum tile becoming "official" (hopefully, I'm not counting my chickens too much), I thought it might be cool to put some others with it for a 12-tile set.  Obviously, the Roman Road and Temple tiles should be included and perhaps JPutt's Chariot Racing.  That leaves a little room for a few more.  Any ideas for more Roman themed tiles?  (Looks like we're looking roughly at 4 tiles).

Forums and Baths were quite popular across Europe in Roman times. I'd suggest those. There are also dozens of special buildings that were around in Roman times, that most cities had. I can't think of one of them at the moment, though.

I can see the Forum (and the bath too, actually) as the type of tile where everyone puts on meeple on it.  Beyond that, I'm not sure what it should do.  Post about some of those other building as they come to mind.  Maybe that will get our creative juices flowing.

Sorry again for the double post.  I'm ready to begin this one too.  Keeping in mind the tiles I've already mentioned, does anyone have any more ideas for the last four tiles?  I was thinking about the Forum and Bathes a bit, but I'm not sure what mechanic to employ for these.  Perhaps an aqua duct would be cool.  It could connect a river to a city, but then, it might require a forced tile placement and several people have stated they don't like that.  I wonder if this could be done differently?  The only thing that comes to mind is a a couple of tiles already joined together like some of JPutt's recent expansions.  Perhaps an Amphitheater?  Any thoughts?

What about the Vatican or something? It could be like a Cloister, but instead of just taking nine tiles to complete, the tiles around the nine must be completed to get your Meeple back, but it could act like a Cloister other than that... you would get one point per tile in its scoring area at the end of the game if it didn't get completed.

Well, that might be cool if it were not exactly the same as Lord of the Manor.  :)

Or, what could possibly be done... it would have to be surrounded in the same manner as the Lord of the Manor tiles. However...we could do something like...once it's surrounded...all churches are now worth double the points when completed...  In other words, the "Vatican", or whatever it might be called, would significantly increase the value of each church once completed.

Well, mechanically, I think I like the idea of effecting the other cloisters.  I'm not really comfortable calling it the Vatican since this is a Roman Influence expansion, not a "Rome" expansion.  That's a minor issue though, and another name could easily be used.  The problem is what name?  Cathedrals, abbeys, and cloisters are already used. 

Thinking about the vatican though, it might be cool to add the Pope expansion here too.  That wouldn't leave a lot of room for new tiles though.  Maybe we could stretch it to 15.

Just thought I'd throw in a thought of mine. I'm not too sure how keen I am on the idea of creating a "compilation" of previous expansions. I think it's perfectly fine if we want to create more roman inspired tiles, but what's the need to compile them with ones that already exist? I don't know, that's just my thought at the moment.  :)

Well, I'm thinking of keeping them together just for the sake of theme.  It's certainly not necessary.  I guess I'm thinking about it in terms of Joff's Medieval expansion.  It's a 12-tile set made up of smaller expansions and it's nice for people who want to print them out on one page.  We could also do as Joff did and offer them both individually and on one sheet for convenience.  What do you think about that?

I like that idea a lot.  ;D

Also, how about a school tile? I'm not sure what it would do though... maybe more than one person could put a follower on at a time, and then when the feature is completed, those with a follower wouldn't get points for the feature, but could move their followers to an unclaimed feature, and the order of who gets to claim features first would be determined by the order in which the followers were placed on the school.

Yea, at the very least, I think they definitely would need to be available individually for those that may already have printed the others.  I'm still not entirely sold on the compilation idea, but...that's not for me to decide!  :)  I guess I just figure that all the different concepts might be quite overwhelming if they're all packaged into one set. People may enjoy all of tiles of the same theme in one large pack though.

Basilica?

That sounds pretty good.  Does anyone know if there is some kind of rank to these buildings?  I wonder if they correspond to the Diocean rank.  When I think of a basilica, I think it sounds french (which is good) and Notre Dame comes to mind probably because of the one in Montreal.  So, would this still fit the Roman influence theme?

Mechanically, I think I like what's suggested, but I've never played LotM.  Is it very difficult to complete the two concentric rings around the tile?  Or, should we try to come up with some other pattern that is not too complex?

I've played with LotM. It's not impossible to do. It's certainly not simple either though. However, I think that it's design would work pretty well for this. For one, the reward is pretty large...if it significantly increases the value of all churches...it should be somewhat challenging to do. Secondly, my thought was that the reward would likely apply to all churches for all players. Therefore, it might be a bit easier to complete the "basilica" (if that's the name we decide on) if more than one player is attempting to complete it. I feel like the difficulty would balance itself out.

Hi,

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica) for an explanation in English for Basilica.
They can be spit in 2 kinds: 'basilica major' and 'basilica minor'. There are only 4 basilica majors, and all are in Rome: St. Peterschurch, St.John of Latheran, Santa Maria Maggiore and St. Paul outside the Walls. All other basilica are 'basilica minor'.

Ranking of the churches
1. Basilica Major
2. Cathedrals (with bishop ahead)
3. Basilica Minor
4. Other churches

I hope this helps.

My wife and I were talking about Basilica mechanics today.  I think it should probably be something that is not to be claimed like the Cathedral (without the Missionary).  It could still be completed in the same manor as Lord of the Manor, but perhaps the reward would just be the bonus points for the cloisters.  Perhaps the person who completes it could get some kind of reward.  10-15 points maybe?  Or, maybe they get the bonus for cloisters and everyone else doesn't, or they get a better bonus than everyone else.  Any thoughts?

I definitely agree that it should NOT be claimed, that was my original intent when I thought of it. I personally do not think the cloister bonuses should be exclusive to the person who completes it...as that might be a bit too powerful. However, a minimal reward might be nice. I think 10 points sounds about right. If not, maybe even a little less.

Yeah, that would make it a both more strategic and desirable to try and finish.

OK, here's what we have so far.  The Basilica stands alone on a tile.  The question is, what other features should be on the tile?  I'm thinking perhaps in the middle of a RRRR tile.  There are a couple of cloister tiles like that.  I'm not sure if it needs to be in a city or not.  If so, I would think it should be on a CCCC tile as the Cathedrals are. 

The Basilica is complete when it has two concentric rings of tiles around it just like Lord of the Manor.  The person who places the last tile gets a bonus of some kind, say 7-10 points.  Once completed, the Basilica increases the value of all completed cloisters subsequently played in the game to something like double points or slightly less, 15-18 maybe.  Of course, the cloisters would need to be completed for the bonus and if they remain incomplete at the end of the game, would score the same as usual. 

The Basilica can not be claimed by any follower, though I'm wondering if the Missionary should be able to function with it in some way.  Any thoughts?

On a seperate note, I'm very interested to hear if anyone has any ideas for the functionality of the Forum and Bath ideas proposed by Baron Von Whaley.  I have a few weak ideas, but I'm mostly interested in discussion.  Look alive people!  ;D

I would think bath tiles would be in a city, and could negate pestilence somehow, but if pestilence isn't in the expansion, that would be kind of pointless I guess. Maybe the baths and forums could work together in a city, giving a bonus when the city is scored, and would be worth nothing on their own.
Other ideas: you can only play a forum in a city you don't own. You deploy a follower on the forum, but it doesn't effect the city ownership at all. The player with a follower on the forum gets one point per tile on completion of the city, and the city gets a 5 point bonus when scored. More than one forum can be played in a city, but not by the same person.

I like that idea for the forum...it's not too bad at all. After thinking about it, a possibility for the bath...a player could place a bath in a city (it doesn't matter if they have ownership of it or not). They could deploy a follower to the bath. Upon completion of the city, the bath owner would get...say...somewhere between 3-5 points for every follower that's within the city. I think that might be kind of cool...

Ooh, great idea! I think that makes a lot of sense, and adds another scoring element to large cities with multiple players occupying it. I think that's perfect!

I agree.  I like that bath idea.  I guess that's one down!

I don't know if I've mentioned it before in this thread, but I'd really like to incorporate solazy's Colosseum tile.  I really like that one.  The follower is placed in the arena as a Gladiator.  The tile is an RRRR tile and points are scored for for every complete city that is connected to the arena by a road.  I think it's 5 each and 6 if the big follower is used.

OK this is the second of two ideas we're collaborating on in December.  A significant amount of work has been done on some of these ideas already.  Here's what we have so far:

• 12 tiles +/- (probably more + than -)
• Probably including the Roman Road and Temple expansion (more than one?)
• Possibly including JPutt's Chariot Race tiles
• Probably including solazy's Coliseum tile
• A Basilica tile(s)
• A Roman Forum tile
• A Roman Bath tile

So let's talk about it.

When you say more than one I assume you mean of the temple, cause isn't the idea of the roman road that its the one special road on the board that must be added to.  If you have 3 or 4 you would lose the advantage that mechanic can gain you I'd think.  Unless you somehow control having only one unfinished roman road at a time and the others must be put back and a tile redrawn until its finished.
----
As for some of the other ideas:

What does solazy's Coliseum do or where could I find the rules for it to look at?

I really like the idea of a Basilica that ups points of all cloisters but isn’t claimed in and of itself but just gives points for completion.

And I really like the Roman Bath idea of getting x amount of points for each follower in the city.
----
In addition I’ll throw out the idea of having several temples/statues/monuments dedicated to various roman gods that each grant a different special bonus to the owner. Like Temple of Minerva (godess of wisdom and industry) adds 2 extra points to a city for each trade good counter in it.  Or Fountain of Neptune (god of the sea and of horses) lets wagons move over a neighboring completed feature to an incomplete feature it touches ie fast horses. 

I believe there are 12 major gods all together.  That would be a lot of individual icons and blessings to remember so I don’t know how many you’d do.  They could be spread out on roads, cities, and fields to add variety to what and where they can be placed.

Perhaps the bonus only goes to the player who drew it (or they have to claim it with a meeple) until whatever feature they are on is completed and then either the bonus is gone OR the bonus is now universal, as is the roman influence on all of culture today.  And actually if you did that then maybe instead of the 12 gods (or however many you do) there is just a Fountain of Neptune, Temple of Minerva, Statue of so and so, etc.  Just 3 or 4 unique monuments to the gods that grant a bonus to the claiming player until some given condition is met (like completion of its feature) and then the bonus is universal.

Just brainstorming but theirs my two cents.

 (Hmm…maybe a variety of temples like this idea is what CKorfmann meant by his “more than one”)

I like the idea of having monuments to the various roman gods, it fits the roman theme- but would such monuments really be found in France? I'll be happy to work on some/ all of the tiles.

It was their religion.  I'd think a statue here or there honoring a this god or that is not to far fetched.  But if we want to avoid that we could do the same mechanics simply with differnent types of Roman architecture.  Aquaduct, gymnasium, arena, theater, etc.  Baths and forums could be on that list but they are already under discussion for some pretty interesting rules of their own.

Yes, that's what I meant, sorry it wasn't more clear.  Since there are two cathedral tiles and this is in essense the opposing feature, I thought there might be two of them used. 

Here's the short version since I can't find the link right now.  The tile has an arena which looks kinda like the Roman Coliseum with roads on all for sides.  When you put a follwer on it (as a gladiator) you get 5 points for every completed city at the other end of each road.  This is where road branches could be really beneficial.  If you choose to use your large follower, you get 6 points per completed city... something like that.  :-]

I forgot we did talk a little about the Aquaduct and Amphitheatre as well.  I like those ideas, but they'll take some work to figure out. 

No offense, but I'm not really feeling the statue thing in France either.  I guess I could be persuaded though if there is a concensus. 

None taken.  ;D I'm just throwing out ideas.

The tiles & rules are on BoardGameGeek here (http://boardgamegeek.com/file/info/21371). The description that comes with the tiles states:

The Amphitheater coud be used as a road based version of the Bath in the city.  The Bath idea of gaining points based on the number of followers in the city could be used on a road and travellers on the road stop for a performance at the amphitheater. There may not be as much potential there so perhaps thats a waste of a good structure, but theres a possible use.

What if the aquaduct were a feature coming off the outside of a city wall, going into a field and the city gains extra points for each farmer in the field cause they are paying the city for providing this water?

I like that idea.  With several tiles providing an opportunity for multiple players to contribute followers, it will force everyone to be more cautious with them and make them more strategic. 

Thats a pretty good idea for the aquaduct.  I was thinking of it providing water to the city, not the other way around.  I suppose that's an equal possibility.  It would be easier to do than building one from the river to the city.  Although... I just had an idea.  Maybe we could use Catan road pieces as an aquaduct from a river to a city.  The longer it is, the more points its worth. 

Road pieces could be an interesting gimmic.  So there is some water source (be it the river or a single special spring tile or whatever) and then players build the aquaduct from there to different cities.  Would you give each player their own pieces and they each build their own or have them all work on one and whoever connects it to a completed city gets the points...or maybe whoever completes a city connected to the aquaduct gets a bonus of some number of points even if they don't score for the city.  So everyone builds the aquaduct to an incomplete city and then they race to finish the city to get the bonus points.  This could be open for multiple aquaducts to go to multiple cities.  Maybe once that city is completed it can then be used as a base to build another aquaduct to a further city.

Technically this is more like you being the Romans versus just having their influence still there but I think its cool.  If this doesn't end up being used because its so different from the other ideas so far then maybe it could be another expansion of its own somehow.  Irrigation Canals or something. 

That actually sounds like a better option than trying to include it in this expansion.

I think irrigation canals sounds like another idea altogether. Personally I'd love to see some aquaducts like the walls in the solazy expansion- connecting roads and cities, maybe making both worth extra points, connecting them (trading post and wagon) and separating fields. My 2 cents.

To see if I’m on the same page as everyone at this point...by way of summary thus far this expansion is be 12 tiles (+/-).  Thus far it will include:

-Roman Road: Roads must be added to this road until it is completed
-Temple (possibly multiple…same as # of cathedrals?): Unclaimable feature, the Cult equivalent of the Cathedral
-JPutt’s Chariot Race (possibly): Betting on the races, bonus to roads nearby
-Solazy’s Coliseum: Claimable feature, gains points for completed cities connected to it
-Basilica: Unclaimed feature in a city that once completed (same way as Lord of the Manor) it gives a bonus (10pts?) to the finisher and there after grants 15-18 points to all completed cloisters (vs the normal 9).
-Roman Forum: Claimable feature, played in someone else’s city, scores 1 point per tile in the city for the owner
-Roman Bath: Claimable feature, A player could deploy a follower to the bath. Upon completion of the city, the bath owner get somewhere between 3-5 points for every follower that's within the city.
-Roman Theater: Same concept as the bath but on a road.
-Aqueduct: No sure consensus yet on how to use.

Is this about right?

Looking at that, it seems that the forum, bath and theater could all be used a couple times (only 1 coliseum though) as they are simple mechanics and not to overly powerful.  I wouldn’t want to just fill up the expansion that way though.

Concerning the aqueduct:
One aqueduct idea bouncing around would be a feature off the side of a city into a field giving water one to the other and granting extra points to the city or to the farmer, it would need to be decided.  Another is using them like solazy’s walls (was permission granted to use any of his ideas or just Coliseum?) for breaking up farms and possibly granting extra points. I think those are the ideas still being considered.

One other possible feature would be a gymnasium.  Maybe you could play a meeple on it and increase its value by 1 for the rest of the game so a normal follower would now count as 2 and the big follower could now count as 3.  Each player could 1 up 1 meeple and mark them with a token for the rest of the game.  Maybe even the mayor could get a +1 if he goes to the gym. I know there are some other expansions used to upgrade and increase meeples but I’m not familiar with their mechanics.  So maybe this has already been done.

The gymnasium sounds like an interesting idea the way you've explained it.  If we go with the list you have though, with only one Temple (excluding the aquaduct), that's 12 tiles.  I think we should go with one of everything except possibly the Temple.  What if we made it 15 tiles and included the second Temple, the Gymnasium, and another.  Perhaps an aquaduct tile if we can figure out the mechanics. 

As far as your list, I believe you've got everything correct as far as we've discussed it.

If jputt's chariot race is used we are going to be adding a lot more then just tiles to this.  It has a 2x2 tile and betting tokens and such.  I don't know if that additional material should be taken into account with this.  There was an aquaduct idea adding catan roads but thats already been voted down making chariot race the only one adding more than just a tile.


1 Roman Road
2 Temples
1 Chariot Race
1 Coliseum
1 Basilica
2 Forums
2 Baths
2 Theater

I count 12 if there are two temples, forums, baths, and theaters...and still excluding the aquaduct.  I seem to be one off from you. And thats only assuming we do 2 of all those others.  I was unsure of how final the forum rules are...maybe it could be more valuable and have just one like the coliseum. That adds one more spot if we kept it at 12.

Though right now we still have a gymnasium and an aquaduct to try and include.

But, looking at the list, all of these are single tile expansions except for Chariot Race which adds a 2x2 tile and betting tokens and such.  Though the theme is right for this expansion, I wonder if this expansion might not be to extensive to incorporate with the rest of these. I've never tried it though so I can't really say.

I'd say not having the Chariot Race since it is already its own expansion, and it would add a lot of extra stuff to have to make.

I'd also vote against having the Roman Roads and Temple for the same reason, it is already its own expansion.  Of course, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to use these if you changed the tile formations, like from FRFR to FFRR or CRFR.

So without those tiles, I'd suggest adding another Forum or two, a Bath, and a Theatre.  Also for the theatre, I'd make it worth twice as many points as the number of followers on a road, because it's very seldom that there's more than one follower on a road.

I believe these two were CKorfmann's inspiration for making this larger expansion and was based on Joff's Medieval model where they are really separate expansions with a similar theme but can be downloaded together on one nice page but then played separately as you like.  If we really follow that idea I think it would be fine to include these two.

For example I personally would probably play the Temple only if i'm playing inns and cathedrals and the cult cause it merges those two, but i may play some of these others more frequently.

If we do choose not to include road and temple maybe we could just add one more temple on a different tile formation so that a player can have 2 to use between the two expansions.  I don't think I'd do this with the Road though because the mechanic is designed around it being the one special road on the table and i don't know how you'd remedy several in play at once (unless its just a different tile arrangment and you just pick one to include in your game).

Joff also has separate rules sets for all his though I don't know if thats what CKorfmann was thinking for this.  I don't much care for 12 separate rule sets but a couple could be okay I suppose since each of these features has a unique gimmic.  Baths and theaters can certainly be on the same one. Road and Temple already have one. At this point I'm still thinking more of fleshing out the tiles then organizing the rules.

Oh and I like the idea of having the theater worth more then the bath.

Sorry for the double post...

I finally looked at Solazy's expansion after its been reference so many time here and I would just say that his Barracks and Outpost ideas could well be used to a roman theme too.  A Roman Barracks and Roman Outpost doing basically the same as what solazy suggests.  A meeple placed on the barracks or outpost count as 2 meeples on the city or road respectively.  Maybe its to similar to the gymnasium idea of increasing a meeples count but I think it could fit Roman Influence well.  Maybe these with the Gymnasium would actually be good.  All ways to up your meeples...some temporarily, some permanently.  Roman soldiers and all that. (He also has a tile that does this same thing for farmers but that one doesn't translate so well to the Roman theme.  "Roman Ranch," "Caesar's Pigsty" I don't know how to transition that one though it would be nice to have that one to)

2 of each of these might push this expansion to far in size, but I think they'd be good.   

Of course thats one more Solazy based theme along with Coliseum and possibly aquaducts if we adapt his walls as Gwommy suggested...but I think they all can fit well with the Roman idea.

Personally imagine more than one aquaduct tile (the idea being to link them up) in joining a road to a city. This could be a separate expansion altogether. Maybe this could become a series (like treasure hunt or fields) etc. that all the roman themed expansions could be kept together, while at the same time not being a flood of ideas.

I like that idea.  just use the Roman bath, forum, theatre and basilica for this expansion, and then make an additional expansion for the aquaducts, and group them on the download page under a Roman theme group, much like how the Medieval set is done.

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!  ;)

This also sounds like a separate expansion package.  I like the Ranch.  I used it for the first time today.

Yes, you understand me perfectly.  That's also why I included the Chariot Race.  My intention is also to include the 2x2 tile as 4 seperate tiles for those who don't have access to extra chip board, but do have extra tiles.  I suppose it poses the same problem for the markers and chits, but it wouldn't be terrible to use paper for those since they are not fixtures on the board.  Including all these and the Coliseum makes a total of 8 and left us 4 tiles to come up with for the theme set of 12.

However, if we go with Gwommy's idea, we could skip the Chariot Race, and add the Gymnasium to loganmann's list and we have 12.,

I'm with you there, though I agree that we'll need to deal with the rules at some point.

That's an excellent point.  We might need to revisit the mechanics of this one, but it might work as is too.

Sorry for the double post.  I played the Coliseum tile tonight for the first time and came up with one question.  What if all the roads are complete and none of them lead to a city?  This was a possibility in our game until almost the end.  What should it score then?  A fixed number perhaps... like 3?

Maybe Roman Villa? I think they were houses/ estates for the wealthy in the country- although this might be different to the 'ranch' idea?

 
When you say separate expansion package do you mean a separate part of the Roman series or a separate expansion altogether?

So as a Roman series there would be:
-Chariot Race (separate as is)
-Roman Road and Temple (separate as is though I’d still like to see a second temple to compare to the two cathedrals)
-Basilica[1], Coliseum[1], Forum[1-2], Bath[2] and Theater[2]
-Barracks[2], Outposts[2], Villa[2], gymnasium(or include this with Basilica etc)
-Aquaduct

Is that what others are thinking at this point?

Question on the Coliseum.  Do the cities have to be complete for the Gladiator to get the points and be returned or is it based purely on the road ending into a city segment?  Also, there are CRCR tiles where the road runs into the city, goes into a tunnel, comes out in the field and keeps going.  The road therefore touches but does not END in the city it passes through.  Does this city count for additional points.  So is it based on road ends? or cities touched? (and do they need to be completed cities or not)

Questions on the Gymnasium.  I saw this as a chance for every player to 1 up one follower for the rest of the game.  I envisioned this as affecting normal, big and possibly mayor meeples.  Giving them an extra count as followers for the rest of the game (ie normal counts as 2, big counts as 3 and mayor has a count of 1 as a bast).  I've just recently become familiar with the meeple upgrade expansion that is being worked on and realized that this is not all that different.  The Meeple Upgrade grants .5 upgrades to those same three meeples but then additionally adds special characteristics to builders, pigs, wagons and farms as well.  Should these ideas be incorporated...where Meeple upgrade is the mechanic and gymnasium is the trigger that lets you play it?  I'm fine keeping them separate or voting not to use the gymnasium, but i did realize they are much the same.  Thoughts?

Also on the gymnasium...should players have the option of playing a follower on the gymnasium to increase him but they don't get him back until the gymnasium is completeed (surrounded like a cloister or at least the four sides finished or something).  No points are scored but then they get there extra strong meeple figure for teh rest of the game. That way its not just a bonus for everyone and people have to decide if its worth it to them.

PS Sorry for the long double post

Here are some prototype aquaucts to show my idea in more detail:

(http://i585.photobucket.com/albums/ss294/meepleater/aquaduct3.jpg)
(http://i585.photobucket.com/albums/ss294/meepleater/aquaduct2.jpg)

EDIT: If this idea gains support, I might start a new thread for these (with loganmann1's permission, after all, an aquaduct was his idea.)

Aquaduct is all yours.  I think it came up before me anyhow. :)

I thought you were the first person to mention it in this thread. (If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me if you actually created it.)

just out of curiosity, how many tiles do you envision with this

Maybe 12. Any less and connecting features with aquaducts would become far too difficult.

It is my understanding that the city must be complete in order to score for the Gladiator. 

As for the aquaducts, how do you avoid someone playing a different tile where an aquaduct is supposed to go?  What if you draw a center section before you draw the one leaving the city?  I'm concerned about forced tile placement.  What are you thinking about in terms of scoring?

Say the / represemts the aquaduct, an X represents areas without tiles, while th / in the bottom left repsresents where the aquaduct is aiming for.

XX/
XXX
/XX

The easiset way to connect them would be

XX/
X/X
/XX

But if the centre one was taken,

XX/
X-X
/XX

It would still be possible to connect them if you get enough aquaducts;

/\/
\-X
/XX

So it should be possible to have them re-route.

If you draw one of the centre sections first, it would be possible to place it nearby one of your cities or roads. Maybe there should be more than 12 tiles in this expansion. There could also be a rule allowing you to rotate a tile showing an aquaduct (as long as the tile still matches the adjacent tiles in terms of C-C, R-R etc.)

Whose to say I didn't just rotate it cause I wanted my farm to connect to something else better?  Was that a second function of the aquaduct, to blcok farms.

hmm... good point.

Mabe in order to rotate the tile you need a majority of followers in either feature connecting to the aquaduct. And when an aquaduct is complete, no more rotation.

I've had a quick read of the rules & have noticed a couple of things:

• On page 2 there are two different spellings of theatre (the heading uses the American 'theater', while the rest uses the British 'theatre'). I could be wrong, but from what I've seen in other variants I believe the British spelling is used?
• Also, I'm not sure which spelling of colosseum should be used - according to the dictionaries I have there are two different spellings ('colosseum' and 'coliseum'). I grew up with the former spelling, and the one in Rome is 'The Colosseum', however I haven't been able to determine whether the latter is an American version of the spelling, a difference between singular and plural, or something else.

Oh, and one small thing I've just noticed - my username is 'djdahmer' not 'djdahamer' ;)

Thanks djdahmer...updated

Roman Influence:
http://www.mediafire.com/?4jnldqwojm2 (http://www.mediafire.com/?4jnldqwojm2)

Roman Soldier:
http://www.mediafire.com/?zaxiutwzoxm (http://www.mediafire.com/?zaxiutwzoxm)

These are still totally open to rule changes/edits/combination/separation etc...

Does someone want to take on the challenge of tile design?  Solazy's tiles are good inspiration for those based on it.  I'm not to good at graphics personally.  I can send a word doc of these rule sets to whoever would like to do graphics and you can insert whatever you feel you'd want to by way of clarification or examples of scoring.

EDIT: Switched links from .pdf's to .doc files.  

I'll be out of the country for most of the rest of the month and doubt I'll be able to really do much more for this.  Please believe I am not offended by a total overhaul of these proposed rules I put up.  I won't have a chance to even attempt graphics so if somebody wants to take that on please do.  I feel the rules could benefit from some graphic examples as well.

(Sorry for the double post)

I'm afraid I'm won't be able to contribute any more for several days as I'm at work and unable to open the files.  I am able to discuss it though.

Is this a separate expansion?

I don't think so.  It sounds like some of the ideas we were talking about, but not all of them.

Where else were we talking about aquaducts.  The new bridge pieces look like they'd work great for that.  You could get a second set and paint them grey maybe.

Has there been any more progress on these ideas lately? I'm thinking of ditching aquaducts as I don't think that they would work very well... someone else can feel free to take the idea...

A couple more suggestions for roman tiles if anyone is interested:
*A rostra (speaker's platform)... maybe on a road or city tile, the idea being that maybe this could be claimed, and somehow could 'win over' another follower (like the seduction token), maybe if this was in a city it might be too powerful...
*A tabularium, where records were kept, not sure about mechanics, maybe the person who owns this could sacrifice some points to draw 2 tiles and choose the one they want?

Haven't thought about it for a while.  I'm thinking we had the tiles pretty well set though.  You can run with it if you want.

I think we'd better wait until the others a finished... they were just suggestions if one of the expansions needed any more tiles...

Wow its been a while since I have posted here.  This seems like as good a place as any to start posting.

I don't have any recollection as to why I separated these ideas into two instruction sheets before.  I've put them on one and though it does look like a lot its all there.

http://www.mediafire.com/?v14vdviz023dvr6 EDIT: Dead Link...see more updated files below.

This is still as it was in the others above, just combined.  I think the next step still stands as needing graphics for our 15 tiles and decide if we do want something to designate the Legionnaire tokens or just leave it as whatever the player wants to use (which is what the footnote says now).

On that note...having reviewed these after a 9 month hiatus...I think these ideas are still all really good, but I do have one issue.  Ironically it is with the Colesium which was one of the inspirations that started this whole expansion.  That issue is that with only one tile in the bag it is totally random chance who even gets a chance to take this bonus possibility.  Obvioulsy only one person ever gets the benefit of a single tile, but we have the Basilica and gymnasium that everyone can benefit from (some more then others, but still everyone) but the colesium is one person's luck of the draw.  Is there any way we could adapt this to allow competition for control of the colesium? Like everyone bids meeples from their supply (starting with person to drawers left and going around with the drawer bidding last) and whoever has the most gets it but all the meeples are stuck there until its completed...the idea being the person who sent the most gladiators to the fight wins the day?  I don't know, thats just one idea, but i feel this tile stands so independently it is just a lucky draw and doestn't quite fit how some of our other mechanics work in this expansion.

That said, who's good at graphics?

Sorry for the double post...

I realized that there is a tile idea here that thematically doesn't fit the Roman theme.  The Basilica is very christian and even benefits the christian cloisters.  The fan made roman temple was designed to work with cult places.  Shouldn't a roman basilica (or equivalent) benefit cult places?

I really like the feature and what it does but perhaps the Basilica idea should be made into a separate expansion to benefit cloisters (which may or may not have other items added to it) and a more roman themed equivalent that affects cults should be made for this expansion.

I might argue that it fits the theme better than the temple does.  I guess I could be wrong though.  I do see your point.  Not sure what to do about it.

Is this expansion complete then, and ready for Public Downloads?

No, there are no graphics finalized.  I'm attempting to do some, we'll see how it goes.  But if anyone with some better skills wants to work on them thats great too.

I don't think there are any tiles for this yet.

From Modern Marvels:

Maybe we should incorperate this.

Is there a tile already in this expansion you would add this mechanic too or were you thinking of adding new tiles?  (rostras, tabulariums and aquaducts have all been thrown out there with no sure mechanics)

I am in no way opposed by adding to this expansion, since it isn't finalized.  Actually, we modelled this around a 15 tile sheet but that never took into account some sort of token of each color to be the Legionaire token.  So really we are already over the 15 tile sheet with those.  Perhaps we could make it two sheets of tiles/tokens and fill in just a bit more. 

I was actually thinking of another tile like unto the gymnasium only instead of gaining a legionaire tile that counts as +1 for majority it would be some sort of univeristy or academy and scholar/philosopher tokens would be awarded and each time that meeple scores points for any feature, they get a bonus +3 (or something) making that meeple specifically more valuable (and a target for others to try and trap/eat with the dragon/capture with the tower).  That would be one more tile plus another 6 tokens.

If it were two sheets we could also have a basilica AND another structure that is equivalent for cult places.  Aonther thought is including a second Roman Temple purely to provide two and match the cathedrals.

Maybe we could incorporate it into the forum. 

So you would have to play a senator to the forum?  

It seems like being forced to play a follower on something a person has a likely chance of choosing to play on anyway (to get the points) isn't that great of an impact for a mechanic that would affect such a basic rule as placement.  Not that I have another idea, but i guess i just don't see it having great impact on the forum.  But if thats what people want i'm not opposed.

What about every player having to place a meeple on the basilica until its completed...we must all show our commitment to building that highest place of worship.  Of course if we end up with a cloister and a cult based basilica that could be 2 tiles per player committed, but maybe that could be part of the sacrifice to gain the benefits.

Sorry for the double post...I finally finished some possible graphics (if people are okay with them) and updated the rule set accordingly.  I did make a couple of additions to the expansion I'd like people to look at and consider if they are any good or worth keeping.  

First, in answer to a previous question discussed about the Basilica supporting cloisters or cult places, I made two tiles, one that supports each. I've tentatively called the cult supporting version of the Basilica the Sanctuary (I was thinking Pagan Sanctuary originally) until someone comes up with a better name.  

I also added a Roman School, which I just recently proposed that works like a gymnasium but instead of increasing the majority count for a meeple, rewards that meeple 3 bonus points any time they score a feature.  Maybe that needs to be changed/removed, let me know.  I liked it and it fit when I did the tile sheets.  

Thirdly I had a space so I put in a second temple (exactly the same as Roman Road and Temple) purely to match the cathedrals in number.  

The graphics are not original but come from the Ancient Rome 3D project.  The project is a digital recreation of ancient rome done by Virginia Tech and you can actually view and tour it through Google Earth.  Its pretty cool.  Some buildings I used are exactly what we said they are, some I just pulled that seemed to fit.  Maybe these are not what anyone else envisioned but they are my best shot.  If people are okay with the visuals but would like to see other tile arragnements or other game elements I can try and adjust them.  

Rules: http://www.mediafire.com/?2yb9767l8274nyb (http://www.mediafire.com/?2yb9767l8274nyb)
Tiles Page 1: http://www.mediafire.com/?dsz8mpzjygsvynt (http://www.mediafire.com/?dsz8mpzjygsvynt)
Tiles Page 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?r3q291qb1l6xjsk (http://www.mediafire.com/?r3q291qb1l6xjsk)

BlueDogs!  At least that's what I think was my keyword.  Apparently I've lost my FTP access to the site again, so I can't upload anything until Gantry sets that up again  (OK, I lied about the "anything" part - I can still upload small graphics files, but that's about it)

These look fine and you made them well, but I think I prefer the art to match as much as possible.  I can't even begin to do it though. 

I prefer them to match too but don't have those skills.  Like I said, this is just my best shot, if someone can make it match more please do.

My 2 cents...  remove Barracks, Outposts, and Villas for a seperate expansion.  Remove Gymnasium and School and include Roman Road and 2 temples.  This makes the tile count an even 12.

Did we want to include those original roman tiles...at one point the discussion in this thread went both ways on it and eventually seemed to settle on not including them...its easy to do though and I'm game to switch it over.  That was just my recollection of the previous discussion.  I'm happy to change it though when I get to my computer where that is saved.

Or better yet, lets get a whole new sheet with some more consistent graphics!

A Note:  By making these changes we are left with half the expansion being the forum, bath and theater.  While they aren't bad mechanics in and of themselves i don't know how impactful or meaningful they really are.  In certain situations they are certainly beneficial options, but I see that being the exception more then the rule.  I think coliseum, basilica and sanctuary have good solid mechanics.

Maybe the graphics from solazy's stone circles could be used for sanctuary?  More pagan then roman but it fits the original cult theme nicely.