Carcassonne Central

Alright, I've decided that my own expansion is too complex for me to make. I purchased Carcassonne: New World two months ago and found certain aspects of the scenario quite enjoyable, including, oddly, the fact that you can only really build one direction. This then gave me a great idea on two concepts I had thought about for a while regarding Carcassonne: the reconquest (which is why Carcassonne existed in the first place) and asobrains version called Toulouse, which is another reconquista city. New World finally cemented the idea together for me, and thus I present The Reconquest of Gaul expansion/spin-off/mix.

The basic premise is that the three cities from the New World scoreboard/shoreline would be replaced with Narbonne (Jamestown), Carcassonne (New York), and Toulouse (Plymouth). The scoreboard and shoreline would have to be redone to fit the normal Carcassonne theme. That is where I failed. I was able to get most of the tile spaces done, but I couldn't rework the Carc scoreboard to make it long and narrow as opposed to short and fat. I've provided links for the files I've been using below, including my partially finished scoreboard/shoreline. Basically, I'd like the style to remain the same as what I've got (the city names and reconquest dates), just done more smoothly and completely. The area under the scoreboard should either be city (to be generic) or fields with roads that just go to the edge of the board. Make sure the roads do end on the shoreline side, though, so that people can actually finish roads. The region beside Narbonne should be coastline, using ocean tiles or something, to match the geographic region (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=narbonne,+france&sll=48.312885,-116.471901&sspn=0.124669,0.307961&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Narbonne,+Aude,+Languedoc,+France&ll=43.305194,2.197266&spn=1.091298,2.463684&z=9).

I will continue to work on the rules to make them mesh with normal Carcassonne while retaining elements of New World. What I've already decided is that Surveyors will be replaced by Colonists, while the Settlers will return to being followers (Knights, Monks, Robbers, Farmers, etc.). Farmers from the base game will be allowed to stay behind after the Colonists move past them; there will be no Trappers. Basically, instead of settling the New World, this scenario reconquers the old world of southern France and northern Spain. The bonus will be that many of the various official and fan expansions for Carcassonne will be compatible.

If anyone with some photoshopping expertise beyond mine can help, I would very much appreciate it. Even if you can only do the scoreboard (which must span the length of the board), that will help significantly. Thanks!

Files:
New World board (top (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/newworldboard1.jpg) / bottom (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/newworldboard2.pdf)) (in JPG and PDF, respectively)
Scoreboard draft (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/scoreboard.psd) (in PSD)
Carcassonne Scoreboard (in JPG) (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/CarcBoard.jpg)
Base game tile sets ( 1 (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/pic65772.jpg) | 2 (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/pic64674.jpg) | 3 (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/pic65773.jpg) ) (in JPG)

I can't seem to get the PSD to download correctly.

The link works for me. I'm not sure what I can do to correct it.

I'm not sure either.  The link works, but it won't let me open it.  It is a Paint Shop Pro file, yes?  Maybe my version of PSP is too old?

Nope, it's always Photoshop for me. I've got a Mac so most of those other programs don't work. Sorry if I didn't point that out earlier. Anyway, I've decided to drop the idea of integrating the scoreboard and just focus on making the starting board. It is in two pieces, 22.5 cm x 18.0 cm each, and is meant to be placed atop (perhaps with rubber bands?) the board that comes with New World. I haven't yet begun the bottom half, but I have completed the top half. The best thing about foregoing adding a customized scoreboard: more historical information! Or at least geographical. That's right, I'm trying to make Carcassonne more educational. I'm evil. Muahaha!

Wow, Whaley, that's nice.  too bad the pigtile has a different shade of green.  If you're using PS, you might want to play around with the colour balance and shift the greens to "more yellow" on that tile to match the rest of the tiles.

I'll try that. I did that with some of the river tiles, but for some reason nothing really worked. I wish RGG and HiG would stay more consistent with tile colors. My actual GQ11 is that color too. So is my Spielbox Cult expansion.

Wahoo! I am on a roll today. I was able to mostly correct the rudely turquoise pig farm from the first image I posted, and I successfully completed the second. That means the starting board is done!!! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Here is a nice side-by-side sample of them. The first image goes on the top portion of the New World starting board, while the second goes at the bottom. Oh, and I apologize but they are both rather large images (right-click View Image if you want the full sized versions).


Now my task list is (1) make sure the images are perfectly to scale, which they should be, (2) create the 4 Crusader tiles I am adding, and (3) write up the rules for this.

The Crusader Tiles are just little bonuses to keep the game moving and interesting. Unlike New World, these tiles get mixed in with the rest of the set and can pop up at any time. They are normal tiles, but carry an effect with them: they automatically move the Crusader without completing any feature (the normal way they are moved). Thus, the Crusader will spontaneously move four times in this game.

Also, this spin-off/expansion requires at least Inns & Cathedrals to play in order to bring the tile count up to what it needs to be. New World comes with 95 tiles while Carcassonne only comes with 71 playable tiles. I&C will bring that total up to 89 plus my 4 tiles will bring that up to 93. I recommend playing this expansion with Siege (and Cults) as well, to make things interesting and bring the tile total up closer to 100, which is ideal.

That's the concept. I'll get the rules out by tomorrow, hopefully, and then this expansion can get wrapped up.

Note: If the image above still has the dark green tile, I don't know why. My computer does not show it and I made sure to upload the correct one. It must just be being dumb. Ugh.

Nice beach and ocean there Whaley!

I believe I have you to thank for that specific aspect of this expansion. Indeed, it is the only fan element I included, the remainder deriving from official Carc tiles. I will be sure to cite you in my acknowledgements. I hope you don't have any problem implementing them into my expansion; they just looked so crisp and good and I figured we may as well try to stay consistent on this site.  :)

Alright, it looks like this small package is done! I still need to print out the tiles to test the size, but they are measured correctly on Photoshop so they should work just fine (4.5 cm per side of a tile). Here are the files and the rules for your playing enjoyment. If you liked New World, this should be a fun alternative!

Rules (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/gaulrules.pdf) (in PDF)
Starting Board Top (Toulouse) (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/gaul1.jpg) (in JPG)
Starting Board Bottom (Carcassonne & Narbonne) (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/gaul2.jpg) (in JPG)
Battlefield Tiles (formerly Crusader tiles) (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/battlefieldtiles.jpg) (in JPG)

Note: This expansion should be played with at least one other expansion. I recommend playing with Inns & Cathedrals and The Siege. The Surveyors from New World are the suggested pieces to use as the Crusaders, but pretty much any two pieces can be used.

Any edits or corrections are most welcome. I'm not calling this officially done until I get at least two critiques, edits and/or suggestions.

Wow, good work with the pig tiles Whaley!  The look better than the original mismatched green.

No I love it.  I put a lot of work into the look of those tiles so if it becomes the standard Ocean for this site then I can take it as a compliment. 

Good to hear! I like the oceans too. It differentiates from the river, unlike the older ocean expansion.

Okay, so I have finally finished the expansion, I believe. No one has posted edits yet, so I will still be happy to include them. I had a number of problems with the old rules draft so I have uploaded a new one. Also, I have consolidated the two starting boards and the battlefield tiles into one compressed pdf to make the file size more manageable and the parts more accessible. I have successfully printed out and tested the two scoreboards and they are about 95% correct. About half the roads are 1 or 2 mm off but other than that it all works together very well with the regular tiles. Just remember to print at 100%, otherwise it won't work. Also, I'd recommend attaching, probably with some weak tape, the starting board to the back of your New World scoreboard. They are identical in size and I designed the expansion to be used this way. Cardboard is the next best alternative.

Carcassonne - The Reconquest of Gaul
Rules (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/gaulrules.pdf)
Components (http://www.worldofcatan.com/downloads/gaulcomponents.pdf) (starting board pieces and battlefield tiles)

(Note: All previous links above are dead now. I replaced the entire series with the two in this post.)

Here goes, keep in mind that I've never seen the mechanics for the New World rules, so I have more questions than usual.

==Page 2
-The blue background is missing.

==Preperation
"Place the game board on one side of the table"
-?-Does this mean on the edge of the table so that tiles can basically only be placed on one side of the starting tile?

"Place the two Crusaders on any two of the starting spaces on the game board."
-?-I assume that the the starting places are the three cities that are labeled?

==Battlefield (example)
"After the scoring phase, one Crusader is moved regardless of if a player scored points. If a player did score points, both Crusaders are moved"
-?-Where are the Crusaders moved to?

==Starting Board
"Followers may not be placed due to a magic portal, followers from the City of Carcassonne, or any other special tile or mechanic that allows a follower to be placed on a different tile than the one just placed."
-?-This sentence doesn't make sense the way it is, but if you deleted "followers from the City of Carcassonne," then it's fine.
-?-If you score a feature that connects to the starting tile, does this mean that you can't move a follower from the CoC to that scoring feature?

"The fairy and the dragon, from The Princess & the Dragon cannot be placed on the starting board."
-I'm not sure, but there should either be a comma after "Dragon", or "from The Princess & Dragon" should be in parenthesis.

==The Crusaders: Their Bonuses and the Limits they Impose
-"They" can be capitolized.

"the player whose turn it is moves one Crusader one row to the south (away from the starting cities)."
-?-Wouldn't a Crusader starting in Toulouse that is moved south eventually put that crusader in Carcassonne?
-?-Or you could add a compass to the map so that players know which way south is no matter where they place the starting boards.

"It matters not which tile the player places the Crusader on as long as it is in the correct row."
-?-When you say "it", do you mean the tile or the Crusader?
-?-How do you know which row is the correct row?  Sorry, I'm just really confused.

==Removing Fallen-Behind Followers
"A player may place a follower on a justplaced tile in colums “west” of the Crusaders,"
-"Colums" should be "columns"
-"justplaced" should be two words.  It shows up hyphenated on the PDF, but copied as one word when I pasted it here.

==Final Scoring
"As per usual, pigs, barns, and the pig farm add an additional point per adjacent city."
-?-Barns add an additional point per adjadent city?  Doesn't the barn usually  score 4 points per adjacent city at the end of the game?

==Carcassonne Central Logo
-Should be lined up at the bottom of the last page.

Thanks for the edits Gwommy. I didn't even realize I had any until I was going to post my final draft. It was a pleasant surprise. Oddly, most of your edits were actually corrections from the original wording of the game (New World). It was a very poorly written set of rules with more left unanswered than answered. I tried to address all of your concerns and suggestions, as well as corrected some of my own mistakes such as the reference to "west" and the fact that I never say what the directions are on the board. In fact, I need to correct that on my actual starting board, too, by realigning the text east-west on the board, rather than the current north-south alignment that New World has. My board represents the "north", and you go and conquer, settle, missionize, and rob the roads of the "south". I think I made that a little more clear now.

Here (http://www.whaleyland.com/downloads/gaulrules.pdf) is my new rules draft. I hope it is more acceptable. I tried to make the rules feel more like an expansion while still explaining elements foreign to the base game. Perhaps it was a poor attempt, but if you know New World, it probably is easier to understand. Either way, thank you for the suggestions and I hope you find time to try it out sometime!

Your North to South explaination helps a little, but after looking at the map, I understand much better now.  My French geography is a little shaky.  I couldn't figure out why you had the arrow point to Paris facing east with the Med. at the south.  I get it now.  I know Carcassonne is in the south-east also, so I was really confused.  One question though, if you meant for the board to be played in a north-south fasion, why didn't you orient it that why by rotating all the text 90 degrees?

It was decided post-map creation. I will re-orient before posting it as the final edition to make things more clear.

Alright, here is version 0.7 of the rules and components board. As noted and requested, the words on the board have now been oriented in a north-south direction to avoid confusion. Place the board at the "top" of your playing area and work downward ("south") as you place tiles. I also added a 50% opaque line behind the first row of tiles so people can see the additional city pieces beyond the first row (they do count in scoring).

Rules (http://www.whaleyland.com/downloads/gaulrules.pdf) / Components (http://www.whaleyland.com/downloads/gaulcomponents.pdf)

I'm new to the site and to all of this home-made expansion making.  I just recently tried making some of your expansions from this site and was looking around to see which one I might try next when I saw this one your putting together.  I had a question about moving Crusaders "South."  Is this always done in a direct line from wherever they started or if there is a more southward tile say 5 tiles to the "west" do they jump over as well as down when they move?  It just says the go to the next line south. I guess the bonus is based on being on the same line as the crusaders, not the same tile, so that probably doesn't matter, but it would matter for keeping your followers from getting left behind behind the crusaders.  Maybe this is in there and I just missed it.

I'm pretty sure it is there since I copied large parts of these rules from the New World spin-off game. But no, it doesn't matter where the Crusaders move south to, as long as it is one row south of their current position. In many cases, there will be no tile directly south of them so they will have to move about the board some. Since Novelty hasn't added this to the download database yet, I'll try to update the rules and make that a bit more clear. Thanks for the suggestion!

Okay, I see it now.  It is in there, I just passed over it I guess.

Novelty, could you post this expansion on the Downloads page? I just realized that it never made its way onto that list. Thanks!

Which version is the latest?  I'm sorry if I'm a bit confused.  I'm still trying to juggle way too many balls...

I just realized that this STILL is not on the download page. Sorry for taking so long to reply to your last post. Current version is like 0.7 but I think that's the final for now.

Rules (http://www.whaleyland.com/downloads/gaulrules.pdf) / Components (http://www.whaleyland.com/downloads/gaulcomponents.pdf)

I believe Blue dogs is Novelty's keyword to mark all the expansions that need to be uploaded once he can.  So hopefully now he'll get this one on the list.

Great work on this by the way Whaleyland.  I'm a big fan of Carc but had decided sometime prior to stick to the original game and its official and fan made expansions and not let myself get sucked into getting every spin off. (Not that they aren't intriguing) So its nice to get a chance to try some of their unique mechanics like this.

I made this a while ago but still haven't acutally tried it.  I need to correct that! :)

Thanks for the line to tell Novelty. Hey Nov: BLUE DOGS!!! And I'm glad you like the concept. Indeed, with all the custom expansions out there, I sometimes like just adapting official spin-offs into Carc expansions. Indeed, adapting Ark of the Covenant was also a plan but I don't think anyone has done that yet. It would mostly just be the Temple and the Ark that would need to get adapted since people have already adapted the cottages in the fields (sheep and wolves in AotC). Hunters & Gatherers too has been mostly adapted, but I would love to see some mechanic that would bring bonus tiles into play. I planned to include that in my Relics expansion but never got past the planning stage.

  ;D

One downside to not knowing the other spinoffs is that not knowing the mechanics means I can't help with adaptations.  But I do enjoy seeing them.  I've read up on some.  It generally seems that AoC and H&G get the most applause from cc members (not that others don't have their fans too) so I've almost given in a time or two and gotten them.  But if I hold out long enough someone will bring them to me. :)