Carcassonne Central

I've been playing carc with all the expansions lately (except for the elusive 'cathars' expansion).  I've noticed that sometimes as the tiles get placed, they end up on the edge of the table and we can't continue in the direction that we would probably prefer b/c there is no more room to place the tiles.  What normally happens is that we  start laying tiles on other areas of the board where there is room, but that isn't a best solution (but it does 'work').  We have a 48" round table so one would think that that would be enough space.  Am i the only one with this problem, or am i anal, or do i need to go out and spend $2,000 on a new kitchen table so i can play carcassonne?  can you lay something underneath the tiles so that you can move the whole 'board' when it gets to the edge of the table?  give me some feedback.

raberjr

We play striktly by the rule that the table is the border - and you've got to plan for that. Beyond the table lies "The Void" and you can't place a tile there ;)

We play on the floor - no space problems there ;D

If we do play on a table, though, the edge is most definitely 'void'.

If the tile can balance on its own, its fair play, if not, sorry!

We just move all the tiles the other way to free up space at the edge. Usually not too much of a problem, although it can get a bit hairy if we are playing with a lot of expansions. Also, this happened once when playing Carc: The City after the walls were started, and that made a bit of a mess, but we sorted it out.

Youre not suppossed to movethe tiles after initial placement albie.

Using the edge of the table can be a good thing sometimes, especially when a player is trying to build a city and you place a tile that akes it impossible to complete because of the table edge  ;D Evil I know.

I don't have enough expansions yet for this really to be a problem (and we have a biggish table)- I think once we did move the tiles when we got close to a table edge.  A far as I can tell there are no explicit rules about this particular issue.

If after playing the river we have got closish to an edge we often centre it up a bit to reduce the chances of any table edge issues.

Why not? Is there a rule on that that I am missing somewhere? We aren't moving some tiles while leaving others in place; we are doing a complete shift of every tile on the table, so everything is still in its same location relative to the other tiles. Depending on whose house we are playing at, the table is a different size; this way, we don't have to shift our planning and/or strategy based on table size.

In an attempt to prevent having to move tons of tiles later in the game, after the river is placed (we always use River and River II) we attempt to guess the most likely direction of growth and move the river tiles accordingly so everything is centered more or less. This doesn't always prevent later tile shifts (sometimes, the tiles grow in an unexpected direction) but it works well enough.

Im sure (although I could be wrong  ;) ) that there is a ruling that states once the tile has been placed it cannot be moved. I cant find it at the moment so if anyone else can asisst in resolving this rule clarification ?

I'm not sure there's an official ruling on this. I can't find anything in the FAQ or the rules. But I do remember reading something, somewhere. Maybe a thread on BGG? Anyway, it isn't likely to be an FAQ. What would it look like?

Q: What happens when you reach the edge of the playing field?
A: You stop!

I'd be inclined to say you should stop, rather than move the tiles. Seems fairer to me. But without anything official on the subject, just make sure everyone agrees.

Yes I have read something somewhere too but for the life of me cant remember where. ???

We allow the river to be moved to place it in the center of the table, but once that's done the tiles stay put.

there's something about the rule, 'stop at the edge of the table' that i'm not quite comfortable with.  it seems like elements outside the game (i.e.  table size) are dictating the game.   also, add the fact that you could have an opponent purposefully trying to 'push you to the edge' (literally) so that you can't finish your city...that doesn't seem right either (I understand it could be strategic but it uses strategy that is outside the normal gameplay). 

i was wondering if anyone ever put a piece of paper under the tiles and then moved the tiles to 're-center' once the direction of the board was determined?  it would seem like if you reach the edge of the table after re-centering the tiles, then you are out of luck!

someone mentioned shifting all the tiles during the game.  that seems like a whole lot of work to me and almost impossible to keep it all straight...especially when the the board has 'gaps' all over.  i might try that though.

is there a 'tile mat' in the works that would allow for the placement of tiles on a board/mat (Kinda like the 'Blokus' board) but then it would also allow you to move the whole board to 're-center' when necessary.  i know, it ain't gonna happen and I'm making a mountain out of a molehill.  hey, someone has made their own tiles....why can't someone make their own gameboard?

raberjr.

BoardGameGeek used to have a downloadable grid for H&G on the site. Might still be there. It was just a Word document that was a table. You printed off a few sheets and stuck it together. Not clever. not fancy, but would do what you are after.

Personally I have no problem with the table being the 'edge of the world', it's what the rules state so good enough for me. We do the same as Tobias with the River, but then everything stays in place.

Yeah, and not to mention the fact that if I were a Meeple, and some giant hand suddenly moved my city or farm, I would be terrified, probably a bit miffed, and certainly less inclined to continue playing... >:(

The table being the edge of the known Carcassonne universe sounded like a reasonable suggestion to me as well when I first read the rules, but after a few games of mega-carc, using all the expansions, it stopped feeling like it's universally a good idea.

It's quite easy to ruin someones features after a while, u can't necessarily predict which way the playing field will grow, and also it adds the table as a strategic element you have to keep track of. I don't really feel like the table has much to do with the game I'm currently playing.

Also, no matter what group I've been playing with, if I wanted to actually enforce this rule I'd have gone against a large majority of the public opinion. Most people I've played with seem to naturally feel like the table shape/size has little to do with the actual game,  but rather feel like moving the tiles is the way to go.

There's a lot of different configurations where one tile is just a few millimeters over the edge, does that count? Or is the hard limit when the tile can't balance on it's own. If you're allowed a few millimeters, who's the judge of what too much and what's not?

I feel like the game shouldn't suffer because you're using a smaller table or most of the interesting building takes place on one side. On the other hand if people aren't really keen on moving all the tiles I can understand using the rule for pragmatic reasons alone. Moving a huge mega-carc board towards the end is quite fiddly.

Guys a response on this from the main people themselves.

"The rule means, you cannot remove already placed tiles from the 'board' to chance the game situation.
You may move the whole 'board' (if possible) and at the end of the game you are allowed, to take the tiles an put them back into the box.

Viel Spaß beim Spielen,
Georg Wild"

So no individual tile movement, as normal, but you can move the whole board if possible !!! Wow now that puts a whole new dimension to the game.

buy a piece of plywood to put ontop of the table to make it bigger

I'm not really surprised at the ruling, so here's a heffalump:  {hl

 {dh  Thats funny Gantry