Carcassonne Central

I'm rather amazed this topic has yet to be created. Since the forums went down on Jan. 6th, not one but TWO expansions have been announced by Hans im Glück (neither of them our CarcassonneCentral Expansion, unfortunately). They are:

Carcassonne: Bridges, Castles & Bazaars (Expansion 8 )
Carcassonne: Crop Circles

BC&C released in Germany back in January while it just released to the English-speaking world three days ago (May 19th). It's still rather hard to find at local stores but is available on many board game websites. The gist of the expansion is that bridges are wooden pieces that allow roads to skip over tiles by "bridging" over them, then continuing the road further down the vertical or horizontal line (multiple bridges can be linked in a row). Castles can be placed on top of 4-point cities (2-segment cities) and, I believe, provide further points for farms and a second way to collect points for knights...not entirely sure about this one. Bazaars are just strange and you'll have to read the rules yourself (or wait for someone else to explain them).

Crop Circles is a German promotional expansion that comes in all current boxes of Carcassonne (in Germany). The English-language release is scheduled for the Fall in a tandem expansion with last years' Tunnels mini expansion. Don't expect two extra Creativity tiles in this expansion because the Tunnels have tokens that will take up two tiles' worth of spots on the printer. The premise of this 6-tile expansion is simple: there are three pairs of tiles with symbols on them which correlate to a type of feature on a tile (road, farm, city). When a player places the tiles, they can claim a feature on it as per usual. They then may place a second follower on a feature on any tile matching the symbol on the Crop Circle OR remove a follower from a feature matching the Crop Circle. Fairly simple, actually.

So now that we have our glorious forums back up, discuss these two excellent expansions. Will BC&C be the next Inns & Cathedrals or the next Catapult? Will Crop Circles rival the River for dominance of the small expansion market or prove to be just another Count? Discuss!

Bizarre thing is that I frequently check in the store for new expansions, and haven't seen anything. Will have to go on a carc hunt, I suppose...

Oh, and then there's that CAR thingy ;-)

It´s great to have the forums working.

Regarding BC&C will wait for somebody to buy it and try it, because dont feeling very possitive about it (lots of fan made expansions are much better) bazaar art is terrible and the bridges just worse. I´m afraid we have another catapult. Thou the castle idea seems pretty interesting.

Some of the mechanics are interesting, but on the whole, I'm not hopeful.  I will reserve judgement though. 

Hmm... do you have a link to that announcement?

I emailed Jay a few months back and he replied regarding Crop Circles:


No official press release yet but, knowing RGG, there probably won't be one.

Overall, I like the 8th expansion "Burgen, Brücken und Basare".
In particular I like the bridges. Although they don't look very shiny at first, they blend in after a while. I like the possibility to expand fields, and furthermore the fact that you can place a follower on top of it.
Next, the Forts. I like the idea, but when playing with only a few expansions, "Fort chains" form rapidly. The disadvantage is the vagueness about the removal of followers when playing with the Towers or Dragon (although I just read that the Finish version defines this matter clearer).
Finally, the Bazaars. They are a disaster, after playing two Bazaars we all said, ** them, let's just use them as normal tiles. I cannot imagine the creators of this expansion tested it very thoroughly (just enough to provide an alternative for playing these tiles).

Some other points: I don't like the artwork of the Bazaars that much. I mean, the people are as tall as the houses? And every bazaar is the same, even in the city they have a yellowish patch of earth around them? I do like the use of Inns along some of the roads.

As for Kornkreise, I haven't played it yet because I don't own the expansion yet ;D. I considered to buy a new Carcassonne Basic game with the 6 new tiles included, but it would cost just too much with the shippingcosts. I think I will either wait for the HiG mini-expansion or for the RG one, although I already own the Tunnel expansion.

Looks like I'll have a double-set of tunnel tiles...

Scott - I'm going to guess the watermarks will be different.

My guess is that the Wheat stalk icon from the Crop Circles expansion will probably become the symbol for both sets of tiles. Just my hunch, but I doubt RGG would go out of its way to create a new watermark, although they may just skip it entirely like in CS&C.

New expansion Carcassonne : La Porxada

According to the info on BGG this is an unofficial expansion. The rules sheet looks quite official though and there's even a picture in the galery with a tile signed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/736840/carcassonne-la-porxada (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/736840/carcassonne-la-porxada)

How very odd. If it was officially released as a participation award at a games fair, doesn't that make it at least a little official? I'd assume so. Like all the Catan maps they've released at game conventions over the years.

Hmm... I'm confused as well.  Should it be listed as an official expansion, or a fan expansion?  Hmm...

Is this just one tile?  Is there any way to get it?

I guess you get it just about the same way we get our tiles here.  Download the pic and print it off.  I've still got some blank tiles, so I'll probably make one for myself.

OK, I just read the rules, and there are so many grammatical mistakes in it.  Well, I guess that's fair game since RGG does it as well.  The rules uses the term "meeple" which indicates that it's a fan-made expansion.  I'm gonna class this as a fan-expansion of some sort.

The grammar is very bad indeed. To me, it looks as if the rules originally were written in another language (probably Spanish) and then translated into english with some kinda really bad translating application.

In my experience with Catan "official" translations of German-only projects, I have found that just because something is badly (and incorrectly) translated doesn't necessarily cancel out its official status. What needs to be found out (probably by emailing the person) is did Hans im Glück officially sanction the expansion? Perhaps it is like Cult, Siege & Creativity, which was only done by Rio Grande not HiG (but sanctioned by them). I will restrain judgment until the truth is known. Who makes the Spanish version of Carcassonne? Is it the same company that made this expansion? Will someone please ask the BGG entry's author? I am rather busy today. Thanks!

Alright, I found a few moments so will send the message to the author. However, it states that the Portuguese company Devir is the publisher of the expansion and Devir is the official Carcassonne distributor to the Spanish and Portuguese speaking world so the non-officialness of this expansion is in question. I suspect that it is officially sanctioned but just not available to RGG and HiG. Talk about an exclusive expansion!!! Completists beware. I'll post a response when I get one.

I found this:
http://bascu.com/?p=176
(scoll down for some pictures)

Finally got a response from somebody about Carcassonne: La Porxada. It was a fan-made expansion created with the support of Devir (the Spanish Carc distributor). Alas, it is but a sticker on a tile and nothing more. No more worries about this expansion; it's completely unofficial according to the books.

If you live in Europe, you can now buy Carcassonne - Die Kornkreise directly from Hans im Glück through their replacement service for only 3 Euro a copy. Information is available on the expansions main page located here (http://www.carcassonne.de/244.0.html). Good news for all Europeans! I've contacted HiG to ask about shipping the expansion to the United States.

die kornkreise??

Ja!

Not sure if this threads wandered off topic a bit, however, I was aware of the Bridges.. expansion but not the idea of Crops and Tunnel to be available.

So far I've not got excited enough about bridges, but I quite fancy gettinghold of Tunnels still and might loook out for crops etc when it arrives here in the UK.

Have to say, not so exited these days about Carcassonne.... Catapult, Discovery, Bridges............ They've taken a toll.

Dare I even say.... Dominion has taken over my number one gaming slot? ... thought not.  ;D

Not sure what you mean by "Discovery" but I admit too that Carcassonne has been taking some turns for the worst. Catapult, Cult Places, Tunnels, Wheels of Fortune. Not at all interesting. The concept of Crop Circles is nice but the implementation (um...crop circles?) is rather odd.

BC&B actually has surprised me a bit. I have yet to write a full review, but the bridges are somewhat evil because they can connect fields that otherwise would remain disconnected. The bazaars are annoying and probably only interesting in games with 4 or more people. The castles are also not a bad concept and are really nice for stealing cloisters, an otherwise difficult feat. The problem with the expansion is that there is no connecting theme to it, not that any Carc expansion has done well at that except for Princess & Dragon.

I contacted the Author of 'La Porxada'. He wrotes me a nice mail. He informed me that only 72 packages exists. He wrote: "The unofficial miniminiexpansion 'La Porxada' was avalaible only last May in Granollers, during the fair jugarXjugar. I'm sorry, but the 72 copies disappeared in a few minutes".
Can someone explain me the rules of 'La Porxada'? I only understand the first half of it...

So is it an official tile or a sticker on a white tile?

No, it's an unofficial sticker on a white tile that has been given the go-ahead by the appropriate parties. The sticker was placed on 72 tiles and distributed rapidly. Thus you can hypothetically make your own version of the tile using the image provided on Board Game Geek.

Do you think the author would be agreeable to us hosting the La Porxada tile here since it is unofficial?  Could someone ask them?

Dang, I just realized that I didn't bring my blank Carc tiles with me (they're still in Arizona). I also don't have any high-quality sticker paper to print on. So many things working against me printing La Porxada!!!