Carcassonne Central

From page 12 of Carcassonnne Anniversary Edition:

The Expansion: The Celebration
Game Material: • 10 tiles with the Celebration symbol

If a player reveals a tile with the Celebration symbol, they place the tile as usual. Now they must decide to either:
• Place one follower on the tile as per the usual rules; or
• Remove one of their own followers from the board and return it to their supply.

The player can also choose to do neither.
Imprisoned followers (4th Expansion - The Tower) may not be returned to the supply using the Celebration feature.

A tad hoohum :)

I actually agree. It is a needed mechanic, but I was thinking for 10 new tiles it would be a bit more advanced than just a remove-the-meeple expansion.

It might be nice to have some more features, but I'm glad it's not more than 10 tiles.  Part of the strategy is stewardship with your followers.  Ten might be too many.

or insignificant if you use a lot of expansions

Although -- in my experience -- the more expansions you have, the less likely you'll have stranded followers (since you have more tiles, and/or ways to remove followers).

I like the idea of the celebration tiles, though I'm not real big on 'luck of the draw' rules. I prefer things like the Abbey (each player has one to use whenever they want), the Tower tiles (each player can build on them), and Crop Circles (each player does the selected action).

A bit of a rabbit trail... but I hear what you're saying about "luck of the draw".  The more I play, the more I notice the problem with this.  One tile can change the game.  I played the other day with one Lord of the Manor tile and the guy who got it was already well ahead, got it near the end, and stuck it in a whole finishing it in one move.  No way to catch him after that. 

Exactly. On the other hand, luck is a huge part of the game. Even the rules I listed above have a luck element to them: if you draw the tower tile, you get to put it somewhere where your opponents are threatened, or if you draw the Crop Circles tile, you get to decide what action everyone takes.

I just prefer it when luck isn't everything. The magic portals and princess tiles in P&D are too luck-based for me. I guess it's a fine line.

Play chess or hive if you don't like luck

drawing tiles equates to luck

Carc is simply not a perfect information strategy game.

That is sort of understood going in

Agreed that luck is part of the process, but it seems to be much better balanced with the official expansions.  This is something that some of our expansions lack despite how much I may like them!  LotM is a perfect expample.  I love that expansion and play it often, but it also often determines the winner.  No offense Scott!

If you don't like luck, use some form of drafting or hands of tiles to play. At least then you lessen a little of the luck factor.

Yes, and I do understand that. Don't misunderstand me, I'm okay with it (although I am going to have to check out Hive someday). I just prefer the expansions and rules in which the benefit does not rest entirely on who gets the best tiles. However, it really is very case-by-case. Each rule or expansion can be weighted more towards strategy and player control or more towards luck, and the sum of all these weights the game accordingly.

For example, imagine that, instead of pig meeples in Traders & Builders, there were six Pig Farm tiles (like the tile from River II). Theoretically, each player could draw an equal number of Pig Farm tiles and get the chance to add them to the farms which they control. More likely, though, one player is going to draw more tiles than the other, and potentially get a greater benefit. In this scenario, I prefer the pig meeples, so I'm glad they went that route.

Another example: imagine that in The Princess & the Dragon, each player had gotten an equal number of dragon tokens, which could be played during your turn to initiate movement of the dragon. This would have the same result (12 dragon movements) with less luck involved. This would be a lot less interesting (to me, at least), since part of the appeal of the dragon mechanic is the anxiety: you don't know when the next dragon tile is going to pop up. In this case, I prefer this mechanic to be more luck-based.

Finally, an extreme example, just to drive it home: imagine that you didn't have any meeples at all. Instead, you got points for completing features. This would be really luck-based, and it would be a very different game (which would, admittedly, still have strategy; I think it would be a lot less popular, though).

I think that the base game of Carcassonne gets it mostly right. A decent balance between strategy and luck, with expansions and house rules that can alter the balance to whichever side you prefer.

Well said. And that usually pretty good balance is what leads to The Catapult being the least popular expansion...

the balance is not within a few tiles

but the game

I get more of tile 'a'

you get more of tile 'b'

forcing us into different adaptive strategies

BTW will the Carc dice have any rules for use in regular game?

I quickly skimmed through them and couldn't find any variant rules for use in the base game, so I'm going to say no.

I imagine there will be a fan idea soon enough

There is already a fan variant idea by Sekim HERE (http://carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=1326.0).

Neat

So when is the new stuff out on north america?

I actually made some changes to the variant (basically a variant on the variant) for more confrontational use of the catapult side of the die. The variant is basically the same. Only the usage of the catapult side is changed. This time, when rolling a catapult, you can put a city under siege and making the city worth less. This can be done to a city for any player occupying the city or just to a single opponent by putting the catapult die underneath an opponents meeple. You can also use the catapult as a roadblock and split the road in 2 parts.
I havent had the time to write everything down yet, but as soon as I'm done with it, you'll find it in the previously mentioned topic.