Carcassonne Central

We just purchased the Tower expansion last week and have played it a few times.  Love the new dynamic...

Question re when you complete a Tower by placing a Follower on top.  Based on my interpretation the completion of a Tower gives your other Followers on the board protection from being removed.  Is the protection from just the tower you complete?  Or is it from all other Towers?

For example if another Tower resides within the vicinity of one of your Followers and it has the ability to remove your Follower, but that Follower is protected by your completed Tower?  What happens?

My understanding is the Follower is protected, otherwise what would be the point of using a Follower to complete a Tower?

Thoughts / Comments?

The point of capping a tower is so that another player can not add to the tower in order to take your piece.  That is what is meant by protecting your follower.  It does not protect your followers.

It does not mean that any of your followers in range of your capped tower can not be captured by another tower which is what I think your interpretation is.  The rules also state that your capped follower can be captured by a different tower.  Hopefully it makes sense, but if you like your method you could always use it as a house rule.

Agreed. Capping a tower only stops construction of that tower and prevents that tower from being used to capture any followers. The protection provided is only relative to that tower. Other towers may still be used to capture followers.

Your concept is intriguing though...having a capped tower protect the followers of that color within its range from other towers. hmmm...

I can't say for the official rules, I admit they are a little ambiguous, but we play that a follower on the tower protects its fellows within its shadow, and to capture the "guard" requires a tower of greater height than the guard's.

I'd promote the black tower "fan made" expansion
in my opinion it enhances the whole tower dynamic.

I'm also in favor of the sugestion someone made that at end of game scoring (admittedly there is sometimes a rush to cap towers) a tower scores the guard a point for each level.

Placing a follower to the top of a tower prevents that tower from being used to capture followers. Be aware that any other followers, including your own, are not safe from capture by another tower.

http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/images/download/expansions/black_tower_v1_2.pdf (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/images/download/expansions/black_tower_v1_2.pdf)

I admit that I like house rules

its the way you are comfortable playing after all

However I do think those that designed the rules did so with good reasoning in mind

out of interest, where are you quoting from, i've looked at rio grand's tower rules and its not there. and I can't find it in the completely annotated rules either.

I thought I was playing by house rules anyway, but I thought I understood the core rules too and my "interpretation" of what I read led me to play it as a follower protects within its towers shadow.

Otherwise (I consider) the investment of a follower lost for the rest of the game, for no score of its own to be too great, especially if it doesn't protect, it just ceases that towers hostility and you get your follower stolen by a diferent tower from under your nose.

I just played this expansion for the first time in a year last night and reread all the rules. It doesn't state anywhere that a tower protects adjacent meeples nor does it imply it. It only ceases that tower's hostility and, yes, you can still get the guard meeple captured by another tower. It can even be by a shorter tower. It happened once last night even. The cost of wasting a meeple was too great for everyone else and we all preferred to have our meeples captured rather than stuck at the top of a tower.

Here is where my interpretation comes from

"Place a follower on a tower
When a player places a follower on a tower, the
tower is completed and may not be further
heightened. This follower remains on the tower
until the end of the game. The follower cannot
be taken prisoner or taken back by the owning player. Players use this
action to protect their other followers from being taken prisoner."

this is from the tower PDF from rio grand's web site

Dave,
   This is from the CAR, page 50.  The rules changed at some point to allow you to capture your own follower from towers (or let the dragon eat them).   


    There is a slight change in the rules here. The original rules stated that it was possible to take ‘one
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follower of an opponent prisoner,’ while the new rules only say that it is possible to take ‘one follower
prisoner’. It is now quite possible for a player to choose to ‘capture’ his or her own followers,
contradicting an earlier FAQ.
The RGG edition of the Big Box also changes this rule.

Dave,
This refers to the follower on the tower...not other followers on the tiles surrounding the tower. However, this rule has been changed with the latest updates. The rules now allow even this follower to be captured by another tower.

Where does one find updated rules if the games rules that came in-box have changed or have been clarified/modified?

I don't know about this case specifically but often the rules are altered or clarified when they are collated for the big box releases.

Blast... I already own all of the expansions so buying the Big Box isn't worth it. It would be nice if we had an official blog or post that provides any updates to the game.... For instance, a two tile city was worth only two points in the original rules, but in the B, C, & B expansion it's worth four. Same with farmers going from four to three points per closed city. Which do we go by?

In rules for "The Tower" (from RGG) that was included in the box with game (June, 2011) it is stated that follower on the tower may be captured by towers.   On the site of RGG there is old version of the rules. I prepfer use in such (non-obvious) cases CAR from mjharper.

That is correct. Under the latest edition of the rules a follower may now be captured off of a tower.
We love Matt's CAR because it incorporates and reconciles rule changes as they come out. It's very dynamic!

Seriously? Dang, my games would have ended up differently had I known there was an update like that for Towers.... Now trying to convince my friends there was an "update" not written in the game booklet will be tough ;-)