Carcassonne Central

Preparation

At the beginning of the game, each player gets a fisherman token.
Decide whether to use the four additional tiles for the expansion "Traders and Builders", and refer to the rules for that expansion for the following tiles.

{insert picture of fish trade tiles}

If you use the River expansion, decide whether to use the replacement lake tile, as starting several cities on the river could cause the game to become unbalanced.

{I think the above comment is in reference to the River II expansion rather than the original River expansion.}

{insert picture of lake tile}

Fishermen

During his turn a player may place their fisherman instead of a follower. The fisherman may be placed on one of the lakes, and will remain there until the end of the game. During final scoring, the player receives a token for each completed city, cloister, or shrine connected by road to the lake or located on a tile directly adjacent to the lake. In the case of a city, the player also receives an additional token for each pennant. For the purposes of determining which cloisters or shrines are connected to the lake, road intersections are ignored. The player who collects the largest number of fish tokens receives ten points.

{The original rules use the term victory points, but I think this is unnecessary since all points are victory points.}

{insert picture showing scoring example for fishermen}

The red player receives four fish tokens: one for the cloister, one for the city directly adjacent to the lake, one for the city connected to the lake via the road, and one for the pennant within that city. No tokens are received for incomplete cities.

Farmers

During final scoring, players score an additional point for each lake that irrigates their farm.

{insert picture showing scoring example for farmers}

The black player scores seven points: six for the two completed cities and one for the lake.

Trade Goods

When a player places a tile that completes a city with one or more fish trade goods, he receives the corresponding number of tokens.

{insert picture of scoring example for trade goods}

The yellow player scores ten points for completion of the city; the blue player receives a fish token for completing the city containing the fish trade good.

Clarification of some landscape tiles

The rules of this expansion apply over the entire length of the river.

The road does not divide the city.

The bridges do not connect the lake with cities, cloisters, or shrines.

In response to Talisinbear's question, it looks to me that the "different colored fish" are the fisherman mentioned in the rules. I've added the word "token" in the preparation section to help clarify this.

{I think the above comment is in reference to the River II expansion rather than the original River expansion.}

Why not have the road stop at the city wall like usual?

And how is it that intersections can be ignored for the purposes of connecting cities (et al) to lakes, but not bridges? That seems inconsistent to me.

So why tokens and not a meeple?

This might be a bit confusing too since there is a 'fisherman' in the river expansions.

I was thinking about doing some pieces with the lake extended up to an edge of the card, so that it can close the camps.
 What do you think?

Do I see sheep going for a swim? :o

Do I see sheep going for a swim? :o

I was thinking it would be interesting to include a 1 point bonus for each of the intersections that have a house (village), as they represent places where the fisherman can sell his fish.

The idea of using a token instead of meeple is both good and bad. Good in that he has to stay there for the whole game and it's not like tieing up a meeple, bad because any player can only claim one lake if he has only one token. I would be inclined to not use tokens but rather the regular meeples. Also, once the "trade route" is completed then the fisherman is scored and returned to the player. Then it's not tied up for the whole game.