Carcassonne Central

Hi!

Recently I bought 6th expansion that includes Count of Carcassonne, and after the first game with it we have some questions about rules clarification:

1. There were some topics (I found two) discussing about how many rounds of deploying from City of Carcassonne during the game is allowed. In both topics community came to a conclusion that only one round is allowed. In our group there were moments when one player skipped his turn, then second player deploys his follower to a completed city and then first player said that he also wants to deploy a follower to that city thus the other player does so.
So, as I assume, there is only one round of deploying. Just wanted to clarify this rule once again. However, final deployment (at the end of the game) is described separately.
2. Just as the first question, second one also was discussed within community: about deploying followers to a farm with a barn. When it is possible? Absolutely clear that after barn placement. When else? At every moment? Because whenever I place a follower to a farm with a barn, it will be scored! Or only after merging some farm? But in this case should it be any farmers on a connected farm or, just as for empty cities, I can take an empty one and deploy a follower on it? Or only at the end of the game? When I can apply footnote 70? I think it also should be clarified.
3. What about fairy? If a player after completing his city places a fairy next to his follower, and other players redeploy their followers from Carcassonne in way that all players share points for this city, do all players score 3 bonus points from a fairy or just an active player? In fact, question is, is this redeployment "virtual" or to a particular tile?

Great questions. I don't know if there are "right" answers. Maybe just opinions and house rules. In my opinion though the CAR did not get it completely right.


In my original English rules it specifically states that you go once around the board starting with the player to the left of the current player and ending with the current player. Each player on his opportunity may move zero to all of his available followers from the correct quarter to the feature being scored. The CAR doesn't seem to capture this. Not sure if it was relying on a different translation of the rules or not. We resolve end game movements the same way (which is contrary to the CAR) because there is no indication in the original rules that it would be otherwise. The movement round goes once around the table.


The rules state that the scoring of a feature is what triggers the opportunity for players to move followers from the City. So when the barn is placed and there are farmers to be displaced and there is at least one completed city on the farm there is a scoring opportunity. Likewise, when a farmer is joined in to a farm with barn with at least one completed city there is a scoring opportunity.

A player cannot move followers from the City to create the scoring opporunity.

A player may not move followers to incomplete cities, roads or cloisters during the game as there is no scoring opportunity to do so. Only at game end when these incomplete features are occupied is there a scoring opportunity - so players may go once around the board moving their followers from the City to occupied features. Unoccupied features do not score at game end and you cannot move a follower to create a scoring opportunity.


The original rules state that you are moving followers from the City to the feature being scored. I believe it is an actual not virtual deployment - and the player may choose any tile of the feature to move to - so he would reap the beneifit of the fairy only by moving to the tile where the fairy is. This may even be a tile that is part of the feature but may be otherwise unoccupied.

Thanks for the reply! :)
Agree and accept all points, except one:
I mean only last sentence, because it contradicts CAR footnote 67: the same technics applied - feature is unoccupied but still I have a chance to occupy it by deploying a follower from Carcassonne. Why I cannot do so at the end of the game?

You cannot move a follower to a feature unless it is first scoring. Unoccupied features at game end are not scoring.

All the same, I don't get the point. Why then unoccupied features during the game can be scored? No one is occupying it so scoring doesn't trigger. But still I can move follower from Carcassonne and trigger scoring and it will be the first scoring for that feature. If anyone don't want to do so, scoring doesn't trigger. Contradiction, don't you think? ???

That's not allowed either. You cannot move to unoccupied features either during the game or at the end of the game. The feature must be scoring in order to move onto it. You cannot move then trigger scoring. That contradicts the original rules of the expansion.

Here is an excerpt from the rules page I have:

(http://www.mediafire.com/conv/4dacba81689ab3aeb998f6a7e05bf2871fa966e950cfb0ae38c5124f8a99f6734g.jpg) (http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?thumb=5&quickkey=ko1orstu61z2w6d)

I don't think the CAR intended to contradict the original intent of the rules. That's why I say there may have been an oversight or a translation issue.
 -OR-
these original English rules I have are a mis-translation. If that is the case someone please correct me.

So, as I assume, you don't accept CAR footnote 67 and contend that it is wrong:

If so, then CAR should be corrected. I don't think mistranslation could be the cause of such rule clarification to appear. Maybe it's another difference between HiG and RGG rules.

I do not agree with footnote 67. It contradicts the original English rules that I have. But you're right - it could be a difference between the two publishers. Maybe someone with more knowledge can add to this discussion.

From the German BigBox rules: Wird im folgenden Spielverlauf ein Gebiet ... fertiggestellt, so dürfen alle Spieler noch vor der Wertung ihre gefolgsleute vom entsprechenden Stadtviertel in dieses Gebiet einsetzen. ... Es dürfen auf diese Weise also Gefolgsleute in besetzte Gebiete eingesetzt werden. ... ... Vom Markt auf eine zu wertende Wiese. (Gefolgsleute vom markt können nur am Spielende eingesetzt werden.)

In this rules there is only one time the verb completet (fertiggestellt), but 4 times it says the followers may move to the feature which is soon to score. There is an extra paragraph explaining the correct procedure, it says the player left to the player, who triggered the scoring, begins. (der Spieler links vom Auslöser der Wertung beginnt ...)

So I think, you can move a follower from the city of Carcassonne only if the scoring is already triggered. It is not allowed to trigger the scoring by moving a follower from the city of Carcassonne. No difference between publishers, the CAR is wrong.

Thank you Fritz_Spinne! That helps settle my thoughts.

Ok, I got the point :)
This changes a lot of things, for example, I thought that at the end of the game I can place followers from a market quarter to any farm, but now it seems to be only occupied farms, or if, for example, there are no occupied cities left in play in the end of the game, no followers can be moved from a castle quarter, no matter of Count position.
Still one question left: where Matt has got information for footnote 67? Is it his interpretation or he has asked HiG and has got such answer?

To the Admins - maybe we should have a search word to identify suggested changes, corrections and clarifications to the CAR - so the threads can be found at a later time?

Any suggestions on the search term?

It's worth reading this thread on BGG:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/162747/clarification-on-one-of-mjharpers-faq (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/162747/clarification-on-one-of-mjharpers-faq), particularly the comment:

"Also keep in mind what I bleive is the spirit of the question. The assumption had been that you would only go after a city, road, cloister, that a person was scoring. Some probably thought that an unoccupied feature, once closed, did not get scored. But the reality is, whether occupied or not, closing feature is still scored there just might not be anyone to claim the points. That really wasn't realized until Count came out."

Thank you for this. I was not aware of the thread.

Until the Castle rules came out there really was nothing that difinitively said that unoccupied features scored at all - either during the game or at game end. Scoring was always tied to the feature being occupied. Castle scoring however allowed that if an unoccupied feature is completed during the game the castle will receive those points even though it doesn't score for any other player. It is also the castle rules however that say that castles do not score at game end for incomplete features - is that because they don't score?
 
Based on the Castle logic of unoccupied features scroing when completed during the game it follows that followers can be moved to the feature from the City when the feature is completed.

There is still nothing definitive that says that unoccupied features score at game end. Incomplete features only seem to "score" at game end if they are occupied.

It would be great to hear if HiG or RGG addressed this in a FAQ.

So, according to the above information and Carcking changed opinion, we came to the conclusion that CAR footnote 67 is still true. And I agree that:

Yes, after carefully re-reading the footnote 67 it is important to see that it refers to empty features during the game - as opposed to incomplete features. Incomplete features cannot be moved into from the City during the game but empty features can be when they are completed. The footnote does not pertain to incomplete features - In light of this I agree with footnote 67.  :)

The issues that remain between the CAR and original rules are footnotes 70 and 72:

Footnote 70 seems to indicate it is allowed to move a follower to a farm with barn to trigger scoring during the game. According to the original rules a feature must be already scoring in order to move a follower from the City.

Footnote 72 indicates it is allowed to move to unoccupied features at game end. I find no basis in the rules for scoring unoccupied features at game end and it's not supported by the Castle rules. I don't know if HiG or RGG have officially offered a FAQ on this subject.

I have to disagree with both of those footnotes for the time being and with the information I have. I'm sure there are varied opinions however and that's the beauty of house rules.  :D

I see a bit of confusion going on in here; I'm going to try and clear it up.

First, I must remind everyone that CAR footnotes in the Q&A format are clarifications from HiG. Footnotes not in the Q&A format are observations made by comparison of HiG and RGG rules documents. Matt has always stated that footnotes never represent personal opinions or conclusions.

Part of the confusion appears to be due to a translation issue in the RGG rules, where it states that follower deployment is triggered by scoring, but the German rules state that follower deployment is triggered by the completion of a feature regardless of whether it is occupied or not. This is illustrated in footnote 67 as Carcking mentioned earlier.

Footnote 70 appears strange on its own, but I think you need to also consider footnote 71 simultaneously. Players are not being given carte blanche to deploy farmers whenever they want. A barn has to have been placed to trigger farmer deployment. At the end of the game, you can deploy your farmers willy nilly, and it's possible that a farm with a barn might yield more points, even at one per city, if all the non-barn farms have a small number of cities. For example, if there exists a farm with a barn that has nine cities attached, you could deploy to that farm and score 9 points. Other farms may only have two cities each, which would only yield 6 points. Note carefully that you cannot score 1 point per city per farmer, so if you have multiple farmers to deploy you would deploy them to different farms.

Footnote 72 is definitely confusing if you're used to the English RGG rules, which only allow deployment to features already being scored. The German HiG rules refers to deployment to features which are completed, but farms are never considered complete, which may be what prompted Matt to ask the question of how does follower placement during final scoring work. HiG is giving more information than we bargained for in their response, and it actually does make sense. Incomplete features are scored at the end of the game; the placement of the final tile is the trigger. In between these two steps, HiG is allowing us to deploy followers to any incomplete feature (and not to any completed features).

If you play RGG rules at your house, then you may only deploy to occupied features; maybe you are also still using the complicated farmer scoring. If you play HiG rules at your house, which I strongly recommend, then you may deploy to unoccupied features also.

BIG thanks to you, Scott!
Good explanation of the rules, and also I am glad that I understood rules in right way.
The only question you didn't mention is: can I move followers from the City of Carcassonne when a farm with a farmer(s) is connecting to a farm with a barn. As far as I can see the answer is "yes", but I need to be sure :)

Yes, when an occupied farm is connected to a farm with a barn, causing a player to score his farmers, then a round of deployment may begin (if there are any farmers in the City of Carcassonne).

This is good information to know. It provides a context for the origin of the footnotes.

Unfortunately, footnote 70 is written incorrectly. I don't believe it is HiG's intent to give carte blanche to barn-scoring from the City but the footnote (by itself) indicates that that is exactly what the player may do. Without this footnote to the footnote an unsuspecting player will be implementing incorrect rules into his game - or hopefully be at least confused and questioning. I don't believe even footnote 71 helps to clarify as that relates to the moment the barn is placed while footnote 70 relates to barns already in play.

Aside from the question of scoring unoccupied features at game end is the question of how to deploy followers from the city at game end. Does the opportunity pass around the table just once? Or continually until everyone is satisfied? During the game it's just once but the footnote indicates it keeps going at game end. I question if it was HiG's intent to contradict the method of during the game deployment.

The footnote states that, during end-game deployment, each player deploys one follower at a time until all followers have been deployed. I expect this would be more time consuming, and I think it unlikely to have a different result than just having each player deploy all of their followers right away. End-game scoring takes long enough already.