Carcassonne Central

I already sent an email through to Matthew, but I figured it would be worth asking here. I haven't been able to find satisfactory answers to the following questions:

1. What figures does the dragon eat/destroy and which does he leave unharmed? I am particularly interested in knowing whether it destroys towers, and if so, do the tower pieces get returned to the person who played them?

Possible figures: follower, big follower, mayor, wagon, pig, builder, barn, tower. It has already been made clear that the count and fairy cannot be eaten.

2a. Similarly, what figures can and cannot be captured by the tower?

Possible figures: follower, big follower, mayor, wagon, pig, builder, barn. It seems clear that the tower, fairy, dragon, and count cannot be captured as they are neither followers nor do they really belong to any specific player, though the tower and fairy could be argued as belonging to another player, if only temporarily.

2b. If the mayor, wagon, pig, builder and/or barn can be captured, would they need to be exchanged for the same figure or would a follower/big follower be considered equivalent for the purposes of exchanging prisoners?

3. When a princess tile is played, the original rules state that a knight MUST be removed from the city. Does this mean that the player placing the tile on he city he has claimed must remove his own knight if it is the only one in the city? (even under the German big box rules where it is optional to remove a knight, can the player remove his own knight?)

Thanks for thoughts!

1. The dragon eats almost everything except the barn and the tower. But it does eat followers on top of the tower. Followers inside the city of Carcassonne are also safe from the dragon.

2a. The tower captures all followers, but not the barn.

2b. All game figures are considered equivalent for the purposes of exchanging prisoners

3. Even the official rules now state that a knight MAY be removed from the city. So surely the player may or may not remove his own knight as well, if he needs to get it back to his play area.

Hey, I was just about to answer :) I'll do it here instead.


Tower's aren't destroyed, but followers on top of them can be eaten (http://carc.mjharper.de/page9/page9.html#Can_the_dragon_eat_a_follower_o). The FAQ linked to is in the incorporated FAQ section, which I'm starting to realise could be better organised. The mayor and wagon can also be eaten (http://carc.mjharper.de/page11/page11.html#Can_the_mayor_and_the_wagon_be_). Barns can't be eaten/destroyed—that's in the rules themselves. Builders and pigs can be eaten, and must also be removed when the last associated flower is removed (i.e. eaten).

Towers, the fairy, the dragon and the count can't be captured. Builders and pigs are special followers, and can't be captured by a tower, although they can't remain in play independently. [wicke is wrong there] As I linked to above, mayors and wagons can be captured by towers, seduced by princesses, and eaten by the dragon.

No. See here (http://carc.mjharper.de/page10/page10.html#Is_the_ransom_for_the_big_follo)—the big follower is ransomed for the same price as a normal follower. And a clarification in the Big Box rules (I should probably incorporate these clarifications into the FAQ) states that if several followers have been captured by player A when player B captures on of A's followers, player B may decided which follower to exchange. In other words, I can capture a normal follower and exchange it for a mayor or big follower.

Yes. You can/must remove your own followers with a princess.

No problem. Hope I answered everything!

Question 3: When a princess tile is played, the original rules state that a knight MUST be removed from the city, can the player remove his own knight?
Answer from Matt: Yes. You can/must remove your own followers with a princess.

Please Matt, in your own CAR you point out MAY in bold.
By the way, have you looked through the document I sent to you ?
.../Wicke

I know. But the question was about the original rules, which do state that they must be removed. And whether you go with the original rules (must) or the latest (may) you can still remove your own follower. Maybe I should have tried to be clearer…

I'm really sorry, I haven't yet. I will; there's no question of that. But until the end of September I have absolutely no time. I'm extremely grateful for your efforts here—and those of everyone else—but for the moment the CAR are on hold. If I do find a little space when I'm not working or just clearing my head, it'll be the first thing I look at.

@MJH: the may/must thing and some others "cross wording" looks to be a traduction issue... is it that confusing to translate german to english... in my opoint of view, when we translate english to french, it loos to not being so, confusing, just wondering...

According to Matt's summary on page 47 of the CAR, all rules except for the German Big Box state 'must,' so I don't think it's a translation issue if the original German had must.


Thanks Matt, that clears things up!

@Deatheux: As Jason said, it isn't a translation issue. If you want I can check the German, but it really is 'must' & 'may'. I think the change is precisely because of the kind of issue that Jason brought up: under the old rules, you must remove a follower, even if it's yours—which can be a big penalty. 'May' makes the princess a positive tile no matter what.

@Jason: Glad it helped!

Hi Matt.

Welcome everybody (i am new here).

In polish instruction was written that builder and the pig stay on a board even if associated follower was eaten/captured. It isn't true?

And second question - Can the follower from the top of the tower be captured from other tower?

Czesc Felippe.

The builder and the pig are no longer considered as "followers" I think, but they are associated with the followers.  So when the all followers in the feature get removed (P&D, Tower), the pig or the builder is also removed (If I have 3 knights and a builder in a city, and only one knight is removed, my builder doesn't get removed because there are 2 more knights in the city).  See footnote 134 in the latest CAR.

2. Yes, a follower from the top of the tower can be captured by another tower (or by the Dragon).  Footnote 132 says something about it, but it's not very clear.

I hope that helps.

thanks a lot :)

Well, please do download the latest Completely Annotated Rules (CAR) (http://mjharper.macbay.de/CARnew.pdf) and have a look.  It answers a lot of the question.  You can get the CAR from the link above or from http://mjharper.macbay.de/CARnew.pdf

I completely disagree with the rule change that changes PRINCESS MUST REMOVE A FOLLOWER to PRINCESS MAY REMOVE A FOLLOWER. We're gonna miss all the fun of having to remove our own follower.

If you want to remove your own follower, you're welcome to do so. If you're trying to force your opponents to remove their own meeples, maybe you can get them to agree to a house rule.

After playing P&D for the first time today:

The P&D rules state that the player who plays the volcano tile "must immediately move the dragon to this tile from its current location. The player may not deploy a follower to the tile, but may - according to the usual rules - deploy a builder or a pig, or move the fairy".

Can a player also play a Tower piece?

If there would be a volcano tile with a tower base on it - then - yes (probably). But no such tile exist; unless it is player made.

You can play a Tower piece to any tower foundation or any already built tower

I think it would be fine to play a tower piece.

If you place another tower foundation! Yes - I know that the CAR is not very clear on this, but there is no other way that it would make sense. There is no way you could ever place a tower foundation and take another player's meeple prisoner unless you actually played with the tower expansion. And you only know this by drawing tower tiles.

Or do you mean that you are free to place a tower foundation anytime you want?

Yes, you can place a tower piece during your turn in lieu of placing a meeple.

Sorry, Joff but what I meant was that it could be fun to take our own knight because we may need it elsewhere, may be leaving some other knight in the city. If we don't want to do that, why don't we put the tile somewhere else?
And, Joff I don't like house rules. I play the officials. There's always some way to solve the unclear situations.
Finally, (and this is for everyone) I don't know what's all the fuss about the MUST/MAY stuff. Before we MUST, now we MAY. Over.

I'm not quite sure what you mean as you directed your response to me!  ???

I posted a question here, because of the title of the thread (Rule Clarifications (Princess & Dragon, and Tower expansions)). My post was a question regarding what the official rules document says regarding playing a volcano tile. FYI, I also not a fan of house rules.


That was my question.

Officially, you can play a Tower piece to any foundation or any already constructed tower (as long as there is not a follower guarding the top) in lieu of placing a meeple (as Novelty said). You do not have to draw a Tower foundation tile to be able to do this (as long as you are playing The Tower of course! ;D).

I was just asking if legally you are allowed to place a Tower piece when playing the volcano tile, as it does not specifically state this in the rules, although it would be a legal move in my eyes. Of course, if I have missed it (somewhere in the CAR) could someone direct me to it please :))

Edit:

This at present is how I understand it:

A player plays the volcano tile. He must move the Dragon immediately to this tile. He may now:

Deploy a Builder to the newly laid tile (if legal to do so), or,
deploy a Pig to the newly laid tile (if legal to do so), or,
move the Fairy, or,
place a Tower piece (to any tower foundation or any constructed tower already in play), or,
place a Follower (meeple) to the top of any constructed tower, or,
place a Barn (if legal to do so).

Is this basically the corect understanding of how the volcano tile works?


Just to clarify. You cannot place a tower foundation anytime you want, as they are printed on the tiles themselves. You can play a Tower piece anytime in lieu of placing a meeple (if you have any Tower pieces left, of course).

Looks correct to me. Tower came out after P&D, so it would not be explcitily stated in the original rules for P&D.

Well, Matt said he'll be doing the reverse as part of the update of the CAR.  Maybe someone should highlight this one for him to include in the CAR.

Without fever I can now see that I would have answered this differently. Amazing what two days in bed can do for you ability to think :)