Carcassonne Central

I was introduced to the Families fan-made expansion by Frederick Renard, but that expansion was only made for the first couple of expansions and is out of date by now.  I really liked the cloister tokens idea, and was reading somewhere that someone was going to use two of the tiles from this expansion for their 2 blank tiles (from C,S&C).  I contacted Frederick Renard and he said he didn't mind me repackaging these.

I went through the tiles, remove any with the shields and any that has since been subsequently published in the official expansions.  I was left with 10 tiles.  10 tiles is 2 short of the usual 12... where can I get the extra 2 tiles.  Wait, weren't we talking about that in another thread here?  Yes, Friar and Farmhand... but I really didn't like those rules as well because they seem out of date.  So why not make my own.

Now I don't want this expansion to be confused with Families or Labourer and Mendicant (Knecht und Bettelmönch in German) or Friar and Farmhands which was translated by Matt.  So I decide to rename it, but names are horrible creatures.  Alms and Works?  Sounds like an Inn.  Peasant and Priest?  Well, even more catchy, but I don't really want priest in the title.  And thus Cleric and Serf was born.

Downloads:
Rules and Tiles (zip) (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/ClericandSerf.zip)
Tiles only (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/clericnserf.pdf)

Thumbnail:
(http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/cnstilestn.jpg)

Comments welcome!  I'll package this in a zip for gantry to load and make public at the end of the week.

love your rules. they are not too difficult -)

Heh, thanks.  I didn't like counting the small houses at the end of roads and whatnot (and I added a lot in forest anyways) so I decided to make the serf (farmhand/labourer) tile easier to play with.  I am glad that is apparent.

The "cleric" seems like a big bonus for the player who is lucky enough to complete the last cloister in the game.  In a normal game, it will be worth only around 8 points, but as the expansions increase, it will be absurdly valuable.  i think that you should keep the 10pt bonus to the player who completed the most cloisters, and remove the cleric as will be a rather random bonus to one player. 

i love the look of the set though, great looking tiles and tokens.

There is an error at the top of the second page. In the rules regarding the serf tile, the rules state that the player should take the cleric tile.

I like the new mechanics for the serf, but I'm not enthusiastic about the cleric. It feels inconsistent with the King and Robber Baron. I would personally prefer to use the cloister counters merely as a method of keeping track how many cloisters each player has completed, and the cleric goes to the player who has completed the most. I don't like treating cloister counters as trade goods. In the end it's your call. If you disagree with me, then I would suggest to at least scrap the cleric being worth 5 cloister counters because I don't think many players will complete more than 5 cloisters.

I gotta be honest about the other tiles, they don't do anything for me. Particularly the bushes blocking the road tiles. Not as good as the stuff you've come up with on your own.

I really like the choice of expansion name though.

Thanks for the comments Scott and Henry.  And I'm glad you guys like something about the expansion.

Scott, the cloister tokens (not trade tokens!) already track the number of cloisters completed.  There is no need to duplicate that by giving the cleric to the player with the most tokens!  And I agree with henry... the cleric as it was was a random bonus to one player.  So I have updated it slightly.  It now follows with King and Robber Baron by tracking the number of cloisters scored (as opposed to completed which is tracked by the cloister tokens - see example in the new rules).

I agree with you that the tiles doesn't do anything much... but I'm trying not to be biased so I included them for people who wanted to play with them from Families, but didn't want to print out the tiles with the red and yellow shields, or tiles that have aleady been made by HiG/RGG.

Download: Updated Rules (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/cnsrules02.pdf)

Please let me know if there's anything else I can improve on.  Thanks.

Proofing:
"The increase in numbers of young men wishing to become men of the cloth has increased calls
by the clergy for more cloisters across the land."
- The repeated word "increase" is distracting
"The bushes separate the road from the left going to the north."
- Avoid using cardinal directions ("north") in the descriptions
"As soon as a player plays the barn, he or she should take the cleric tile."
- I do believe you mean the serf tile.
"At the end of the game, before the farms are scored, the player in the possession of the cleric scores 1 point for every farmer1 remaining in the game."
- Again, I believe it should reference the serf. The farmer has a "1" annotation, but I could not find any such footnote.

Questions:
"This road does not end but instead continues in all four directions."
- Isn't it a basic ruling that junctions end a road? Thus the use of roundabouts for continuing roads?
Does the first completed cloister award a cloister token? How are cults going to affect the cleric? I haven't thought this through, the answer could very well be "not at all."

Comments and Suggestions:
Perhaps you could provide tokens to help players keep track of how many farmers the barn removed.

Since the cloisters are not trade goods, they should be a different shape. Round comes to mind.

So the last person to complete a cloister gets a bonus... I like that, and I think 5 points is about right.

Overall, I like your new scoring methods, they are streamlined and still feel like Carcassonne. One drawback is that this requires the use of Abbey & Mayor. Care to generate a "back up" set of rules for those players that don't own A&M?

Thanks for the proofread Cappy, but, I think you need to read version 2 of the rules because a number of things have changed in there, but thanks anyways!

I'll update this later and post a version 3 sometime soon.

I'm pleased with the rules changes thus far. Cleric now follows King and Robber Baron more closely, though King and Robber Baron go to the player that completes, while Cleric goes to the player that scores.

I think that giving the Cleric to the player with the most cloister tokens would not be redundant if the cloister tokens had no value of their own. They would be analogous to the extra meeple on the scoring track to keep track of the size of the largest city or length of the longest road. Once again, the decision is yours.

Thanks for the proofread Cappy, but, I think you need to read version 2 of the rules because a number of things have changed in there, but thanks anyways!

Hence the clarification of the tile.  This tile was made by Fred Renard before the roundabout tile.  I thought of updating it to a roundabout, but decided I should be true to his version as found in Families.

Yes to the first queston, and "not at all" to your second question as you said.

I don't think there is a need.  Just use a spare barn (or something all players can agree on) on the scoring track.

Too much work :)  Besides they are not called trade goods, but they are scored the same way.  I think they should retain the trade goods shape.

Changed as per the 2nd draft of the rules.  They only get the cleric if they complete more cloisters, and that gives them 10 points and tie-breaks in their favour if there's a tie in the cloister counters.

Thanks.  I don't think I need a "Back up" if you don't have A&M because the original version of these tiles already exist.  Look for Friar and Farmhand in the variants (I've also created a thread for that somewhere on these boards)

Download: Updated rules (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/cnsrules03.pdf)

Ack. :-[ See, I really can't keep up! heh. Thanks for responding to my thoughts anyway. Now back into the rules I go...

edit:
"Blue places a barn and removes a yellow farmer. If this is the first time a barn is played
in this game, Blue takes the cleric tile. If a barn has been previously played, Blue takes
the cleric tile provided that the previous barn removed less than one farmer."
- In both cases, the cleric reference should be replaced with serf.

I don't blame you Cappy.  I can't keep up myself and I'm the one creating this :)  Don't let that deter you or anyone... some comment is better than none (although I have to say, the creator has the right to decline your suggestions and comments - in which case, you are free to play with your own rules with them when you print them out!)

Novelty, looking at the time stamps, I may have edited my post whilst you were reading it. Meaning, did you see proofreading response to your Serf Tile example paragraph?

Aaaaah!  Good catch on that.  I will edit it tomorrow and post it up again.  Thanks Cappy.

On the other hand, why wait for tomorrow what you can do today?  Here's rules v0.4.

Edit: And here's rules v1.0 (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/cnsrules10.pdf).

Well, I haven't had any response for a while, so I've zipped the rules and the tiles (see first post), and I'll call this done!

Just read your rules.  Have you play-tested this?  For our games, once you introduce the barn you already are discouraging use of farmers.  Most people just wait for a big farm and then play the barn.  Since the serf scores for ever farmer left, this will be pretty worthless if nobody plays farmers.  And it discourages use of farmers even further due to the serf scoring off every farmer you play. 

What if the serf scored 1 off every farmer and 2 for every barn? 

Also, you should get a token for YOUR cloisters YOU complete. And the cleric should be worth 1 point for every cloister in the end.  To me that makes it more worthwhile.  In our games, the king and robber usually get 30-60 points,which is why I think you should increase the value of the cleric and serf.  Isn't the point of this to give a balanced counterpart to King/robber? 

Also, to be a true variant you need to make alternate rules for getting serf when not playing with the barn expansion.  I suggest whoever has played the most farmers, tie goes to first holder.

What do you think?

Why 2 for every barn.  If as you say, people are dissuaded from playing farmers then it should be something more per barn.  I would say 5 points for every barn.

Cloister tokens are similar to trade goods.  Just like trade goods, the person who completes the feature gets the tokens.  I prefer it that way.

And as for alternate rules when not playing with the barn expansion, go read up on Friar and Farmhand :)

Edit: I don't like the player scoring for a completed cloister with the cleric because you are already scoring for the completed cloisters with the tokens.  I'll throw in 3 points for every completed city with a cathedral and 2 points for every abbey tile played if you have the cleric.

OK, new version of the rules is now available, and I also updated the [url=http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/clericandserf.zip]zip with the tiles (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/cnsrules11.pdf).

Edit: Link removed.

I like this much better.  However with max players, all abbeys played and cathedrals completed, the cleric is still only worth 28 at the end.  That is why 1 pt for each cloister works.  As you scale up with or down with more or less expansions, the value of these tiles (king, robber, cleric, serf) goes up or down.  As you have it now, if you have abbey, mayor, and cathedrals expansions only, the cleric is worth the same as if you were playing mega-carc.  That's not true of the other three.  King, robber, and serf all depend on more tiles in play to increase their value. 

My suggestion would be 1 point for every completed cathedral, abbey, cloister, and shrine in play.  That would scale to be worth a little with no other expansions, to a lot while playing mega-carcassonne.

I'll leave it as it is.  You can play whatever variant rules you wish.  The main objective of this expansion was to:

1. remove the family tiles with the red and yellow shield and just make available those tiles from families that have not been produced officially
2. Add in the friar and farmhand images from Friar and Farmhand
3. Add the cloister tokens from Families

All the tiles are now on one easy to print page.  Since nothing is official, you can play with them however you wish :)

I spotted a few typos, so I corrected it: updated rules (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/cnsrules12.pdf).  My apologies if you have already printed this out.

Broken link.

Thanks and fixed!

I finally figured out the fonts issue (I think).  Updated version (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/cnsrules13.pdf) just for the fonts.  No text change.

Yes, it looks like you got the font issue fixed on your computer. All the PDFs you just posted are all looking right to me font-wise.