Carcassonne Central

Well, since Forests have been copying various other things (or plagiarising ;D ), this Forest expansion will have the equivalent of:

1. Pennants scoring extra points, similar to the pennants in cities.  29 tiles
2. Follower promotion ala The Orders of Chivalry. 4 tiles
3. Tiles that give an extended turn (i.e. draw a 2nd tile) when played, first seen in Lavender Fields. 12 tiles

45 tiles total

1. I have no idea what sort of icon to use in the forest.  I have a feeling it should be a shield of some sort so that it is easily identified as a pennant.  What to put in the shield is going to be a problem.  I was originally going to use the Aude cross thing, but has graciously suggested that Joff use that for the Orders of Chivalry, so now I'm stuck looking for another image.

2. To avoid confusion, the same round icon from tOoC will be used.  There will be 4 tiles with this icon, and the rules will be modified somewhat for Forests in that a tile with the tOoC icon, will enable mayors to be played onto the tile (as forest administrators? Woodsman leader?) with a strength = to the pennants (item 1) in the forest, in lieu of follower promotion.

3. I thought of using the bee icon from Lavender Fields (representing wild honey) for these types of tiles.  Then I had second thoughts.  There will be 12 of these tiles.

As usual, comments welcomed!

How about using Yellow and Red stripes from the flag of Aragon (Spain)?

(http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/images/CC_forum_images/aragon.bmp)


Wikipedia:"Carcassonne became a border citadel between France and the kingdom of Aragon (Spain)."

Edit:
       (http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/images/shields.jpg)

That's too similar to the yellow and white of Family Feud/Families.  I'm not sure it's a good idea.

Yeah, I did think of that after. But you're only using them in forests, aren't you?

I think some people might still get confused.

I agree.  I would like to avoid the red/yellow, red/white and blue/white colour schemes for the pennant if possible.

How about an axe?

brown and grey will probably not stand out on a field of forest green.  We need bright colours for pennants, and I'd like something similar to the shields to imply it's the same mechanism.

This is precisley the reason to stick to the blue/white colours! If it is the same mechanic operating, there is no need to change them.

I thought about that too, but then I'd need a red and yellow set for Families!  I'd prefer something slightly different...

I can't understand why you would need to overcomplicate the expansion!

(http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/images/shields1.jpg)

Blue/White sripes to add normal pennants to forests
Red/Yellow stripes to add Families to forests

Edit:

How could people possibly get confused? You can't add a forest section to cities!
It is more confusing to change the image and then say that it does the same job! That, in itself, is pointless.

Heh, but I don't really want to add Families to forests!

The blue and white looks like Argentina stripes and the Red and yellow reminds me way too much of spain.  Perhaps I should just do a french tricolour on the shield...

What I meant to say, was that red and yellow stripes might confuse people. White and blue stripes to match the existing shields would be fine.

Or maybe I should just use a blue/white/red/yellow quartered shield ...

OK, here we go...

(http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/efpreview.jpg)

This expansion will feature:

Acorn on an orange background pennant.  This is meant to represent the woodsman guild.  It marks the forests where the guild knows that there are good wood to be found and thus extra points for whoever scores it.

Aude roundel.  Follower promotion from The Orders of Chivalry.  It means that the woodsman working on that forest has been acknowledged and has received accreditation from the nobles of carcassonne to supply woodland products to them, or something like that, thus it's a promotion of sorts.

Cherry roundel.  This marks forests where cherry trees can be found.  The cherries can be collected for food by the woodsman, and if needs be, cherry wood is a rather sought after wood.  It motivates the woodsman to work faster and thus it allows the player to extend his turn with a second tile.

Comments?

Edit: Image of cherry and acorn are free clip art.

That is a nice shield. I like that. Fits the theme perfectly :)


Sensible. Keeps the same symbol to do the same job. Less confusing when playing with The Orders of Chivalry.


I like the concept... Cherry wood being highly sought after in the region and so invokes the double turn.

And for your viewing pleasure and comments:

Rules (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evergrrules01.pdf)

Tiles:
Page 1 (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evergr1.pdf)
Page 2 (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evergr2.pdf)
Page 3 (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evergr3.pdf)

Thumbnails:
(http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evergr1tn.jpg) (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evergr2tn.jpg) (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evergr3tn.jpg)

Looks good.

"in accordance to the rules" should be "in accordance with the rules"

Thanks Scott, will update my personal copy and post when there are more comments.  Also, does the statement that it should be played with the Forest expansion sufficient or can people misread it to mean it is only to be played with the forest expansion?

I can see people misreading it that way.

INTRODUCTION STORY

“However, the main goal of the guild is to ensure that the forests around Carcassonne remain forever evergreen to ensure the livelihood of the woodsmen are guaranteed.”

Should read:

“However, the main goal of the guild is to ensure that the forests around Carcassonne remain forever evergreen to ensure the livelihoods of the woodsmen are guaranteed.”

OR

“However, the main goal of the guild is to ensure that the forests around Carcassonne remain forever evergreen, ensuring the livelihood of the woodsmen is guaranteed.”

or something similar.

ADDITIONAL RULES

Preparation:

The opening sentence makes it sound like you can only play Evergreen Forest with the Forests expansion exclusively.

Sorry, I haven’t checked the tile distribution for this next correction:
If there is more than one Chivalry icon in this expansion then the opening sentence of this paragraph should read: “When a tile with a chivalry icon is drawn, the tile must be placed to an existing forest with at least one woodsman belonging to the player. If the tile with a chivalry icon…”


“If the tile with the chivalry icon cannot be played to an existing forest with at least one woodsman belonging to the player, it is removed from the game, and the player draws a new tile as a replacement from the supply pile.”

I can’t understand why you can’t just use the chivalry tile as a regular tile if you are unable to extend a forest that contains a follower of yours (as in The Orders of Chivalry). The rules here state that the forest must contain at least one woodsman belonging to that player, which forces the playing of the Chivalry tile onto a forest that contains a player’s follower. This might be a disadvantage if you do not wish to extend the forest containing your follower with the chivalry tile.

Other than the above, everything is good.

Joff: I now see regarding the Orders or Chivalry.  The OoC rules were a bit ambiguous though - it doesn't say that only if you extend a city with one of your followers, you can use the chivalry feature, if you don't, it's used as a normal tile.  Thanks for the comments, I will ammend the rules and post it when I get the time.

I thought OoC rules were quite clear ???

Well, it didn't state that if you extend a city without one of you meeples, then you must use the OoC tile as an ordinary tile.  Maybe I missed that though...

Straying off topic slightly, but OoC does state quite clearly:

"When a player draws a chivalry tile he must play it to an existing city. If the tile can’t be played, it is removed from the game, the player drawing a new tile as a replacement from the supply."

Deploying a follower to the city

The player may elect to use the chivalry tile as a regular tile instead of exchanging a follower. If he wishes to do this, the player lays it in accordance to the usual rules. No player is able to exchange a follower on any subsequent turn using the laid chivalry tile.

Exchanging a follower

If the player places a chivalry tile onto a city that he has occupancy in, he may exchange one follower of his own colour for another of his own colour. For example, a Yellow regular Knight is deployed in a city. On his turn, Yellow draws and lays a chivalry tile that extends his already occupied city."

I thought this made it clear. However, because this has been brought up, I have found an ambiguity within my OoC rules :)

It is in this line "When a player draws a chivalry tile he must play it to an existing city. If the tile can’t be played, it is removed from the game, the player drawing a new tile as a replacement from the supply."

This states that the player MUST play it to an existing city... it should read "MUST play the tile" (or something like that), because a player might want to play the tile to the road, or extend a farm, etc. I will correct the OoC rules for this.

So you don't have to play it to an existing city?  That was the bit that confused me in the rules.

The other bit is that the reverse is not mentioned - i.e. what happens when a player plays the tile to a city where they don't have meeples.  That was the other thing that confused me.

But if you don't have to play it to a city, then it is moot what happens when you play the tile to a city where you don't have a knight I guess.

Anyways, here are the Updated Rules (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evergrrules02.pdf) for evergreen forest.  I think the statement that you must use it with Forest and Carc as a minimum should cover everything.

All looks ok now... except...

The introduction: "However, the main goal of the guild is to ensure that the forests around Carcassonne remain forever evergreen to ensuring the livelihoods of the woodsmen are guaranteed."

should read

"However, the main goal of the guild is to ensure that the forests around Carcassonne remain forever evergreen, ensuring the livelihoods of the woodsmen are guaranteed."

The red highlights what needs to be changed.

But now I read it, I have noticed the double use of the word ensure (and ensuring), perhaps a different choice for one of these occurances?

How about: "However, the main goal of the guild is to ensure that the forests around Carcassonne remain forever evergreen, guaranteeing the livelihood of the woodsmen for generations to come."

OK, changed to your suggestion, Joff.  No change to the link in my previous post.

The icons on the tiles (printed on the rules) have white space around them. This usually happens when you either 1) do not group all items together before saving or 2) copy and pasting a layered image into Word (or whatever Word processor you are using). It looks fine in Word, but when exported to a pdf file, shows a 'layered' image and gives the white space. I don't think it is a big distraction though, just pointing it out.

Update to the rules (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evergrrules03.pdf) to make the images look better.

Final version of the rules (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evergrrules10.pdf) and the package (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/evgreen.zip) with all the images.