Carcassonne Central

I can't see the point for all like-Carcassonne games.
The only reason I can figure out is commercial.
As Carc was, still is and will be a mega case of success publisher take advantage and go publishing some other Carc-based games for having some commercial profit.
If they carry new concepts or new gameplay why don't they just make some new expansion?
I think that those games ain't all that fun.
At least, that's what I think.
It's like playing footvolley as a football-based sport. What's the use?

Well, they might not have the rights to the Carcassonne name, or images or whatever in their own language, so they publish something quick just to make money...

Let's put a more positive spin on it. They came up with a good game that won a prestigious award; must have done something right. Apply the same mechanics to another game and theoretically you should have another good game. Branding it as Carcassonne is to get the attention of people who enjoyed the first game that they might enjoy this new game as well.

Are we refering to the spin-off games here; H&G, Castle, Discovery etc? If so, I'm glad they've done them and don't see them just as a cash cow. As a game I actually prefer The Castle to standard Carcassonne.

Each game has its own niche.  So Wishmaster, how goes solstice wars?

It's in a niche!
Actually I'm rewriting the rules, or will be when I get back into it. Colder nights and duller days are likely to help there! I'm trying to speed things up within the game and put more emphasis on the the point of battles. To do this I'm removing a lot of the in game scoring and only adding up the end-game situation - this means players have to go to war to accrue end points.

BTW, Wishmaster, the website for Solstice wars is not available anymore... is that planned?

Well not by me! It was an Orange Free site and they changed the way their sites worked and zapped all the old ones.... very kind of them I thought.  >:( As I've not done more with it as yet, I decided to leave it be at present but want to start it again at some stage. Trouble is I've already used my Yahoo account for my Fantasy F1 site. guess i could open a second yahoo account. Anyone know of some good free sites I could use.

http://sites.google.com/ (http://sites.google.com/)

Looked at that, but it works a bit like Orange have done. they control and set it all up in their templates. I'm after one that allows you to create your pages off-line using (say) FrontPage, and then upload all the files separately along with a stylesheet, documents and images etc.

(Sorry, bit off topic)

Yes, each game has its own domain. Each game is a game. But what I meant was: Does calling games Carcassonne stand for a fair but easy way to sell a lot?

You mean like Hunters and Gatherers?  or like Princess and Dragons?

I meant like H&G, of course. P&D is an expansion. Expansions, the more the better.

There's aslo Ark of the Covenant and New World/Mayflower.  Neither of those have Carcassonne in their titles, eventhough they are Carc spin-offs.  You have to remember that there are people (I think they are mostly German :p) who prefer spin-offs instead of expansions.  I won't be surprised if HiG sold more copies of Mayflower instead of Catapult, but I could be wrong.

Ark of the Covenant was released to cater for a specific group, which I think was 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' (Mormons) and Christian/Bible believers in general. I do not have a problem with this kind of marketing at all. If there is a market for something and it will sell, why not?

Actually, New World is fully named as 'New World - A Carcassonne Game', there's also 'Carcassonne - The City', 'Carcassonne - The Castle' and 'Carcassonne - The Discovery'.

Ark was indeed released for the US 'Bible Belt', the only one I've not got as yet.

I think all the stand-alones have merit, although New World is now proving that the concept is now a bit full. Discovery is one that claims to be easier, clearly the game makers never tried playing it!! It's much more of a thinking ahead game and gets very confusing, but good still. The castle is my favourite Carcassonne game of all. It's also the most different from the others with it's restricted playing area, additional reward tiles around the wall (scoretrack) and only two player, along with the very different design of tiles that don't always have to match. A whole new slant and in my mind improvement to a great game.

I don't really think it fair to say all the spin-off's are for crazy Germans, or any crazy people come to that. It's a very blinkered view of the game to take.

Yes, I completely agree with you. I got no problem. I think it's just taking advantage of a star brand. That's all.
Imagine me, changing my nick to "Novelties" just because Novelty is a top star member of this forum. (Sorry, Novelty. This is meant to be a compliment)

You can change your nick to Novelties, I won't mind and I can't do anything about it anyways.  And Wishmaster, what I was saying is that HiG design games for Germans mainly in mind, and Germans are usually a bit different from non-Germans.

Yes, Novelty. Again, I agree. German will always be german. But still, Carcassonne will always be Carcassonne. For that last, I thank God!!!

PM me, and I'll send you some good info on free and low-cost sites.