Carcassonne Central

Do you think we will get a new expansion in 2009?  If yes, what do you think we will see?

I am really hoping something in the realm of the forest expansion is made. That fan expansion provides so many new features, but I rather doubt it will be released by HiG. If you look at the previous releases, you may note a pattern:

I&C = bonus to roads (inns) and cities (cathedrals)
River = no change
T&B = bonus to farms (pigs), cities, and roads (builder)
King & Robber = bonus to road (robber baron) and city (king)
Tower = only penalties
River II = bonus to a farm (pig farm)
P&D = only penalties; threat to cities (princess)
Count = bonus to everything, but can be blocked
GQ11 = no change
A&M = bonus to farms (barn) and cities (mayor)
Cult, Siege, and Creativity = threat to cloisters (shrines) and cities (sieges); bonus to farms (sieges)
Catapult = threat to anything, but can miss

The obvious element that has been overlooked over the past is still the cloister, but since they just released CS&C, I doubt they will touch that any time soon and I would rather prefer they didn't. Catapult obviously sent the potential for Carcassonne to entirely new realms, perhaps (definitely) dangerously so. I think there is a lot of potential with the farms still, despite the fact that farms have consistently been tweaked with successive expansions. I believe a new commodity could come out of the farms, but again I doubt HiG will do that just now. Cities, if anything, have been over-done in the past. This leaves really roads as the final element that have remained relatively untouched, only getting Inns in I&C and the Robber Baron. Sure they are effected by things such as the trader and the wagon, but those hardly count as specific road-targeting expansions. Therefore, I think the next expansion may target farms (for something new) and roads (for something different), unless they decide to make Carcassonne: Manhattan Project and blow the entire board to pieces. In which case, I may actually rethink buying it.

Here's an idea: an expansion of an expansion!

So my (completely off the wall) prediction is that we see Traders and Builders II, and they fix the rules for trade counters. ;D

Fix? What's broken about them?

You mean the fact that when you play T&B with two players, it generally sucks to be the player NOT to have earned the trade tokens?

[rant mode]The scoring is fixed rather than relational, which means that they're broken in my book. In more detail, there are a fixed number of trade counters and the person with the majority scores 10 points. That's fine if you combine T&B with only the basic game: 10 points is a lot in that case. But by the time you're playing with seven or eight or fourteen expansions, there are too few trade counters, and 10 points means almost nothing. I've played games where I've score 350+ points, and the effort of completing a city to get the trade counter just isn't worth it. By contrast, the King or Robber Baron stay as important whether you're playing with the basic game alone or with everything you can get your hands on—because the more tiles you play with, the more roads or cities you build, and the more points the King or Baron score. So they aren't broken in my view, because they scale well, no matter how many expansions you play with.
[/rant mode]

Seriously though, wouldn't an 'expansion expansion' be cool? More trade tiles, another cathedral, more volcanoes, more tower foundations, and so on? Something which would be appreciated by long time fans, and encourage newcomers to check out all of the expansions they don't have? The River II had something like that; but I would love a whole 30-tile expansion!

Probably not too hard to "fix" that. Instead of only giving a fixed amount to the Wine Trader/Grain Trader/Cloth Trader, give them 10 points plus one point for every city that contains their particular symbol. A city containing multiple symbols could be scored once for each different symbol it contained (i.e. a city could conceivably be scored three times - once for wine, once for grain, and once for cloth if it contained all three symbols but multiple wine symbols would not make that city score twice for the Wine Trader.)

Generally speaking, the more tiles you play with the easier it would be to create cities that did not duplicate trade types and therefore the potential points could go up. On the downside, there is still an absolute ceiling on the number of points the traders could garnish (and of course with wine being the most important, it could earn the most points !!!!!)

T&B trade counters: What do you think we need? A 4th trade good? More of the other 3? More points for each majority? All of the above?

King and Robber Baron: Yeah, they do scale with game size. Generally (from playing on BSW), you get 15/15 with base + I&C, becomes 20/20 with T&B added, and something like 25/25 with P&D as well.

Expansion 2009: So, you want a "Carcassonne Anthologies" expansion, that combines elements from the previous major (and minor) expansions, and maybe even combining them on one tile? Sounds good, and would definitely appeal to the "more of the same, please" crowd.

The Catapult is a worrying expansion - If this is the road HiG are going down then I really don't think many of us will care what they do next. The only positive spin you can put on it is that at least they trying to come up with something different.  ???

A far as wishfull thinking goes, then forests or mountains as new features - But they would have to offer something new rather than just look pretty. New building features - Possibly Castles. However, all these are unlikely as no new grond features have really been added since the River.

mjharper, nobody is gonna make an expansion, or an expansion of an expansion just to fix some supposed-to-be-wrong rules. They would just be fixed on the same expansion. That's why from time to time some new rules versions come out. If you are thinking of new counters or a new element in the game to improve the T&B expansion, now that would be a brand new expansion or maybe a mini-expansion. Or would you like some change in order to benefit you game style?

I completely agree with Whaleyland. An expansion forest-based would be fantastic. Besides I would have to make myself the fan-made one...
You know, bringing a new base element (forest) to the game would make the job of expansion creators a lot easier. Imagine the expansions made based on cities, roads, fields and so on and think the same way about the forests. Now, that would be jolly good, wouldn't it?
But please expansion creators, don't go again for an action-based expansion. I'm sorry to tell that unfortunately it did work with The Catapult. You see, that's what make boardgames different: any present action is not obvious, it's melted in gameplay.

@kjamma4: The problem with your scoring solution is that there are still only a fixed number of points and tiles. Giving an extra point per city would a) mean that some goods were more valuable than others, which the expansion stove to avoid; and b) having a majority in, say, cloth would still score the same number of points regardless of how many other expansions you use. And that's precisely what I think needs to be changed.

@Lardarse: Exactly! An 'anthology'.

@koolkat: Actually, I disagree. The problem with T&B is not that it is fundamentally broken. It still works perfectly well if it's only combined with a couple of expansion. Instead, the more expansions you add, the less value it has. So the problem isn't really something that has to be changed in the original expansion itself. Rather, a new anthology expansion which contained 'new' tiles from all the old expansions would be the prefect place to address issues of how they all fit together and so on; to introduce some definitive rulings for mega-Carc, saying what's allowed and what isn't, and introducing new rules for T&B to balance better in that—and only that—context.

That's it: I want a mega-Carc anthololgy ;D

Hmm... how many tiles do you see in the "Anthology"?  Will there be additional rules, or is it just tiles with trade goods and counters?  What else will be in the expansion besides trade goods on cities?  River tiles?  Cathedrals?  Shrines?

I would want the anthology to have three components:

• New tile configurations
• Rules/suggestions/adaptations for mega-Carc
• At least one of every tile element

I think at least one of every tile element would be fair, or? ;) So, I'd want one river tile, one cathedral, one inn, *at least one* of every trade good, one princess, one dragon, one volcano, one shrine, one cloister, one siege (couldn't get permission for The Cathars, I guess), one tower foundation, several pennants, and you get the idea. The only stipulation would be that none of the tiles could have appeared in that configuration before, although I'd hope that more imagination could be used than we saw with GQ11. I guess the risk would be that some expansions would be more highly represented than others—P&D would have more new tiles than The Tower, for example. But still, for old hands who literally want "more of the same", that would be the way to go.

Perhaps we should start a new thread? :D

And perhaps we should write to HiG? :D ;D

If by "we" you mean you, then I'm all for it :)

What you are hoping for seems not to be another expansion, but another GQ11... I was hoping that the HiG Almanac would have included that but oh well, it was not to be.

This is a similar with P&D. The Dragon rarely gets near any activity on the board the more expansions are used. This is what Dual Dragon attempts to address. I agree with you that T&B suffers from the same problem (as does The Tower in a small way).

Edit: typos

Need to expand on the idea a bit first. ;). I'll have a think.

To be honest, I never expected the GQ11 to be that. I'd hoped it would just be some interesting new tiles.

Maybe it isn't an expansion as such, but more like an overview of everything to date. But after The Catapult, I'd certainly rather have more of what works than some lame attempt to push the game into a 'new' direction.

Some of these things would be addressed by just including more tiles. I mean, until the recent explosion of shrine tiles, cloisters (etc.) were decidedly under-represented in comparison to cities and roads. I think they probably still aren't worth the commitment—9 points for the effort of completing a cloister/shrine isn't much—but at least there are now more of them, encouraging people to actually use them.

More dragon tiles, volcanoes and tower foundations would help considerably. Although it wouldn't necessarily solve the problem...

Oh, that I definately agree with!

There's still a whole world of ideas of what could be done - witness the expansions here and elsewhere.  I'm just surprised that the Catapult failed so miserably.

I know that ;D I just think that, after such a failure, it might be a good time to take stock of the situation.

Well, I think HiG's next expansion better be something spectacular, or else it would probably be the last expansion they make.  Witness that after P&D, they had Tower and A&M, both were a whole lot better than P&D.

All three of those were also rather competitive. The Catapult is only childish and boring. I have said it before but I hope enough is enough. I do want them to follow mjharper's words and do an expansion for expansions - but companies almost never do that, so I am pretty sure that will not happen.

mjharper, but that would be a totally new expansion and surely not T&B II. And one thing that makes this game pretty awesome is that when we join expansions, we should not care about each one specifically but we'd rather think as ONE game for itself, if you get what I mean. Well... that's how I feel and I do mix a lot of expansions... Besides parts II and subsequent parts usually don't make as much success as the first one. Like on everything else. You know, because there's nothing new (besides the new tiles that you say that T&B II should include...).
But I do agree with you when you say that there should be a Carc Anthology with all that stuff you say...
Actually Carcassonne will remain a classic tile-laying game for ever and ever...

ok why not, for the instance, just hoping for an almalgam of previous expansions of Carc(except the catapult of course).

Well, of course there is always an upper limit on the number of points you can earn. However, now there is at least some variation in the amount of points the Traders could earn. It would be some number from 10 to 10 + the number of counters for that specific good.


Huh? As it stands now, the goods are not all valued the same. Since there are only five cloth goods, you only need three to guarantee that you will get the 10 points. You need four grain (and really only three to guarantee that the worst you'll do is get 10 points and someone else will also get 10) and five wine to say the same. Clearly not all goods are created equal.


Again, there is an upper limit. However, by having more expansions, it should be the case that you are able to complete cities with trade goods without duplicating that specific good. This would make it easier to get to that "upper limit". Additionally, harder it is to "corner the market on" the good, the more potential points that good could be worth.

It may not solve the "problem" as you see it, but it certainly is closer than the present rules.

Could you give some suggestions as to what type of configurations you would like to see?  Rivers?  Icons? Shields/Pennants?

That's not quite what I meant. With the King, for example, you score more points relative to the overall number of tiles you play with. The more expansions, the more points. But if there are only five tiles of a particular trade good, and you score for each one, then the score still doesn't 'grow' as you add more tiles into the mix. The tricky thing with improving T&B is combining a fixed number of tiles with a relative score.

They're not created equally, but they are scored equally  :)

That may be the case…

A trial game may be in order ;)

I mean new layouts more than anything. Dead-ends, that sort of thing. Basically, someone should go through all the tile configurations looking for new or rare arrangements...

That someone sounds like mathguy :)

Deadends:
(http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=285.0;attach=120;image) (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=285.0;attach=121;image) (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=285.0;attach=146;image)

Rare arrangements:
(http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=285.0;attach=123;image) (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=285.0;attach=125;image) (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=285.0;attach=128;image)

New arrangements:
(http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=285.0;attach=129;image) (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=285.0;attach=130;image) (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=285.0;attach=148;image)

You can see the rest of the tiles here (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/junk/mathguy89.pdf).  The second set of 12 is still being developed (my apologies for the delay).

a mechanic to pick-up tiles is still missing...

A new Catapult variant, perhaps?

I'd like to see a deluxe (wooden) big box with everything to date.

Well, some posts before, I said it would be great if the new expansion had forests, but I guess that would be difficult because it would have to hold lots of tiles because it would have a new game element (The forest). See the fan-made with 150 tiles?

I've seen expansions with mountains and seas as well.  I didn't make those tiles and I didn't bookmark them, but the one with seas (Lighthouse and something... Purity will be able to tell you) was rather popular in Germany a few years ago.

I'm looking at the AotC tiles and I think some desert tiles will also be great, and of course, before you get to the mountains, you must have some hills.  And there's always tundra (ice covered ground?) tiles like what I did for solstice wars:

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

Hmm... how many people would like a Siberia spin-off for Carcassonne?  :a4 :bc <35

sounds good to me. ;D

Well, I'm a collector! A Mars Carcassonne would be fine for me! :)

I think LOTR carcassonne would be fun...

Which city/area/location would you use for the title though?

Hobbiton? Moria? Mount Doom?  Minas Tirith?

Possibly Rohan? Cities= westfold villages? Fields= plains? Road= road  :) Cloister= hmm... the golden hall in edoras? Cult= isengard?

it would be interesting...

You may want to take a look at this PC game. Not Mars but it is a space station and plays extremely well. You can download the demo to try it.

http://xenoclone.com/game_xenosola.html (http://xenoclone.com/game_xenosola.html)

Well, to be honest it should include something new, like forests, mountains or sea. May be sea. And boats, whales, fish, etc.

koolkat, do you mean like Pirates of Caracassonne

Following on Catapult, maybe HiG will have those fold-outs that the other pirates game had :(

I found a Sea expansion.  The page is in german so I can't read it, and theres 48 tiles with water, roads, and cities.

http://carcassonne-city.blogspot.com/2007/04/der-see-von-guido-kmmer-und-carsten.html

i'm already fitting the colours and borders to the ones on this page ...

Try this  ;)
http://66.196.80.202/babelfish/translate_url_content?.intl=us&lp=de_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fcarcassonne-city.blogspot.com%2f2007%2f04%2fder-see-von-guido-kmmer-und-carsten.html

Thanks

Thanks for the plug! I didn't know this site existed until I started getting some traffic from here. Carcassonne was certainly my inspiration for Xeno Sola. I love the Xbox 360 version of the game. One day I'd like to make a new Carcassonne style game with the lessons I learned from the first one. :)

Welcome to our little corner of the web, Chris. Looks like a good game, the graphics are awesome!

Who reckons that all of the members of this site should get together and develop an official 'Carcassonne Central Large Expansion'?
That would be cool, everyone could contribute and help to develop it so it has a wider range of influence? It could be the CC 2009 goal...

that would be so awesome! {gh

But we have the fan-made expansions made by ourselves!

Yeah, I know, but a big one that everyone could work on together, not just a few people...

There's nothing stopping anyone from starting that initiative.  It's not going to be me though, because I've got other things lined up, but I don't mind contributing if that's really needed...

I'm not against a mega-members expansion, but lots of people means lot of trouble.

saddly, carcassonne is a great game to mess it up with a maximum of players(and expansions), the few players games are a bit predictables and redundant.

That's what attracted me on Carc: it's never the same game. Now with all these expansions, even better!

Thanks Gantry.

Are people adding new ways to score with the expansions? I've seen forests and lakes and the like. But are there, say, new structures that can be scored on such as the roads, castles, and cathedrals? I came up with one new type in my game, but I'm curious what's already out there as my exposure to Carcassonne is 100% just through the Xbox right now.

SO........................... any news from the expansion for Carcassonne for 2009?? THEN???

@xenoclone: Many of us here have been developing our own expansions. The finished ones are available in the downloads section of this web site. The unfinished ones are being worked on the Variant Workshop forum.

@Deatheux: If HiG announces another expansion, somebody will post about it in a new thread. This thread is more for wishing what you'd like to see.

Xenoclone:  My favourite new way to score is probably Gold Mines.  Treasure Hunt is another good one, and the Jousting Tournament is another favourite of mine.  You can have a look at all these and more at Carcassonne Central download page (click me) (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=62).  [BTW, That "click me" in the last sentence is for people like Deatheux who seem to have trouble noticing blue links on a light bluish-grey background.]

There are also some fan-made stuff in development.  For example, I'm currently working on a fan-made expansion that gives players points for successfully hunting down the dragon.  I'm still waiting for my extra meeples though... so I can't playtest it.  All fan-made expansions in development can be found in the Variant Workshop (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?board=6.0) forum

Deatheux: If there is news of a new expansion, it will be posted in the "News and Events" forum and not here in the General forum.  As Scott said, this thread is about things that you wish for in the new expansion.  Also, from past experience, HiG announces an expansion about 2 months before release.  RGG announces it about 6 months.  HiG usually hold things back until Essen in October, so the announcements usually come in August.  RGG is a bit flexible and does have regular news update on their sites.  The latest one is here (click me) (http://www.riograndegames.com/news.html?id=14).  They haven't announced any Carcassonne expansions for the first half of the year, but note that there are 3 HiG products to be shown in Nuremberg (Toy Fair) which will be shown (not released) in February.  So February will probably be a good time to find out news.  But please do note that HiG has other games besides Carcassonne, so the February news may not be Carcassonne related.

I have heard a rumour from germany that the next expansion might include Children, anyone who knows more about this ?

Children?  There are smaller meeples in the travel edition (see picture below):


Perhaps that is the source of the rumour?

No, this rumour was about new figures being made now, for an upcoming expansion.

i a bit survolted to know what will be in the next expansion...

1st, to prove that that can be successussfuly upgraded, and prove that the catapult was an one timer big bag error...
2nd, to avois the speculations that i really disgrace...
3rd to avoid the rest of the 'fan based' brainwash "wannabe expansions" that prove and improve nothing in the game...

PLEASE NOTE THAT i mark the expressions to AVOID confusion and PROVE that i do NOT want to hurt, to scandalize, or offense anyone.

Deatheux, it is OK to not like the fan-based expansions and speculations - and you have the right to your opinions and I respect your opinions!  However, there are many who disagree with you and I hope you will allow them to be able to enjoy the fan-based expansions and to make their speculations here.  Please do not spoil their fun here.

I want to repeat that this thread is about what you would like to have/see as a new official expansion in 2009 (or if you would even like to have a new expansion in 2009).  If anyone is looking for real news about a new expansion in 2009, please go look in the News and Events forum.

OK, I found something and posted it at http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?&topic=656.0

you might have mixed this up with "the settlers of catan", there will be a game called "Die Kinder von Catan" this year ...

There's also a game called "Die Kinder von Carcassonne" this year.  Check the thread I linked to above :)

Is 2009 the year of the children in germany or something?

yeah i've seen it too late ...

no its just the same as allways, hig copies the ideas of kosmos ... as done for small expansions in general and the river in special ;-)

Anyway, when is next expansion supposed to be out there?

afaik there is no expansion planned at the moment, only this spin-off though.

Right. We're at the very beggining of the year!

of course, i'm not a dictator!!

my devise is : COME TO THE FACTS, that's why some threads looks neverending endaround to me... but i am just a worthless psychosocial!!!

The HiG expansions are being shown in Nuremberg in February (see the other thread in the News section) and maybe they'll be on sale there.

no sale there ...

perhaps on eBay... :)

Maybe someone should write to HiG and ask them for a "Review Copy" :)

no sale because its only a presentation, the selling starts later this year afaik

Sorry to ask, but what does "afaik" mean?

AFAIK = As far as I know

Oh boy! I'll never learn. ;)

It's June.  After 2008, where there were at least 3 different expansions (depending on how you count them - 1. Catapult, 2. Cult, Siege and Creativity, 3. Shrines from HiG Almanac, 4. Graf, König und Konsorten), a spin-off (New World/Mayflower) and the german Big Box, all we got this year has been one spin-off for Children.  I'm still hoping we'll get an official expansion this year, but it's beginning to sink in that the chances might be slim that I'll see one.  Oh well.

Yeah, a 2009 expansion would be nice. They've released one every other year, I think. At least released something. I want a new expansion!!!

I wouldn't mind seeing a River 3 expansion. You know different combos for the river pieces.

You can make some of them, just download the tiles you want from the Public Downloads (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=62) (look under the fishermen section).

I've tried that before...they don't look "professional".

Should we add it to the list of future expansions?  Anyone else want to see this?

Chr15,  Which list of future expansions are you talking about?  The fan-made ones?

Well I guess the Wheel of Fate/Fortune (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=983.0) is the 2009 expansion.  HiG release this month (July) and RGG will probably make it available for Christmas (around October).  I'm glad that it's not another catapult!

The fan-made ones, yes.  Dunno, just thought a River III might be fun as a smaller (12 tiles) add-on to River I+II.  An alternative to the larger Fishermen series I guess.

That's slightly out of topic for this thread.  I guess we can always start a discussion in the appropriate place.

Also, it does not help nordiskanc, who as he says, won't be able to make "professional" looking tiles and he hopes that there will be some officially made river tiles.

Yeah I've tried to print out fan made ones before and they always feel different in the bag and if I use the tower (the preferred method for my group) the green doesn't really look the same as the official tiles. :'(