Carcassonne Central

I just received extra meeples today as I ordered a set of brown meeples, a set of the meeples, huts and trackers from Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers, a set from Carcassonne: The City and a set from Carcassonne: The Discovery.

BUT on top of this, the friendly "meeplemaker" sent me an extra bag of meeples that really surprised me. It was 8 small meeples in 5 different colours and 2 large meeples in gold.

What to do with the large gold meeples, I don't know yet, but I have an idea for the small ones:

The Kids are growing up:
Extra pieces: 2 small meeples in each colour

The small followers (the children) counts as a half follower, but that can surely be valuable when there is a struggle over ownership.
In contrast to all other followers a child can't be left alone, but have to be placed on a road, in a city or a farm and not more than 5 tiles away from their parent.
The value of the road, city or farm raises with 3 points when the child is with its parent.
A child cannot be placed on the river or in the City of Carcassonne and cannot be eaten by the dragon or captured by the tower (or sheriff).

Any comments ?

Just so we all know what wicke's discussing here:

(http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/images/travel.jpg)
image by Henning Förthmann (BGG)

The meeples are from Travel Carcassonne


I've seen this idea (of the .5 value) before. On CC I think.


 Yes, it certainly could make all the difference...


That idea I do like, a lot! It is logical if they are children (in the variant/expansion) that they need to be deployed along with a parent.


That is a usable idea.


Not so sure about that, though :)


Ok, I like the parent and child idea. What if the children did not increase the value by .5 at all, but did increase scoring points when both were deployed with their parent. This would mean that if the red children were deployed in a city with their 'regular size' parent, the city would score at 3 points per tile, but if green had a large meeple within that city, red would lose the majority (the children do not count towards the majority).

Another idea that each player would have 2 children at game start, but would only have 5 regular meeples. The children must score a feature. When they score a feature they 'grow up' and can be exchanged for a regular meeple (left out at the start).

Apprentices. Not sure if the rules for that variant are here or at BGG.

Thanks for the input Joff, and the thing with both children together sounds great.

Not sure what you thought was bad in the last line though.
I can't imagine that you thought that the children could be taken as prisoners.
So it must be that you thought that the children could be placed on the river and be eaten by the dragon and I can live with that.
But, I don't think that I would place the children in Carcassonne City, or ?
I just realized that I forgot about the magic portal, of course the children can be placed by the magic portal as well.

No problem. I like the idea of deploying the children together. It would even be possible to be able to deploy just one with a parent. So you could have two children with two parents, each double scoring the feature deployed on. I would say that they should not increase the majority (i.e. be worth half a point), but that's just my opinion. It seems better to deploy with a parent and not to have an effect on the majority but do have an effect on the scoring. When they have been used to score the feature, they can 'grow up' and be exchanged for the regular meeple. This would be better if they are upgraded one at a time.


Actually yes, I thought they should be able to be taken prisoner or eaten by the Dragon. However, it would be better if they just could not exist in a feature without their parent (again, this would assume that they do not count for any part of the majority) and so if their parent is captured, the child is returned to its owner. Likewise if the Dragon eats the childs parent, the child is returned to its owner. The 'grow up' exchange only happens when a feature they are deployed on (with their parent) is completed and scored.


Here is a very draft first version: Kids 0.1 draft pdf (http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/files/Kids.pdf) Comments welcomed.

"At game start 5 normal followers are used together with the 2 small followers."
Hmm?  Not sure what you are trying to say.  How do you "use" the followers together?  Or do you mean "Each player should have 5 normal followers and 2 small followers at the start of the game" instead?

"In contrast to all other followers a child can't be left alone, but have to be placed on a road, in a city or on a river and not more than 5 tiles away from their parent."
Parent has not beed defined previously.  What is a parent?  Also, it would be nice to (1) remove the contraction and use "cannot" instead of "can't" and (2) define exactly what is a child (overview has "children") more clearly before describing how to use them.

"When both the children have been able to ‘help’ a parent to score a feature, they can be exchanged into a normal follower."
I'm sorry I don't understand.  When both the two child followers have been scored together with a normal follower?  What does "exchange" mean?  Where does one get the normal follower from?  Are the child followers removed from the game?

I have been the clarifications for CC expansions/variants in the footnotes so as not to confuse the readers unfamiliar with the other expansions we have developed here.  Sheriff.... placing on rivers... things like that might be perfectly understood by myself, but it does need to be clarified that they are only valid if playing with the relevant fan-made expansion(s)/variant(s) either in the body of the text or as a footnote.

Added to the "Work in Progress" thread.

Sorry, if I have not been clear.

Yes, "At game start 5 normal followers are used together with the 2 small followers." is exactly the same as "Each player should have 5 normal followers and 2 small followers at the start of the game"

As the children (or child in singular) are small followers, ALL normal (or large) followers can be named parents.

Yes, one idea was that when the two child followers scores a feature together with a normal follower (parent), that the two small followers can be removed from the game and the normal follower that is lying at the side of the table can be taken into the game.
(Since the game starts with only 5 normal followers)

Will explain more about the Sheriff and other things that may need that as well, this is only a variant in the making, and it is my first variant as well so I might be a little unclear with some of the rules.

Actually I have two other variants/expansions in the making as well that Joff are looking at right now, do you want to look at those too, or you might not have time.

It's OK if you aren't clear in the first place... as long as you get there ultimately :)

Feel free to post your ideas up as a separate thread, wicke, when you think they are ready for others to see and to provide their comment.  We are all here to help you.

I am happy to help you rewrite the rules if need be :)

'The Kids are growing up' have gone through a couple of updates, but none have been uploaded on CC.
Can you please upload the latest version, Joff ?

Cheers
.../Wicke

Second version: Kids 0.2 draft pdf (http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/files/Kids_0_2.pdf) Comments welcomed.

Comment: I'm not sure if this is a variant or an expansion.  There are new pieces involved.  The subtitle says it's a variant.

Observation: Shouldn't the picture of the meeples in the rules include all 6 colours instead of just blue?  (The CAR has that)

Comment: How do the normal rules and the CAR phrase how many meeples there are?  The way that it is written now is confusing, because it seems only 2 mini-followers (painted in 6 colours) is required.

Clarification needed:
"They have no effect on the majority but do have an effect on the scoring."  No effect on the majority of what???  Do you mean no effect on determining who has majority instead?

Comment: The preparation should have a statement saying that the remaining 2 normal followers are kept to the side or something.

Question: When do you play a child/mini-follower?  Is it a MTW action?

Observation: It's a bit confusing to call the mini-follower child/children in the rules.  I will just use mini-followers all throughout to make reading the rules easier (as some non-English-speaking people may not realise that children is just plural for child)

Question: Can the mini-followers be placed on rivers or forests if playing with the fishermen and/or forests rules respectively?  As the rules are written currently, they can't

Question: If a city has a red mayor and I'm playing blue, can I play a mini-follower to that city?  There needs to be a clarification that a mini-follower can only be placed on a feature with a parent of the same colour otherwise.

Question: Is the wagon (A&M) considered a parent?  The rules doesn't say

Question: What happens if the fairy is next to a mini-follower?

Comment: I'm not sure I understand what this statement says.  "A child can join directly to the feature occupied by a parent but must be deployed to a separate tile."  How can a meeple join (directly or otherwise) a feature?

Comment: There is nothing in the scoring part to say that the mini-followers do not contribute to determining the majority of the feature.

Comment: Scoring examples are needed since it's a bit different from normal.

Comment: The exchanging of mini for regular meeples section could also do with at least one example.

Question: At which point is the exchanging done?  Immediately after scoring?

Joff, it also needs the clarifications for the usual raft of Medieval expansion questions.

I sent you a personal message about this

I have obtained wicke's blessing to finish off his expansions.

Therefore, here is another update:
The Kids are Growing Up 0.3 (http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/files/Kids_0_3.pdf)

Comments are welcome.

This is also been quite a head ache. While I liked using the names 'parent', 'child' and 'children', they seem to complicate matters somewhat, so this may well need a complete rewrite!

I know that examples are required. Let me know where examples might be necessary.

Here we go again.  I'm spending a lot more time reading through these than making tiles or new expansions...

Comment: I'm not sure the term "majority" is the norm for Carc rules terminology.  If it's used in the rules document it needs to be defined with a footnote (just like MTW).

Observation: Should the term "feature" be replaced with "a road or a city", since those are the 2 things that children can occupy?

Observation: Text not justified for Preparation section.

Comment: I like the footnotes that clarifies what a parent is and what child/children is/are.

Comment: It would be nice if the contractions (e.g. can't) is spelt out in full

Observation: "a child can never be left alone in a feature" - this sounds and reads weirdly and may need to be rephrased.

Question: "Both ‘children’ may be deployed together in a feature" - does that mean that they can be deployed together during the same turn to the same segment on the same tile?

Question: "If the parent is taken prisoner by a tower, or removed by the dragon, the child must be returned to its owner, as a child cannot occupy a feature on his own."  So if I have two parents and a child on a city and one of the parents is captured by the tower, the child is returned?  That's what the current statement can be interpreted to mean.

Question for Joff: So if the parent is temporary removed by the Stocks or permanently removed by the Gallows, the children are allowed to stay?  It might be better to just state removed from the road or city instead of the 2 special cases.

Question for Joff: If the only parent is in the Jousting Tournament, what happens to the children?

Comment: The first sentence in Scoring is a bit too long.  It might be better to split it up to 2 sentences.

Rephrasing:
1 point is added to every tile making up the If a completed road or city, that contains a child and at least one parent. is scored, each tile of that road or city scores one additional point.

Question: "A completed road or city that contains both children and at least one parent will score double the usual points for the feature."  When is the doubling done?  How does it interact with Inns, Cathedrals, Pennants, Pope, Valois, Cathars, Siege, etc.

Comment: The doubling part seems a bit broken for me.  Like the Valois expansion (and combined with that), this will make this expansion more and more unbalanced the more expansions one plays (especially when combined with the Valois expansion) with and it seems as if it is designed as an anti-mega-Carc expansion.  I would suggest the doubling be for tiles only in cities (and make Valois for pennants only) and tiles only for roads.

Question for Joff: How do the children interact with the scoring of the Jousting Tournament?

Question: If a feature with 2 children are scored, can both of them be exchanged for normal followers immediately after scoring?

Question: What's the logic of making them immune to the dragon?  Pigs and Builders are not immune to being removed by the dragon, and are placed exactly the same way.  It might be better to make the children work almost the same as the pigs and the builders.

Hope that helps, Joff.

Another update:
The Kids are Growing Up 0.4 (http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/files/Kids_0_4.pdf)

Here are my comments...

Formatting: The preparation title is hanging on page 1 while the text is on page 2.  It looks weird.

Formatting: "Each child must be deployed to separate tiles only one child can be deployed per turn."  I think those are two sentences in there that has been joined into one.

Formatting: Page 2 doesn't have the blue box, page 3 has 2 blue boxes.

Formatting: Page 4 looks weird

Formatting: 'child' or child is not used consistantly throughout the document.  Likewise with 'parent' and parent.

Comment: I like the 1 point for 1 and 3 points for both in the new scoring area.

Formatting: The Header is missing a number of capital letters in the title (The Kids are growing up)

Comment: Footnote 8 should also include the phrase: "All reference to "road or city" in the rules would therefore also include forests and/or rivers if playing with the relevant fan-made expansions." or something to that effect.

Keep up the good work Joff.  It's coming along nicely :)

Some comments, but the ones already mentioned by Novelty is left out:

footnote 3, ends with just "However" in a new sentence that doesn't end

The Preparation section need a blank line (or two) at the end

side 3 last line, "normal regular follower" sounds strange

Otherwise it sounds OK, although I believe it might be quite difficult to read through now since it is much longer than the original rules, but some might think it is necessary to avoid misinterpretations.

Almost good to go: The Kids are Growing Up 0.5 (http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/files/Kids_0_5.pdf)

It's coming along nicely.  Just one comment:

"a city made up of 6 tiles" sounds weird to me.  "a city which consists of 6 tiles" is better but I'm sure there are better alternatives.

'a completed city that is spread over 6 tiles'

'a completed city that comprises 6 tiles'

'a single completed city comprising 6 tiles'

'a single completed city made up of 6 tiles'

'a single completed city over 6 tiles'

'a completed city which consists of 6 tiles'

'a completed city consisting of 6 tiles'

one of these perhaps?

I like this one best out of all the ones in the list :)

"a city that has 6 tiles"

Ditto.

Getting there: The Kids are Growing Up 0.6 (http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/files/Kids_0_6.pdf)

All that has changed is the offending sentences regarding the 6 tile city. If there are no further comments, I will release the final version late this evening (UK time) or tomorrow morning. I hope this meets your approval wicke.

You know I approve of your time and effort spent on this,
but it is still difficult to read the rules of my simple expansion,
and to see how long and seemingly difficult it has become.

Some small comments (just thought they should be corrected before a final version):
footnote 1, second sentence should begin with a capital letter

there seem to be enough space on side 1 for the Preparation section

Second paragraph in The kids are growing up, third sentence seem to have
two blank spaces between the words been and involved

Thanks Joff
.../Wicke

I disagree with you. The problem with simple rules is they leave a lot of ambiguities, which makes the expansion unplayable to others (who will have unanswered questions). One must attempt to address all possible difficulties associated with any fan-made expansion, especially when you are playing Carcassonne which might be played with a number of different expansions. It is not as clear cut as you might think. The very fact that we have a list of FAQ's for HiG to answer, testifies that there are points that are unclear in the official rules. Here is an example of such (from the HiG thread):


The above is a clear cut problem regarding the official rules. Now, we all 'know' that a Mayor cannot be deployed to a city containing a Wagon, but the rules do NOT say that, and I have no argument to someone who insists that the Mayor can be deployed with my Wagon!

I can play In the Stocks exceptionally well. The rules for it are terribly long winded though. But needs must. I have the advantage in that I created that expansion, so I, naturally, 'know' all the rules. Things that I think are pretty obvious, in reality, aren't that obvious. It is the same for your expansions, you already 'know' the rules. I don't. If I were to play Kids, (and I have purchased the meeples especially so I can play it), using the original rules it would be unplayable by me (unless you were overseeing the game).

If the rules are not what you envisioned, you are welcome to work on them. I will be happy to pdf them for you and host them. The reason I have worked on them is because I requested that I could finish off Kids, Valois and Pope for you (in your abscence). I certainly don't want to 'tread on your toes' regarding your expansions.

Edit: wicke's corrections - The Kids are Growing Up 0.7 (http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/files/Kids_0_7.pdf)

Again, I didn't mean any disrespect to you Joff, that's not the problem.
When you see what kinds of questions are popping up for the original Carc game, you understand that people don't have the patience to read through the complete rules (not even the official ones, let alone the 120 page CAR).
That's why people won't have the patience reading through complex fan-made expansion rules either and that would be sad if they get the impression that it's too complex, when in reality they can be rather simple.

For example, I have translated the rules for all original expansions and the fan-made expansions I like, to swedish, and at the same time, shortened them and just written down the main themes and rules.
The complete document that includes rules for Catapult, Shrines, Siege, The Jester & The Minstrel, Invasion of Catharism, Trading Post, Tax Collector, Prison, Cleric & Serf, Kids are growing up, The Pope of Avignon, The House of Valois, The Leper, Bishop & Dioceses, The Giant, The Medieval Expansion, Archery Tournament, Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Manor, Gold Mines, Outposts, The Noblemen, Treasure Hunt, Family Feud, Fishermen, Forests and The Volcano Erupts became just 7 pages long.

.../Wicke

I want my expansions to be available to as many people as possible and so I like them to be hosted at CC. I also believe that the expansions hosted at CC are definately the best of the fan-mades out there. It is actually our rules that set them in a class of their own (even comparable to official expansions in some cases). I see your point about people not having the patience to read through the rules, but that is their problem and not mine. My job is to issue a rule set that will cover as many situations that can be thought of, before I release to the public.

I guarantee that all have had to turn to the rules to seek a clarification at some point. If rules were simplistic where would you go to get that clarification? For an answer you would post a question at a forum, or ask the creator of that expansion direct.

However, I do not have the time necessary to oversee answering questions that might be raised as a result of my rules being too simplistic. Most of the intricate questions, however, are raised in the footnotes so they do not detract from the main thrust of the expansion itself. If you cut out the footnotes the rules, in most cases, become straightforward 'simple' expansions (especially if you cut out the examples also (I could not even contemplate the problems that cutting the examples out would cause though). Cutting out the footnotes, causes the problem of having to answer every request for a rules clarification. A quick look at BGG shows that for Carcassonne (for those not using the CAR, at least), the same questions are asked over and over again, each time having to be answered once again. Another difficulty is that expansions created by me (and others) are being released to the public without prior knowledge as to which official expansions they will be used together with, and so, again, you have to foresee different situations that may arise for different people.

Here is the final release:

The Kids are Growing Up (http://www.john-warren.co.uk/carcassonne/files/Kids_1.pdf)

Now available on Public Downloads (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=62) as well!  Thanks for all the work, Joff.