Carcassonne Central

I haven't yet decided whether Cloisters are a blessing or a curse so thought I might see if others had any strategy other than I can think of on these - I had a particuarly bad game on Monday night where I got 2 meeples tied up on cloisters that I didn't manage to complete - OK in the count up (8 each), but missed some scoring and tactical opportunities because of meeple shortage during the final stages of the game (and lost the game by 9 points). 

Also do any of the expansions change how cloisters play?

Some tips I have picked up (from other posts eg on BGG and my own experience) - some are pretty basic and obvious but here goes:

• look for holes where you can place cloisters with a minimum amount of tiles required to complete
• cloisters are often best placed close to other cloisters
• place cloisters close to other features (particularly your own) that are being worked on so subsequent tiles serve a dual purpose
• cloisters can be good for completing roads
  
• cloisters (especially the basic set ones) are good for connecting farms
• think carefully about playing a meeple on a cloister if you are low on meeples (particularly if you don't have good possibilities for recovering other meeples quickly)
• late in the game, a cloister could be worth more played as a farmer than as a cloister
• this probably obvious, but unlike other features if you don't play a meeple on a cloister when you draw it you can never cash in on it (mind you nor can anyone else) - roads and cities can usually be joined with a later tile (as long as someone else doesn't do it) - it is therefore sometimes worth saving a meeple or so for cloisters - but you need to balance this with the caution above about being low on meeples.
  

Thats about it I guess - does anyone have any other tips?   I haven't really considered possible use of cloisters for blocking - eg. placing close to an opponents city to make it harder to complete 

Cloisters tend to gang up that's true, I usually try to place them near other unfinished cloisters or try to merge farms with them.

With The Count you can place meeples on cloisters to steal or share the score - but I've never really used the option. The portal in Princess & Dragon allows for placement on unfinshed and unoccupied things as well.

I haven't posted the announcement yet, but check out the site's front page: Articles, Analytic menu.  There's a great section in The Carc Strategy Guide!

Yes - I had read that a while ago on BGG, and a couple of my points are what I recalled from that.   It is a good general strategy guide.

The one on BGG is an older version, we have the latest   ;D

We use this tactic quite often; we even have a term for it: the "cloister cluster"