Carcassonne Central

I've recently had my first play with the usual suspects. The guys didn't understand the rules right away. You know, it seems that what goes away from the vanilla Carc rules is somehow difficult for them to handle. Anyway, the second game was aborted because my clumsy brother in law spoiled water over the board, ruining 4 tiles. Fortunately they can be mended (I guess). Finnaly on the third game, everybody enjoyed the game, because everybody finnaly understood the rules. Nevertheless I think vanilla Carc + I&C + T&B fits them better... I'll have to continue my struggle in order to vary a little bit our games...

I can't speak for them, but the first time I played H&G on the computer I found the changes in artwork confusing. I hadn't read the rules, and didn't realize that rivers were like roads. I also had trouble wrapping my brain around the huts.

When I first played (which I think was on BSW), the mechanics were easy to grasp (I'd put that down to the people that explained it). The strategy was harder to grasp, though.

Well, with any new game, we always do a "trial run" of a few turns as an example game.  Maybe that may help.

Yes, I'm sure it will...

I used to own a snooker table, was my pride & joy, and never let anyone with a drink near it, let alone on it.  Same with the old poker table, drinks go behind you on the counter.  Extend that rule to any board game, and you'll never have a problem.

It took maddie and I a couple of runs to get the hang of H&G but when we did it became a very enjoyable game. Can involve a bit of strategy especially with the river system.  H&G probably contributed to me thinking about tile placement more strategically in Carc.

Thanks for the advise, Gantry. In my case that'll be hard to achieve but I'll give it a try...

The first several times I played, we used the river, but didn't use fields/farmers at all. We either forgot about it or thought the scoring was too complex... I'm not sure which. The game went faster because you didn't have to consider as many possibilities when placing followers, and we usually had very few holes and tended to cooperate in cities. This made strategy much more psychological because you had to try to get points in a way that wouldn't tick people off so they would continue to allow you into their cities. I kind of miss playing that way.

EDIT:  :bk I reread the name of this thread and just noticed that it's H&G first play... Oops. Don't know how I missed that! I don't even have that one. Sorry.

Hi,  I was wondering if any of the UK/EU PS3 users here have signed-up to Future Publishings First Play service and what they thought of it?

Any feedback or info. much appreciated even if you have never heard of it or dont intend to use it.

THANKS