Carcassonne Central

Hello!
When I play with the Tower expansion, I have two doubts about the rules:
1) If the tower has not any follower on the top, another player could place a follower on a territory covered by the tower, or it becames immediately a prisoner?
2) if I have a tower placed inside a town, at the end of the game, I get points for that town or not, if I do not have any other follower-knight on it?


Thank you for your answers!
Bye

Generale

1) You can only capture followers in the range of a Tower if you add to the tower. Otherwise, they are (relatively) safe. Followers can't immediately become prisoners, otherwise there would be no reason for placing a follower on the title.
2) A follower on top of a Tower is not worth any points at the end of the game and counts toward the occupation of nothing except the Tower. If you have a tower inside a city with a follower on top of it at the end of the game, you still have no claim on the city itself. You must put another follower somewhere else in the city to get points for it.

Here is another question I had about the Tower expansion.  Perhaps this has come up here before, but I've never seen it.  What do you do with prisoners that you are holding at the end of the game?  I didn't see anything about it in the rules and we discussed the possibility of a player being required to pay the ransom for the return of their followers at the end.  Has anyone come across this before or does anyone have any thoughts?

Nothing happens to the prisoners at the end of the game.  You don't have to pay the ransom and you don't get your prisoner back.  At least that's how we play it.

Same here.

Does anyone else place captured meeples on top of the tower, or is it just me?

I presume you mean the cardboard dispenser.  It would not be legal to place captured followers on top of the tower in play as then you won't be able to tell which one of the towers actually have followers or prisoners on top of them.

And we don't place captured prisonsers on top of the cardboard tower - we keep them with our supply so that we don't lose track of who has captured what.  My usual group is 3 players, but we may have up to 5 players sometimes.

Good point, we usually play two handed.

BTW, I did mean the cardboard dispenser.  It might be against the rules to put captured meeples on top of a tower, but I dont think it would actually be illegal  ;)  Can't see a SWAT team coming through my window to arrest me for it  ;D

I'll give them a call.  No guarantees that they'll go through your windows though, unless you are in a Steve Martin movie about the French.

It's not legal according to the rules, so that makes it illegal :)

anyway, it is rare that any player let some followers in "prison" they can trade them for +3/-3 points to reclaim one...

but it would be sharp to make a special rule for prisionners not reclaimed by his kingdom!!

+9 points per followers abandonned!!

That would be a house rule.  Why make things more complicated?

At the risk of being pedantic, that's not strictly true.

If it's against the "law" it's illegal.

Laws and Rules are two very different things.  Laws are binding and enforceable by a public body (usually the Police).  Rules are less formal, or as some would say "rules are made to be broken, laws can only be bent".

[/pedant mode]

     ;l4

i prefer the term "Variant" but, i will not add it myself in our games, unless RGG publish an official statement... like for the points stealed when a challenge is resolved...

We play where you have to buy back your followers at the end of the game.
We also have the rule that you get your followers back in order of them being captured.

That sounds very reasonable to me and I think very appropriate.

Ah, interesting houserules.  Do you play with just 2 players or more than 2 players?

My usual group is with 3 players. What is really funny is when you capture 2 (or more) regular meeples and then capture the mayor or the big meeple. It then takes them a minimum of 3 turns to get the big guys back.

That would probably work well when only playing with official expansions.  Anything with Forests or Fishermen or Mountains will probably need a few extra tower bases to be able to take a minimum of 3 turns to get the big guys back.

Some questions on the tower rules :

Say one player has blocked further construction of a random tower by placing a meeple on top. That specific tower gets within range of another tower in construction. Can the meeple on the first tower be taken prisoner, or is it always protected from other towers around it ?

Secondly, can a mayor or the big meeple be used to finish a tower ?

And thirdly, are you obliged to exchange special followers (such as the mayor or the builder) for a meeple, or are they kept in prison until they can be exchanged with similar followers ?

Finally, I suppose barns can never been taken 'prisoner' ?

Thanks for your help.

Yes, the meeple on the tower can be captured by the meeple of another tower.


The big meeple: yes. The mayor: no. The big meeple can be used for anything that a normal meeple can be used for, while the mayor can only be placed in cities.


I believe the player who owns the prisoners can choose which to exchange, but either way you are not required to exchange similar pieces. A mayor can be exchanged for a big meeple or regular meeple or wagon or builder.


Correct, Barns are immune to pretty much everything.


No problem. That's what we're here for!  :)

Thanks for the quick reply, Whaleyland.

Basis your answer on the first question, 2 towers within range can only be negated when both are topped with a meeple. If one of them is still 'under construction', the other can be put in service again by capturing its occupying meeple, as so forth ?

Also believe that missing tiles don't influence the range of the tower ? Logics would suggest they don't, as towers only increase line of sight. Nice to know to settle disputes, if any.

And one more: if the follower occupying a city is captured, what about the builder in that city ? Does it return to the owner, or will it remain in that city and serve no purpose until another follower from that player can occupy/connect to above city ?

Thanks again.

Yes, you are correct.

I believe the rules clearly state that missing tiles do not affect the range of the tower.  The CAR states that very clearly on page 44.

If at any point there are no followers for the builder on a road or city, the builder is immediately returned to the player's supply.  See also the last sentence of page 44 of the CAR.

You might also want to have a look at the CAR which you may download from this thread (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=587.0).  It will probably answer most of your other questions.

It seems I am a little slow on the uptake for this new expansion but have now ordered :) What is the plan to include these rules into CAR?  Of course, not that I am the demanding sort but would be good to see the final outcome of the rules in one place.  ;D

... sorry posted this under tower and should be under tunnel.  Sorry having a senior moment.

I just got the tower expansion myself. It's pretty fun.
But I have to disagree with some of your explanations of the rules.

This is taken from the rio grand website, they have downloadable pdf's of the rules for all their games.  http://riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_58_gameRules.pdf (http://riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_58_gameRules.pdf) these are the rules for for the tower. In thos rules it says:

"When a player places a follower on a tower, the
tower is completed and may not be further
heightened. This follower remains on the tower
until the end of the game. The follower cannot
be taken prisoner or taken back by the owning player. Players use this
action to protect their other followers from being taken prisoner"

So, once you stop a tower your guy is stuck there for the rest of the game!


My question about the tower expansion, sadly isn't explained in the rules.  But here it goes.
Refering to this picture: (my appologies for the quality- shot on my phone)
 (http://imgur.com/FBda1.jpg)
if a player places a second tower piece on the existing one. He should be eligible to capture a meeple two spaces away.  This will make the blue meeple, and the yellow meeple available to be captured.

My question though, is seeing as there is a gap, and no tile placed inbetween the tower and the red meeple, is he still eligable to be captured?  I personally though no. Blank space is counted as borders in most instances. So I've been playing it as if you wanted to capture red you would have to first place a tile to connect the ground of the tower to red's tile.

How would you play this scenario? Would you allow the red meeple to be captured with a second tower piece?

The follower on top of the tower can still be removed (eaten) by the dragon or the catapult.

Page 2 of the same rules says that:

Which means that the red follower can be captured when the second piece of the tower is played.

Oh good, it is explained in the rules! I missed it. Thanks for pointing it out though!

I can`t find an answer for such question: what happens if player at the same moment finish an object and place a tower taking a prisoner?

Ex.: Blue has an unfinished city with one knight. There is only one tile needed to finish. Red takes a tile with a part of a city and a fundament. Red places this tile to Blue`s city closing to a tile with a knight, finishing a city, place a tower and... and what happens first?

Blue player scores a city, then Red take his knight as a prisoner? Or first Red takes a prisoner, so Blue don`t have time to score a city and get nothing?

*digs out my copy of the CAR*  Nope, not in there.

The steps to normal carcassonne are
1. Place a tile
2. Deploy a follower
3. Score.

The tower piece and the capture occurs instead of step 2, i.e. before 3. score.  So the prisoner will be taken before scoring.

In your example, Red takes blue prisoner before scoring is carried out.

Thanks a lot

We wondered when playing this basic came with tower expansion that can player start new tower on earlier played towertile? Sorry if this is difficult to understand :) what i mean is that if player on his/her turn places e.g. citytile and doesn't want to play follower there but wants to start new tower on "old" unstarted towertile, can he/she do so?

Thanks! :)

He can place a tower piece on any tower foundation or previosly placed tower piece.

Yeah, i just found the original rule paper in English, it's much more clear in English rules that in Finnish rules :)

Thanks to you anyway!