Carcassonne Central

Original idea by Jabberwocky:


This expansion will have the 2 tiles listed above, and 3 more dry lakes and one plague + dry lake.  Total tiles in set = 6.

The dry lake will be replaced by a cattle skull and a patch of brown dried up mud.

Here's the rat plague tile:
(http://www.dukenostalgia.com/carc/images/rats.jpg)

I really like your ideas and this tile looks pretty good.  I'm wondering if maybe the colors on the rat tiles could maybe be a little paler so they could be more easily differentiated.  It would probably be fine as is though. 

I'm also curious if 6 tiles might be a little too many.  In the games I've played, I don't know if there have been more than four farms large enough to fight over, so this could be pretty costly.  I would think a good guage would be the number of pig farms in play.  My thought is that four tiles (two of each) might be plenty.  But again, six wouldn't be a bad thing and you could always leave a few out if you wanted.

Well, I guess the tower and dragon could counter the pestilence, and the pig farms could counter the dry lake, so it doesn't matter so much how many of each tile there are.  However, I don't think it has to be that way.

I don't think I'd want to capture a knight whose under quarantine with a tower.  He'll get the other prisoners sick.  And dragons probably smell illness and stay away.  He's probably going to get a sick tummy from eating plague-ridden knights.

Also, if the dry lakes affect how much food is grown, the pigs aren't going to be as healthy either, so that should devalue the pig farm in my mind.

Marie

I was thinking of adding a skull and crossbones on a bottle (poison!) icon to the tile to differentiate it, but that would mean I'll have to draw it.  Urgh. 

It probably is.  Those who only want 2 tiles can just make 2 tiles from the sheet.  Those who want all 6 can make all 6.  Just think of the other 4 as "extras".


The thing about german games is that it doesn't reward the current leader.  On the contrary, it punishes the leader and allows those who are behind to catch up.  Hence nerfs like these tiles need some way of "get out of jail" or it will severely unbalance the game somewhat and rewards the leader greatly with no chance for those lagging behind to catch up.

Carcassonne is a game about luck in tile-drawing and strategy in tile-laying and meeple-deployment.  A good "get out of jail" would be to use all of those elements to remain true to the game.  Hence, using the tower or dragon (existing game features) to free ones knight from a besieged city seems like a good idea to me game-wise, but again, those actions are up to the players - do they want to free their plague-infested knight with a tower piece or do they want to do something else?  It opens up avenues and strategies where before there were none.  Also, keeping the dragon and tower rules intact without any exceptions makes it easy to remember and easy to play with and keeps things simple - and simplicity is another hallmark of a german game.

Likewise, with the pig farm.  Ensuring the rules for it stays the same with no exceptions makes things simple.

Of course, different players should be free to play with their own version of the house-rules if they wish, but some of the principles behind the expansions that we are striving for here at CarcCentral are to:
1. keep things in theme
2. keep it simple
3. keep it balanced
4. increase the strategy available
5. increase the fun level of the game

But you're so good at it!  :D  The icon is a good idea, but would a watermark make it any easier?


Here, here!  (or is is hear hear!) F:)

Would a watermark of a skull and crossbones be better?  I'm not sure.  The other alternative would be to use the black and white tower pieces from the castle (or is that the city?) to mark the city that is plagued (as a variant).  I think that would be a better idea instead of icons or watermarks.

Although a skull and crossbones watermark would be good to add.  I'll add that when I draw a suitable skull and crossbones :)

Edit: Here's the icon and watermark.  Wasn't too difficult since all I have to do was steal the image from An Apple A Day.

That's perfect.  Looks good to me.

How's this for the drought tile and the icon?
(http://www.dukenostalgia.com/carc/images/drought.jpg)

Well, it's not bad, but I think it's a little too yellow.  My first impression was of one of the original wheatfield tiles.  And, it looks like it belongs to the X-men...   ;D

How about if you make it a little browner in color?  I really liked the cow skull idea, but that's easy for me to say since I'm not the one drawing it.

I think the blue circle with red x is not self-explanatory enough.

It's not a blue circle, it's a picture of water with waves.  It's a pity that it's lost at that size and resolution.

If you squint really hard, you can just about make out the cow skull in the image there.  Thanks to the scale of the carc tiles, the cow skull is really small...

Anyways, here's a second try, with it browner, and the water changed to a drop of water.

I think that's better.  I definitely couldn't tell it was water before.  Browner is better too.  I wonder if you could isolate the cow skull and make it bigger.  I don't think scale is too important in this instance, but that's just me.  Perhaps you could use a larger skull instead of the water icon. 

I don't suppose a cactus would work well... maybe make the cross on the drop thicker (I liked the dragon hunter icon- maybe make it a bit like that? The current icon doesn't seem carcassonne-ish...)

Now that you mention it, I see what you mean.  The icon could probably be done away with altogether if it had a cactus and a bigger cow skull. 

Please do remember that this is France and not Mexico.  I don't think there are deserts in France, and a cactus will be out of place.  Also, it's a drought, not a desert, so there really shouldn't be a cactus.

The thing about carcassonne features is that they are scaled correctly.  Make it bigger and someone might get ideas of putting meeples on it!  Also, with the icon there, the skull is a bit superfluous.

I'm concerned that making the cross thicker will obstruct the water drop so much that you can't tell it's a water drop.  Also, Dragon Hunter is fan-made, so I'm not sure how that can be Carcassonne-ish :)

Anyways here (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/carc/expansions/ratskulls.pdf) are the tiles.  I think they are good enough.

They look pretty good.  What if the "X" was black instead of red?

Then it would look like the movie X-men logo ;D  (as opposed to looking like the comic book logo ;D)  It would also be less colourful, which would mean it'd lose its cartoony image and thus be less Carcassonne-ish (as meepleater would say).  Red, after all is a sign/colour/whatever for danger.

Edit: Here is the draft rules (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/carc/expansions/ratskullrules01.pdf) for the game.  Does it need examples?

1. For the placement of the barn
2. For scoring a plagued city
3. For the final scoring of the barn/farmer

Also, if someone could make images for the examples, I'd greatly appreciate them.

I think we should hire someone to do this full time!   ;)

Well, it won't be a collaborative expansion if someone is doing this full time :(  I guess there is just no interest to do it collaboratively?  I wonder has anyone even proofread it yet ...

Anyways, here's the rules (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/carc/expansions/ratskullrules02.pdf) with the first 2 examples done.  I won't be adding anymore examples unless someone else creates the image to include in it.

I read it but hadn't done so critically.  Here are some observations.

The font under Preperation changes part way through.  It might just be the size.

The preperation paragraph is excellent.  I appreciate the suggestion in regard to pig herds.  The rat tile suggestion is very good as well.

#2 might need to be modified a bit.  The way it reads, it sounds like it's only effected when the barn is placed.  It should effect the farm whether or not the barn is played.  That's my understanding.  Is that correct?  It might be sufficiently covered under final scoring. 

"(i.e. one of the tiles that makes up the city is has the rat-infestation icon)"

Rat infestation example: "In the example to the left, both Blue and Red have a knight in a completed city. Both Blue and Red score 10 points for the city as usual, but do not return the follower to his or her supply."

I just noticed the watermark.  I missed that before.

Thanks Chris.  I've made the changes here (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/carc/expansions/ratskullrules03.pdf).

Shows you how much detail there is in a tile ;)

I meant to ask before... What's a nerf?

It's an American slang term.  I guess it's not Southern...  According to urban dictionary (because I googled the term) :

Interesting.  Of course I'm familiar with Nerf as a brand, but I've never heard it used this way.  I'm not really a southerner, I just live there.  I'm northerner. 

The opening line should probably read: "There are times when the hand of God is withheld from the people and pests and drought plague the land, causing hardship in the cities and farms."  I also dropped the comma after people and the "in the" before farms because it is redundant.

Under "rat infestation" the comma needs to be dropped, and a period added to the end of the sentence.

Under "Deploy a follower" the first sentence might read better as: "Followers are deployed to the rat-infested city as a knight per the usual rules."  This would avoid using "as" twice so closely together.  It just sounded awkward.   In the sentence following that one, the comma before "but" should be dropped since it is not connecting two complete sentences.

Under "Score a completed city" there is an extraneous "is" within the parentheses.  "Has" should be the only verb there.

In the blue colored text for the example below "Score a completed city," the verb in the first sentence should be "have" not "has." In the next sentence, the verb should be "score" not "scores."  There should be no comma again before "but" in that sentence.  In the final sentence of the example, the verb should be "stay" not stays.

I'll read through it again once I'm awake to see if I see anything else.

Hope this helps, Novelty.

Marie

Marie, thanks for your comments.  I presume your name is Marie Toth and I've used that name in the credits.  Please let me know if you want it to be corrected or removed.  The updated rules is here (http://www.dukenostalgia.com/carc/expansions/ratskullrules04.pdf).  Merit point given out to yourself and to Chris for the comments so far.  Keep the comments coming!

Yep.  That would be my name.  I am fine with you using it.  :)

Marie

Wow, way to nail that one!   ;D  Thanks for the merit point.

I only have one comment to add.  The rules state that knights are quarantined in the city when it is finished.  I would assume that this is also true of the mayor, builder, cart, or any other follower.  If so, perhaps it should read that "followers" remain in the city rather than "knights" just for sake of clarity.

Also, I thought I remembered reading somewhere that the Dragon would avoid infested cities because it can smell the disease.  I guess that was something different.

I think I will include the Missionary document that the players disk should remain in a quarantined city, but the Missionary is removed to the side of the board similar to the Gallows.

Followers will still exclude builders.  I will update the rules to change out all knights to followers AND the builder.

That's what I meant...

You'll have to wait for a couple of days until I get back to see the updated rules.  Meanwhile, please do keep the suggestions, proof reads and comments coming.