Carcassonne Central

“the mayor and the wagon can be eaten by the dragon, captured by the tower, or seduced by a princess”

OK... so if there’s a castle with a follower and a builder, when a princess tile or tower tile gets added and the follower is captured/seduced, what happens to the lonely builder piece?

  - can the player still draw two tiles with just the builder in the castle? I'd say no but I’m unsure...
  - can any player add more knights on a castle where there's a lonely builder? I'd say yes but I’m unsure (the builder is not a follower, so the castle can be deemed as being "non-occupied", right?)
  - if the player who has a lonely builder adds a follower on the same castle, can he draws too tiles in the subsequent turns (builder ability)? I'd say yes...
  - does the player with a lonely builder on a castle get points when the castle is closed? I'd say no, because the builder is not a follower, so he just gets his builder back and scores no points.

And yes, the wagon being seduced by a princess Is VERY odd, maybe we should say that the princess seduces the wagon’s driver instead!!

What do you think?

Actually, if a follower comes off the playing area than the builder has to come off with it.  The same is true for the pig if the farmer it is attatched to comes off. 

What happens if the castle has several knights on it (from the same player) and one of the knights is eaten/captured/seduced: do we have to keep track of which follower the builder came with in order to decide if he needs to come off, or do we just say that there must be at least one knight on the castle for the builder to survive?

(I guess the same question applies to the farmers and the pig then...)

No, if you have several followers and the builder, it doesn't matter which one comes off, the builder/pig can stay.  However, if there is only one, either must come off.  Both the builder and pig simply need to be accomplanied by at least one follower of the same color.

This is mentioned in the footnotes of the Complete Annotated Rules. It's always good to check that before asking a question.

Nowhere in the official rules coming with the game or on the Rio Grande web site (http://www.riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_59_gameRules.pdf (http://www.riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_59_gameRules.pdf)) is it mentionned that pigs or builders go back to their owners when a follower is captured/eaten/seduced. All it says is this:
- "The pig remains where placed until the end of the game"
- "As long as a road is not completed, the builder remains there and the player may get double turns for extending the road. When the road is completed and scored, the player returns the thief and builder to his supply."
OK, the extensions dealing with capturing/eating/seducing followers came after the "Traders and builders" one, but at least they could have explained in those future extensions how to deal with cases like that...
It's like "the wagon is actually a follower and can be seduced by the princess", of course... that makes a lot of sense, I don't know why I didn't think of it first...

I'm not the only who has been scratching his head on rules with Carcassonne, and this is why I come to a site like this.
You're saying there are "Complete Annotated Rules", I'm glad yo mention it, because I wish they were easier to find! I browsed the carcassonnecentral web site before looking at this forum and I didn't see a reference to these complete annotated rules! The forum thread says it should be in the download section, but when I click on the link given by the forum thread, I get a page with just "Account Error: Inactive"... and there's nothing I can find in the download section itself... Maybe the section is just down for now, I'll try again later.

Just found the Complete Annotated Rules (CAR) on the third thread of this forum...
Awesome work, but damn, 120 pages?! That made me realize once again how much more complicated this simple game became since the additions of extensions!

Lionel - thanks for asking these questions.  I too was going by what it says in the original RGG Rules that came with the Traders and Builders Exp. and apparently handling these situations incorrectly, because they just don't occur that often.  And I've already downloaded, printed, and READ the whole C.A.R., but just can't remember everything that's contained within those ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY pages. 

Well, in the defense of the C.A.R.  (as if it needed it)  ;)  ...much of it is simply reference material, very helpful reference material at that.  I find it very easy, most of the time, to locate answers to my questions.  Did you know that the expansion titles on the table of contents page are clickable links to that section of the document?  Very handy!  You loose that aspect if you are reading a print out.  When I'm playing with multiple expansions, I keep the laptop up and running at arms reach.  It's nice if you have a good scoring program too!

Haven't seen one of these in the downloads section, where do you get it from?

Nobody here has developed one, so we don't have one in the Downloads section.

Actually I have an excel scoreboard.  It isn't perfect, but it does a good job. 

I'd be willing to make a scoring program, provided you guys don't want anything overly complicated.