Carcassonne Central

A ressurection of a very old idea of mine, not sure how it would work, if it doesn't work I guess I can scrap it...

It occured to me that there are no cloister-only pieces. These would be a wooden piece that each player gets, and looks a bit like a barn. A player may place on an intersection of any four tiles (unlike a barn, which needed fields in the corners). Any monks (cloister or abbey, not cult) within those four tiles (1st zone) get removed immediately and scored as in end game scoring (1 point per surrounding tile). Same with the 12 tiles surrounding those four (2nd zone). Cloisters/ abbeys in either zone may not be claimed (including wagon moving, the count and magic gate). If any cloisters are completed in either zone they are not immediately scored, but at the end of the game for each cloister in the 2nd zone gets scored as 2 points per surrounding tile and cloister, and 1st zone at 3 points per tile these points go to the owner of the monastery. The monastery stays there until the end of the game and may not be removed by catapult, tower or dragon. Two monastaries may not be placed where the 1st zone overlaps, but the 2nd zone may overlap.The monastery does not affect cults/ challenges in any way, and does not allow a knight to escape a beseiged city.

Opinions? Worth making?

It sounds interesting to me.  I like the four-corner dynamic of the barn.  I even have a good piece in mind for you.  In the Castle version on Carcassonne, each player receives a piece that resembles a church building with a tall steeple.  I can't remember what it's for as I've not played that version of the game for quite a while now.  I only remember it because I resently decided to cannibalize the set to make fan-mades and used one of the light colored followers as the Leper.  I thought it might be nice to come up with a use for that figure.  I think you've got it.  I assume that you will need one for each player?

Yes, each player requires one... I was considering the city piece from catan but that doesn't come in all the colours (unless you buy a special set).

Does the church piece come in all 6 colours?

No it only comes in black and white, as the Castle is only for two players.  The Catan piece would be interesting.

I hate painting wooden pieces... I think that Catan might be the best bet... you can order different colours (including the 3 carcassonne not included in official versions) from spielmaterial...

I agree with you that the catan pieces probably would be better.  Make it a suggestion to use the Catan pieces in the rules.  Added to the development list.

Any questions/ comments on the rules?

What happens if a shrine is challenging a cloister and the monastery removes one of them?  Will the monastery now challenge the shrine?

Also, related to the above, can the monastery challenge the shrine?

How do they interact with missionaries or breweries?

What type of tile corners can the monastery be placed on?

Is the monastery placement the same as for barn placement?

1. The challenge is over, as a monastery is scored at the end of the game, like a barn.
2. See above.
3. Breweries have no effect, monasteries cannot be converted.
4. Any four corners (city, field or forest).
5. Yes, except not just farm corners (see above)

Yeah, I assumed one might have to get several and paint them.

I agree, painting is tedious.  What catan piece did you have in mind, the settlement or the city?

I don't know that I've seen these, what are the colors?

I'm not keen on this idea. It is too similar to the barn, and seems strange to have a wooden piece when there are already cloisters, abbeys, and cathedrals on tiles.

I might have been asleep when I read this.  I think I understand now.

I wasn't too sure if it would work... if other people agree I'll just scrap the idea...

Well, the barn is a wooden piece, but the pig farm, farmhouse, etc. are on the tiles.

Do a playtest and see how well it plays.  It might be nice to playtest it with the Missionary as well as breweries to determine how all these add up.

I haven't made the breweries tiles yet as I don't have any blank tiles. I haven't even made wells yet (but as soon as I get C,K& C I will).

I'll try to have a playtest for the monasteries, and if it works then I might make it into a proper expansion...

*FINALLY* Managed to scrape in a 2-player playtest of this.

I used:

Monastaries
I&C
T&B

I placed my monastery in a good spot and spend much of the game developing it, and was rewarded with 77 points at the end of the game, so I think this either needs to be used with more expansions or scale down the scoring somehow...

The other monastery of my opponant cultivated 55 points, but they didn't spend quite the same amount of time working on it.

I think this idea would work better if, like I sais, scale down the scoring slightly... any ideas?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnd here it is! V0.1

http://www.mediafire.com/?jirjwimhbjm

I scaled down the scoring from 3 points in inner zone and 2 points in outer zone, to 2 points in inner zone and 1 point in outer zone.

Here we go:

Header: Initial letter M of Monasteries is not capitalised

Page 1 Story: Cloisters and abbeys have become very popular in Carcassonne, so to accommodate the growing demand, and to also provide training, monasteries are being built- and require to support the surrounding cloisters... (as it is currently written, the last part of the sentence is incomplete).  Also the end of the sentence is missing a full-stop.

Page 1 Extra pieces: If you're showing the picture, you need to show all 6 colours.

Page 1 Footnote 1: How would the city pieces carry out any "work"?  As inanimate object, they can't do anything.  "may be used" would be a better phrase than just "work".  Also, the sentence needs to be justified.

Page 1 Preparation: The sentence is written the way it would be said.  The proper way of writing it would start with "Each player..." and end with "colour while setting up."

Page 1 Deploy a follower (1st para): After playing a monastery, can a player then move the fairy?  It might be better to have "deploying a follower" followed a footnote saying that or any actions carried out instead of deploying a follower.

Page 1 Deploy a follower (3rd para): I think you need a "When a monastery is played, all monks on the cloisters in the inner..."  "Monks on the outer zone are left alone. and Heretics are not affected. Monasteries may not be placed where their inner zones overlap, however their outer zones may overlap."

Page 2 Final Scoring: All the "gains" needs to be changed to "scores"

Page 2 Final Scoring example: Space required after the closed parenthesis.

Page 2 Interaction with official/unofficial expansions: "eaten by the dragon" should be "removed by the dragon"

Question: What happens if you magic portal or use the CoC to play a follower to an inner zone cloister?

Final comment: This still seems powerful.  Unlike the Barn where an opponent can equal you in strength for the farm, the same thing cannot be done with the inner zone cloister.  The Barn has a limitation of 4 farm corners.  This is not present here. A properly placed monastery, the inner zone cloisters are "locked up" and can't be claimed by anyone else.  The inner zone cloisters are "in the bag" for whoever gets there first to play the monastery.  The playtest has shown that the monastery is too overpowered, and even a tone-down version in the rules still scores the equivalent of a medium to big city for much less effort - it's much easier to get 18 points from completing one cloister in the inner zone (i.e. placement of 9 tiles).

The last point also demonstrates what is called "escalation" - i.e. the placement of the same amount of tiles will score a lot more (in this case, double) thanks to this expansion.  Why would anyone want to score those 1 point per tile roads now when cloisters with monasteries are so much more lucrative?

What's some of the way forward then?  Here are my suggestions:

1. Limit where the monastery may be placed!  It would be good if monasteries can only be played where there are no city walls (or mountains or forests) at the corners.  In other words, all 4 corners must be all farms or all cities (without walls).  That would make sense as well, as you can't build a monastery on top of a city wall.
2. Limit the number of cloisters that may be scored in the inner and outer zone.
3. Allow for competition (i.e. by allowing the inner zone to be overlappable)
4. A combination of the above.

Hmm... I see what you mean. I think option 3 will be the best.

I think having to place the monastery all on city would be not so good... theres only one tile (from P&D) that could be placed in the inner zone...

I'll fix the rest up...

EDIT:
Here is version 0.2:

http://www.mediafire.com/?nnomgezmn2m

In the end I decided that adding in the monasteries for all the different colours at the beginning would be too time consuming so I decided not to any show images then....

I agree that putting the monastery on any intersection seems a little implausible.  I liked the first of Novelty's four suggestions the best.  Sure, there is only one tile that will put a cloister in the inner zone, but how often is that option going to be available anyway?  I looked at a couple pictures of some mega-carc games and only found one instance of a four-way city intersection with no walls.)  Perhaps a good compromise would be a four-way anything... as long as it's the same feature (i.e. four forests, cities, farms, etc.)

Page 1 Deploy a follower (3rd para): I think you need to start the paragraph with "When a monastery is played, all monks on the cloisters in the inner..."  Otherwise, it doesn't say when monks are removed (and the sentence seems as if monks can be removed at any time).

Page 1 Deploy a follower (3rd para): Monasteries may be placed where their inner and outer zones overlap.

That's correct, most cloisters are in fields.  Allowing for the all city (without walls) was just an option to enable someone to use that one cloister in a city.  If playing with the mathguy (or was it perky dragon?) expansions, there are a few more cloisters (and shrines) in cities.  As I said earlier, it'll just be weird to build a monastery that's straddling a city wall.

Why not? one fairground does it  ;D

I'll keep considering it... I'll add the rest of the changes when I have time...

But we all know that's a weird expansion anyways ;D

V 0.3

http://www.mediafire.com/?enyzjmnyzy5

I added in the grammar issues, and *finally* added the rule change that Monasteries must be placed into all city, field, forest or mountain (no city wall, edge of forest/mountains)

Looks good to me.   I think it's almost ready to go public downloads.  Before you make it rev1.0 for public downloads, you might want to adjust it so that the carccentral logo isn't the only thing on page 3.

V1.0

http://www.mediafire.com/?ya2qcmloxxj

Btw, when I made v0.3 I added a rule that Cathedrals helped monasteries too, but only in the inner zone, to help boost monasteries placed with four city corners...

Could you PDF it?  It's difficult for me to check for formatting when it's not PDF'ed.

Here it is:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ygnlmyymmnm

I think it's finished...

OK, I've added it to Public Downloads and given out the Merit Point.  I think we're really moving this month, this is the 9th completed expansion this month!