Friar and Farmhand

[Novelty]

This fan-made variant has 2 tiles:

and

I like the images and would like to use them, but I'm not sure I like the rules.  Does anyone have any better ideas how these tiles could be used?

Edit: Variant and images are by Christoph Berger.

[Deatheux]

looks good but seems to miss something about challenges...

i will try this in my next game.

[Gantry]

Not sure I like the Friar but the Farmhand is an interesting twist. I really like it when a use is found for something in a game that isn't normally scored.

Needs to be added to the Variant Registry

[Scott]

Hooray for thread archeology!

Eldrbarry did a modified version of this expansion, which also modifies the rules for King and Robber Baron. His modifications are based on his own play testing and feedback from other BGG users:
http://www.eldrbarry.net/hatr/KRBLFcarc.pdf

I'm personally not satisfied with either set of rules. Despite what I think about the King and Robber Baron rules, I feel that Friar and Farmhand need to be consistent with them.

King is awarded to the person who completed the largest city.
Robber Baron is awarded to the person who completed the longest road.

Since cloisters are all the same size, I think the next best equivalent is to award the Friar to the person who has completed the largest number of cloisters. Wooden or cardboard counters could be given to players when they complete cloisters to keep track of who has the most. At end of game, the player holding the Friar scores 1 point for each completed cloister.

Both sets of rules for Farmhand state that the player with the most farmers gets the Farmhand, but this feels slightly inconsistent because you could have more than one farmer on the same farm. I think award the farmhand to the player who controls the largest farm would be more consistent. If players are tied for control of a farm, pigs and barns can count towards breaking the tie.

Thoughts?

[Fritz_Spinne]

Friar: This should be more than 1 point, maybe 3? When you count the citys, there will be many with only 2 tiles, they count 1 point for the king, cloisters will mostly be 9 tiles and there are much less than citys.

Farmhand: Should it be 4 points per farm?
The largest farm (with most tiles), regardless whether it is held by a farmer or a barn. Pigs could be a tie breaker for farms hold by farmers, but is there any tie breaker for farms hold by barns? Maybe in the case of a tie all tieing players get only 2 points for their farms.
Another idea: The farm that scores for the most cities - obviously the farms only give points, if there are cities in and around them.


There also could be a

Lord - he is held by the player, who closed the city with more pennants than before

Trader - for the player, who closed the city with more trade goods than before.

[Scott]

I made Friar one point per cloister for consistency, but for balance I would be ok with 3 points per cloister (for the trinity).

It's difficult to say what an appropriate number of points per farm would be. By making ownership of the Farmhand contingent on largest farm, we're encouraging big farms, but once you have the Farmhand you want a lot of small farms so that you can get more points. Perhaps 1 point per farm is not lucrative enough to make getting the Farmhand worthwhile? Four points per farm seems arbitrary to me; 3 points per farm makes more sense, since farmers score 3 points per city.

I would prefer not to add additional "characters"; pennants and trade goods are not landscape types.

[CKorfmann]

I would prefer not to add additional "characters"; pennants and trade goods are not landscape types.

Some of the others make sense like the ones Novelty made for the Forest and Fisherman (Scout and Angler I think) and the one for the tower (Sentinal?).  Were there any others?

[Fritz_Spinne]

I just thought about the scoring for the farmhand: That should not be points for every field, that would be too many, but points only for fields, which are posessed by farmers. So the end-scoring should be first count the different fields, which are occupied, then score the fields by counting the towns, then give the farmhand to the player with the field with most tiles or cities, then give points for every occupied field to the farmhand.

Similar to this you should lay a not-occupied-token on not occupied cloisters, so only cloisters, which were occupied will score for the friar.

[Scott]

The rules for King and Robber Baron do not care whether the feature was previously occupied or not, so Friar and Farmhand should not care either for consistency.

Regarding Scout/Angler/Sentinel, those are already included with their respective expansions. I don't see any need to bundle them here; this is just Friar and Farmhand.

[Fritz_Spinne]

I think at least farmhand needs to be limited to occupied farms - there are quite too much on a game with some expansions, which are very small and difficult to recognize and count.

[Scott]

We can see what others think, but the only way I would be comfortable to limit the farmhand would be that only fields which are connected to at least one city are farms. Fields completely surrounded by roads and no farms in the middle cannot supply anything.

[Scott]

http://carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=178