Mega-Carc + The Plague

[McJazz]

For those who have played with The Plague, when combining multiple starting features, how many tiles do you play before throwing The Plague into the mix?

Mega-Carc scenario:  Lay down the Carcassonne City, then attach the Wheel of Fortune below it, attach the spring w/road from GQ11 to the road on the bottom right, with a fork so you can include both the River and River II. At this point, you've laid down 51 tiles: 23 River tiles plus the 28 from WoF and Count. Should you THEN play the next random 17 tiles before shuffling in the 6 Plague tiles? OR Have you played enough to get it started and you may as well just throw them in?

Obviously, if you pick a Plague tile too quickly, the fleas will be running up the river, taking out everything in their path. But, if you're playing with that many tiles, will the Plague really have any impact? Wouldn't it be best to just get them out there as quickly as possible?

[CKorfmann]

I guess the question would be the intention of the author for what expansions would be used with it.  I usually assume that each expansions is designed to play alone with the base set and may be added to any others.  If we assume that it is played with the base set of 72 tiles and you include the 6 plague tiles, that is 78.  Lets say for good measure that you add in the 5 King tiles and 10 non-river, GQ11 tiles (mine are not watermarked, so I don't seperate them), then you have 93.  17 of 93 tiles is a little over 18%, which for the sake of argument is about 1/5.  So, if you're going to add a bunch of expansions, I'd say you increase that number by one for every six tiles you add. 

Now, this is a general rule.  I can see that not being too practical when playing with 300-400 tiles as following that formula would put you at upwards of 70 tiles.  That might be a little too long to wait.  I'd argue that you should not include the Wheel starting tile or the City in your count, but it would stand to reason that you should include the river since the plague can spread there without question.  Do we have a ruling on spreading through the city?

[McJazz]

I guess the question would be the intention of the author for what expansions would be used with it.  I usually assume that each expansions is designed to play alone with the base set and may be added to any others.  If we assume that it is played with the base set of 72 tiles and you include the 6 plague tiles, that is 78.  Lets say for good measure that you add in the 5 King tiles and 10 non-river, GQ11 tiles (mine are not watermarked, so I don't seperate them), then you have 93.  17 of 93 tiles is a little over 18%, which for the sake of argument is about 1/5.  So, if you're going to add a bunch of expansions, I'd say you increase that number by one for every six tiles you add. 

Now, this is a general rule.  I can see that not being too practical when playing with 300-400 tiles as following that formula would put you at upwards of 70 tiles.  That might be a little too long to wait.  I'd argue that you should not include the Wheel starting tile or the City in your count, but it would stand to reason that you should include the river since the plague can spread there without question.  Do we have a ruling on spreading through the city?

Thank you for the response. Using a percentage seems to be a reasonable approach. However, after thinking about it, fleas running up the river wouldn't be much different than the Dragon doing the same thing if a Dragon tile was drawn shortly after the volcano/lake was placed. I intend to play with this a few times and report back with results.

As for The Plague spreading through the City, I haven't seen anything official, but I would assume The Plague would NOT spread through Carcassonne City. It seems like it would be immune for all the same reasons it is immune to attacks from the Dragon and Tower. I carry this over to the Wheel tiles as well, but that may get a little messy if a follower wants to flee to a portion of a city/road/field that is attached to the feature he's on, but located within these 'protected' tiles.

[Whaleyland]

I actually like just the concept of having a few "vanilla" rounds before ANYTHING starts to happen. Plague may have introduced the concept, but my girlfriend and I both like it. In fact, we've even discussed setting some vanilla tiles aside for the end of the game, as well, so everyone gets a chance to breathe a little (although some things, like the fleas, would still move around and whatnot). Regarding the City and Wheel tiles, I think that the plague CAN affect those tiles, at least the borders where followers can be placed. Either that, or those tiles cannot be used as retreats from the plague and whatnot. It wouldn't make thematic sense, anyway, since cities were havens for plagues rather than refuges from them. With so many expansions now allowing followers to be placed/moved elsewhere, I rather hope HiG gets around to issuing a decree regarding moving onto the Wheel and City tiles.

[CKorfmann]

Yes, I was thinking of these in terms of just the start tiles, but considering there are claimable features on playable area surrounding both, it makes sense.  I think this would just create refuge areas which I assume they meant to avoid (besides inactive plague areas).  Considering this, that would really only leave the center two tiles from the City and the center four from the wheel as non-playable areas.