Variant River Start

[Foxman]

My wife and I came up with this variant. It seems to work the best for creating an interesting and varied start area.

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Variant River Start
Sets Required: The River, The River II

Setup:
1) There are three Lake tiles and two Spring tiles. Remove one Spring tile and the plain Lake tile and set them to the side, these will not be used.
2) Place the River Junction tile in the center of the play area.
3) Set the Lake tile that ends in a city to one side, this will be used.
4) Mix/shuffle the remaining pieces together.
5) Draw and play River tiles as normal. If you draw the spring or lake tile you must end one of the branches.
6) When all River tiles are used, the next player in sequence plays the Lake tile that ends in a city. They may place followers as normal.

Remember to observe the no u-turn rule.

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Thoughts?

[Novelty]

We did that once and the lake tile was drawn before the branch, which ended the river prematurely.

[canada steve]

They are saying that you start by placing the branch and then add tiles out of the bag to that the spring tile would come out later. Its an interesting idea, which stops that branch straight after the spring placement that we always get.

I'm gonna give it a try. We use 2 x river 2 sets and 1 x river set so will see how we go with that.

[Foxman]

We did that once and the lake tile was drawn before the branch, which ended the river prematurely.

The branch is a 3 way river tile (river exits from 3 sides [RRRF]) If you drew the lake or spring tile as the first tile you would still be left with two branches.

Have you make a [RRRR] tile yet?

[Scott]

Others have independently come up with the same idea. It's a great way to switch things up without making any actual changes to the rules. It can also lead to a more interesting river set-up.

[canada steve]

Yes this isnt really a variant more of a house rule, but a interesting one all the same.

[Novelty]

Sorry, my bad.  I didn't realise you start with the junction instead of the source.  I need to learn how to read.

As for the RRRR tile, request it in the other thread and I'll try to get something up.Edit: I checked.  It's there as part of the set of 12.


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[Joff]

I do like starting the River with the junction. This is how we play our River games.

[Foxman]

Yes this isnt really a variant more of a house rule, but a interesting one all the same.

Heh isnt that what a varient is? If its a common house rule, and lots of people use it, then why not add it to the custom varients section of the webpage?

[Gantry]

So just to clarify, when you say:

4) Mix/shuffle the remaining pieces together.
5) Draw and play River tiles as normal.

Does this mean that you mix and shuffle the remaining river tiles in with the other tiles?  One could interpret those 2 items that way.

The only reason we typically don't add very minor changes like this is because there are basically an infinite number of little changes that people could make, and clearly adding every single one is neither possible nor desireable.  I'm on the fence on this one, as there already are a couple of random-river variants in there.  But since Canada Steve has offered to help maintain the Variant Registry, I'll leave it up to him to decide!

[canada steve]

Gee thanks Gantry 

Let me play test it a few times with different sets, including the CoC, to see how it plays out each time then I will decide if its a variant or not (obviously Im open to gifts to help me decide  ). But as Gantry said we shouldnt include all the little changes that are basically house rules otherwise the variant list would be enourmous.

[Scott]

I feel the need to point out this PDF on Carc World:
http://www.carcassonneworld.co.uk/files/variationsontheriver.pdf

I think what is being described in this thread is basically "Three Branches", but with a different lake tile being played last.

I'm not saying that Foxman didn't independently come up with the idea. Many people have independently come up with the same ideas.

[Gantry]

ah I remember bookmarking that for inclusion into the variant registry!  of course since then I lost the bookmark...   

will have to add that

[canada steve]

Now that version is more of a variant, I like it. I will try to get around to adding that one tonight.