Roman influence expansion

[CKorfmann]

So I've been thinking about a new series of mini-expansions in the tradition of Joff's Medieval expansion.  Since I was able to locate the author of the solazy expansions and with the possibility of the Coliseum tile becoming "official" (hopefully, I'm not counting my chickens too much), I thought it might be cool to put some others with it for a 12-tile set.  Obviously, the Roman Road and Temple tiles should be included and perhaps JPutt's Chariot Racing.  That leaves a little room for a few more.  Any ideas for more Roman themed tiles?  (Looks like we're looking roughly at 4 tiles).

[Whaleyland]

Forums and Baths were quite popular across Europe in Roman times. I'd suggest those. There are also dozens of special buildings that were around in Roman times, that most cities had. I can't think of one of them at the moment, though.

[CKorfmann]

Forums and Baths were quite popular across Europe in Roman times. I'd suggest those. There are also dozens of special buildings that were around in Roman times, that most cities had. I can't think of one of them at the moment, though.

I can see the Forum (and the bath too, actually) as the type of tile where everyone puts on meeple on it.  Beyond that, I'm not sure what it should do.  Post about some of those other building as they come to mind.  Maybe that will get our creative juices flowing.

[CKorfmann]

Sorry again for the double post.  I'm ready to begin this one too.  Keeping in mind the tiles I've already mentioned, does anyone have any more ideas for the last four tiles?  I was thinking about the Forum and Bathes a bit, but I'm not sure what mechanic to employ for these.  Perhaps an aqua duct would be cool.  It could connect a river to a city, but then, it might require a forced tile placement and several people have stated they don't like that.  I wonder if this could be done differently?  The only thing that comes to mind is a a couple of tiles already joined together like some of JPutt's recent expansions.  Perhaps an Amphitheater?  Any thoughts?

[The Missionary]

What about the Vatican or something? It could be like a Cloister, but instead of just taking nine tiles to complete, the tiles around the nine must be completed to get your Meeple back, but it could act like a Cloister other than that... you would get one point per tile in its scoring area at the end of the game if it didn't get completed.

[CKorfmann]

Well, that might be cool if it were not exactly the same as Lord of the Manor. 

[JPutt927]

Well, that might be cool if it were not exactly the same as Lord of the Manor. 

Or, what could possibly be done... it would have to be surrounded in the same manner as the Lord of the Manor tiles. However...we could do something like...once it's surrounded...all churches are now worth double the points when completed...  In other words, the "Vatican", or whatever it might be called, would significantly increase the value of each church once completed.

[CKorfmann]

Well, mechanically, I think I like the idea of effecting the other cloisters.  I'm not really comfortable calling it the Vatican since this is a Roman Influence expansion, not a "Rome" expansion.  That's a minor issue though, and another name could easily be used.  The problem is what name?  Cathedrals, abbeys, and cloisters are already used. 

Thinking about the vatican though, it might be cool to add the Pope expansion here too.  That wouldn't leave a lot of room for new tiles though.  Maybe we could stretch it to 15.

[JPutt927]

Just thought I'd throw in a thought of mine. I'm not too sure how keen I am on the idea of creating a "compilation" of previous expansions. I think it's perfectly fine if we want to create more roman inspired tiles, but what's the need to compile them with ones that already exist? I don't know, that's just my thought at the moment. 

[CKorfmann]

Well, I'm thinking of keeping them together just for the sake of theme.  It's certainly not necessary.  I guess I'm thinking about it in terms of Joff's Medieval expansion.  It's a 12-tile set made up of smaller expansions and it's nice for people who want to print them out on one page.  We could also do as Joff did and offer them both individually and on one sheet for convenience.  What do you think about that?

[The Missionary]

Or, what could possibly be done... it would have to be surrounded in the same manner as the Lord of the Manor tiles. However...we could do something like...once it's surrounded...all churches are now worth double the points when completed...  In other words, the "Vatican", or whatever it might be called, would significantly increase the value of each church once completed.

I like that idea a lot. 

Also, how about a school tile? I'm not sure what it would do though... maybe more than one person could put a follower on at a time, and then when the feature is completed, those with a follower wouldn't get points for the feature, but could move their followers to an unclaimed feature, and the order of who gets to claim features first would be determined by the order in which the followers were placed on the school.

[JPutt927]

We could also do as Joff did and offer them both individually and on one sheet for convenience.  What do you think about that?

Yea, at the very least, I think they definitely would need to be available individually for those that may already have printed the others.  I'm still not entirely sold on the compilation idea, but...that's not for me to decide!    I guess I just figure that all the different concepts might be quite overwhelming if they're all packaged into one set. People may enjoy all of tiles of the same theme in one large pack though.

[Scott]

Well, mechanically, I think I like the idea of effecting the other cloisters.  I'm not really comfortable calling it the Vatican since this is a Roman Influence expansion, not a "Rome" expansion.  That's a minor issue though, and another name could easily be used.  The problem is what name?  Cathedrals, abbeys, and cloisters are already used.

Basilica?

[CKorfmann]

Basilica?

That sounds pretty good.  Does anyone know if there is some kind of rank to these buildings?  I wonder if they correspond to the Diocean rank.  When I think of a basilica, I think it sounds french (which is good) and Notre Dame comes to mind probably because of the one in Montreal.  So, would this still fit the Roman influence theme?

Mechanically, I think I like what's suggested, but I've never played LotM.  Is it very difficult to complete the two concentric rings around the tile?  Or, should we try to come up with some other pattern that is not too complex?

[JPutt927]

I've played with LotM. It's not impossible to do. It's certainly not simple either though. However, I think that it's design would work pretty well for this. For one, the reward is pretty large...if it significantly increases the value of all churches...it should be somewhat challenging to do. Secondly, my thought was that the reward would likely apply to all churches for all players. Therefore, it might be a bit easier to complete the "basilica" (if that's the name we decide on) if more than one player is attempting to complete it. I feel like the difficulty would balance itself out.