Natural Disasters

[Gwommy]

About the Earthquake, to make it simpler: any city touching a earthquake tile doesnt count as being completed (think as the city being destroyed at the end of the game), this would deny points to the farmers and substract points to the king. Can be scored if completed during the game, but not extra points at the end of the game.

As I mentioned before an earthquake  doesnt affect a straight line (thats the most vissible effect of it) but affect a round area from his origin point. Treating like that, is just making it a crevasse, oh just move to one side of the crevasse and we are safe, not that easy.

I like that idea as well, as it does seem to make more sense then a straight line.  The only flaw is that it is similar to Seige tile where farms score x2 at the end of the game, because in my experience, I keep forgetting to add the bonus to the farms from the seige when the time comes.  But like I said, that's just me.  I'll still support this idea though.

Maybe you could use JPutt's lake expansion as a template for the flood.

I tried, but had minimal luck.  I suppose I can try again, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow.

[markus]

Hallo to all, greetings from Germany,javascript:void(0);

what's about a transparent tile for the Flood, with you lay on top of the tile near the river or a lake?

markus javascript:void(0);

[Gwommy]

Thanks Marcus, that's a great idea.  I've redone the graphic from the lake expansion and cleared out the surrounding city, and other misc items.  I was wondering how to make it more square, but with that idea, it won't be necessary.  I think that making it a cut-out piece and pasting it to a thin, sturdy cardboard would work perfectly.  Then it can be placed on top of the tiles and we wouldn't have to worry about features not lining up correctly.  The 1x1 tile will still have to be made into a tile like normal though.

[elmendalerenda]

Well, to keep in mind which cities will suffer a earthquake and wont be counted at the end of the game, maybe a token with the earthquake symbol can be created in order to be put on the cities as a remainder.

[Gwommy]

==EARTHQUAKE
I was thinking about using tokens too.  Because if I used tokens for Seige, then I'd know that I'd only have to make 4.  But then how many would we need for the earthquake?  How big of an area is going to be affected by the earthquake?  2 spaces in any direction from where the tile is placed? Maybe have 8 tokens?

==FLOOD
Here's the flood cut-out that would replace the 3x3 tile.  What do we think? Print it out, glue it to a piece of posterboard, and cut it out. Of course, cutting it out will be the tedious part.

[markus]

Hallo again,

what do you think about a dice, earthquake are getting measured one the richter-scale.
So you can throw a sixer-dice: 1&2: light - using only the draw tile; 3&4 medium the 4 tiles in a cross are demaged and 5&6 the 8 tiles around the epicenter became the token.

Greetings Markus

PS: 1. It's a great and wonderfull side and I'm very happy that I found it.
      2. After month of quiet reading I'm glade that my Idea is usefull
      3. Please excuse my english mistakes, but my schoolenglish is seldom used and maybe older than some of you. 

[markus]

It's Me again

in addition of my last reply,
I think it's a nice flood, but instad of cutting and gluing, isn't it posible to print it direct on a transparent priter-ability foil?

Markus

[elmendalerenda]

Hi Markus, sincerely I dont have problems with die rolls, but most of the Carcassonne players will freak out by the idea of using a die in a Carcassonne game.

What can be done is; depending on the number of expansion being used on the game, make the earthquake more or less powerful.

Gwommy, I think 8 tokens shall be enough, but you can never be sure. Some game you will end with more than 8 cities affected by the earthquake, but 8 should make a good number.

[Gwommy]

=EARHTQUAKE
I'm not against die rolling either, but like Elmendalerenda said, many don't like it.  How about when the earthquake tile is drawn, the tile gets flipped like a coin.  If it lands face down then the earthquake affects 1 row of surrounding tiles (9 tiles).  If it lands face up, then it affects 2 rows of surrounding tiles (25 tiles). Then the tile can be placed.

=FLOOD
I don't access to a transparency printer, but the graphic is there and the players can print it out however they like.  Although I may be a little leary as to print it on pransparency paper because there are some white spots in the lake/flood that may not show up properly.  Also I don't see the transparency paper being heavy enough to stay in place, someone could just breathe on it and move it out of place.

[elmendalerenda]

25 tiles, thats a lot of destruction and almost sure 8 tokens wont be enough. On the other side the flipping idea seems pretty cool.

Maybe if the tile lands face up, affects the 8 surrounding tiles plus 4 extra orthogonal tiles, this makes 13 tiles in total, accounting that the earthquake effect tends to be circular and the tiles are squared, diagonally the distance is longer.

    X
  XXX
XXXXX
  XXX
    X

[CKorfmann]

I think I like the 13 tile idea.  It seems to be the most appropriate.  I also think that placing a token on a city would be a good way to serve as a reminder.  The number is a mystery, but 8 will likely be enough most of the time.

[elmendalerenda]

Something I thought about the earthquake;

After placing the earthquake tile on the board, if cities are build later in the area of effect, would they be affected at the end of the game as well by the earthquake? It wont be such a drawback because cites are scored normally when completed, the only problem is regarding the farmer who scores one point less per crumbled city. Players still be interested in developing these areas, even if other player has farmer majority, because he will score less for those cities. (Like San Francisco, everybody knows that there will be a big earthquake, but they still live there).

Also if a city in the earthquake area is not completed how is scored at the end of the game?

Just asking for ideas, because somebody will come with this questions at some point of the development.

[Gwommy]

What if the earthquake doesn't actually happen until before final scoring.  The Earthquake tile can still be placed as normal during the game. And I think that perhaps the unfinished cities that touch an earthquake zone should not score any points.

[elmendalerenda]

Completed cities in the earthquake effect should be penalized somehow.

Other crazy idea; when a player completes a city under the earthquake area he can give a earthquake token to any of the players with meeples in that town. At the end of the game the player witht he most earthquake tokens loses 10 points. If you complete a town and you are the only player with meeples there, you get the earthquake token.

Also cities unfinished in the earthquake area dont score at the end of the game.

This way we can forget the farmer penalty idea and tracking the earthquake effect will be easier, maybe making 10 earthquake tiles will be enough.

[Gwommy]

The end of the month is quickly sneaking upon us. I figured I'd at least get a rough draft written.  Remember, nothing here is written in stone.  Anything may still be changed at this point. Here's what I've come up with so far:
http://gwommy.tripod.com/carcassonne/NaturalDisasters.pdf

After the rules, the next biggest thing to decide is tile layout.  Assuming that we're only using 6 tiles, heres what I suggest for a breakdown:
1-earthquake
1-flood
2-meteor
2-tornado

Unless someone comes up with a tile that they like better, the meteor is done.

Same thing for the flood, right now I just have an edited lake tile.  Although it may not match up on all sides with the rest of the board, it'll only be for one then it'll get covered with the cut-out and then it won't matter what the flood tile looks like.

For the earthquake, is a CCCC piece okay to use?  Are there any suggestions to use something else?  What about a CCCC piece with a field in the center separating the tile into 4 different cities?

Finally, what 2 tiles configurations should we use for the tornado tiles?