Natural Disasters

[CKorfmann]

Wow, that's an excellent, concise recap.  Well done! 

If we were to go with a 15 tile sheet, that would give us the Flood plus 5 tiles (two of them could be one each of Drought and Pestilence).  Here are my preferences.  Take them for what they are worth...

Eclipse: I don't think I'm in favor of an eclipse tile.  I doesn't seem disastrous enough to me.  It's more of a special event.

Tornado: My preference would be for one tile to indicate the starting place of the tornado round.  The tornado is placed there and movement begins as suggested.  Then the tornado is gone, quick and painful for some, painless for others, pretty much just like real life. 

Flood: Seems like we've got this one under control.  If it wasn't stated before, I feel like the single flood tile should replace an existing river tile destroying whatever happens to be on it and possibly rendering some feature(s) incomplete.  Do you think the 3x3 tile should be centered on the original flood tile, or should that be left to the discretion of the one placing it?

Volcano: While a very viable option, it seems to be one of my least favorite.  I don't know why, perhaps it's just because we don't really have any ideas for mechanics yet.

Earthquake: While it may arguably make the most sense of any, I could take this one or leave it.  Probably also because of the multitude of ideas.  I'd be interested in hearing a really good idea for it.

Meteor: This is one of my favorites.  I feel like this mechanic should be like the originial flood tile.  It is one tile that can be placed anywhere on the playing area, replacing any one tile already in play and destroying whatever happens to be on the tile possibly rendering some feature(s) incomplete.  I also really like the random placement possibility of the catapult, but we could make that optional. 

Locusts: I think this, if played along with Drought, could be too farmer-specific.  Most, if not all of the other disasters could effect the farmers as well, so I might not mind cutting this one out unless we end up needing one.

[Gwommy]

I'd like to up it to 18 tiles:
10 flood
2 meteor
2 drought
2 tornado
1 pestilence
1 earthquake

I really my idea for earthquake to split the board in 2 and treat it as an abbey wall.  It'll split up features and allow them to become unclaimed with the original follower now trapped on the other side of the board.

[CKorfmann]

I really my idea for earthquake to split the board in 2 and treat it as an abbey wall.  It'll split up features and allow them to become unclaimed with the original follower now trapped on the other side of the board.

I'm not sure I follow you?  How are you splitting the board?

[Gwommy]

I'm not sure I follow you?  How are you splitting the board?

The board should be searated by a straight line like how you originally suggested.  The player that places the tile gets to choose where to divide the board.  The board only needs to be separated a by a small gap, or alternatively, you could mark the separation with a piece of yarn (or noticable string).

We may want to pick a different way to determine where the earthquake goes as well.  Seeing how (if we use it) there will only be one tile, letting a single player determine the fate of the game may be too much (opinions?).  Alternately, perhaps the player can choose to place the gap along one of the four edges of either the starting tile and/or the placement of the earthquake tile, as that would make it slightly less powerful.  If using the Count or Wheel of Fortune, you can't place the line so that it splits those starting tiles.

==EDIT==
Anyone willing to start working on making some or all of the tiles?

[loganmann1]

The Drought and Pestilance expansion has 5 symbols of the first and 2 of the second.  Are we talking about adding a few more in this expansion to be used in addition to the other expansion or to be used to a smaller degree in this Disaster mix.  I don’t know what discussion went into making Drought and Pestilance in the first place that brought you to decide on the number you did. But that seems like a lot of drought if we add 2 more, making 7 droughts in the game. Though more pestilence could be okay probably.  Though they both affect farmers, I’d be more inclined to add Locusts as a new disaster then add more of an already existent one (drought).  Or even just 1 of each.

Meteor Strike:
It seems that the mechanic of the meteor is simply a one tile version of what the 3x3 flood does (causing damage and making neighboring features incomplete).  It’s just placed differently.  This has me inclined to have multiple meteors to put it on a similar scope as the flood.  I’d say for sure 2 and maybe even 3 or 4.  I’m not sure how effective or liked this rule would be but what if instead of using the catapult or letting someone pick where it goes, you flip a chit (like flipping a coin) starting centered over the starting tile (or the tile that designates a meteor strike) and wherever it lands is the hit tile.  I’d see this though as a normal tile with an icon marking a meteor strike and a separate impact crater tile set aside that is the meteor itself and used when the other tile is drawn.  But I guess if that requires 2 tiles then to have multiple meteors would be 2 tiles x however many meteors you want.  Unless there is one meteor strike tile (normal tile with a symbol that indicates meteor strike) and 3 impact crater tiles and you flip 3 chits/coins at once to see where they all land.  So it would be 4 tiles but a one time event in the game.

Tornado:
If there are multiple tornados I think 12 is a good number to move each time.

Flood: There had been earlier discussion about not requiring any other expansion to play this.  Technically the River is an expansion (though I almost always use it myself).  I’m fine basing the rule off the river, but since we had that discussion about expansions I just wanted to see if any one does have a concern with that…though I don’t personally.

I’m not entirely sure where any of the above thoughts would put the tile count.  Maybe this should be a series too. 

[Whaleyland]

As always, I try am trying to focus on the overall theme of Carcassonne and this expansion hits and misses sometimes with that theme. Earthquakes are alright because they can technically happen anywhere, although they are quite rare and weak around southeast France. Volcanoes, however, are regional events that don't effect anywhere in Europe except Iceland, Italy and some Greek Isles. I don't think a volcano tile should be included (I know, Princess & the Dragon already has ones, but I disagree with those too). Just my two cents. The rest of the expansion seems to be developing well.

Oh! Don't discount having an Eclipse a disaster; medieval monks who had poor knowledge of natural phenomenon often thought eclipses were an omen, which suggests to me that they at least appeared to be natural disasters, even if they didn't destroy anything.

[Gwommy]

But that seems like a lot of drought if we add 2 more, making 7 droughts in the game.

Perhaps you are right.  I am thinking that the same thing that is being done in the Roman expansion should be done here. We should leave out Drought and Pestilence, especially since we have enough other things to make this an expansion work well (Meteor, Tornado, Earthquake and Flood).  We should just focus on those 4 items.  Surely we can mention in the rules that the Drought and Pestilence expansion works well with this one.

So, I guess that could put us back down to a 15 tile expansion.  Here is my proposed tile distribution:
10 flood
2 meteor
2 tornado
1 earthquake

=FLOOD
I usually use the river as well (unless playing with the Wheel of Fortune).  So if you are using the river, then this has to replace a river tile.  Alternately, we can add a rule that if you're not playing the river, then you may place this tile anywhere that you want.

=TORNADO
I can agree that as long as there's at least 2 tornados then moving it 12 spaces should be enough.

=METEOR
I have another idea for placement of the meteor.  When the tile is drawn, the player will choose a tile where he/she wants to place it, the next player will choose a tile orthogonally adjacent. Each player does this until it gets back to the player that placed the meteor tile where he/she will also get a chance to select an orthogonally adjacent tile for final placement of the meteor.  Much like the dragon movement, a player can not select a tile that was previously selected by a player in that turn.

=EARTHQUAKE
What do people think of my latest idea for this (a few posts back)?  Although I like it, we could disregard the earthquake and add another meteor tile.  Although it'd be weird having 3 meteors hit the region of Carcassonne in such a small time frame while playing.

[loganmann1]

Concerning the current earthquake proposal that basically  puts a big abbeyesque wall through the board…

I really like the idea of a separation dead ending and splitting features.  I really like the idea of partial points for the cloister. 

Some concerns I would have though would be clear rules of placement…I think that connecting to the starting tile could be good to keep some randomness and not pure malicious destruction on the part of the player.  Also, how long is this fissure?  Is it an indefinite distance, therefore separating the whole playing area effectively into two separate boards or is it a designated number of tiles that can then be build around on either end.  Say for example, the fissure is 8 tiles long but at the 9th tile you can connect your farm/road/city around again. For example [|] is the fissure.  At the top and bottom no fissure exists and those can connect.

T T
T|T
T|T
T|T
T|T
T|T
T|T
T|T
T|T
T T

What was your intent. In this regard.

[Gwommy]

=EARTHQUAKE
My intent was for the line to be indefinite to keep the board separated into two pieces for the rest of the game. Although, making a fault line a specific distance is a good idea as well.  Although 8 tiles long may be too hard to keep track of, especially early in the game.  But a length of 4 tiles sounds more reasonable.

=METEOR
Here's my attempt at making a meteor tile:

[loganmann1]

Oh! Don't discount having an Eclipse a disaster; medieval monks who had poor knowledge of natural phenomenon often thought eclipses were an omen, which suggests to me that they at least appeared to be natural disasters, even if they didn't destroy anything.

Perhaps this could be the inspiration for another expansion similar to Disasters that is perhaps not quite as catastrophic in nature. "Signs and Omens" perhaps, including eclipse and other such unexplained (at the time) phenomenon.

[Gwommy]

Oh! Don't discount having an Eclipse a disaster; medieval monks who had poor knowledge of natural phenomenon often thought eclipses were an omen, which suggests to me that they at least appeared to be natural disasters, even if they didn't destroy anything.

I apologize, I didn't mean to seem like I was ignoring this.  I do like the idea, but it doesn't seem to fit as well with the other natural disasters.  And Loganmann's suggestion for "Signs and Omen" is a good one, probably better than my idea for it.  I was thinking about integrating it with an expansion that I was thinking about to add day and night into Carcassonne, perhaps something similar to the "Seasons" expansion.

[CKorfmann]

As for Drought and Pestilance, I always thought there were too many drought tiles.  I don't there there should be more of those than there are pig tiles.  Two at most.  My thought was to include one of each in our expansion. 

I kinda like the earthquake idea.  It's very much like my original idea, as you've noted.  It might be difficult to do, especially if it's late in the game, but not impossible. 

I might be incommunicado for a few days as we're traveling.  Keep up the good work gents!

[Gwommy]

=DROUGHT AND PESTILENCE
Are there any other opinions for this as to whether we should include it or not?  I still say we can add a note in the rules to include the drought and pestilence expansion with this one.  We could even describe it as having a custom difficulty similar to how Pandemic works with the 'epidemic' cards.  For those not familiar with that game, basically the more epidemic cards you add into the deck, then the harder the game becomes.  So, we could say for an average game, select 2 of the drought tiles from the Drought & Pest. expansion, for a more viscious game, use all 6 tiles.

=EARTHQUAKE
It shouldn't be hard to do if you're just laying a piece of yarn somewhere along the seems of the tiles in a straight line.  You wouldn't have to actually move the tiles at all that way.  I still haven't heard anyone else's opinion as to whether it should go across the whole board or if it should be a limited length, say 7 inches (which is 4 tiles long).

<EDIT>========================================================
I came up with a symbol for the earthquake tile:

And here's a sample tile (I don't know if we'd want to use a CCCC tile or not though):

</EDIT>========================================================

=FLOOD
I'm not having much luck making the flood tiles.  Anyone else want to give it a try?

=TORNADO
Does anyone have any tile layout preferences for the tornado tiles?  I'm thinking it should be a normal tile with a tornado symbol similar to the dragon.

[elmendalerenda]

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 the earthquake symbol

[CKorfmann]

The earthquake symbol is great.  Maybe you could use JPutt's lake expansion as a template for the flood.