Strategy Question

[Chuck5874]

Hi,

I have recently gotten back into Carcassonne after a two year hiatus. I have begun playing regularly on the iPhone app and have noticed a strategy trend that has me puzzled and was wondering if any of you can help explain it to me. For clarification this is online against real people and not against the AI opponents.

In probably two out of every three games my opponent lays a farmer as one of their first three moves. Why? Why would you lay a farmer so early in the game? why would you want to commit a farmer to a field when you don't have any clue whether it is going to be worth any points?

Any feedback that could help clarify this would be appreciated. I am curious if I am missing something obvious or if this strategy really does makes as little sense as I seem to think it does.

Thank You

[djdahmer]

Do you know how experienced your opponents are? When we first started playing we'd pretty much place meeples whenever & wherever we could, just to get them into play; it was only later on after a lot more games that we started strategising more & conserving meeples for when the could be most useful.

[Whaleyland]

I often will placed a Farmer within the first few turns of the game. It sets a goal for me (build lots of cities on this field) and gives me time to  reinforce the field with a second (or third!) follower later. You certainly have to be careful, I've lost many an early field to ties or thefts, but you rarely need all seven followers so sacrificing one early to claim a field you can build isn't a terrible strategy. Just make sure your opponent(s) don't think to much of it for a while.

[CKorfmann]

I rely on farmers to win games for me.  I don't play them right away though and I agree with you that it seems strange to put one out right away.  Though I understand where Whaley is coming from, I just find that you can't count on being able to build on a farm, too unpredicatable.  I usually wait until there are at least 3 or 4 cities started on the farm before I claim it.  Then I'll try and build a few little cities on it when I can and try to avoid placing roads in it.  If someone gets the best one first, I'll usually try to connect 2 or 3 into it before the end game.  I rarely finish a game without having a stake in the largest farm.  There's the long answer.

[Drucifer]

I just got the iPhone/iPod version as well and this is my first real experience with Carcassonne so my opinions probably don't matter much as I'm still learning the game myself.

The game is pretty new to the idevice so chances are if you are playing a random person they may be new to the game like myself and they may just be trying out different strategies. 

I've only had a couple random games so far and both of them quit on me. 

[Scott]

I seem to always forget to farm when I'm playing on my iDevice, but back when I played the real thing it was common to get farmers down quickly before all the good fields were taken.

[vagabondriot]

I think that farmers get played so early on the iPhone version because only the basic game is being played and there are a lot less tiles than when playing with the expansions. When the expansions are in play, it is a lot easier to get yourself on a field later in a game (due to there being more pieces). Also, the advantage of waiting is seeing where there are lots of cities. With only the basic game available (so far, the publisher of the game says they are developing the expansions as well) on the iPhone, it is more important to claim a field early because it is difficult to claim it later.

[Chuck5874]

Thank you for all of the replies so far. It is reassuring to know that I am not completely crazy.

It is amazing how such a simple game can have so many strategies.

[bareknuckledancer]

only just started playing with a mate, and lost the rules, could remember most things but not the rules about farmers so we did without them... still made a smart game. But I lost both times, but it doesn't count because we didn't have farmers, or that's what I claim.

[CKorfmann]

You can check out the CAR (completely annotated rules) here on this site.  Our family started playing without farms too simply because my brother-in-law couldn't figure it out.  Definitely doing it now!

[vagabondriot]

the CAR can be found here
http://carc.mjharper.de/CARnew.pdf

[jojojojojojojo]

I agree with vagabondriot. I'm a newb who has only played 20 or so games since my sister gave it to me for christmas this year. In keeping, I'm only playing the base game as I received it (no river).

I usually play a farmer one of my very early moves because the most common final outcomes are one, two, or three fields all told. It makes sense that this is due to the small number of tiles and the difficulty in fencing (roading?) off subsections. If there is only one big field (as an extreme yet somewhat common case), any non-farmer scoring can become redundant when compared to earning the farm points over your opponent(s).

This leads to a farming cold war which some people (ahem my girlfriend) don't enjoy. Notwithstanding, I think that, at least in the base game, early claiming of farmland and subsequent defense by farming small areas then connecting them to your farm to increase the number of your farmers is some of the most important strategy.

Sorry for joining the thread a bit late, but I'm very interested in talking strategy esp. for the base game.