Tower errata questions

[Fleshpile]

I have a couple of questions regarding the Tower expansion that I haven't been able to find the answers to elsewhere.

1. Can a tower take the builder, pig, big follower, wagon & mayor captive, or just the basic follower unit?
2. If yes, how does exchange occur? If I take my opponent's big follower and they take one of my regular follower, are they exchanged?
3. Also, who chooses which unit is returned? If I have an opponent's follower, big follower, and wagon (for example), and an exchange is forced, does my opponent choose which unit to receive in the exchange, or do I choose which unit to give him?
4. Can you capture (take back) your own units?
5. If the placing of a tower tile finishes an element owned by an opponent, can I remove his unit before scoring, or does the tile placement score him points first?
6. Can I place a follower on a 0-height tower foundation to prevent it's use, or only at a height of 1+?

Thanks!

[Scott]

1. Builders and pigs are not followers so they cannot be taken prisoner. The big follower can definitely be taken prisoner, and I would suspect the mayor and wagon too.

2. In a case where more than one follower has been taken prisoner, the owner decides which follower will be returned to him/her.

3. See previous answer.

4. Yes.

5. Scoring does not take place until the end of each turn, so your opponent cannot score before you take him/her prisoner.

6. I suspect so.

[Fleshpile]

Sweet, found most of these answers in the Annotated Rules. One, however, remains:

If a player has a builder in a city and their follower is removed from the city via tower, princess or dragon, does the builder remain "stuck" in the city, or is he immediately returned to the owner? If it remains, does it stay there until the city is finished, or until someone else takes possession of the city, or something else?

[Scott]

As I recall, the builder is not allowed to exist without a follower, and is returned to the player's supply.

[ricksta2232]

Is there an official or positive ruling that a follower can be placed on a 0 height tower foundation?

[Scott]

I took another look at the Tower rules. Towards the beginning, the alternatives to deploying a follower are to deploy a tower piece to an existing tower, deploy a tower piece to a tower foundation, and deploy a follower to the top of a tower. Since a distinction is made between tower and tower foundation, it may not be permissible to deploy a follower to a tower foundation.

I hereby retract my previous answer.

[Joff]

We had our first game with the Tower this afternoon (Basic + Tower).

Here is a couple of questions following the scenario below. I hope you can follow:

A city is being built. I lay a tile that has a city with foundations within it's walls. I lay a black knight and make a claim to the city. An opponent follows me and builds a tower on the foundation of this tile, but removes a green monk that is in a cloister on an adjacent tile. I then, on my next turn, stop tower construction by placing a meeple on the tower. There are now 2 black meeples on this tile (1 on city, 1 on tower) You still with me?
On another turn my opponent places a city tile that includes foundations and adjoins the city and tile containing the 2 black meeples. He immediately plays a tower piece to this new tile and then takes prisoner my black knight in the city (leaving the tower blocking meeple alone).

1) Is my opponent able to have his pick of which meeple is removed, or does one have to be removed before another (ie. tower blocker before city occupier)?

2) If my meeple is blocking a tower within the city walls does it count for majority? After all it is still within the city. In this case the city was completed with just the tower blocker in place.

Hope someone can help, and my apologies if this has already been covered before.

[Scott]

1) The original HiG rules did not mention whether followers on towers could be captured, but an FAQ confirmed they could. In the original RGG rules, followers on towers could NOT be captured. With the release of the Big Box, both the HiG and RGG rules now state that followers on towers can be captured. The possibility exists that your friend was not aware of this and thought that your meeple on the ground was the only possibility for capture?

I get the impression that both towers are the same height. Something is telling me that your opponent needs to build higher than your tower to capture your meeple, but I can't find anything in the rules to confirm this.

2) Even when a tower is built inside the city, it is considered separate from the city, so meeples on top of them do not count towards determining majority in city scoring.

[Joff]

Thanks Scott. No, he purposely chose to remove my knight, guessing that the tower blocker would not count toward the city. The tiles wer adjacent (touching) each other so he only needed to build 1 high to capture. At the moment, it just seems so difficult to build points when using the tower expansion. Is this normal? Perhaps it's just to promote deeper strategies?

[mjharper]

As Scott said.

1) It's perfectly legitimate to chose which to remove; although I'm not aware of any ruling about needing to build a higher tower, as Scott suggested. Vertical and horizontal distance are the only thing that matter.

2) No, towers don't count towards the majority. And followers on towers can't be captured by princess tiles either.

As far as scoring is concerned, I think that the expansion does make things more difficult. But I also think that, perhaps more than the other expansions, it was meant to be mixed into a mega-Carc game, and not used alone with the basic game. That makes the field of play bigger, reduces the proportion of foundation tiles, and makes the towers a bit more strategic and less cut-throat…

[Joff]

We usually try out new expansions with just the basic game so we can all learn and get used to the new rules without having to worry about much else. Perhaps we will mix it with I&C, T&B and A&M on the next try.

[mjharper]

We usually try out new expansions with just the basic game so we can all learn and get used to the new rules without having to worry about much else. Perhaps we will mix it with I&C, T&B and A&M on the next try.

I think that will work better. It's an odd expansion…

[Joff]

Help! On page 37 of CAR under 'Prisoners', it says, "If one of the players has several prisoners belonging to the other player, the owner may decide which prisoner should be returned." My question is:

Who is the 'owner'?

[Scott]

If somebody took one of your meeples prisoner, you are the owner of that meeple.

[Joff]

Had another game with the Tower yesterday afternoon. This time the mix was: Basic/I&C/T&B/A&M/Tower. This was a much better game, although we tended to have so many followers left in our supply unused! We're still getting used the the Tower and A&M!