We tried a new house rule for Cloisters

[Carcking]

Perhaps looking for a method for getting more cloisters completed, or for garnering more interest in deploying monks by bringing the scoring opportunity up a little - we said that if a player completes his own cloister by placing the last tile he receives a 3 point bonus for a total of 12 points. If it's completed by another player then he just gets the regular 9 points. This actually inspired some defensive play with other players completing others' cloisters to deprive them of the 3 points. It provided more incentive for players to deploy monks. We did have more monks in the game than usual.

We amended it to say that if the cloister is shared (as in the Count or by a castle) the second player does not get the 3 point bonus - only the standard scoring.

Just wanted to spark a conversation here - what does everyone think?

[Amorpheus]

Sounds like a good idea.  I suppose you could award the 9 points to player with the monk regardless of who completes it, and a 3 (or 2) point bonus to whichever player completes it, unless that seems like too big of a point swing.

Another thought for increasing interest in cloisters: how about bonus points (maybe 1 point each?) to the monk for each meeple (their own and others) that is adjacent to the cloister at the time it's completed?   This could also be changed to allow other players to diminish the value of the cloister while in turn helping to complete them, such as subtracting one point from the monk for each meeple from a different player on the adjacent tiles.

Have you tried JPutt's Influence of the Church fanspansion?  I've printed it and tried it once...unfortunately, most of the cloister tiles didn't come up until late in the game, so we never reached the third level.  I need to try it out again...it seems like a good way of adding value to cloisters.  http://carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=1375.msg16849#msg16849

[Scott]

I find this topic interesting because in the games I have played there was always a lot of interest in cloisters. Whenever somebody would pull a cloister from the bag, everybody else was jealous. Although they are only worth 1 point per tile, you can often get the first 3-4 points during placement. We would also look for opportunities to place cloisters near an opponent's feature so that the opponent would complete the cloister for you in the process of building his city. Often it only took one or two tiles of your own to finish it off and you got 9 easy points.

If you are struggling to find the same level of enthusiasm for cloisters in your game, I encourage you to explore options like the one you suggest above (giving 3 points for completing).

[Carcking]

You got me thinking about this and I believe it's not so much a desire to have monks and own cloisters - but more to do with when I have a cloister in play that needs tiles it's difficult to justify playing on the cloister if the tile is worth more points on another feature. On the cloister it's still just worth 1 point where on cities it's worth 2 plus pennants, on Inn on the lake roads they are worth two, etc. Even if it comes to using it to complete a city on your farm it's worth more than 1 point. So for me the cloister just seems to be a dumping site for otherwise unusable (or unprofitable tiles). I generally play on my cloister if it's my last option (or if I'm desparate for followers - which sometimes prohibits me from investing a follower on a cloister to begin with).

So, I thought if I made the cloister a little more worthwhile I could justify attempting to complete it.

Does this resonate with anyone?

[Carcking]

Whenever somebody would pull a cloister from the bag, everybody else was jealous. Although they are only worth 1 point per tile, you can often get the first 3-4 points during placement. We would also look for opportunities to place cloisters near an opponent's feature so that the opponent would complete the cloister for you in the process of building his city. Often it only took one or two tiles of your own to finish it off and you got 9 easy points.

These ideas are sound Scott and also strategies I look for - but then for me it comes down to justifying spending tiles on the cloister that I can use more profitably elsewhere.

[neosatan]

In ours game cloisters are also not often used. Most of my fellow players use them to complete road. I like to use cloisters to gain points near my structures, and extend farms. The ffff cloister is for my like a blessing usualy I can build farm with 10 or more cities if I add such cloister to my farm.

Interesting is that when You play with house rules You lose some control of what tiles are placed near cloister, and cloisters will be completed much faster, especialy when one tile is missing. I will try it in future games. I play a varinat of challenged cloisters and don't know yet how would thuse rules affect my variant.

Another interesting thing is that I teach to play Carcassonne nephew of my wife. 11 years old boy is starting to play like I do . One of ours recent games ended with score 154 points to 146 points with base game and two exps. Not so large game, but I was schocked that he could adapt my strategies to create a mirror copy of my side of board. Clever boy. Still, back to topic, we play cloisters in a specific way. We tend to do farms of cloisters or to put them in places where there are gap in a city complex, so roads will match. Max three tiles needed to complete a cloister, and thouse tiles are needed to complete roads, cities or extend farms. So it a side building a cloister. Other players, much older tend to not use cloister, and concentrate on stealing cities, or building cities. They do not use cloisters to gain points, and rather than they just use them to compete roads, or fill a gap in board, and sink one meeple.

I was thinking about how to make cloisters more interesting, and I have an idea, but for time beeing will not tell you guys :P I will tell you that one idea is presented in my expansion in work, and another idea is an expansion/variant (don't know how to do it).

[Bixby]

Most of the games I play use a lot of tiles and expansions and most times the risk/reward ratio of cloisters is not worth pursuing. Quite often there are many more points to be gained without the need to tie up a valuable meeple waiting for the cloister to be finished. In a game of Mega-Carcassonne, we typically only see 1-3 cloisters completed.

We are toying around with an idea that would scale points for cloisters. 9 points plus 1 point for each cloister previously completed. This would involved a small church icon on the score board that would increment each time a cloister is completed to show what the bonus value for the next completion is.

[Carcking]

We are toying around with an idea that would scale points for cloisters. 9 points plus 1 point for each cloister previously completed. This would involved a small church icon on the score board that would increment each time a cloister is completed to show what the bonus value for the next completion is.

Wow, Bixby, I like that idea too. I'll have to try that. That will give players incentive to work on their own cloisters rather than complete others defensively.

[Scott]

People might still complete others defensively to increase the value of their own.

[Carcking]

People might still complete others defensively to increase the value of their own.

True.

[Trebuchet]

Indeed we too experimented with various possiblities to score cloisters. We now (always) stick to meepleater's Breweries expansion which truly can boast the score for one cloister, encouraging everyyone to meeple cloisters and finish them. Eventhough this thread is probably not meant for it; i thought I'd give it the mention for those of us who have not played Breweries yet.