What do you think about dead-end tiles - and their affect on farms?

[Carcking]

I had printed up a number of new CC homemade tiles. Quite a few from the "All-the-possible-tiles" collection as well as some others. Without really thinking about it I had managed to include several new dead-end tiles. It really struck home when we played a megacarc game with Barns and Bridges a few months ago. We ended up with a farm that had about 40 cities on it (I don't recall if the whole board was essentially one farm or not but I seem to think so or very close to it).

Barn scoring got crazy because it was so easy to join into the farm. The number of dead-end tiles and bridges (which also create a "dead-end" condition where the field extends under the bridge abutment) seemed to unbalance the game. We had all pretty much abandoned roads and cloisters and were concentrating on joining the farm. The rules allow you to place your pig on the just placed tile even though it joins an existing farm so it was 2 points per city each time it was joined. It got to the level of hilarity by this point. Anyway, after the game I immediately weeded out the unnecessary dead-end tiles so I didn't have to endure that again. Now I am careful about how many get included (especially when we are playing with barns).

It got me wondering if Klaus had considered this balance of dead-end tiles when creating the game…and if HiG/RGG attempted to balance or regulate the ratio as the expansions came out. The base game of 72 tiles has 2 dead-end tiles. There are none in Inns & Cathedrals, The River I & II, Traders & Builders, King & Robber or GQ11. You have to wait for Princess & Dragon (five years) to get two more. Then the Tower gets none but Abbey & Mayor has two more a year later. Two years after that Cult & Siege has two and Catapult has two more (plus the ambiguous cloister tile). Wheel of Fortune has no new ones but Tunnels has one. Then in 2010 Crop circles has one and Bridges, Castles & Bazaars has two along with two bridges per player. There are none in Plague and none in the Festival. To date there are 14 official dead-end tiles amongst a total of 294 tiles…so approximately 1 dead-end tile for every 21 tiles. Obviously the ratio varies with certain expansion combinations. (Then there are the bridges which you can’t actually calculate in.) It does seem that they have been conscious of the impact on the game and have been careful to dole them out sparingly (with the exception of the bridge). I try to maintain this ratio whenever I can when adding a fanspansion to make sure the game plays as intended…no more than 1 new dead-end tile per 20 to 24 tile fanspansion.

So I just wanted to share my thoughts and spark some conversation here. What is everyone’s experience with dead-ends? What are your thoughts? Pros and cons?

[quevy]

I had never thought of that, I think you're right. in the next few games I try to keep an eye on this.

[CKorfmann]

It seems like a logical circumstance.  I can see where it would dramtically shift the focal point of the game.  I noticed that with bridges and I can imagine several dead ends would only make it "worse". 

[neosatan]

In this I have some experience. Dead end tend to do some easy farm merging, but when I play carcassonne I tend to build up farm so at the end I have a farm with large numbers of cities. For example recently I played a game with cor game and first, second and third exp, and I had farm with 16 cities. Most of them were constructed by my opponents, but I tend to maximise score by adding theirs cities to my farm.
Longer time ago I played a game of carcassonne and build up two farms: one with 40 cities and second with 16 cities. I have  build tune I such way that my opponent couldn't join up with barn cause I have build roads that successfully separated farms. This was a game with all my current exp (officials) without castle, Bridges and bazars.
I was.curious if I have such skills or I have just luck.in some games my opponents do build farms but in most of them they mainly focus on cities, and forget about farms. Still concern about dead ends imo is little over estimated. I have played with fan exps  and with officials and from what I have observe there is little corelation in with deadends and big farma.
I even tried to do a maty approche to this problem but there id top mamy vatiables do i gave up.

[MrNumbers]

Since we've got A&M expansion the main goal of the game now is to put a barn in a right place, expand it's influence, build cities near it and, after building a huge farm, join farmers with a pig. Every join is about 30-50 points. Another strategy is to join barns early, so they will not affect the final scoring because of sharing the points. I also know all dead-end tiles and try to use them as wise as possible. Same applies to bridges: often they stay till the end of the game with purpose to use them for joining farmers to big farms.
I don't see here any absence of balance: we had situations when I had big farm with approximately 12-15 cities, but my wife in that time only placed her barn and at the end of the game her farm was comparable to mine! It depends only on player's skills to develop his farm.

[Scott]

Dead-end Ratio Analysis assuming progression towards MegaCarc
(all percentages rounded to nearest hundreth)

Base game -> 2/72 = 2.78%
+ River I -> 2/84 = 2.38%
+ I&C -> 2/102 = 1.96%
+ T&B -> 2/126 = 1.59%
+ King -> 2/131 = 1.53%
+ Count -> 2/143 = 1.40%
+ Cathars -> 2/147 = 1.36%
+ P&D -> 4/177 = 2.26%
+ River II -> 4/189 = 2.12%
+ Tower -> 4/207 = 1.93%
+ GQ11 -> 4/219 = 1.83%
+ A&M -> 6/231 = 2.60%
+ Shrines/Cult -> 8/236 = 3.39%
+ Catapult -> 10/248 = 4.03%
+ WoF -> 10/320 = 3.13% (only added the 19 WoF-specific tiles)
+ Tunnels -> 11/324 = 3.40%
+ BC&B -> 13/336 = 3.87%
+ Corn Circles -> 14/342 = 4.09%
+ Plague -> 14/348 = 4.02%
+ Party/Festival -> 14/358 = 3.91%

I personally don't think anybody was keeping an eye on this or trying to contain it somehow. I'm not sure how to come up with a mathematical that could calculate all the possible combinations, and I don't think I would want to let something like that limit me either.

[neosatan]

We  could do a math approche, but it would demand some data before. Computer analysis would give unlimited number of samples. i don't have such capabilities at the moment cause I will be moving myself to another home, and can't predict how much time it will take me. But if your guys are playing carcassonne just count number of tiles, numbers of dead ends, farms and cities on that farms (finish and incomplete) and we can do some statistics about it.