Archers, Zombies and Birthdays - searching for 11th hour advice

[Hawkinsssable]

.pdf is here!

Hi all,

I've been working on a fan-made expansion for one of my friend's birthdays, which is now exactly 7 days away. The idea was to combine several things he likes (zombies, archery, Portal, Carcassonne and his birthday) I'm going to get these tiles nicely printed and put on some spare Carcassonne tiles I have. I realise that there are some similarities with the Zombies!! expansion that's in progress, but hopefully not too many. The expansion has been play-tested and adjusted twice, and it seems fairly fun. It can be played with a spare set of meeples, including a large meeple. In my case, I've painted a set of White meeples from meeplesource with zombie features.

The tiles have been created based on existing tiles from the Mathguy expansions, All The Rest of the Tiles, and the Fishermen expansion, although further refined and neatened a bit so that the roads consistently join up and the grass blends a bit better.

The new features are:
Zombie tiles: A zombie is placed on the tile, and then all zombies - including the zombie just placed - move in the direction of the arrow. A meeple may then be placed. Any completed features are scored before the meeple is placed.
Case 1 (River starting tile): A large zombie is placed on the tile. Large zombies move 2 spaces instead of one, and cannot be killed by archers.
Archery tiles: If placed in the same row or column as a meeple, the nearest meeple fires an arrow at the target. If it hits, +1 point. If it hits an enemy meeple, they lose 2 points. If it hits a zombie, the zombie is removed from play.
Stables: The Stables join the city and road into one feature, which is then scored accordingly. Inns or Cathedrals only affect scoring for the road or city section of the feature.
Birthday Party (with cake!): The Birthday Party is completed when all 8 surrounding tiles have been placed. The Birthday Meeple scores 3 points per follower on these tiles.

I was hoping for some feedback on a few points:

• How well do you think the tiles will mix in with those from the base game and existing expansions? In my previous two versions, they were all a bit two 'crowded' and hard to place; I think I've improved them a bit since then, but I'm not sure
• How do the new features sound? The Zombies seemed fun in play-testing, but the Stables didn't get much use and the Birthday Party was usually ignored (although it once scored 15 points).
• Are the various new features suitably recognisable / of high enough quality not to look horrible?
• Should the archery tiles be simplified down to simply killing zombies or no effect?

Any feedback or advice would be great!

[Carcatronn]

Great job on the artwork Hawkins! My original idea of Zombies!!! used the exact same idea for movement, but has been changed enough now so that the players do not choose the zombies path (although the "walker" symbol looks very similar).

I am confused on how the archery tiles work? How does the Meeple shoot at the target?

I have been also toying with an idea to merge features together, like your stables. But maybe define the rules a bit like when is it considered complete? Does the road and city need to be finished before scoring and returning the Meeple to the supply, or does the Meeple score on the feature that gets completed first and gets returned immediately after?

The Birthday party may need more incentives to deploy a follower on it, as having to place it near more Meeple doesn't sound appealing enough. Maybe instead of deploying a Meeple to the tile, you instead gift points to any Meeple deployed on features that surround it? I could see getting more use this way. Would give more incentive for players to race on deploying Meeple around the party

[Hawkinsssable]

Hi Carcatronn, thanks for the feedback! The full work-in-progress description of the Stables I have at the moment looks like this:

The stables joins a city segment to a road segment so that they are ultimately scored as a single feature when both the road and the city are complete. The player with the most followers on both the city and the road receives the full score for the joined feature.
Stables can connect separate cities via roads. In this case, all three features are considered joined.
If the road of a joined feature includes an inn or the city contains a cathedral, only the score of the relevant feature (road or city) will be doubled. Similarly, although incomplete roads with inns or cities with cathedrals will not be scored at the end of a game, the other feature will still be scored, with points awarded to the player with the most strength on the joined feature.

And the Archery tile I explained poorly. Meeples can only shoot arrows directly left, right, up or down - not diagonally. I'm not sure how to put this in the instructions, though (arrows can only be fired in cardinal directions? orthagonally? I wish I knew the right term.)

As for the birthday party, that might be a better way of doing it. So followers aren't placed on the party, but it gives a single point each turn to the people on the surrounding features? Or maybe the points could all be given at the end, when the birthday party and all 9 surrounding tiles are filled in... something like this, maybe:

The Birthday Party: When the birthday party and all 8 surrounding tiles are filled in, each meeple on these tiles earns one point per meeple other than itself in range of the birthday party. The birthday party does not affect follower placement on these tiles (ie they are not removed when the birthday party is complete)[/i]

So in the case of the image below, green and red would each get 6 points, orange would get 12, and grey would get 18 - in addition to any points from the features they're positioned on.

[quevy]

I really like the birthday party.
I tell my idea for this.
gives each player points (1/2/3, removed from those earned) for each meeple in adjacent tiles. If you can tile surrounded the birthday immediately receive points as a present, remove the meeple and also receive a new tile to play immediately.

[CKorfmann]

First of all, welcome to the forums.

The Zombies would probably work fine the way you have it.  You mentioned purchasing white meeples from Meeple Source, did you not see the zombie meeples? 

I think there is still some confusion as to the mechanics of the Archer.  You stated originally, "If it hits...", what condition causes it to hit?  How do you know what it hits?  Do you choose the direction?  BTW, orthagonal is the term we tend to use.  I think it is the most appropriate and if not, at least it gets the point across.  This needs a more complete explaination I think.

The stables are an interesting mechanic.  It could get pretty crazy if a bunch of them are all joined together, especially when you use Inns & Cathedrals.  Not impossible though.  It seems like it would work fine.

The Birthday Party seems way too point-heavy to me.  But, with only three tiles, if that's you're motive, that could work.  I would think that only one person should be able to claim each tile and receive points since at a party, typically presents are just given to the person whose birthday it is.  IMO.

Adding a few extra portals will be nice, I'm sure.  Great job on the art work.  I'm sure your friend will love it.  Don't be a stranger after the birthday party!

[Hawkinsssable]

I saw the zombie meeples, but I wanted to get a complete set so that I'd have a nice zombie king on hand, and also in case we want to try extending the game to 7 players and still use all the components. But yes, they are beautiful.

Here's my latest attempt at defining the rules for the archery tiles (with a significant change from how I first had it):

When an Archery tile is placed, the current player may choose a follower positioned orthagonally to the archery range to act as an archer. The archer fires an arrow from his tile to the target tile. The arrow hits any meeples on any of the intervening tiles, and does not continue past this point. If no meeples are hit, the arrow hits the target and scores 1 point. If the arrow hits an enemy meeple, its owner loses 2 points. If the arrow hits a zombie, the zombie is removed from play.

[Carcking]

Welcome to the Forum! And IMHO this work is already worth a merit point - freely given. Nice artwork and mechanic concepts! Welcome!