The Dragon's Journey for Nom Noms

[Deepblueocean]

Back again with another curious question.

We were playing with the Princess and Dragon expansion.

The question of the Dragon's Journey for Nom Noms arises. In the Rule book (V. 5.0B9) page 42-43 it states:

"The dragon always moves six tiles, irrespective of the number of players, except in the case of a dead end. It may not move onto a tile twice, and the tile occupied by the fairy is also off limits."

So does the first tile the dragon is sitting on counts as part of the journey in the sense that the dragon may not move back on it? I think it's safe to say that it can be established that the one that the dragon sits on before his 6 tile journey is not part of the 6 tile journey.

To attempt to clarify or confuse , The scenario goes like this.

If the tiles were lined linearly like this -> [A] [ B ] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G]

The Dragon is chilling on tile [A] when a dragon tile is drawn thus making the dragon "be on the move". The Dragon moves to Tile [ B ] as the 1st of 6 tiles in his Journey. Can the next player move the Dragon to tile [A] and claim it as the 2nd tile of the 6 tile Journey and thus effectively shutting down the Dragon's journey (poor dragon) or is Tile [A] off limits and thus the 6 tile Journey will end at [G].

I hope this was clear! Thanks again for everyone's help!

[Scott]

The phrase "move onto" suggests that the tile the dragon starts from could be re-entered, since it only moved off of that tile not onto it. However, I suspect if this were escalated to HiG they would rule that it is off limits. The purpose of the rule is to prevent the dragon from retracing his steps.

[Deepblueocean]

So if we go by RGG (Rio Grande Game) we can safe say that you can retrace the starter tile during that Journey?

Thanks for your help!

[Scott]

It's got nothing to do with RGG. They have no authority with regards to anything except the GQ11 expansion.

[Deepblueocean]

Excuse the to be semi ignorant message that may need to be diverted to another thread.

So if we wanted to be official with our game play of Carcassonne minus the GQ11 expansions, should we go by HiG or RGG? or maybe the better question is what's the difference (besides the whole "Rio Grande Games (RGG) abandoned 1st edition farmer scoring in favour of Hans im Glück’s (HiG) 3rd edition rules")

Thanks again for all your help!

[Scott]

There are some minor differences between HiG and RGG rules. Besides the farmer scoring situation, these differences fall into two categories: translation issues and clarifications. Sometimes RGG does a poor job of translating from German to English, and their choice of words results in a syntactical conflict with the original German. In those situations, the German text is almost always correct. Other times, RGG may add a sentence which does not exist in the German text to clarify a point which is confusing. In those situations, there is typically no conflict between the English and the German so both are correct.

At the end of the day, it's up to you whether you want to play by HiG's rules or RGG's rules. Many North Americans play by the RGG rules - mostly out of ignorance, but some who are aware of the differences continue to play by RGG rules either because they're used to it, they play with others who are used to it, or they feel that first edition scoring is better balanced for how they like to play. Some North Americans have switched to HiG rules because we consider them to be "more official". The German rules come straight from the game designer, and HiG is the primary publisher. RGG is only one of a handful of regional distributors doing their own translation. (World tournaments follow HiG rules as well, but you may not consider that a good reason if you never plan to compete.)

Time for the shameless plug. My personal recommendation is to follow the HiG rules as translated and annotated in Matthew Harper's Complete Annotated Rules for Carcassonne. It's why many of us came here in the first place. It's a better translation than what RGG publishes, and it has a lot of official rulings and clarifications from the good folks at HiG regarding loopholes and oversights.

[Deepblueocean]

Thanks Scott for your Clarification! 

[Deepblueocean]

So I've settled to "reopening" this thread and putting this potentially simple question here. Excuse the flash in the picture. And I've placed the followers in farmer mode so it's easier to see what i'm talking about.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5Oa3jP7PmScdWIxWGItbHJmc2s

The Dragon really wants to nom nom the yellow meeple on Title C. Can the Dragon move to Title B as the next move and then to C?

The question got raised because the Castle, per this previous thread,

For the purposes of the dragon it no longer matters, as the newest rules from Big Box 3 (and the upcoming CAR) include the statement that a follower in the castle cannot be eaten by the dragon.

in our minds, implies that the Castle potentially acts as a barrier and thus the Meeple in title C is safe for the dragon's 6 title journey that round.

[Carcking]

Dragons can fly - so I would rule the meeple on tile C is not safe in this round. The dragon flies over the castle.

[Deepblueocean]

The King has spoken! Thanks for your help! 

(though according to our aero engineer friend, a dragon with that small of a wing span can't support that body, so hence we went with a ground based walking dragon  )

[Carcking]

The King has spoken! Thanks for your help! 

(though according to our aero engineer friend, a dragon with that small of a wing span can't support that body, so hence we went with a ground based walking dragon  )

haha - true. well, maybe he's really good at jumping. 

[Deepblueocean]

haha - true. well, maybe he's really good at jumping. 

And on the side, he's an Olympic gold medals for the high and long jump.

thanks again! 

[Scott]

Indeed, although a follower in a castle may be protected from the dragon, it is possible to have another meeple on a different feature on the same tile who is not protected, so the dragon may enter a tile with a castle on it.