Wanderer and Mayor's office

[Leven]

Hi all,

This is my first expansion that I publish here at carcassonnecentral. I hope you'll like it. It includes some new tiles, and new followers as well.

The whole idea for this expansion came from the aim to make up more realistic maps during the game. I mean in a usual Carcassonne map the roads often lead nowhere, making just loops in the middle of a farm, or there are cities which are completely isolated from the external world as there are no roads leading out of them. I was wondering how could we encourage the players to build roads which really connect features with each other. Apparently, the players have to be awarded for doing this, so I cooked up the following rules.

I invented new kinds of followers:
-   The wanderers can be deployed on roads (like thieves) but they "own" a whole road network (which builds up by adjacent roads separated by crossings), and may be placed when a player connects two previously unconnected cities (or a city and a cloister). Later, any time a city that is connected to the road network where a wanderer stands gets completed, the owner of the wanderer receives points, too.
-   The mayor's office may be deployed when a city with a mayor is completed, and the owner of the mayor has the majority there (i.e. scores for the city). Later, if any city or cloister that is connected to the city with the mayor's office through a road network gets completed, the owner of the mayor's office scores points, as well.
The number of points in both cases is equal to the number of tiles the completed feature consists of.

I added some new land tiles, as well, all of them contain more than one city segment, and these cities are all connected by short roads (which I called access roads) where a thief may not be placed.

The detailed rules can be downloaded from here (tile layout included):
http://www.mediafire.com/?tra4fyjl63fums4

Having played some tests with this expansion, I have to say it really works. In the end almost all cities that were built up of at least 3 tiles was connected with other cities, and the whole playing area looked quite acceptable. 

Any thought and comment would be great.
Please tell me if some rule needs more clarification, or you find grammatical mistakes in the rules.

Thank you

[Albinoasian]

This really is a great expansion. I think the idea and also the execution too. I've got some blank tiles on the way from cundco and your expansion sounds like a good one to print.

May I make one suggestion though, it would be great if you made your access roads visually distinct. It could be grey cobblestone or just a different dirt color. This would reduce the confusion for those that are new to the expansion. It would make it easy to see when wagons free ride begins and ends.

[Leven]

Thanks for your comment and suggestion. I'm glad you liked the idea.
Actually, there is a tile in Inns and Cathedrals which also contains access roads (the original rules do not use this term, of course), and there is no visual distinction at all although the rules point out that a thief may not be deployed on these short roads:



But I understand the demand and I like your idea of cobble-stones. How about this?
http://www.mediafire.com/?elcqmrl9uxhdscb

[Albinoasian]

Oh I forgot about that tile in Inns & Cathedrals... are there any other tiles in further expansion that could function as access roads too?

And yes I really do think the differentiation is a good thing =D Great job!

[Fritz_Spinne]

You have created some new tiles for the scoring-mechanism, but the mechanism is used in other fan-expansions.

Look at the "trading posts" of Kevin Graham http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/images/download/expansions/tradingposts.pdf or the discussion about "The Merchant of Carcassonne" http://carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=5kotccicjji8g74pqgv0gmupf6&topic=329.0.

Indeed I would prefer the terms trader (more than merchant) and trading post for the following reasons:
A trader can make money by visiting cities. By wandering you will not earn anything. Nevertheless you can take the bagpacker meeple, only wealthy merchants had carts, small traders wandered to their clients.
In old cities there is a mayor in every city. So a mayor's office has no influence on other cities, but with good road connections a trading post will make more money.

I think your scoring-suggestion is too high. I would prefer a fixed amount like 3 - 5 points for every completed city or something like:
1 point for the first two tiles,
1 for the fourth tile,
1 for the seventh tile,
1 for the eleventh tile
1 for the 15th and so on
1 bonus-point for every trade-goods in the city.

I made some new tiles which could be useful for this expansion. You can see one tile here http://maik63.bplaced.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=344 and download them here http://maik63.bplaced.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=415 - I think you have to register for the download.
It's an expansion with combination-edges. The tiles have cities with city-gates at the mid of the edges. You can place either a field or a street at these edges. Indeed you can place a city-gate at the city-gate, but these city-tiles are not connected except they are connected by other tiles.

[Leven]

Hi, Fritz_Spinne,

Thanks for recommending me your tiles (and this German Carcassonne forum, some real treasures can be found there ). I will definitely use them, I think it is a great idea.

Concerning terminology, I understand what you mean, but I think it's not necessary for a follower to have a name which refers to its point-gathering ability. E.g. by being a monk you won't earn much either. Still, in Carcassonne monks can collect lots of points. The term trader is already used in the 2nd official expansion (although not for a follower but for the whole expansion), so I wouldn't really like to use that. And I think the term wanderer suits better for these backpacker pieces (which I prefer because they can be easily obtained by anyone). I think the naming of the mayor's offices is quite logical as they are the "established" by (or via) the mayor. Maybe it has no influence on the other cities but can have a big influence on the relations of the cities. The office can make decisions on trade relationships, on where to build new roads.

As for scoring, I tried to create a system which is simple and easy to remember. I think what you suggest is too complicated. Players would constantly look for the rules to calculate the number of points they will get. I agree that in my scoring system the owner of the wanderers and the mayor's offices would be rewarded with so many points that it will have a big influence on the final result. (Just like with building castles.) So finally it is really worth to connect the cities with each other. And that was my aim with this expansion.