Fishermen (was: Row, row, row your meeple in a boat)

[Novelty]

Here's a proposal to treat rivers similar to roads.  With the large amount of river tiles - Rivers 1, Rivers 2, GQ11, it may be possible actually mix in the river pieces with the normal tiles and play them as normal tiles.  Rivers 2 is still widely available in many places, and with the addition of K,C&C, it will be even easier to obtain.  This variant will also allow for all river tiles to be put into play.  This variant does not require new tiles or new meeples.

Requirement
*At least 3 copies of River1 or 2.  (So Rivers 1, Rivers 2, K,C&C, & GQ11 would qualify.  So would 3 copies of Rivers 2)
*Basic game
*No new tiles or other pieces required.

Proposed variant rules
Setup
*At the beginning of the game, do not separate out the River tiles, mix them in with the rest of the tiles.
*Use the original starting tile from the basic game instead.

During Play
*During play, when a river tile is drawn, place it on the board in accordance to normal Carcassone rules.
*The player placing the tile gets the additional option to place the meeple (small and big) on the river (as a fishermen).  The builder, mayor, barn, pig and wagon may not be placed on the river.
*If a spring, lake or junction river tile is drawn and it cannot be put into play, it is not removed.  Draw another tile and play it instead.  Repeat drawing tiles until a playable tile is drawn, if required.  Shuffle all unused spring, lake or junction river tiles back into the draw pile.  [This is to prevent the limited "ends" from being discarded.]

Scoring
*Rivers are completed when there are 2 ends to the stretch of a river.  The ends can either be the abbey, a spring tile, a lake tile or at a junction.  (Therefore the possible stretches of river includes spring - abbey, spring - lake, spring - junction, junction - lake, junction - abbey, lake - abbey)
*When the river is completed (similar to how roads are completed), the player with the most fishermen on the river earns 2 points per tile.  The big meeple counts as 2 meeples when determining who has control of the river.
*All fishermen on the stretch of completed river is removed back to hand.

Interactions with Other expansions
*Dragon - the normal rules for the dragon applies to meeples on river tiles <I don't play with P&D, so I'm not sure if this will cause any problems>
*Fairy - the normal rules for the fairy applies to meeples on river tiles <I don't play with P&D, so I'm not sure if this will cause any problems>
*Tower - the normal rules for the tower applies to meeples on river tiles
*City (CoC) - When a river is completed, before the determination of majority, all players may redeploy their meeples from the market to the river being scored (with the exception that if the count is there, they can't move it as per normal Count rules) <I don't play with count... suggestions?>
*Abbey - the abbey completes the river, but is not part of the river.  The normal abbey rules for roads applies to rivers as well.

[Gantry]

This variant makes me thirsty 

[Scott]

Even with a ton of river expansions, I don't think there will be enough springs and lakes.

The overall idea reminds me of Hunters and Gatherers, which I've only ever played on the computer so I don't fully understand it.

[Novelty]

Yeah, there'll be a lack of "ends", but that will only mean high scoring points with the rivers. 
I'm also thinking of creating custom tiles with rivers and maybe a tile like the King and Robber Baron for rivers.  I'll mock up a few tiles when I get the time.  It shouldn't be too difficult...

Anyways, nothing constructively critical about the variant?

[Novelty]

OK, here's some custom tiles that may be used with this variant:



These are fake tiles, created with photoshop.  If anyone is interested, I suppose I could create more.

[Scott]

Wow, those look as good as the official tiles!

[Novelty]

I took the scans from the GQ11 and modified those to make this.

Well, the idea is to eventually create an expansion around the concept, maybe with a fishing boat meeple per player that would take the place of the builder on the river.  Perhaps even a fish shaped meeple to be the pig of the river.  As I mentioned, a Fisherman tile (similar to King/cities and Robber Baron/roads) or maybe an Admiral instead for the longest river?  Nothing new in terms of rules, just the reuse of an existing feature found on tiles and the expansion of it to enable a better playing experience.  But that's a different post.

This post though, is about using the extra copies of Rivers 1, 2 and from GQ11 for a better play experience.

[Gantry]

What, my thirsty comment wasn't enough?    It looks interesting to me, and my favourite type of variant is one that makes interesting use of the less-frequently used tiles.  I'd have to play it to give better feedback, but offhand I think the concept is sound.

[Novelty]

Aren't you always thirsty Gantry?   I'm looking forward to better feedback then.  I promise not to run away crying.

[canada steve]

The fisher meeple variant has already been covered in my variant ages ago now.

I like the idea of placing river tiles from the main stack, but I think in reality it would become difficult and may end in quite a few discarded tiles. I tried just randomly pulling tiles from the bag tonight and out of 50 tiles pulled only 6 were river. This would lead to a very untidy map with th epossibility of unfinished rivers making farming harder etc.

Just my thoughts.

[Novelty]

Hmm... that's a good point.  I wonder if there's a minimal amount of rivers required.  Did you have 3 sets of rivers in your bag, steve?

[Scott]

In H&G, rivers are the equivalent of roads. It might be good to either look at the number of road tiles in Carc, or look at the tile distribution of H&G and see what the ratio of river to non-river tiles is.

[canada steve]

Yep got three.5 sets in there, 1 x R1, 2 x R2 and the GQ11

[Novelty]

Roads
Carc = 45/72
River1 = 4/12
I&C = 12/18
T&B = 16/24
K&S = 3/5
Cat = 2/4
P&D = 18/30
Rivers2 = 3/12
Tower = 11/18
GQ11 = 9/12
A&M = 8/12

Rivers
River1 = 12/12
Rivers2 = 12/12
GQ11 = 2/12

So in the original game 63% of the tiles have at least one edget that is a road.

The original game + R1 + R2 + R2 + GQ11 has ... 32% rivers.  That's only about half of the roads %age.  Definately too few, especially if the other expansions are added into play.

H&G has a greater %age of rivers in the game.

Hmm... I guess it'll need a rethink.  Any idea what sort of balance for the river tiles would be good?

What would be good though, would be if either RGG or HiG take this idea and produce an expansion with extra river tiles - say about 40 - 60 tiles 

[Scott]

Besides quantity of tiles, also look at straight thru versus curve versus junction.