Favourite House Rules? (for the CAR)

[The Missionary]

let's hope for your sake that she doesn't eventually become a CC member and read here your true confession... hehehehe; - D

Too late...  :

He's lucky I'm a forgiving wifey... And I'm lucky he's a forgiving hubby (I just lost our one and only van key last night   )

[ladofdestiny]

Our house rule is that any incomplete cloister or road gets only half the points you'd normally get, rounded down (more like the vibe of end game city scoring).

Basically it came from the game being new in our group, and pretty much everyone found it hard to swallow that people would still get big 8 point "hey don't worry you almost finished it" scores for a cloister that wasn't even complete. It just seemed to have no consequences for not completing anything....it was a bit to 'pat on the back-ish'... Sure you got the meeple back, but that wasn't enough for us. 

Now it's a lot more tense and you think twice before just grabbing for the easy points for a cloister.

[Deatheux]

point limit, due to the game with more than 1,200 tiles!!!

see post

[CKorfmann]

see post

What post?

[MattMartin]

Comparing the Mayor with a regular follower:
(+) the Mayor sometimes counts as a large follower or multiple followers, however, in our games this advantaged only occurs occasionally (I may say even "rarely");
(-) the Mayor can be placed ONLY in cities (while regular followers could be placed "anywhere")
(-) the Mayor sometimes (although rarely) counts as nothing.

It seems to us that the Mayor unnecessarily increases rule complexity with no significant return (with rare exceptions). I mean, if replaced by another regular follower, few implications on the gameplay would result. We usually place the Mayor on game only to keep regular followers (which can be placed anywhere). So we feel the Mayor a dispensable character (what a pity!) and some of us have proposed considering it a second "large follower". To avoid this, we adopted the following rule:

When scoring, the Mayor adds 1 point to each pennant in the city.

Using this rule, we found the Mayor became a more valuable figure (compensating the fact it can be deployed on cities only) and allowing a more strategic placement (since it should be placed on cities with many pennants ...)

[Whaleyland]

Concerning the Mayor, when I play, the Mayor usually is worth <1 Knight and may be placed only on a city. If no pennants appear in the city, the Mayor stills scores for it unless another player's Knight is in the city. In that case, the Knight wins. If a player has a Mayor and a Knight in the city, versus just an opponent's Knight, the player with both wins (since the Mayor is worth <1 but not 0). This way, the Mayor can always still score in a city, regardless of if there are any pennants.

[MattMartin]

Still the Mayor:
Whaleyland, your rule seems to be even more complicated... furthermore, it makes the Mayor even more similar to regular followers since it can score like them... (Am I wrong?)

[MattMartin]

In very tight games, sometimes a player wins the game playing the final tile and his direct opponent  complains about the disadvantage of having taken one less turn than the winner. Indeed, players who act first often have the advantage of playing one more turn than any other(s) player(s).
To avoid this, we stated that at the end of the game, all players shall have played equal number of turns..

To accomplish this, we use the following rule:
At the beginning of the game, a number of tiles equal to the double of the number of players are randomly chosen and placed aside (players are not allowed to watch the tile faces) - this tiles comprise the "extra tile reserve". Players must not pick up tiles from the "extra tile reserve" while any tile is available in the normal reserve. Once the normal tile reserve is vacant, the game will end at the end of the next turn of the player on the right of the starting player.
(double turns are considered one turn for this purpose)

Ex: 4-player game with 120 tiles; 8 tiles are transferred to the extra tile reserve (so the normal reserve comprises 112 tiles); player A plays first, then B, then C, then D ... say the 112th tile is played by player B; player C take his turn picking up a tile from the extra reserve and player D too. The game ends now.
(If the 112th tile were played by player D, one more "round" takes place)
Note that the 8 extra tiles (in the example) guarantees all players could play identical number of turns even if all of them play a double turn (benefiting from the builders)

[Whaleyland]

Still the Mayor:
Whaleyland, your rule seems to be even more complicated... furthermore, it makes the Mayor even more similar to regular followers since it can score like them... (Am I wrong?)

They are slightly more complicated-sounding but in reality, they are much easier and the Mayor becomes much more functional. As the rules work right now, the Mayor is basically worthless in all circumstances except where a pennant is present. I usually play two-player games so we don't usually need to fight over specific features except to cancel each-other out. Allowing the Mayor to act as a regular Knight when no opposing Knight is present makes it a much more useful, albeit slightly redundant, piece. I feel it's still closer to the original intent of the figure than adding a point per pennant. In 2-player games, we already have enough points.

[punkmonksf]

Is this document still being worked on? The link on this page gives me an error, file not found.

[youtch]

Besides the tower variant that I already posted in this forum, I also used those home rules/ variants:

- Basics:To add an extra layer of strategy, each player draws 3 tiles (instead of 1), so that each player will have always 3 tiles in their hands (till the tiles start finishing). The 3 tiles must be visible to all.
This is effective only after completing all the tiles of the river.

- Farmers:The tile with the pig farm design does not count like a tile with a pig meeple.

- Cult scoring variant: To give reward to the player who is taking a risk.

This variant substitutes all the rules for cult extension.
 
When putting a new tile with Abbey/ Cloister/ Shrine, an heretic on a Shrine might choose to challenge a monk on an Abbey/ Cloister, the same way a Monk on an Abbey/ Cloister might choose to challenge an heretic on a Shrine.

A challlenge happens anytime a Shrine tile with an heretic is in adjacent (diagonally, orthogonally) to an Abbey/ Cloister tile with a monk.

An heretic can be in adjacent with one monk and one monk only, and vice versa.

If there is no challenge, monk and heretic on Abbey/ Cloister/ Shrine behaves like normal Abbey, scoring for all the tiles surrounding.

When there is a challenge, the challenger (the player challenging the  other) put its meeple (monk or heretic) on its side heading toward of the challenged Abbey/ Cloister/ Shrine.

If the challenger wins by completing first its 8 tiles surrounding its Abbey/ Cloister/ Shrine, he wins the 9 points plus all the points of the Abbey, Cloister or Shrine it challenged.The player challenged loses and scores nothing. So, that the maximum points a challenger can win is 17 points (9 points for its cult plus 8 points for the challenged cult).

If the challenger looses, the challenger scores nothing and the player challenged just score its regular 9 points.

In both cases, when the challenge is over, both meeples monk and heretic are returned to the supply.

If the challenge ends up with a tie, they both scores 9 points.

If the game is over before the challenge can be completed, both opponents scores normally.


- Traders: To balance better the game when playing with all the extensions

Same rules for trading products but with a different scoring, taking into account the number of cities
involved in the trading.

At the end of the games, the player who wins the monopoly of a product receive 4 points per completed cities with this product, regardless of whom completed the cities.

Example: A player wins the monopoly of wine with 4 wine products (the other players have respectively 3 and 2),  there are 6 completed cities with wine product at the end of the game.
 the player wins 6 x 4 = 30 points.


- Wagon variant - "Trading routes": To add more strategy and find a better use of wagon

To create a trading route, place the trading wagon ups side down on a road, it will stay there until the end of the game and cannot be moved (like a farmer).

When placing a wagon like this, no points can be scored for the road, the scoring will be done based on the trading route only at the end of the game.

A trading route is constituted by a network of cult places and completed cities interconnected by roads.

The road with the trading wagon leads to cult places and completed cities, from those cult places and completed cities, some other roads might lead to other cult places and completed cities. The full network
of interconnected elements constitutes the trading route. The trading route continues through completed cities, uncompleted cities stop the expansion of trading routes.

A trading wagon cannot be placed on a road where there is already another follower and cannot be placed on a route connecting to another trading wagon.

If by posing a new tile, a route with a trading wagon connects with another route with a trading wagon, both players will score the trading route points.
 
Architect can be put on a road with a trading wagon. The Robber Baron can still steal the longest road by completing the last tile of the longest road regardless if there is a trading wagon or not on the
road.

In the end of the game, the trading wagon gets 2 points for each completed city which is connected to the "trading route", and 1 points per cult place connected by road.

[loganmann1]

I like your Trader's variant a lot for better scaling.  More tiles means its more likely the goods will be spread out in more separate cities.  

I also like your challenge idea of scoring the partial points for the challenged cult place or cloister, but I think for simplicity sake i would simply make that the scoring rule and leave the rest of the cult rules as is.  Which is the great thing about variants.  They are varied! and let you fit your style.

[youtch]

I m glad you liked them. You might check also the tower variant if you are interested:
http://carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=1380.0

I agree at the end the cult variant just affects the scoring.
But please take note that in this system you still need to keep track of whom is challenging, this is the reason for putting second meeple on its side.

[CKorfmann]

If I understand your challenge method correctly, if the cult place and cloister are adjacent orthagonally, than the highest number of unique tiles required to complete both is 12 (3x4, the same pattern as the city of Carcassonne).  If one of them remains incomplete, than the bonus tiles to the other feature are only 2.  

If they are diagonally adjacent, then they only have 4 tiles in common rather than 6 and the largest bonus, assuming it is incomplete, would be 4.

I've thought about using this method, but it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference.  Unless you're suggesting that they second, incomplete feature give up all their points, including the ones that already count for the complete one, that might be a little better.

[youtch]

Good thing your comment as it highlighted that my initial description was probably not clear enough.

For more clarification:

Abbey/ cloister and cult challenge each other whenever they are adjacent (orthogonal and diagonal)

The points you win are not the tiles in common, they are the 9 points of your cult place + the points for all the tiles surrounding the challenged cult place
so you can win a maximum of (9+8) 17 points

I ll modify my initial description.