Favourite House Rules? (for the CAR)

[loganmann1]

This adjusted scoring for cloister/shrine challenges would add some draw to actually challenging.  I find that rarely if ever ends up happening.  Though we have a reasonably passive group who I usually play with.  So that could be part of it too.

[Carcking]

That's the way we play also...17 point max score. But we allow either player who completes their feature up to the max. score...not just the challenger. Sometimes there is little incentive as it is to deploy a monk or heretic, we don't want to compound it with a chance of scoring no points for a lost challenge and no potential bonus for winning the challenge. A lone monk or heretic becomes a sitting duck so to speak, not very attractive.

[youtch]

"we allow either player who completes their feature up to the max. score...not just the challenger"
-> The reason why we just reward the challenger, it is because it is the challenger who is taking the initial risk, he is the one who needs an incentive to challenge instead of putting his cult place somewhere else where he would just score his regular 9 points.

[Boondocker]

I sort of agree with the challenger being the only one who gets rewarded. I've only used the Cult pieces a couple of times (using JCloisterZone) and every time, it was the challenged player who finished first; this makes sense, since between the tile that the challenged feature is attached to and the challenger's tile, the challenged feature has at least a one tile lead (and usually more).

I'm not sure I'd go way up to 17 points, but I've considered giving a smaller, flat bonus. Although, giving more points really does increase the incentive to challenge... maybe that's the way to go.

[youtch]

I need to clarify is that since I am playing with a lot of expansions, 17 points is not so much in the big picture.

Besides in most of the cases, the challenger would not win all the 17 points, the average being more around 14.

[jrizos]

Great thread. Great forum, I'm glad I found this.

- We don't play with the Faery rules. Instead, whoever completed the LAST Abbey (not cult) gets to place/move the "Templar" piece (we could use the faery, but instead have a little pewter D&D guy with a cross on his shield). The Templar prevents the dragon from eating whatever piece is on that tile, but the dragon can still move on it.

- Blank tiles: We call these "coyote" tiles, grass on all 4 sides, and they remove the city bonus of a farm by 1 point per city and do not stack.

- Like others have said, river tiles begin with spring and fork, ending tiles are placed at the bottom of the stack.

- Magic "teleporter" tiles can be used to remove a meeple from the board, great for "trapped" features.

[keyofnight]

I am new to Carc (I bought the game only six months ago), but I do have a few house rules for the Tower:

(1) No ransom for captured meeple. (I'll call this the "Eye for an Eye" rule…)

(2) A single-storied tower can only capture meeple on the tile the tower has been built upon. A two-storied tower can capture meeple on an adjacent tile, a three-storied tower can capture followers on two adjacent tiles, and so on. (I'll call this the "No Surprises" rule.)

I don't think it the stock rule makes sense: why does a single story tower have so much range? It shouldn't be as risky to place a follower on a tile next to a tower base as it is to play a follower on tower base itself. That's too much power, too much threat. Lowering the threat seems like it would encourage long-term strategy, power struggles, etc. I'll test it out and see how it works.

(3) The 8th (scoring) meeple is used for the normal game. (…the "More is Merrier" rule.)

(4) Towers cannot capture across holes. (The "Undiscovered Country" rule—Klingon peace treaty not included.)

Any thoughts on these rules? Do they sound like they'd throw the game off-balance?

[PreGy]

In our group, first of all:

-We throw a dice (we got tired of throwing meeples for minutes) to decide who starts the game. That players also decides how's River is gonna be played (one big River, two Rivers at start, or two rivers, but the starting tile of one of them is mixed with the rest of the tiles)

- U-turns in river are not forbidden, as long as the next tile is another turn that can be placed, (for that, the "U-turn" player says "if it can be placed, this goes this way") or the river is ending and the missing tiles can be place for sure. We also know all the river tiles that are missing, so this move is only allowed when we know for sure that river can be ended.

- Starting river tiles and ending ones (except the one of river2 that ends in a city) are not playable: they are automatic placed.

- King and Baron grant 15 points each. Owing both at the end of the game gives 40 points to the player.

- Table borders COMPLETE features as an abbey would. This makes some interesting gameplays.

- Phantom is played as an "extra follower", thus you can use it with a princess tile to claim a city after removing a kight, or use it to get into Carcassonne (Count expansion) 2 followers in the same turn (a normal one and the phantom).

[PellGanesh]

It's been a while since anyone posted to this topic, but I read through them all and thought I'd chip in. Some of my comments are prompted by (and echoes of) previous comments.

- We like the score track vs. pencil & paper, but the pencil & paper gives a history (particularly convenient when "that darn cat" jumps on the table and sends the pieces flying).

- We use the River II in my set and the River in my brother's (he turned me on to the game). For River II, the branch is the first tile, and the Spring for the River.

- The Spring tile has two Field segments split at the northeast corner when the river flows south.

- The first person to play gets the start piece and can play a Farmer if they want to. The rest of the river is played with typical placement rules.

- Once the whole river is played we may reposition it, but after that the edge of table is basically the edge of the world and gravity rules. We've made some exceptions for completing a feature. (After all, playing a game is supposed to be about having fun. Points are just a technicality.)

- If we pull a Dragon tile, but no Volcano yet (so no Dragon), it's played like a normal tile. Throwing it back in the bag is too much trouble (and we all sigh in relief that none of our meeples will be devoured). This is a non-issue for River II.

- If the Dragon devours a player's last Knight or Thief, the Builder goes too. When using the Queen, this is specificly stated in the rules, but doesn't seem to be for the Dragon. There may be a clarification somewhere in all the commentary.

- If the Queen is used to kill a Knight, the Fairy can't be taken (like the Volcano). But if the Queen is used without killing a Knight and no meeple played, the Fairy can be taken.

- The Fairy protects the tile, and so all meeples on it, but only the player who claimed it gets the point(s).

- If a meeple moves to a tile (Wagon or Magic Portal) with an abandoned Fairy (due to a different completed feature), the player can claim the Fairy and get the point(s) on their next turn. (The fun factor takes precendence over strict rules about the Fairy being associated with a feature.)

- If a Wagon has a Fairy, then completes the feature and moves, it can't take the Fairy with it. The Fairy stays with the tile and the Wagon moves alone. (Nephews can be so annoying sometimes (endless argument even after we voted).) If there's a commentary somewhere to the contrary, I'd be interested in knowing.

- We put a bid limit on the Bazaar. There are many ways to set a limit, but we settled on 10 points per lap on the score track (so 10 points to start, then 20 after any player gets a 50 tile, etc). This came up when someone realized that the Dragon was going to eat their meeples in a city they'd been building for most of the game, so they bid a billion points (the whole "points are a technicality" issue), then the next player bid a google points, then a google to the google, then a google to the google plus one, then we threw the tiles back in the bag and set a bid limit. Most of the time it's a non-issue, other times someone will straight out buy an unclaimed tile for 10 points to complete a feature or stop another player from dashing their dreams.

- We've been debating a Bazaar option that allows the player who drew the tiles to cancel the bidding and claim the first one. Otherwise the next player plays auctioneer per the rules.

- When we added the Barns, the rules were clear that Pigs get driven off the Field. Then we added Castles and found the rules a little confusing. We decided Barns still drive off the Pigs, then the River II showed up with a Pig Herd that can't be driven off, so we decided it still adds a point to Cities and Castles for Barns and Farmers. If there's a commentary somewhere to the contrary, I'd be interested in knowing.

- We're thinking about getting the King & Scout. The comments about the owner of the King or Baron tile getting a point when the feature is completed sounds like a better method than waiting until the end of the game. It spreads the points around, vs. giving all the joy to the player who might already be winning in the end.

- We're also thinking about getting the Tower, but haven't read all the commentaries about how it interacts with Dragons and Castles. Seems like it wouldn't, but that's dull. I like the idea of a Dragon destroying a Tower, or a Tower destroying an incomplete Castle.

Anyway, ttfn.

[Captain Pedantic]

We play River 1 as normal and then put the spring for River 2 in the bag. When it is drawn we pause regular play to lay the second river.

The tiles with pig farms on them are only normal farm tiles, unless we are playing the Traders and Builders expansion and in that case they are a pig farm.

[Scott]

If we pull a Dragon tile, but no Volcano yet (so no Dragon), it's played like a normal tile. Throwing it back in the bag is too much trouble (and we all sigh in relief that none of our meeples will be devoured). This is a non-issue for River II.

I like it.

If the Dragon devours a player's last Knight or Thief, the Builder goes too. When using the Queen, this is specificly stated in the rules, but doesn't seem to be for the Dragon. There may be a clarification somewhere in all the commentary.

The builder can never stand alone. Any time his associated knight or thief is removed, the builder must be removed as well, whether by princess, dragon, tower, etc.

If a meeple moves to a tile (Wagon or Magic Portal) with an abandoned Fairy (due to a different completed feature), the player can claim the Fairy and get the point(s) on their next turn. (The fun factor takes precendence over strict rules about the Fairy being associated with a feature.)

I would have expected this is how it works anyway; somebody correct me if I'm mistaken.

so they bid a billion points

Are you playing with this guy?



I noticed recently that the rules for Bazaar (at least, the ones from RGG) state that you can do away with the whole bidding thing and just have each person pick a tile for free.

When we added the Barns, the rules were clear that Pigs get driven off the Field. Then we added Castles and found the rules a little confusing. We decided Barns still drive off the Pigs, then the River II showed up with a Pig Herd that can't be driven off, so we decided it still adds a point to Cities and Castles for Barns and Farmers. If there's a commentary somewhere to the contrary, I'd be interested in knowing.

Pigs and pig herds are two different things (in retrospect, they probably should have called the pig herds something else). The pig herd tile(s) still increase the point of the farm even with the barn.

We're thinking about getting the King & Scout. The comments about the owner of the King or Baron tile getting a point when the feature is completed sounds like a better method than waiting until the end of the game. It spreads the points around, vs. giving all the joy to the player who might already be winning in the end.

I missed this earlier. I like it very much. I think it would encourage more attempts to steal the King or Baron tile rather than lying in wait and swooping in at the end.

[obervet03]

When we added the Barns, the rules were clear that Pigs get driven off the Field. Then we added Castles and found the rules a little confusing. We decided Barns still drive off the Pigs, then the River II showed up with a Pig Herd that can't be driven off, so we decided it still adds a point to Cities and Castles for Barns and Farmers. If there's a commentary somewhere to the contrary, I'd be interested in knowing.

Pigs and pig herds are two different things (in retrospect, they probably should have called the pig herds something else). The pig herd tile(s) still increase the point of the farm even with the barn.

Actually, there's an official clarification that the pig herd tile does not increase the value of a farm with a barn (see current CAR (v. 5.0B9) p. 48, note 119). However, we always play with the house rule that the pig herd tile DOES increase the barn value.

[Scott]

Thanks for that. Been so long since I played Carcassonne I'm losing touch with the footnotes.