A Simpler Scoring Rule for the King/Robber Barron

[14cross]

How about these two variants:

1. Whoever is in posession of the King or Baron on his/her turn gets a point every turn it remains in their posession. It makes you want to get and hold onto the king for as long as possible so that you score as many points as possible. It makes others try to build a city/road a little bigger than the one you built so that they can take posession of the King or Baron and start scoring points.

2. If you want to score even more points you could say that they score as many points each turn as the number of tiles their biggest city/road contains. So if, at the beginning of the game I take posession of the king/Baron with a four tile city/road then I get four points every turn until someone builds a city/road that is five or more tiles in size. This variant makes scoring a big city near the end of the game still profitable though scores may go through the roof.

Any thoughts?

[Scott]

You could do it per #1, but to me it feels disconnected from the intention behind the King and Baron because the player(s) would score even if no features were completed during a turn. From that standpoint I think #2 is better, but I'm still concerned that too many points are being scored. In the end, I still prefer the original suggestion where the king and baron score when a player completes a corresponding feature.

[Bixby]

Method number 2 would add a significant influx of points to the game. So much so that I think it would be an imbalancer. The repetitious scoring would really generate a lot of points into the game. the first person to get a city with 4 or five segments would be incented to close every other city, even ones with other player's meeples. It would really shift the focus to closing roads and cities in my opinion.

[Deatheux]

method #2 is hard f'n core!!!

#1 is too soft core, but maybe very efficient... of course more than 1 points for the completed segment at the end of the game...

[14cross]

I agree that #2 might score too many points so maybe you make it 1/2 point, rounded down, for every tile in your biggest city/road while you possess the king/baron.

Or maybe you do a scale where cities/roads from 3-6 tiles score 3 points per turn, 7-10 tiles score 5 points per turn, and cities/roads over 10 tiles score 7 points per turn. Or make the points whatever you want.

I personally play by the original rules but it is a little bit of a hassle trying to count the roads sometimes. Cities aren't as much of a problem to count.

[14cross]

Method number 2 would add a significant influx of points to the game. So much so that I think it would be an imbalancer. The repetitious scoring would really generate a lot of points into the game. the first person to get a city with 4 or five segments would be incented to close every other city, even ones with other player's meeples. It would really shift the focus to closing roads and cities in my opinion.

I know that in our games we already do this in order to retain the king/baron. It doesn't shift the focus but does make it something to think about as you are building your own cities/roads.