Cloister Clustering Rule

[Foxman]

Cloister Clustering Rule

Cloisters often ‘clump-up’ during a game. This is a variant rule to discourage playing Cloisters next to each other.

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A cloister is completed when it is surrounded by eight tiles. The player who has a monk in the cloister
immediately scores 1 point for every tile surrounding the Cloister and 1 for the Cloister itself. However if there is another cloister nearby, do not score any points for the other cloister or land tiles that surround it.

Example

Code:

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If A places the final tile surrounding his Cloister he would score 5 points for the tiles that do not surround or are not another player's cloister.

[Novelty]

This would change the strategy a bit, and could be interesting.  However, cloisters are the lowest possible scoring feature in the game.  Reducing this would make cloisters even less attractive and players would probably ignore the cloister and start using the farm feature instead.

Also, how would this rule interact with cult places?

[Foxman]

This would change the strategy a bit, and could be interesting.  However, cloisters are the lowest possible scoring feature in the game.  Reducing this would make cloisters even less attractive and players would probably ignore the cloister and start using the farm feature instead.

Also, how would this rule interact with cult places?

We always view cloisters as valuable tiles that can be worth lots of points. However I can see your perspective.

Here's an idea:

At the end of the game each farm scores two points for every complete city AND cloister it touches.

[Scott]

We've always viewed cloisters as the best features too.

Is there some drawback to clumping of cloisters?

[RamblingRocket]

From my own experience, the only time that Cloisters are very valuable is when there is a hole in the map that the Cloister happily fits. If a player (or players) are clustering Cloisters, then they are usually doing the hard slog of surrounding the Cloisters themselves. Why punish them more. If anything, there needs to be a reward for not clustering, not a punishment.

That's just my opinion.

[canada steve]

Yes its hard work to complete one cloister let alone a few clumped together, so a punishment for it I feel is not a good idea.

I alos echo the sentiment that the cloister is a low scoring feature, but it can be those 9 points that make all the difference.

[Foxman]

hmmm well good points... Thanks for the feedback everybody