Completely Annotated Rules - work in progress!

[Joff]

Page 83 of the 'Another day, another update' CAR, under SHRINES, there are 6 listed. Shouldn't this be 5?

Is the new expansion name King, Count and Consort or King, Count and Consorts? I only ask as it is repeated throughout the footnotes as the latter, and I thought it was the former. Like I said, i'm only nit-picking

My apologies, i'm wrong here    It is King, Count and Consorts

(I've printed at 600dpi on a HP LaserJet 1320 in black and white)

Although some illustrations in the main body of text are difficult (blockier at A4, obviously) on the whole they are ok. However, the footnote examples are quite difficult to see.

The footnote examples being difficult to see are probably due to printing in b/w.

[O.M.S.]

The header and footer needs to be positioned further away from the main text.

I've had version without header, but I agree with you in case of footer.

Occasionally, the text flows onto the following page in an ‘unusual’ manner. For example, page 11 the last part of the sentence reads, “…the followers involved are”, it then page breaks and continues on page 12 with, “removed.” There appears to be plenty of room on page 11 for the last word. Another one is on page 54 where a page break would be better before the heading ‘2. Deploy a follower’.

What version do you comment? The first problem I have on pages 12-13, not 11-12. The second on 55, not 54.

Similar problem is on pages 52-53 ("scoring or not...")

Now, I noticed the end of page 9 ("... decided by") and the start page 10 ("counting ...")

But I am not sure if these problems (maybe except page 55) are soluble. Because to tune main text with footnotes and with pictures together can be quite difficult.

[Scott]

I'm feeling a little confused. What are the two duplicate tiles in the River?

I was under the impression that Consort should be singular. I'm inclined to say that's how it's spelled on BGG, but that's slightly biased because I'm the one who submitted it that way.

[dwhitworth]

Matt,
Small point where the CAR seems to contradict itself - or at least needs clarification:

Page 21 (T&B rules on builders) Footnote 51
"From an FAQ: “Both parts of the double-turn are identical, although the fairy (3rd expansion), for example,
only gives bonus points at the start of the player’s turn, and a figure can also only be moved to Carcassonne
(Count) once.”

 This implies move to Carc City is like fairy scoring

Page 28 Deploying Followers to and from Carcassonne
"A player may only deploy one follower to Carcassonne each turn. However, if a player has a double turn—because of the builder — a follower may be deployed to Carcassonne in both parts of the turn."

This implies move to CC is NOT like fairy scoring

Clearly the latter is the more up to date ruling. Do you want the former footnote have a reference to this?

[mjharper]

Thanks to everyone who posted above. Much appreciated.

Rather than quote all the relevant passages from the dozen or so posts, I'll just comment on stuff here:

Tile Overview: Should river tiles be considered to be land tiles or extra tiles? They don't go in the stack/bag/dispenser (hence 'extra') but you can deploy followers (hence 'extra'). Similarly with The Count of Carcassonne: land tiles—because they are on the playing field, or extra tiles?

"Am I allowed to place cathedrals in other players' cities?"—I think the apostrophe is needed, because it's possessive. I could change it to "the cities of other players" though.

Okay, I changed Duplicate to 'Spare'—including the inverted commas. I also split off the Mega-Carc section, and I'll add some notes to the Tile Overview explaining the columns in more detail.

As far as '3 points' and '4 points' being split over two lines is concerned, I can't think of a good way to stop this. Sorry.

@Joff: AFAIK, it's actually Count, King, and Consorts. At least it is in German

The problem with small graphics should be somewhat alleviated when I uploaded higher quality versions of the CAR.

There's very little I can do about the odd flows of text that I haven't already. As O.M.S. said, the problem comes from having so many footnotes and images associated with the text. But I'll keep trying to find a better fit…

@Scott: The two duplicate tiles in The River are the spring (which is superseded by the spring in The River II or GQ11) and the lake, which is replaced by the lake tiles in The River II. Duplicate is the wrong word (see above) but the point is that if you're combining all the expansions, you won't need those two tiles.

And the German title is Graf, König und Konsorten. Consort is actually something of a false friend; Konsorten really means something like 'gang' or 'crowd'. Certainly there's a plural sense to it. 'Entourage' might work… Though aybe we should call the expansion 'Count, King, and Sundry Hangers-On.' 

The plural form of consort is okay though, even if you take it to mean 'spouse'; it might mean several spouses of different people, or, broadening our cultural horizons, several spouses of one.

Seriously, though, we'll probably have to wait for RGG to decide on a title.

@dwhitworth: Yes, I just notice that too. I'll write off and ask. My guess is that the FAQ is wrong, because it simply doesn't make sense otherwise (as I argued here). Mind you, I haven't yet hit the morning coffee quota, so I might not be thinking straight :

[O.M.S.]

Thanks to everyone who posted above. Much appreciated.

Thanks to you, Matt!!!!!!!

As far as '3 points' and '4 points' being split over two lines is concerned, I can't think of a good way to stop this. Sorry.

That's why the "soft" space is between "3" and "points" and application in this place divides text to another row. I usually substitute "soft" space by "hard" space (Alt sequence 0160) a than "3 points" text behaves as one text chain.

[Scott]

Based on Matt's reply to my previous post, I am satisified with the table as illustrated in the picture he posted above.

I poked around on the WWW a bit more, and it looks like the word consort is indeed singular, with consorts as the plural. It's very uncommon to hear this word around here, so it is unfamiliar. I'm wondering if an update needs to be submitted to BGG, or if we should hang on until RGG says something? Supposedly RGG won't even be releasing the expansion as a whole, just the 5 shrine tiles, so we may not get an official translation from them... None of Matt's alternate translations for konsorten make any more sense to me, considering the shrine tiles have nothing to do with sundry hangers-on.

[mjharper]

Based on Matt's reply to my previous post, I am satisified with the table as illustrated in the picture he posted above.

Er… you might like to check out this version, then. I updated it slightly and added some explanatory notes. Also, the mega-Carc stuff has it's own (more detailed) section. I didn't change much, except for moving the Carcassonne City tiles to the 'Extra Tiles' column. Let me know if there's a problem with it.

I poked around on the WWW a bit more, and it looks like the word consort is indeed singular, with consorts as the plural. It's very uncommon to hear this word around here, so it is unfamiliar. I'm wondering if an update needs to be submitted to BGG, or if we should hang on until RGG says something? Supposedly RGG won't even be releasing the expansion as a whole, just the 5 shrine tiles, so we may not get an official translation from them... None of Matt's alternate translations for konsorten make any more sense to me, considering the shrine tiles have nothing to do with sundry hangers-on.

I think it's not meant to refer to people, but expansions. It's simply a word play of two 'aristocratic' figures and the people follow them around; in practice it just means, 'Expansion X, Expansion Y, and a couple of other expansions as well.'

[Joff]

Page 60 – Consolidated Tile Reference, Introduction; “The distribution lists here are organised by card type, as well as than by set/expansion…”, should be reworded to say, “The distribution lists here are organised by card type, as well as by set/expansion…”

            - Same page, Further examples; “The three tiles above are all grouped together under different sections, even though they may all be used to connect two city segments on the left and right. Both these tiles are found under ‘City, city, city, city’.”  This is a confusing sentence in two ways. The first is the statement about the “left and right”. Yes, they could connect to city segments on the left and right, but isn’t it more logical if that were top and bottom, given the tile illustrations? Actually, now I look at it the statement seems reasonable. The second is that “Both these tiles…” cause confusion because it appears to link to the sentence before. Would it be better if a new paragraph was started, or reworded to say “Both these tiles below…”?

It would also be good if the section title pages were on odd numbered pages. This is so those who bind their copies have a facing page before each section.

I know the user content is under discussion at the moment, and, as you know, you have permission to use any of the variants that I have displayed on my website**, but what of the ‘official’ variants? I only ask as if they are not to be included there is a reference to them being included in the first paragraph of the ‘Introduction’.

I have reprinted on ‘A5’ this evening (I’m on UK time), and looking at the document, it is very, very good. It’s much better than the previous ‘A4’ incarnation. If I had three hands it would get ‘three thumbs up’ An excellent job, Matt.

** I am keen for the user content to include, what I consider to be the ‘best’ variant, Kevin Graham’s ‘Trading Posts’. Kevin has approved the rules for his variants posted on the site, but perhaps some more eyes could just look through them for any ambiguities and let me know if there are any situations that have not been thought about.

[Scott]

Er… you might like to check out this version, then. I updated it slightly and added some explanatory notes. Also, the mega-Carc stuff has it's own (more detailed) section. I didn't change much, except for moving the Carcassonne City tiles to the 'Extra Tiles' column. Let me know if there's a problem with it.

Middle of page 64: "(a the date of writing)"; missing letter 't'?

First you say that using the Count with the River(s) is not recommended, and then later you say they "should not" be used together. For those not in the loop, that could sound slightly contradictory. "Should not" sounds stronger (to me, at least) than "not recommended". Not quite as strong as saying "must not", but since there is no way to enforce "must not", "should not" is about as strong as you can get. I'll readily admit I've only ever played with the Count once, so I don't have much experience with it, but I have a hard time understanding how any potential tile placement issues are any worse than when players decide to deliberately screw each other by creating holes that cannot be filled. Now that we have abbeys, there is the possibility to fill any hole.

But I digress, you did remark further down the page how you like to combine Count and River(s). I think I'm just a little cranky right now because I'm hungry.

Regarding the Robber Baron, it works as Tobias said. To take it from someone requires building a longer road than theirs. There is no reason to suspect that it works differently from the King.

[mjharper]

@Joff. Corrections made. I'm not sure about sections starting on odd pages, I don't think I can do it any other way than manually—and can't do that until the document is ready to go out.

@ Scott: True, 'should not' is stronger than 'not recommended'. But I don't want to change it to 'probably not recommended' because that's too weak. How about this: I changed the sentence before the list from 'As such, we can state the following guidelines.' to 'As such, the following guidelines may be inferred.' Hopefully, pointing out that they are inferred guidelines is enough to use stronger language (!) while being clear that these are not hard and fast rulings.

The reason that The Count of Carcassonne and The River II should not be combined is that, according to the original rules, the city of Carcassonne was placed first, with the river then leading away from it. That's necessary, because deployment of meeples is possible on the river—but it leads to the possibility that the river could curve and double back on itself in a (legal) long U-turn, and end up colliding with the city.

Sometimes I wonder about these rulings. This and the 'no immediate U-Turn' ruling are meant to prevent disruptive players from ruining the game before it's even got started, by wilfully leading the river to a point where it's impossible to continue. But no player in their right mind is going to do that. I wonder who the people at HiG play games with?

I've said it before, but if you have a player who's that much of a pain, it's defenestration time!

[mjharper]

A thought I've just had. Sometimes we have rulings from HiG which actually change the published text—a good example would be the 'U-turn' rule.

In the original rules, it states that no 'U-turns' are allowed. This has been clarified to no 'immediate U-turns'. Now, at the moment in the CAR, I have left the original intact, and added a footnote explaining the clarification. I'm wondering whether I could instead change the main text to include 'immediate' as well, and then add a footnote explaining what the original was.

There's a couple of other examples of this too, like the 'covered tile' ruling in the last major correspondence.

If I included this sort of thing, to what extent would it undermine the integrity of the rules in the CAR as translations?

[EcoGuy]

IMHO ... I think the "Rules" for play should be clear and to the point. Meaning that if someone is reading and using the CAR as the rule set to play by the rules should be in the main text and not in the footnote.  I would make it much easier and user friendly to those who might not enjoy all the fine details that went into all your work. I enjoy them and that add alot to the CAR but there may be others who just want the "meat and potatoes" so to speak. The footnotes I see more as additional information to explain a change or deviation that was made in the main body, i.e. a change from the direct translation. I live by the CAR and I enjoy the completeness of them and all the footnotes.  But in regards to the example of the U-turn, if there was an official ruling by HiG then I believe this should be in the main body and be footnoted as clarified from the original by correspondance. I know this may mean more work and raises the issue of translated rules but I see them more as Annotated Rules and not as direct translations so I think you are safe in making the changes to the main body.

Just my thoughts ... 

[richardbrand]

The immense value I get from the CAR is due to it being an authoritative source of rules, not due to its accurate translation.

With that in mind, I'd rather see all rules covered in the main text, with footnotes providing background and notes on the history of the rule.

That would make the document more useful to me and to others that I have introduced to the game and to your document.

In fact I think it would be useful to rewrite the rules from scratch, starting with a blank canvas. Maybe a wiki would be the best way to achieve that?

Just my rambling thoughts....

Whichever way you go, thanks for all your hard work and for producing something that already makes my Carcassonne sessions much more enjoyable.

[Scott]

It's interesting that the recommendation not to use Count with River(s) stems from the earlier addition of the "immediate" qualifier to the word "u-turns". If they had not added "immediate", there would have been no problem. The RGG rules don't include the word "immediate". We've always played no u-turns at all, and I have been challenged on that.

Like Richard said, the value of the CAR to us as players is that it is an authoritative source of rules. The accuracy of the translation is important, but so are the clarifications from HiG. For that sake, I agree with EcoGuy that stuff like this should be in the body of the rules instead of relegated to a footnote that some people won't read, or will read but consider less official.

For my own selfish reasons, I would prefer the rules to stay as they are, appearing to prohibit u-turns entirely, but since HiG has spoken it will have to be nothing more than a house rule. As a consolation, I would very much like to see a footnote attached to this recommending against u-turns of any kind to prevent potential problems.