Invasion of Catharism

[Joff]

I have been giving a bit of thought to the Siege tiles this morning and how they could be used. For those that are lucky enough to own the Cathars and will be getting the Siege expansion, what follows is a variant that could be played. At the moment this is what I have come up with. It is in no way finished, but I thought i'd share it with you.

Invasion of Catharism
by Jonathan Warren

Extra pieces required: a six sided die

Expansions Required: You must own Siege tiles as well as Cathars tiles.

Setup: Mix the Siege tiles in with the supply. Keep the Cathar tiles to one side of the board.

Playing of a Siege tile: When a player lays a Siege tile, he has the option of besieging the city. Instead of ‘moving the wood’ (playing a thief, knight or farmer) to the tile just placed, he may roll the die. Should the player choose to attempt to break down the walls of the city, he rolls the die. If he should roll an odd number (1,3,5) then the walls have been penetrated and the Siege tile is replaced with the equivalent Cathar tile.

Scoring: The placement of the Cathar tile renders that city besieged and normal rules for the Cathars continues. Should the Siege tile not be replaced it is scored in the usual way for other tiles (ie: 2 points for the city segment on a complete city).

Footnotes: A player is not obligated to ‘move the wood’ or roll the die to besiege when laying a Siege tile. Should the Siege tile be replaced with an equivalent Cathar tile, that Siege tile is then removed from the game. Should an equivalent Cathar tile not replace its equivalent Siege tile, the Cathar tile is removed from the game.

This allows the Siege tiles to be played like a normal tile and so extend the players city, road, farm etc. without the penalty that the Cathars places on cities.

Any suggestions are welcome. I will think this one through a bit later

[Novelty]

Hmm... it might be difficult to remove a tile if it has been dropped into a hole.  How about placing the Cathar tile on top of the siege tile?  This way, anyone can use the variant by just printing out the Cathar tiles on paper...

[Joff]

Hmm... it might be difficult to remove a tile if it has been dropped into a hole.  How about placing the Cathar tile on top of the siege tile?  This way, anyone can use the variant by just printing out the Cathar tiles on paper...

That would work as well, so long as the replaced tile is not re-used all will be well. However, in my 'finished' pdf rules, I have eliminated this problem completely. You must decide if you will besiege the city before laying the tile.

I have given this a bit more thought and also removed the dice mechanic. I did not like the way that it could penalise the person who drew the tile should they roll an even number (2,4,6). If they would have rolled an even number, the Siege tile would have been wasted, thereby assisting his opponent. Now you get a choice to besige a city or to use the tile as a regular tile. Deciding to besiege the city and exchange the tile for the Cathar tile is now instead of 'moving the wood' to bring a bit of balance (meaning that you can't besiege an opponents city and 'move the wood' to this tile on the same turn and maybe gain extra points, this would punish the opponent too much). Have a look at the pdf, all will be clear... hopefully

A direct link to the pdf is here: Invasion of Catharism

Again, any suggestions, let me know.

[Novelty]

Nice work with the pdf as usual!  I like the no-dice version better.