Gold mines

[Joff]

I second that. I also prefer the 1st set.

[Novelty]

OK, I'll have to use the rubble for gold mines next to a river though.

How about the one below?  Is this better, or is the original mountain image better?

[Joff]

That's even better

[Bixby]

That looks like a winner. Nice improvement to the Mountains.

[Novelty]

I like the last version best too

[Gantry]

Wouldn't one need a way to harvest the gold? I'd think you couldn't make money from it unless you could cart the gold out, either via a river or a road.

[Scott]

I'm good with the third rendition of the gold mine. Looks like my next project will be to finalize the text of the rules.

[Novelty]

When the player has placed a tile with a gold mine, he or she may deploy a follower to the gold mine as a miner. The player scores 1 point at the beginning of every player's turn until the gold mine is completed.

1. It's a bit harsh to get a point at the beginning of every player's turn.  I would suggest that the points would be better scored at the end of a player's turn.  That way, other players have to decide if they should further their own agenda or to cut you off during their turn.
2. The way it is currently phrased, you'd get a point during your turn as well.  I'm not sure if that is fair since it will dissuade from completing your own gold mines.  I would suggest revising it to only score points during your opponent's turns.

A gold mine is completed when it is surrounded by eight land tiles. The mine no longer produces gold and the follower is returned to its owner.

3. I was just thinking about this - to score points continuously instead of upon completion would mean that the number of gold mines (tiles) should be limited, otherwise scoring will go through the roof.  One way around this would be to roll a die during your turn for each of your gold mines (declare for which individual gold mine the roll is for if you have than one gold mine, before you roll).  If you roll a 1, the gold mine is exhausted and you remove your meeple.  If you roll a 2, you mine the last of the gold (score 1 point) and the gold mine is exhausted and you remove your meeple.  If you roll 3 - 6, nothing happens (or something like that).  That way, gold mines might run out faster and we can have more gold mine tiles.  Also, there is no mechanism for parachuting a meeple from the City of Carc to a gold mine, so that should be OK.

4. Similar to T&B, how about each player that completes a gold mine gets a gold token, and the player with the most tokens at the end of th game gets X extra points (similar to T&B)

5. The rules will need to define how the wagon will interact with a gold mine connected to a road.

6. Magic portals and gold mines?  If suggestion 3 is used above, then the rules need to clarify that once the gold mine is exhausted, any meeple placed on the gold mine is immediately returned to hand and scores nothing.

Phew, that's a lot of comments!  Sorry for being verbose Scott.  I hope my comments help and encourages you to get this forward!

[Jambo]

Is there any way the mine could look more mine-like?  Picture an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom style of mine cart sitting on tracks outside a mine shaft for example.

A couple of idea for rules (in brief):

1. Place a meeple on the mine when it's played. A tile placed adjacent to the mine imparts 3 points to the owner of meeple on the shaft. The player placing the tile can then replace the meeple on the shaft with one of his own.

2. (Assuming all Gold mines have roads attached to them) Place meeple on mine. The owner of the Gold mine receives points for any subsequently completed features that can trace a direct route using the road to the Gold mine. This includes the road. Junctions/crossings in the road(s) do not terminate the connection.

[Novelty]

2. (Assuming all Gold mines have roads attached to them)

They won't all have roads attached to them. 

Can we make the mines look more like mines?

Not unless someone spends the time to draw them... do we have any volunteers?

[Scott]

1. It's a bit harsh to get a point at the beginning of every player's turn.  I would suggest that the points would be better scored at the end of a player's turn.  That way, other players have to decide if they should further their own agenda or to cut you off during their turn.

I am ok with moving the scoring to the end of the turn, though I think it would only reduce the total accumulated points by one.

2. The way it is currently phrased, you'd get a point during your turn as well.  I'm not sure if that is fair since it will dissuade from completing your own gold mines.  I would suggest revising it to only score points during your opponent's turns.

Even if you don't get a point during your own turn, you still don't have an incentive to complete your own mine. It's similar to the fairy in that you don't have an incentive to move the fairy away from you, but every other player has an incentive.

3. I was just thinking about this - to score points continuously instead of upon completion would mean that the number of gold mines (tiles) should be limited, otherwise scoring will go through the roof.  One way around this would be to roll a die during your turn for each of your gold mines (declare for which individual gold mine the roll is for if you have than one gold mine, before you roll).  If you roll a 1, the gold mine is exhausted and you remove your meeple.  If you roll a 2, you mine the last of the gold (score 1 point) and the gold mine is exhausted and you remove your meeple.  If you roll 3 - 6, nothing happens (or something like that).  That way, gold mines might run out faster and we can have more gold mine tiles.  Also, there is no mechanism for parachuting a meeple from the City of Carc to a gold mine, so that should be OK.

I'm not keen on adding dice to the game, but I agree that the number of mines should be limited to between 3 and 5.

4. Similar to T&B, how about each player that completes a gold mine gets a gold token, and the player with the most tokens at the end of th game gets X extra points (similar to T&B)

Could do. Might give the owning player a little incentive to finish it off at the last minute.

5. The rules will need to define how the wagon will interact with a gold mine connected to a road.

The gold mine ends the road. I have no problem with the wagon travelling to or from the mine.

6. Magic portals and gold mines?  If suggestion 3 is used above, then the rules need to clarify that once the gold mine is exhausted, any meeple placed on the gold mine is immediately returned to hand and scores nothing.

If the dragon eats the meeple on the mine, a magic portal can be used to put a new meeple on the mine before it is completed. Once the mine is complete, no meeples allowed and no gold generated.

Phew, that's a lot of comments!  Sorry for being verbose Scott.  I hope my comments help and encourages you to get this forward!

I appreciate all the feedback.

[Scott]

1. Place a meeple on the mine when it's played. A tile placed adjacent to the mine imparts 3 points to the owner of meeple on the shaft. The player placing the tile can then replace the meeple on the shaft with one of his own.

The owner of the mine will be scoring enough points already I think. IMHO, if people want to steal the mine, they can do so with the usual methods (tower or dragon).

[Scott]

We're developing the gold mine separately from forests for now. Here's the latest rough draft:

Gold Mines

Extra Pieces
* [?] new land tiles (showing gold mines as well as familiar features such as cities, cloisters, roads and farms)

Additional Rules

1. Place a tile

The new land tiles are placed in the usual way.

2. Deploy a follower

When the player has placed a tile with a gold mine, he or she may deploy a follower to the gold mine as a miner. The player scores 1 point at the [beginning/end] of every player's turn until the gold mine is completed.

3. Score completed gold mines

A gold mine is completed when it is surrounded by eight land tiles. The mine no longer produces gold and the follower is returned to its owner.

Final Scoring

Scoring incomplete gold mines

For every incomplete gold mine, the owner scores 1 point for every missing segment. For example, if a gold mine is only surrounded by 6 tiles, it scores 2 points.

Trade counters [if we decide to go with this]

The player who has the most gold trade counters scores 10 points. As usual, in the case of a draw all players involved score the full 10 points.

[Novelty]

Here's an intermediate draft.  I'm still trying to doctor up some trade counters and then I'll need scoring examples.  The tiles and counters will be on a separate document - I have to redo a forest gold mine tile and then add in the trade counters.

Suggestion:  The player holding the robber player counter gets points from all the incomplete gold mines during his turn (the points do not go to the owners of the gold mine).  How about that?

[henrysunset]

This "mines" expansion is turning out really good.  It is a simple enough concept that I think will play well.  The only concern I have with it is that I worry that it will be worth more than cloisters, especially in >2 player games.  The minimum score for a miner in a 2 player game would be 7 points, except when the game is almost over when you would score the number of points equal to the number of rounds remaining.  Granted, in a game with >2 players, the mine might last much shorter if everyone gangs up on you.

Justification: A well played mine will have as little as one of 8 sides when played, should it be played on a peninsula.  In a two player game, it would be advantageous for the opponent to try and surround the mine as soon as possible, as a each point that he prevents his opponent from getting is as good as every point he gets for himself.  In a >2 player game, it rarely pays to play a defensive move, since it benefits everyone except the one player you are preventing from getting points.  Sure, if a spot next to the mine is as good as any other, you would play it there; but you wouldn't be as motivated to do so as with just two players.

Another concern is the case where you intentionally play a mine in a position that cannot be completed (without the "abbey" from that expansion.)  This is a real issue as this could equal one point per turn for the rest of the game.

Ideas...
1. One idea is that you never get the miner back. 
2. Another idea to punish players for incompletely surrounded mines is to penalize the player -1 for each tile around his mine which is not complete.
3. Another idea is to only give the player 1 point up till the mine is surrounded on 7 of the 8 sides.  This makes it really hard to put the mine in a position that the opponents cannot completely surround it.  it also is a punishment to the player for playing a mine as the opponent woudl never waste a tile to finish surrounding your mine because you woudl get the miner back at that time.
4. finally, you could simply have a rule that playing a mine next to an existing mine returns the miner on the old mine to the players hand.  this is the "found a better deposit in the area" rule.  This is an easy way to randomly remove your opponents mine.