Lord of the Manor (formerly Castles)

[Scott]

 

I prefer it coming from you.

[Novelty]

Question: If there are no farmers on a farm with a baron, does the baron score anything?
Question: If there are no knights in a city with a baron, does the baron score anything?
Question: If there is a mayor in a city with a baron, does the baron score half the mayor (provided that there are pennants in the city)?

[Scott]

v1.2:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jmvzndtlzum

I didn't do anything with the third question because the rules say "follower", which the mayor is considered to be part of. Also because there's no room left without having everything spill over to a third page which wouldn't look good. No more, ok?

[Novelty]

Scott, sorry to disappoint.  In my opinion, this is a bad expansion because of the following reasons:
1. It rewards the player who draws the tile. A lot.  If you draw the tile, there is no reason why you shouldn't place a baron in it.  A baron will always score half the score of the city or farm.  This is a good deal.  If one player draws all the castle tiles, they will probably win the game.
2. It takes out the strategy for the tile.  Usually by drawing a tile and placing a follower, a lot of decisions has to be made - where to place the tile, where to place the follower.  Drawing this tile though, immediately means you place it on the largest city or farm and place a baron on it as that would be the most advantageous play possible.  No strategy required.
3. It nerfs P&D and tower completely.  The dragon cannot enter a tile with a serf.  Towers can't capture serfs.  The reason most people play with P&D or Tower or both is to be a bit competitive.  Nerfing those expansions completely would either mean that if you are playing with those expansions, you don't use this one, or if you aren't playing with those expansions, you don't use this one as well... because let's face it, this expansion is only useful if playing with P&D and Tower.
4. It discourages people to play farmers, knights, pigs, mayors.  Why play farmers or pigs or mayors if you are going to lose half the points to the baron?  It will force people onto roads and cloisters (and forests and rivers if playing with those expansions) and that's not a good thing.

Possible solutions:
* make either the baron or the serfs vulnerable to the dragon and the tower.  I would make serfs vulnerable to the tower (not much you can do against bandits) and the baron vulnerable whenever the dragon moves to a tile with a serf on it (the baron is protecting his serf, which is what he does for the serf in return to the serf farming for him).
* make the castle magic portal - able (in conjunction with the above).  That way the tile won't reward the person who draws it as much.  It will also encourage strategy, etc.

Of course, you may come up with your own solutions or decide not to change anything.  It's your expansion after all.

[Joff]

I agree that the Baron should not have complete immunity to the advances of the Dragon or a tower. How on earth can you counter a Baron once he is placed? It is fine to be immune from the advances of the Princess. My problem is, that should the Baron be eaten by 'Smaug' or captured by a tower, I would like an opportunity to become the Baron myself (or gain repossession)! If playing with P&D it is fine to make the Castle magic portal-able (which it is), but how to do it if using just The Tower?


Edit: one other thing Scott, you need to rewrite the acknowledgement for Matthew Harper's entry

[Scott]

What I'm trying to achieve is some sort of benefit to being the baron, and some benefit to being a serf.

I made the serfs vulernable to the dragon, and the baron is vulernable to all tower attacks (including against serfs). Also, barons no longer score for empty cities or farms. Can't reap any benefits if nobody is doing any work.

v1.3
http://www.mediafire.com/?yhqznzztdzr

I'm wondering if the baron is now so vulnerable that the reward should be greater?

I'm also thinking that the serf scoring should be changed so that points are divided among the serfs based on how many serfs each player has. For example, if red has two serfs and green has one serf, red gets 2/3 of the serf points and green gets 1/3. Your guys' thoughts?

[Novelty]

I think the baron should be magic portal-able to allow for someone other than the person who draws the tile to steal the points of the tile.  Perhaps it should also be possible to move from the castle in the City of Carcassonne (unless the count is there) to the castle as a baron.  Again, this will allow other players to steal the castle from the person who drew the tile.

As for scoring, how about barons getting half the scores of the respective cities and farms, and the serfs (not barns! those aren't serfs, so the baron shouldn't get anything from barns) getting full points as per the normal rules?  This will not nerf the existing serfs at all, but will give reason to fight for the baron.

[Scott]

I think the baron should be magic portal-able to allow for someone other than the person who draws the tile to steal the points of the tile.  Perhaps it should also be possible to move from the castle in the City of Carcassonne (unless the count is there) to the castle as a baron.  Again, this will allow other players to steal the castle from the person who drew the tile.

As for scoring, how about barons getting half the scores of the respective cities and farms, and the serfs (not barns! those aren't serfs, so the baron shouldn't get anything from barns) getting full points as per the normal rules?  This will not nerf the existing serfs at all, but will give reason to fight for the baron.

The baron's castle has always been magic portal-able, provided there is no baron already on it.

Allowing parachuting from the City of Carcassonne would only work when the city is completed, which doesn't seem very useful and could lead to problems with multiple barons parachuting in.

I don't think the risk of being baron is really worth it if he only gets half what the serfs get. I'm not even sure how fair it is for the baron to take the hit on every tower attack if the serfs aren't sacrificing anything for the privilege.

Part of me wants to say "meh" and just make the castles an uber-cloister type, requiring 5x5 completion and yielding 25 points. Not an original idea, but I feel like this isn't going to get better unless I try something entirely different.

[Scott]

I just did a quick play-test by myself, using just base Carc and two castle tiles. Once a castle goes down and baron is deployed, it's pretty much just a landscape feature. Like you guys said, the player doesn't really have to work for anything. I built a 22-point city (8 tiles, 3 pennants) with one baron and two serfs of differing color. With the existing half-points rule, that would be 11 points per player, which is like getting nailed with a Cathar/Siege tile. With full points, each player would score 22 points. The "player" who deployed the baron contributed towards building the city, but had no fear of losing control because I didn't play with P&D or Tower.

If I were to change the rules as described in the above post, the baron would not have scored his 25 points until many more tiles were placed. Remove all the protection rules and I think it'll be much better. The baron is a nice reward, but with a long-term investment. Plenty of opportunity to take the baron out when P&D and/or Tower are added into the mix.

[Scott]

Since nobody has raised any objections, I'm going to move forward with changing the rules.

[Novelty]

Well, as long as you make the rules clear, and as long as the person playing the baron doesn't get an unfair advantage

It's your expansion, we are just here to provide feedback... methinks...

[Scott]

Alright, here are the new rules:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ngni22kcr22

I cycled all the version numbers backwards so this is v0.9. I'd like to have this all wrapped up by Friday or Saturday.

[Joff]

"A castle is completed when it is surrounded by 24 land tiles in two concentric squares. The player who has a baron
in the castle immediately scores 25 points – 1 point for every land tile. After a castle has been scored, the baron is
returned to his owner"

You should really have a pictured example of this. (Edit: see below)


Do you think that there should be a tile ratio in here as well (like my In the Stocks expansion)? 4 tiles seem quite high a number if you are playing vanilla Carc, where there are only 72 tiles in total.


Is the reward for completing a castle too low? Completing a castle is a big challenge. Perhaps the castle could be completed like a cloister for 9 points, at which point a Baron could be returned, should the player wish, or the player could attempt to become 'lord of the manor' and complete the castle for a bigger reward, as his Baron would be tied up longer. Should the castle not be completed by game end it is scored at 1 point per tile making up the castle (same as cloister scoring, this would include the 2nd square tiles) but, for a completed castle, 1 point per tile surrounding the manor and 10 points bonus for the manor itself (34 points total)? At any point the follower can be returned to its owner for 9 points score (should the castle be surrounded by tiles (cloister scoring)). In this way there is a penalty for removing your Baron early (not being able to claim for the 2nd square of tiles). A Baron can only be returned if 8 tiles surround the castle though (for 9 points)? At game end, the castle is scored as a castle IF it has it's first square (cloister type) surrounding the castle.

Example:

At game end, as the castle's first square is not complete, the castle is scored as a cloister for it's Baron (In this case 8 points, same as cloister scoring).


At game end, as the castle's first square is complete, the castle is scored as a castle for it's Baron (In this case 21 points). (Edit: see post below)


The score for the Baron (he has become 'lord of the manor') is 24 points for the surrounding tiles, plus a 10 point bonus for the castle itself. A total of 34 points.

[Novelty]

Joff's suggestion is a bit complicated to calculate, but it is simpler overall.  I like that it's independent on farm scoring.

[Joff]

The biggest problem to my suggestion is this: let's assume a player deploys a Baron to the castle, but then decides that he wants his Baron back, and so, after completing the castle as a cloister type (surround castle with 8 tiles), he takes his Baron back and collects 9 points. An opposing player thinks, "hey, the castle is not yet complete", (it needs 24 tiles for the Baron to become 'lord of the manor'), and deploys a follower by way of a magic portal (or similar) to the castle. After a short while it is obvious that the castle will not be completed and so he takes back his Baron (scoring 9 points). In this way the feature has been scored twice, with no work on the part of the 2nd scorer. This, of course, is not fair.

A solution to this is that once the castle is surrounded by 8 tiles (cloister type) a player may not occupy.


Edit for my last posting (the posting with the examples  ):
Looking at my final example above: "At game end, as the castle's first square is complete, the castle is scored as a castle for it's Baron (In this case 21 points)."
I have not awarded the actual castle tile itself with any points (it should be at least 1 point, making the total up to 22 points)
Perhaps you can even give a Baron occypying an incomplete castle (at game end) a small bonus as well? (perhaps 3 or 5 points (i.e. all tiles surrounding the castle at 1 point each plus 3 points for the castle itself)). This is a reward for sticking with building the castle and tying up a follower for the game.