River/River 2/T&B and The Count !!!

[canada steve]

Hi my friend and I just completed a game with the above expansions. Was difficult at first as the tiles for the rivers went almost straight down from Carcassonne, but thats the way the tiles came out ! Anyway as the game progressed, and this was the first game with T&B and The Count, we were both avidly using the bulider and then started sacrificing points on completed cities to get meeple up in Carc, which worked very well. The added incentive of being able to collect trade tokens for completed cities even when you didnt have anyone present was great too as it stopped my friend building very large cities. All in all an excellent first game with all this, and I won 218 to 206 ! Cant wait to get I & C next.
One thing we really didnt get was when to place the pig. We both waited until our last go and put them with our best possible farmer, not sure if that is right though.

Cheers

[mjharper]

One thing we really didnt get was when to place the pig. We both waited until our last go and put them with our best possible farmer, not sure if that is right though.

It's not wrong Definitely the pig needs to go with the best farmer, and which one that is will not become clear until late in the game. Also, playing the pig too early when you're using the dragon on towers could mean that it just gets returned to you and you've wasted a move.

In my experience, though, the biggest farm is clear some time before the end, and is often the only farm to be completed. Other players want to be a part of it, and the pig can be your way of improving a score on a farm which several people score - if everyone scores a farm, then effecively no-one scores anything, and that's when the pig is perhaps most useful. So my advice is: leave it late, but not too late!