Hook, Line and Sinker

[Gantry]

silly man, you can't write, edit and approve your own variant!  It's written somewhere in the Universal Way Things Work ^(tm)

 

Sure but I wanna play it once!

[likie]

Interesting sounding variant - I already have enough trouble with overcommitting farmers (and getting greedy with cloisters), so I am not sure how I would get on with fishermen as well.

By the way, not sure if other sites should be mentioned but someone has just posted an interesting sounding variant on Board Game Geek - Carcassonne - Holy War.   Might be worth checking out for those of you keen on experimenting with variants.

[canada steve]

So anyone tried my variant yet and do you have any suggestions for how to mak eit play better, if at all !

[Gantry]

I had TWO huge college assignments due on Sunday, so I had to cancel our weekend Carc session as well as a birthday (HBD Cory!), but I'll try to get a game in the next couple of nights!!!

[Gantry]

Okay finally playtested tonite!  Natasha & I have a few questions and comments.  We used the river I, and I won 123 - 116.  I used 1 fisherman.

Click HERE for pic!

Scoring: since we use the 3rd edition rules, farmers score 3 points per city instead of 4.  Your rules specify 4 points, perhaps make this optional to match what edition of the rules that people use, so it can score either 3 or 4 points per city.

If two fishers from the same side can reach a city only one scores

This implies that one isn't used in scoring, but perhaps a better way of putting it would be that whoever controls the river with the most fishermen scores (assuming that is what you mean).

To clarify when a river tile is surrounded by a further 8 tiles to forma 3x3 quare then you have the choice to place a fisher on one side of the river on the center river tile.

Not sure if you mean that I can place a fisher at the time that the 3x3 square is completed by placing the 9th tile, or at any time in the game if I don't place a follower on my placed tile, I can place a fisher instead? We weren't sure about this.

Observations: At the beginning of the game, the fishermen don't really seem all that different from farmers since they score similarly.  Later on, it allows you to leech points off a bunch of cities that your opponent has farmer coverage on.  So if you place a fisherman, it basically nullifies a farmer. 

In our 2-player playtest game you'll see that there was only 1 fisherman placed, and I placed it to take advantage of the group of cities that Nat already farmed.

If you clarify those questions we have above, you could call it finished.  BUT, something to think about, you might want to differentiate it from how a farmer works somehow, we thought of the fisherman basically as a river-tile farmer.  Some ideas:

- 1 bonus point for each segment length of river that the fisherman is on.  The ends of this "length" include the lake, spring, & bridges (road & city).  So you'd want to place your fisherman on the longest segment length possible. In our example pic above, the fisherman is sitting on a 6-river segment, with road bridges marking the segment ends.
- change it so that instead of scoring X points per city, score X points per river segment, and not have fishermen related to cities at all.

Finally, I vote for "hook, line & sinker" name

[canada steve]

Hey Gantry,

Thanks for trying the variant and for the feedback. I will check out what you have asked and will answer you asap.

Hook, Line and Sinker yep thats the best I think too.

Cheers

[canada steve]

OK guys and girls I have taken Gantrys' excellent comments and suggestions onboard and have had a little rewrite and play test last night.

Have a look at the amended rules on the first posting and see if they are clearer. More clarification has been put in, including more FAQ's and the scoring has been changed to make it more interesting (I think)

Let me know what you reckon .

Thanks

[Johngee]

From a previous thread I started about the river I/II expansions it cam to light that you cannot place meeple in the river sections, <~snip~snip~>

 


Hmmm...I guess I'll have to go back and re-read those rules about placing River tiles!!!  I've read this entire thread and think that you've done an excellent job in describing a suitable variation to game play for those adventuresome folks who like to experiment with good things in trying to make them even better ...BUT... for me and my house, we will save the FisherMeeples for or "Hunters & Gatherer" sessions [PERIOD].  Although an interesting concept for those unoccupied, first placed, River tiles...we (a group of ten couples in central NJ) have ALWAYS begun placing our Meeples on the very first tile after the Spring tile (River-I) or Branch tile (River-II) is laid down.  This almost always guarantees that the first player's first meeple is going to be a Farmer to take advantage of the green field wrapping around the Spring to both sides of the river, until a couple roads interrupts it.  Hence the need for the Dragon and Tower mechanics to eliminate that meeple and the new Spring tile in the GQ#11 Exp with a road leading right up to it.  Therfore we've discarded the "Youngest Player decides who goes first RULE" in favor of randoming drawing a meeple out of a hat that contains one of each color being used.  Maybe we're playing all wrong, but it works for us and since we're all comfortable with this way I'm not going to say anything to my group, even though I personnally want to be well versed in the rules to successfully compete at Gaming Conventions.  Our methodology probably classifies as just a House Rule for local use by one specific group and doesn't need to be definitively clarified and play tested as a semi-official variant for this Forum, so I won't. 

[canada steve]

Johngee thanks for your response, all feedback is positive. I think I may have not come across right when I said about placing meeple on rivers, I actually meant IN rivers. I know that lots of people try to be the first to place a farmer after the spring, we stopped that with only using GQ11. This variant is designed to allow you to place a meeple on a river section much later in the game thus freeing up resources for other endeavours.

Like I say each to their own and do what works for you, personally the guys I play against are a tricky lot so anything that makes us think even more is a good development.

If you ever get to play my variant let me know what you thought of the actual mechanics.

Have fun.

[Johngee]

Isn't amazing how many people (usually the newbies) try to place one of their Meeples "IN" the River or they begin matching browns (town to town) or white lines (road to road) when there is obviously a BLUE river running through the tile.  I am normally very patient and kind in explaining game rules to new comers, but when it comes to watching them attempt the rediculous, I want to reach out and "touch someone" wrapping my fingers around their throat to get their undivided attention.  But I take a deep breath and whisper, "It's only a game, it's only a game;" before reciting the basics of the Basic Rules for the umpteenth time.   Yes I did misunderstand your opening comment and being brand new to this web site, I eventually found the Thread that lead to your creation of this Game Variation (H,L&S).  I would love to see more commodities added into this already GREAT game, not necessarily deer, bear, mastadons, and aurochs, but fishing ponds might have merit.  It hard to get my group to try anything new, but I will take another look at your description above to file away in dark recesses of my peabrain and let you know if we ever get around to trying out your suggestions.  Thanks for posting it. 

[albie]

Hey Steve! I ran across this variant today, and I must say, I both love it and hate it! Love it because it sounds, well, workable, interesting, and fun. Hate it because it sounds real similar to a variant I am currently developing! :P  OK, so I don't really hate it. Anyway, I think (hope) our variants will be different enough, but they do have some of the same elements (even scoring points for the length of the branch as suggested by Gantry). Oh well, I am still refining my variant, and I want to playtest it at least once before posting it here. Then, if everyone thinks it's different enough, we can go from there; otherwise, I will scrap it and try something else.

[Gantry]

if you want my opinion, definitely pursue it!  Just don't call it "sinker, line & hook"!   

People love variety, more variety is always better, plus you'll get a spiffy badge when its done 

[albie]

if you want my opinion, definitely pursue it!  Just don't call it "sinker, line & hook"!   

People love variety, more variety is always better, plus you'll get a spiffy badge when its done 

Cool. I will go ahead and post it here eventually. Even though some of the mechanics and scoring are similar, at least the theme is a bit different. Instead of fishermen, I was going with traders who use the river to move goods along its length. I am using "rivermen" as the working title for these followers, but need to do some research to see if there is a more suitable label for a Carc setting. Or, if someone already has something better to call 'em, I am open to suggestions.

[Gantry]

Okay, Nat & I had another playtest tonite, and I seem to have a lot of comments, as we ran into a bunch of questionable situations!

We played with the following expansions: River I, River II, King & Scout, Inns & Cathedrals (and of course, Hook Line & Sinker)

Interestingly, the game started out with Nat playing 7 meeples within the first 18 river tiles down! (oh and we played with the big meeple too.)  So in the course of the game we came up with a bunch of questions.  They mess with each other in different ways, so you'll need to pay extra attention to this.

1. The Double-end-capend-city cscs (extra scoring tile) from river II might make things a tad complex, as a few of the problems arose because of this tile.  The Extra Scoring paragraph description says that it "allows the player who lays it to fish both sides of the riverbank".  What if there's already a fishermeeple down the river on one or both sides of the river on that river segment?  Does one or both sides have to be free of fishermeeples in order for this to be played?

2. Does the extra scoring tile constitute a crossing and thus the end of a river segment?  If so, then does the player that places the extra scoring tile have to specify which river segment his extra scoring fishermeeple is on?

3. If no one plays a fishermeeple on the Extra Scoring Tile, but there is a fishermeeple on each side of the river somewhere along the same river segment belonging to one player, does the city count once for each fishermeeple (on each side) or just once for the player? We are both a little worried that the Extra Scoring Tile is proving to be more of a problem than its worth.

4. The rest of the questions are clarifications in the paragraph titled "Scoring".  The 2nd sentence starts, "For each section of riverbank...", does a section curve around a spring or lake tile and continue on or are they considered the end of a section? 

5. What about the branch tile, is the straight side a continuation and the 90-degree river turn continuable, or is the 90-degree river turn the end of a river segment?

6. In the 2nd sentence of the Scoring paragraph, it says you score "a further 2 points per city", does that mean a completed city or do uncompleted cities count?

7. In that same sentence, it says "within 3 direct squares of any of its river tiles", does this distance include crossing over cities and roads (as the crow flies) or in an uninterrupted field like for farmers?

8. As per #7, does the spring count as a river segment if a city is with 3 direct squares of it?

If my descriptions aren't clear, i can draw them out if need be.  Oh, and we scored the fishermeeples last, so to give you an idea of their effects, the score was 228 to 168 for Nat, then after scoring my 2 fishermeeples and Nat's 1 fishermeeple, the final score was 246 for Nat and 226 for me.

This works out to 18 points for Nat's one fishermeeple, and 58 for my two (or 29 points average per my fishermeeples).  Although I lost the game, I clearly have more experience fishing.... 

[canada steve]

Hi Gantry thanks for trying it out again. Here are my answers incorporated with your comments.

Okay, Nat & I had another playtest tonite, and I seem to have a lot of comments, as we ran into a bunch of questionable situations!

We played with the following expansions: River I, River II, King & Scout, Inns & Cathedrals (and of course, Hook Line & Sinker)

Interestingly, the game started out with Nat playing 7 meeples within the first 18 river tiles down! (oh and we played with the big meeple too.)  So in the course of the game we came up with a bunch of questions.  They mess with each other in different ways, so you'll need to pay extra attention to this.

1. The Double-end-capend-city cscs (extra scoring tile) from river II might make things a tad complex, as a few of the problems arose because of this tile.  The Extra Scoring paragraph description says that it "allows the player who lays it to fish both sides of the riverbank".  What if there's already a fishermeeple down the river on one or both sides of the river on that river segment?  Does one or both sides have to be free of fishermeeples in order for this to be played?

This tile is like I say an extra scoring one as the fishermeep is in the city fishing from the bridge not on the riverbanks so this allows for him to supply cities on both sides providing that no meeple are already there.

2. Does the extra scoring tile constitute a crossing and thus the end of a river segment?  If so, then does the player that places the extra scoring tile have to specify which river segment his extra scoring fishermeeple is on?

Not sure I understand this one. The tile concerned is under normal rules for placement and stopping farming etc. so a fisher would only be able to supply one way along a river, albeit on both banks if possible.

3. If no one plays a fishermeeple on the Extra Scoring Tile, but there is a fishermeeple on each side of the river somewhere along the same river segment belonging to one player, does the city count once for each fishermeeple (on each side) or just once for the player? We are both a little worried that the Extra Scoring Tile is proving to be more of a problem than its worth.

Scoring of the tile if there is no meeple on it is as normal, it only counts for extra if there is someone on it. Treat it as normal otherwise.

4. The rest of the questions are clarifications in the paragraph titled "Scoring".  The 2nd sentence starts, "For each section of riverbank...", does a section curve around a spring or lake tile and continue on or are they considered the end of a section? 

Springs and lakes mean that they can be coninued around as per normal.

5. What about the branch tile, is the straight side a continuation and the 90-degree river turn continuable, or is the 90-degree river turn the end of a river segment?

Again not sure what you mean by this one. As previously mentioned you cannot fish the branch as the current is considred too fast.

6. In the 2nd sentence of the Scoring paragraph, it says you score "a further 2 points per city", does that mean a completed city or do uncompleted cities count?

Sorry , only completed cities score.

7. In that same sentence, it says "within 3 direct squares of any of its river tiles", does this distance include crossing over cities and roads (as the crow flies) or in an uninterrupted field like for farmers?

Again my apologies, should read that only cities within three uninterupted tiles are to be counted for scoring purposes.

8. As per #7, does the spring count as a river segment if a city is with 3 direct squares of it?

I stated in the rules that you cannot fish the spring or the branch.

If my descriptions aren't clear, i can draw them out if need be.  Oh, and we scored the fishermeeples last, so to give you an idea of their effects, the score was 228 to 168 for Nat, then after scoring my 2 fishermeeples and Nat's 1 fishermeeple, the final score was 246 for Nat and 226 for me.

This works out to 18 points for Nat's one fishermeeple, and 58 for my two (or 29 points average per my fishermeeples).  Although I lost the game, I clearly have more experience fishing.... 

Im glad you are trying it and asking questions as my group whilst they enjoy the variant arent throwing up any questions and just accepting what I say !!!

Let me know if these answers make sense and I will incorporate them in the rules.

Thanks