The Outpost

[Joff]

I absolutely disagree. The statement tells you that you may do something before the follower is removed. However, the offending word is 'of'.

Edit:

"Before you get hit by a car, you could step off the road." doesn't mean you'll get hit by a car.

The problem is that the paragraph does not actually state (or make sense of) that you are doing something instead of another.

Edit:  How about:

"When the dragon moves to a square with a follower (but not the barn, pig or builder), before the follower is removed, a player may elect to return one of their own guards from any outpost back to their supply.  If a player returns one of their guards from any outpost back to their supply, they may move one of their followers on the same square as a dragon to the connected feature on an adjacent tile and thus prevent the follower from being removed by the dragon as it will no longer be on the same tile as the dragon."

All that is necessary is to make the sentence say that you are doing something instead of something else.

That's a lot verbose then I'm used to.  A background with CCGs have hardwired me to the phrase "Do action A to do Action B" (e.g. If an opponent plays a card to discard your creature card, before your creature card is discarded by the opponent, you may play a card from hand to prevent your creature from being discarded, and thus cancel out your opponent's card).

You hit the nail on the head. The paragraph does not tell you that you are doing something to avoid another situation.

[Lardarse]

You hit the nail on the head. The paragraph does not tell you that you are doing something to avoid another situation.

Let me have a go.

"Whenever the dragon moves onto a tile occupied by one of your followers, you may remove one of your guards from the board and return it to your supply instead of removing the follower on the dragon's tile. If you do, then you may move that follower to the same feature on an adjacent tile (including diagonally)."

[Joff]

That's better.

Just out of curiosity (and my apologies if I have missed it), what happens if you have a Monk/Heretic deployed and the Dragon lands on the cloistre/shrine and you have an Outpost occupied?

Would it not be better just to allow the sacrificing of the Outpost guard without having to move the follower from the tile that the Dragon is on?

[Lardarse]

I think that the idea was that they have nowhere to run to and are dragon food. However, I do have a crazy idea that works around this, Instead of sacrificing the guard to let the follower escape, how about sacrificing the guard to move the dragon off the tile, respecting the usual dragon movement rules?

[Novelty]

Thanks Lardarse for the suggestion.

Would it not be better just to allow the sacrificing of the Outpost guard without having to move the follower from the tile that the Dragon is on?

That's because, as Scott pointed out in this thread, the dragon can't be on the same tile as a follower.  Rather than make a special case for the final move of the dragon, I thought it would be more elegant to just ensure that for every move of the dragon, the action is the same.

I think that the idea was that they have nowhere to run to and are dragon food. However, I do have a crazy idea that works around this, Instead of sacrificing the guard to let the follower escape, how about sacrificing the guard to move the dragon off the tile, respecting the usual dragon movement rules?

That could potentially allow you to move the dragon more than once which might not be a good thing.  By your suggestion, one player could potentially and theoritically move the dragon all 6 tiles if they have 5 guards, and thus "lead" the dragon into a direction without letting any other player have a say in how the dragon moves.

[Novelty]

New Rules.

[Joff]

Would it not be better just to allow the sacrificing of the Outpost guard without having to move the follower from the tile that the Dragon is on?

That's because, as Scott pointed out in this thread, the dragon can't be on the same tile as a follower.  Rather than make a special case for the final move of the dragon, I thought it would be more elegant to just ensure that for every move of the dragon, the action is the same.

I think that this is actually quite clumsy. It over complicates the situation. It, IMO, is far better to simply allow the follower on the tile to be spared and remain on the same tile. I realise that the rules of P&D do not allow a follower on the same tile as the dragon, but this is the rules for Outposts and not P&D. It also solves the cloister/shrine issue.

However, this still is rather confusing:

"When the dragon moves to a tile with a follower (but not the barn, pig or builder), a player may elect to return one of their own guards from any outpost back to their supply instead of removing one of the follower on the same square as the dragon and instead move one of their followers on the same square as a dragon to the connected feature on an adjacent tile to prevent the follower from being removed by the dragon.
Alternatively, if playing with the Count of Carcassonne expansion, the guard may be moved to the castle in the City of Carcassonne instead of returning to a player’s supply, to allow a player to move one of their followers on the same square as the dragon to the connected feature on an adjacent tile."

How about something like this:

"When the dragon moves to a tile containing a follower, the owner of the follower may elect to return one of their guards from any outpost back to their supply to spare the 'life' of his follower on the tile that the dragon is on. This follower must then be moved to the same feature but on an adjacent tile. This provides a way to prevent the capture and removal by the dragon of a follower.
Alternatively, if playing with the Count of Carcassonne expansion, the guard may be moved to the castle area in the City of Carcassonne instead of being returned to the player’s supply, allowing the player to spare the 'life' of his follower on the same tile that the dragon is on. This follower must then be moved to the same feature but on an adjacent tile."

The '(but not the barn, pig or builder)' is not required, as these are not followers, but perhaps should be added to footnote 4: "This includes the small follower, the big follower, the mayor and the wagon, but does not include the builder, pig or barn."

Another way for using the Outpost guard with a cloister/shrine is to allow the cloister/shrine to be scored at its current score when you use an outpost guard to 'save' your Monk/Heretic (i.e. should the dragon land on a cloister containing a monk, and that player has an outpost guard, he may sacrifice his outpost guard, returning the guard to his supply, score the cloister at it's current score (2-9 points) and then remove the monk from the cloister and back to his supply).

[Lardarse]

What's even simpler is probably this:

Whenever the dragon moves onto a tile containing one of your followers, you may choose to have the dragon eat one of your guards instead of the follower on that tile.

That way you don't have 2 different ways to protect followers, with different rules for each one. The dragon movement rules don't allow backtracking within a movement sequence, so the monk/heretic/etc is going to be protected for at least that turn. Much simpler rules for pretty much the same effect, and easier to explain clearly as well.

[Novelty]

Whenever the dragon moves onto a tile containing one of your followers, you may choose to have the dragon eat one of your guards instead of the follower on that tile.

You would need to define "eat" though since that is not a Carcassonne defination.

Joff, I'll add your recommendations verbatim to the new rules document and post it up later.

[Novelty]

but this is the rules for Outposts and not P&D.

Words of wisdom there.  Updated to v2.0!

[Joff]

That's better

This is far less complicated and is the way that I would prefer. The cloister/shrine difficulty is solved. It also solves a problem of what would happen if a follower was deployed on a tile onto which the dragon moves: i.e, after sacrificing his outpost guard, the player would have to move the follower on the dragon occupied tile to an adjacent tile of the same feature, which could mean the possibility that on the next move/s the dragon could have him for lunch again! A sacrifice of an outpost guard for nothing. That would not really be fair.

"...the owner of the follower may elect to return one of their own guards from any outpost back to their supply to allow one of their follower to remain on the same square as the dragon."

Written this way it requires 'follower' to become 'followers'.

[Novelty]

Corrected!  Thanks Joff.

[Joff]

Broken link, Novelty

[Whaleyland]

Yup, it downloads but the file says it is corrupt on my computer (MacOS 10.5).

[Novelty]

Sorry, fixed!