CAR for The Ark of the Covenant

[Lardarse]

Those CCRR tiles with the roads going into the city are really strange. There's similar strangeness with the CRRR tiles as well.

[wicke]

Joff, are the meeples different from all the other meeples from other Carc games ?

Cheers
.../Patrik

[Joff]

No, the meeples are exactly the same as regular and large Carcassonne followers.

[Novelty]

Joff, I'm wondering what's the AotC equivalent of the cloister, and is it possible to have a better image of it?

[Joff]

Here is the finalised Ark of the Covenant CAR: The Ark of the Covenant CAR (v1.1)

[Joff]

Joff, I'm wondering what's the AotC equivalent of the cloister, and is it possible to have a better image of it?

The 'equivalent' of the cloister is a temple:



However, it is scored differently to a cloister. A player is not allowed to place directly to the temple, but may occupy a road or field on the tile. A completed temple is scored when all four edges are complete (a cross shape). The player who has the majority, scores 7 points for the completed temple. Have a look at the AotC CAR for a better description.

[Novelty]

Can I put this in the Public Downloads section?

And thanks for the temple images.  I now see where the Tithe Barns rules (from Apothecaries and Tithes by meepleater) are coming from!

[Joff]

Can I put this in the Public Downloads section?

Yes, it is all ready.

If anyone finds any glaring errors please let me know, so I can update it.

[Novelty]

It's ready for download at the Other Spin-offs section of the Public download!

[Joff]

The next update (sorry, Nov) will just tidy things up a little; i.e. justified text, table of contents, a CC section. I have also changed the background to a lighter 'pinkish' shade to improve legibility when printing in black and white. Will release it just before Xmas.

I am also planning a few expansions to this. I know there is not much call for expansions to this over regular Carcassonne, but I have a couple of ideas that borrow from regular Carc and fit the theme nicely.

[Novelty]

No worries about me.  Someone must really be hitting that merit arrow next to my name because it's rocketing up, which works, since that's what Gantry said I'll be paid in

[Joff]

We playtested AotC today. It was a two player game.

As i've mentioned previously, I love the artwork on the tiles.



The game in progress. 'Joff junior' is green and I am, of course, playing yellow.



Here is a close up of the 3 way road tiles. There are plenty of roads which are designed to create smaller farms.



Close up of the poorly designed 1st edition Ark piece. I like the idea of the Ark. If your tile draw is a poor one, at least you can gain extra points by moving the Ark. I am awaiting a Monopoly playing piece (Indiana Jones edition), that I bought on eBay very cheaply, to replace the Ark piece:






Here is an example of the way a temple is scored. The temple is complete when all four edge pieces are filled (forming a cross). The temple is scored by majority, which is a much better way that scoring the cloister in regular Carc. In the photo green and yellow share the majority, and so both recieve 7 points. The followers are not removed after scoring for the temple. Players cannot deploy direct to the temple itself. The green disc is not included with AotC, but they are used so we know which temple has been scored. The followers are able to score for the features that they are on, but this scoring mechanic allows strategic finishing of other players roads and remove them before they can score for the temple. There are 4 temples in the game and all 4 are 'rrrr' configurations.

Farms are scored by the prescence of sheep in a shepherd's (farmer) field. The number of sheep in the field are totalled and then the number of wolves present in the same fields are subtracted, giving a final field total; a much cleaner way of field scoring. This mechanic is exactly the same as Hunters and Gatherers (except with different animals).

This was a very enjoyable version of Carc and i'm am very pleased to own it. There's much more strategy than regular 'vanilla' Carc, as reports suggested and the theme just fits well. I would definately prefer to play this version over the basic 'vanilla' Carc.

[Novelty]

So, did you win or did Joff Junior?

Possible names for expansions:
* Walls of Jericho
* Crossing the Red Sea
* Pillar of Cloud and Fire
* Quail and Manna
* Mount Sinai

Sounds fun to create one's own expansions.  Are there any elsewhere online, e.g. at BGG or something?

[Joff]

So, did you win or did Joff Junior?

I don't want to talk about it... ok, I lost... but only by 10 points!

Sounds fun to create one's own expansions.  Are there any elsewhere online, e.g. at BGG or something?

No there appear to be none.

Here are the ideas I have thought about so far:

The Walls of Jericho ... this one will probably be similar to the Siege/Cathar tiles. We have both thought of the same Biblical event here

The Angel of the Lord... this is easy. It is simply the Princess and the Dragon (without the princess). The 'fairy' piece is the Angel of the Lord, offering bonus points to the Israelite followers and of course protection from 'the dragon', or Satan (Rev 20:2).

I saw an idea mentioned on BGG called 'Moses and the Golden Calf'. I did not like the mechanics (that was fairy and dragon) but the idea would be better as the Ark in reverse. The Golden Calf deducts points from the followers it passes. However, the Golden Calf cannot occupy the tile that the Ark is currently residing upon; neither can the Golden Calf occupy the scoring area of a temple (an orthogonal cross with the temple in the middle). The Golden Calf is seen as idolatry among the Israelites as they worship the Golden Calf instead of God.

The Judge of Jerusalem (judge being the only 'j' word that fit ). A Count of Carcassonne rip-off. 12 tiles depicting Jerusalem... same mechanics as Count.

The above will be my January expansion projects after The Leper and The King are finalised for regular Carc.

[Novelty]

I envisage Crossing of the Red Sea, being the River 1 expansion, with Crossing the Jordan as River 2
Mount Sinai could be just a new landscape feature, aka mountains.  Let's hope it doesn't end up as a 150 tile expansion like Forests.