The House of Valois

[Joff]

I have obtained wicke's blessing to finish off his expansions.

Therefore, here is another update:
Valois 0.5

Comments are welcome.

I know that examples are required. Let me know where they might be necessary.

Edit: Sorted the link

[Novelty]

Pope 0.5

That's interesting, the text says Pope, but the rules says Valois... interesting typo

I think this is more up to scratch than the Pope.

Rephrasing:
5 points are added to the A completed city with one large gold figure scores an additional 5 points. , but Howerver if a completed city contains both large gold figures , the city score is doubled the amount of points (even for after the scores for pennants, cathedrals and the Pope8 have been calculated).

Comment: This seems pretty broken for me.  This will make this expansion more and more unbalanced the more expansions one plays with and it seems as if it is designed as an anti-mega-Carc expansion.  I would suggest the doubling be for tiles only and maybe pennants.

Question for Joff: How does the scoring interact with the Jousting Tournament?

Comment: Example definately needed for the doubling with the cathedral and pope.  However, I think a scoring example (complete with image) is recommended but not necessary if the doubling does not include the Pope or cathedrals or anything else.

[Joff]

Valois 0.6

Comments are welcome.

This version has an alternative form of scoring the city which I feel is easier to implement (i.e. I should not need to provide pictured examples). I have highlighted the undecided changes in red.

[Novelty]

Comment: The term "majority" needs a footnote of some sort.  The official carc rules all have "have the most followers" instead of majority.

Comment: I like it better if the gold followers does not take part in the Jousting Tournament scoring, but the original is good as well.

Comment: I like the 15 extra points part for both the large gold figures.

Question: How does the doubling (if it's retained) "stack" with the children (kids are growing up)?

Things to think about.

[Joff]

Another update: Valois 0.7

[Novelty]

Looks good to me!  No further comments from me

[wicke]

Will look through this version later,
but how come the part with double scores was so "difficult" to use ?
Treasure Hunt, for instance, even use triple scores for features when using Royal Landscape tiles.

[Joff]

The difficulty comes when you start to add fan made expansions. It becomes a very complex job to give an example for every double up. For instance, when do you double up when scoring with the Pope? After the Pope has given his bonus or before? A seperate example would be needed. What about doubling up when using Kids? (This is the same reason why Kids scoring has also been changed in the latest release) If one were to keep the original Kids doubling scoring method, should you double the doubled score? This could amount to massive unassailable scores during a game and put one player so far ahead that it would be impossible for any other players to catch up (in the original scoring method for Kids the same question in reverse would also apply if Valois retains the original double up method of scoring). The easiest solution is to add a higher bonus for having 2 Valois members in a city.

An example might prove useful here. Let's assume that Kids and Valois retain the original double up scoring rules and a game is being played with both fan-made expansions and I&C. A player has a completed Cathedral city with 2 pennants over 8 tiles. He has both Valois family members within the city and both Children deployed (I know this is far fetched, but it is possible ). The score for the basic city would be 30 points (8 tiles at 3 points each, 2 pennants at 3 points each). Now you calculate the double-up for the two Valois family members, bring the total to 60 points. After this, as there are two children present, you would double the score again. Now this brings the total to 120 points!!! 120 points for an 8 tiled Cathedral city! Clearly, this would be rather silly. With the changed scoring rules the total score in this situation would be 69 points (30 points for the finished Cathedral city, 15 points for the two Valois family members and  24 points for the two Children), and this is still quite high, but it is a better reward should you manage to get all these pieces into a city. 120 points would really be a massive reward in this situation.

[wicke]

Just with a simple addition of the Royal Cathedral (in Treasure Hunt) to a 8-tile city with 2 pennants would make 90 points, and that is also very high.
I know that there is only one Royal Cathedral tile in the game, but it is also quite difficult to get both children and both Valois family members into the same city.
Strange, I never thought that I would have to make house-rules to my own expansions, but I guess I will have to now.

[Joff]

Just with a simple addition of the Royal Cathedral (in Treasure Hunt) to a 8-tile city with 2 pennants would make 90 points, and that is also very high.

This is where the difficulty lies in fan-made expansions and that is exactly the reason for the proposed changes. Otherwise, with the original rules to Valois and Kids, you will be looking at scoring 240 points! (8 tiles at 2 points each plus 2 pennants at 2 points each multiplied by 3 (Royal Cathedral, =60 points), multiplied by 2 (both Children, =120 points), multiplied by 2 (both Valois family members, =240 points). I agree that the 90 is very high, but that is a more sensible reward for managing to get both Children and both Valois family members into the Royal Cathedral city than the 240 points. The doubling proposal just does not scale well with other fan made expansions. If you are not happy with any changes, as i've said before, they are your rules and you are free to keep the doubling up as you wish. My changes are just suggestions at present. Personally, I don't actually like giving  rules for other fan-made expansions in my documents. I prefer to leave them as if they were being added to a basic Carcassonne game. The Medieval Expansion being the exception here as I wanted to release them together as a package of four and so it necessitated compiling rules so they could interact. However, I have included rules to other fan-made expansions at the request of others in my documents.

I know that there is only one Royal Cathedral tile in the game, but it is also quite difficult to get both children and both Valois family members into the same city.

It would indeed be difficult, but not impossible!

Strange, I never thought that I would have to make house-rules to my own expansions, but I guess I will have to now.

What would be your house rules then? Doubling up? Or would you suggest that my suggestion become house rules?

[wicke]

I can see your point with scores being blown up over proportions, but then I don't see how Treasure Hunt could "get away" with the triple scores rule, wouldn't it be an idea to keep that score down as well then.

House-rule would be to keep the double score, or to get away from house-rules maybe we can make the scores for the Valois members a little higher and skip the doubling part.
Maybe 20-25 points for both would be enough but the problem with that is that it will then be possible to get too much points for small cities.
That was the reason for the doubling part to begin with, not to make it easy to get large amounts of points for small cities.

[Joff]

I can see your point with scores being blown up over proportions, but then I don't see how Treasure Hunt could "get away" with the triple scores rule, wouldn't it be an idea to keep that score down as well then.

Well it would be, but that would be Maulei's decision. However, scoring the Royal Cathedral is not quite the same as the doubling up in Valois or Kids. A completed Royal Cathedral scores for tiles and pennants only and not for outside influence (because the rules of Treasure Hunt calculate the score in a different way, it is not clear that it is per tile and pennant; tripling a city's value, using Treasure Hunt rules, is the same as saying 6 points per tile and pennant).

An example being (assuming original Valois rules), if the two Valois family members were in the Royal Cathedral city, the Royal Cathedral would still score the same points for each tile and pennant (6 points each), the Valois family members have no influence on the scoring (without the Valois family members the points per tile and pennant would be the same). The points stay the same for the Royal Cathedral if the Children are present also. This is not the case for the original Valois, as their scoring is a doubling up of the overall score for the city, which can balloon very quickly when working the overall score out via doubling using other fan made expansions. The Royal Cathedral does not have the same problem.

If the bonus is a round number (such as my suggested 15, or your 20, or if the scoring is based on per tile (or per tile and pennant) the problem disappears.

I am happy to assist with input to any fan-made expansion, but as I have been concentrating on Valois, Kids and Pope, offering to give you a hand with them (and hosting the pdfs) it is these that I have been looking at and pondering on others comments and my own feelings. Again, they are not my rules (you receive the credit at the end of it) and it is your decision ultimately to make regarding the direction of your expansions. If you are not happy with any comments or changes then you can revert back to your original plan as you see fit.

Edit: Spellings and slight rewording to make sense.

[Joff]

Final release for this expansion: The House of Valois (Ver 1)

[Novelty]

Now available at Public Downloads.