River II spring irrelevant?

[Gantry]

The way I read the River II setup, the fork is placed immediately after the spring (is this right?)  If so, read on... does that not make the spring kind of irrelevant?  why not have a tile that simply contains both a small spring and a fork?  Since it is placed at the beginning of the game, whether the fork goes right, left or right & left is utterly irrelevant, so I'm wondering why they bothered with the 2-tile setup?

[Tobias]

Yeah, we have come to the same conclusion, so now we do it in another way. We put the volcano end tile to the side, and mix the fork into the other Flood tiles. It then gets placed whenever it's drawn. The volcano is then placed last.

But, to furhter your musings; since The River I now comes with the game itself, the spring should ackording to the rules be put aside - so it has no purpose what so ever now.

Aside from the fact that the GQ #11 spring is all one would ever use :P

[Allan]

As Tobias says the extra spring is somewhat of a waste. We do a little more in our setup of the river though to make things change up and give some purpose to the spring tiles.

First we take out the lakes, springs and fork from the river tile sets (including the one from GQ11). Then we mix the rest of the tiles and draw four. We mix the lake city tile in with these four and set them face down(we don't play with the dragon, but if you do, you might want to mix the volcano lake in instead to make sure the dragon comes into play early). Then we draw four more and mix the fork in with these. This second set is put on top of the other stack (face down again). We then take the spring tile with the road and one without a road and have someone draw one at random. That becomes the starting tile. We then draw tiles from the top of the face down stack and build the river. We finish it with the last lake tile.

We find this keeps the river to the same length as the original river set, but adds variety. If the spring with the road comes up, then the builders are happy. If the spring without the road comes up, then the farmers are happy. As well, the fork still comes up early enough to make a difference in the layout and the city lake tile is random enough to still change the strategy on the river.

We also like this layout as you are never 100% on what tiles will come up. Sometimes there are lots of bridges, other times there are few. Same with cloisters and cities. It really makes people think about when they want to play a meeple.

You have to be careful on how you place the tiles and make sure no one gets into a u turn situation. If to many bends come up at the wrong time it can be hard to keep the two rivers going. It happended once and we decided no further tiles could be played on the inner branch until the lake came up to close it off. It was actually an interesting river to play as we need to place tiles around the river carefully to make any use of the inner bends.

Allan

[canada steve]

The branch tile can be placed so that the river not only runs left right but also right up, right down, left up left down. Having this as a seperate tile also allows for different people to place a first meeple as neither spring not branch are allowed to be laid upon. If you add in the new tiles from the Meusfluss download thrad then you get more branches and therefore laying the first branch nect to the spring makes sense, try it you'll see.

But yes once you have GQ11 then all other spring tiles are redundant, unless playing the kids.

[Tobias]

Steve: With so many river bends that there are they way you put the fork doesn't make any real difference in my experience. It'll twist and turn away no matter what. Since we also allow the river to be moved and placed as far as possible in the middle of the table after it's finished it bears no strategic value (for us) in that regard either. Obviously, as you might be aware of by now, my group are quite pragmatic when it comes to rules

I can't really see how adding even more tiles ie Mehrfluss (sp?) would change anythin, although more forks might have some use. I don't at all like for tiles to lie unused when I play however, and that's why we sometimes build several rivers, but even then there's one spring left over 

Eh, I guess I trailed away from topic a bit ...

[canada steve]

Tobias nothing wrong with a pragmatic group  When we play the ruling is that once the first tile goes down it cannot be moved so we are strictly governed by the table edges as to tile laying. The extra branches do add a nice twist as you dont always end up with two fairly straight rivers running away from the spring in either direction. This makes farming more of a challenge and if you incorporate my variant "Hook, Line & Sinker" then you have even more possibilities opening up to you (sorry for the blatent plug guys  )

[Scott]

I hope it's considered ok to post in old topics when one has something useful to contribute.

I thought of another variant that has not been mentioned yet which could make use of two spring tiles. Instead of forking the river into two rivers, you could construct it backwards from a single lake and have two rivers which combine into one.

[Gantry]

yes of course feel free to dig up topics and add to them (the power of forum software!)  Like Tobias I hate it too when tiles go unused!

[EcoGuy]

An interesting variation I use is to start with the first river setup.  Then we take the spring for the river II and mix it in with the rest of the tiles in the bag or tower etc.  Then when this tile is drawn we proceed to complete the second river.  Now this does require that the spring be placed on the outer edge of the game board and can lead to strange setups and even the river coming about towards the end but it throws a little variety into the game and we have enjoyed this method of incorporating both the river sets.

[Borderking]

Wait, the fork is supposed to go right after the spring according to the rules?  Is that true?  I thought you start by grouping all your river tiles and removing one spring and two lake tiles.  Then, all the remaining river tiles, including the fork, are shuffled and placed face down (or in a bag).  Then, the chosen spring begins the game, and tiles are drawn one at a time, so that the fork could come up at any time.  Once the final tile has been places, the two lakes are used.  But now I'm not sure if those are the accepted rules or if that's just the way we've been playing it?

[mjharper]

Yep, the fork is supposed to go right after the spring. In fact, the rules actually say that the youngest player should place the fork- so although it's the second tile in play, it's actually the equivalent of the original starting tile (the one with the dark back).

That said, I think a lot of people mix it in with the others - just as you described - because it leads to more interesting layouts. I suppose mixing it in could lead to difficulties, but, really, it's one of those 'house' rules that many people use because it really doesn't matter too much…

[Borderking]

I see.  But I'm confused when you say, "So although it's the second tile in play, it's actually the equivalent of the original starting tile (the one with the dark back)."
The youngest player places the fork as part of his turn, and may deploy a follower as normal, right?  The original starting tile with the dark back is merely "placed on the table," not as a part of someone's turn, and no followers may be deployed there, correct?
So the fork is kind of in its own category...After the spring placement (which is no one's turn), the fork is a "forced placement," like the original starting tile, but unlike the original starting tile, the fork is still a part of the youngest player's first real turn?  Is that right?
In this sense, the fork seems more similar to the youngest player's "first drawn" tile in the basic game than to the original starting tile.  But am I misunderstanding something?

[mjharper]

You're right, my bad. Got my head stuck in Rhem 3 at the moment, so not much else works properly.
 

[Borderking]

That's ok...That actually leads me to two quick questions on this topic.  I know this isn't the thread for river rules, but what the heck, it's relevant to the use of the fork:

1)  If you're using River I and River II expansions, and for your two lakes, you decide to use one with the volcano, your Annotated Rules state that the volcano gets placed last.  That would mean that after all the river tiles have been placed, and there are two lakes left, that the non-volcano lake tile is a "forced placement," and then the volcano tile is a "forced placement."

That makes sense.  I'm wondering what you do if you choose to use the fork (and therefore two lake tiles) but NOT the volcano tile.  So now, you're using the lake from River I and the non-volcano lake tile (I think there's a castle on it) from River II.  So the question is, after the river tiles have all been placed, does the next player get to CHOOSE which lake to place?  Or, do you actually place both lake tiles face down (or in a bag), and have the next player choose the next lake tile blindly?  And then the other remaining lake tile would be a "forced placement" for the next player?

2)  I'm confused as to what happens to the original starting tile (the one with the dark back, referred to henceforth as OST) when you're using the River expansions, because of your wording in the AR.  Perhaps you misspoke, but I believe you wrote that you have two options. 
Option #1:  You wrote that after the river and lakes are completed, the next player may begin his turn by drawing and placing the OST.  In this option, I assume the player may deploy a follower, even though when the OST is actually used as a starting tile, this is not the case?
Option #2:  You wrote that the OST may be mixed in with the River tiles??  Is this a typo?  I assumed you meant to say that it could be mixed in with the remaining tiles (the regular tiles left after the river and lakes are completed).  That would seem strange to mix the OST in with the River tiles.  Also this seems strange, because if this was the intent, then no option is mentioned of mixing the OST in the with remaining normal tiles.
Also, as mentioned above in a previous reply, what about the option of leaving the OST out of the game entirely in this case, as was originally written into the River rules that come with the basic game?

My understanding was that the official rules stated that when using the River, the OST was completely eliminated from the game.  If this is the offical rule, I would prefer to abide by it.  If this is not the case, and use of the OST is allowed alongside the River, my personal preferance would be to mix it in with all the other regular tiles.  The fact that it has a dark back doesn't matter if you have the bag.  But I don't know how this would affect players without the bag.

Thanks so much for your time on this clarification!

[mjharper]

That's ok...That actually leads me to two quick questions on this topic.  I know this isn't the thread for river rules, but what the heck, it's relevant to the use of the fork:

1)  If you're using River I and River II expansions, and for your two lakes, you decide to use one with the volcano, your Annotated Rules state that the volcano gets placed last.  That would mean that after all the river tiles have been placed, and there are two lakes left, that the non-volcano lake tile is a "forced placement," and then the volcano tile is a "forced placement."

That makes sense.  I'm wondering what you do if you choose to use the fork (and therefore two lake tiles) but NOT the volcano tile.  So now, you're using the lake from River I and the non-volcano lake tile (I think there's a castle on it) from River II.  So the question is, after the river tiles have all been placed, does the next player get to CHOOSE which lake to place?  Or, do you actually place both lake tiles face down (or in a bag), and have the next player choose the next lake tile blindly?  And then the other remaining lake tile would be a "forced placement" for the next player?

There's no ruling on this, so I guess you can do whatever you wish. Since the River II tiles officially replace the original lake, it would be pointless to ask for a ruling as well. My personal take would be that the lake with town should be placed last, and that the lakes are still 'forced placement'. But it's up to you.

2)  I'm confused as to what happens to the original starting tile (the one with the dark back, referred to henceforth as OST) when you're using the River expansions, because of your wording in the AR.  Perhaps you misspoke, but I believe you wrote that you have two options. 
Option #1:  You wrote that after the river and lakes are completed, the next player may begin his turn by drawing and placing the OST.  In this option, I assume the player may deploy a follower, even though when the OST is actually used as a starting tile, this is not the case?
Option #2:  You wrote that the OST may be mixed in with the River tiles??  Is this a typo?  I assumed you meant to say that it could be mixed in with the remaining tiles (the regular tiles left after the river and lakes are completed).  That would seem strange to mix the OST in with the River tiles.  Also this seems strange, because if this was the intent, then no option is mentioned of mixing the OST in the with remaining normal tiles.
Also, as mentioned above in a previous reply, what about the option of leaving the OST out of the game entirely in this case, as was originally written into the River rules that come with the basic game?

My understanding was that the official rules stated that when using the River, the OST was completely eliminated from the game.  If this is the offical rule, I would prefer to abide by it.  If this is not the case, and use of the OST is allowed alongside the River, my personal preferance would be to mix it in with all the other regular tiles.  The fact that it has a dark back doesn't matter if you have the bag.  But I don't know how this would affect players without the bag.

Thanks so much for your time on this clarification!

By "it" here I was referring to the fork, which as you said, many people mix in with the other river tiles. As for what to do with the OST, the rules vary. The River actually says that the OST may be mixed in with the other (normal) tiles, or placed immediately after the lake. The Count of Carcassonne says that it should be eliminated. In this case, you should take your pick as well! Personally, I always mix it in - eliminating it is a shame, and immediate placement gives an unfair advantage.

I think that's all… Yell if I'm still talking in circles.