The Missionary

[Novelty]

but if you want Novelty, I could email it to you. 

Heh, I'd like to see how I could be emailed   And I'm a he, not an it

[CKorfmann]

For want of a nail, a shoe was lost
For want of a shoe, a horse was lost
For want of a horse, a victory was lost
For want of a victory, the war was lost
And... for want of a comma, a friend was neutered, digitized, and sent into cyber space.

Sorry about that.   

[Novelty]

Heh, no worries.  But you can do what most people here do, use either your personal website or mediafire.com and then post a link to it so that anyone who wants to proofread may do so easily.

[Scott]

I think the cathedral needs to be more powerful, either with regards to number of followers it can convert or range of influence. From a real-world historical standpoint, a cathedral would have significant influence over the entire city within which it is contained. However, this may be deemed too powerful. Perhaps something in between would be acceptable?

[CKorfmann]

Thanks very much Scott for your input.  Now that you mention it, I think you're right.  There are a potential for six abbey's in the game (and I suppose possibly even more if you play with a large number of people like meepleeater suggested), but there are only two cathedrals maybe three at most with expansions.  Perhaps I should switch them and give the abbey two converts and the cathedral three and/or make the cathedrals range be a two tile radius, or just any tile in the city.  However, that makes those two tiles very powerful.  This doesn't sound too much like a bad thing though when you consider the following:

• There are only two cathedrals.
• If the Missionary is in play when the cathedral is placed, it won't matter.  That seems pretty likely.
• If people wait for the cathedral, then there will be fewer converts made on the whole.
• This rule could greatly increase the strategy and anticipation for use of the Missionary.

One fact remains though, if the Missionary is played early, no one will want to put any followers into play next to it.  The best use of it would be to hope it is available and sneak it into a hole where there is a large population of followers near by.  Either way I doubt you'd see a significant impact. 

I'm hoping to get a play test in when I go on vacation in two weeks.  I'll let you know how it works out.  I'll also post the template when I get a chance.  Any thought's on this rule change idea?

[CKorfmann]

On a separate note, I've been considering this rule.  I wrote the Missionary before I got the Tower expansion, so after reading the Tower rules a little more carefully, I wonder if this rule is even necessary:

The Missionary and the Tower: If on his/her turn, a player places a tile on his/her feature with his/her Missionary and a tower with an opponent's follower on top comes within range, than that tower is converted.  If the tower has no follower on top, it is not converted.

Can anyone think of an advantage  to or motivation for converting a follower on top of a tower?  I'm not sure I can. 

[Scott]

I don't see any use for it either.

[Novelty]

What's the point of converting a tower?  No one owns a tower anyways...

[CKorfmann]

What's the point of converting a tower?  No one owns a tower anyways...

Yeah, I get that now.  I didn't have the tower before I wrote it so I was confused.  Then on my second effort, I thought that I had rationalized the tower follower conversion, but you are correct, there is no point.  I'll remove that from the rules.

Novelty, what do you think about the proposed change for the cathedrals?

[Novelty]

I would keep the cathedral the same as a cloister since, well, there are no placement restrictions on them (as opposed to the abbey, which does have placement restrictions).  That will be one less rule to remember. 

Also, do remember that cathedrals function very differently from abbeys/cloisters/cults in that it doubles the points of the city.  Perhaps there could be a variant (mentioned in the footnotes?) that something is done with the missionary when the city is completed (e.g. prevent anyone from parachuting in knights from the City of Carcassonne) that won't reward the leader too much and a drawback of some sort (e.g. the missionary is removed if the city is sieged) to strike a good balance.

[CKorfmann]

Hmm... I'll have to chew on this for a while.  I kinda like removing the Missionary from a city under siege, but I think it's a little contradictory since I added to the rules document that a besieged cloister should get double converts.  I did so because hystorically, religious persecution seems to promote Christian conversion rather than discourage it.  The thought of cities under siege didn't occur to me.  I need to think about it a little. 

I don't think I will keep the cathedral the same as a cloister.  Scott makes a good point about a large cathedral in a city and there are only two in the game.  There are more than a dozen cloisters.  If all the conditions are right, the cathedral could be very powerful for the missionary, but I think we're talking about a maybe 10% chance for all those conditions to actually be right.

I think I might have a chance to get it up today. 

[CKorfmann]

The Missionary is finally ready for your comments HERE.  Enjoy!

[Scott]

"The Missionary is kept of the side of the board"
I think you're missing a letter in there somewhere.

In different places in the document, you use both the British and American spellings of the word colo(u)r. I think most of us have tended towards the British spelling in keeping with the European flavo(u)r of the game, but regardless of which you prefer it's best to be consistent.

"newly drawn" should be hyphenated because it is describing the word "tile".

"If not, than this follower is not converted."
The word "than" is not correct here; it should be "then". (also in the paragraph after this occurrence)

"the conversion range of that Missionary any tile within the city containing the cathedral."
I think you're missing a few words here.

"If the player controlling the Missionary looses the challenge"
You have an extra 'o' in "looses"; should be "loses".

"than that player's disc is removed immediately"
Once again, incorrect use of "than" vs. "then". (many more occurrences later in the document)

"The Dragon can move side to side "
The phrase "side-to-side" should be hyphenated.

"Once removed by the Dragon, the Missionary returns so the side of the board "
The word "so" should be "to".

"Cathers/Siege"
Incorrect spelling of "Cathars".

"Scoring for the besieged city is not effected "
Incorrect use of "effected" vs. "affected".

"by it's normal movement rules"
There should not be an apostrophe here.

Throughout the document, I would be very happy if you would fully justify the paragraphs instead of left-aligning. Jaggedy edges don't look very professional.

I'm feeling a little concerned about converting up to three followers in the city with cathedral. There is not much point for other players to play in this city because the player possessing the missionary will most likely gain majority after conversion (unless the opponent wastes eight meeples on it). I do like it having more influence though, so perhaps a slight change: maximum of one follower in the city from each player can be converted (no limit to number of followers). If only two players are competing for the city, the missionary can convert one of each.

Example

Before conversion:
Red - missionary
Blue - four followers
Yellow - two followers

After conversion:
Red - missionary and two followers
Blue - three followers
Yellow - one follower

Red and blue share equal points when feature is scored.

[CKorfmann]

In different places in the document, you use both the British and American spellings of the word colo(u)r. I think most of us have tended towards the British spelling in keeping with the European flavo(u)r of the game, but regardless of which you prefer it's best to be consistent.

It's funny you mention that.  I thought I had fixed all of them.  I started out with the British version of "colour/color" for that very reason, but then changed back to the American version simply because I figured I wouldn't know if I was missing some other British "version" words and not know it.  I thought it best to go with what I know and be constistant.  I agree with the European flavour idea, so everyone feel free to make any other suggestions for British spellings I've missed.  The funny thing is that for some reason my spell checker for the text of the document was set to British and American for the footnotes. 

Throughout the document, I would be very happy if you would fully justify the paragraphs instead of left-aligning. Jaggedy edges don't look very professional.

This also baffled me.  I did leave them fully justified, but when I cut and pasted some of the text from the word documents and posts I've made, it messed it all up and left some huge gaps between words that I couldn't seem to fix.  It's a formatting issue that I'm ignorant of.  Can somebody help?

I'm feeling a little concerned about converting up to three followers in the city with cathedral. There is not much point for other players to play in this city because the player possessing the missionary will most likely gain majority after conversion (unless the opponent wastes eight meeples on it). I do like it having more influence though, so perhaps a slight change: maximum of one follower in the city from each player can be converted (no limit to number of followers). If only two players are competing for the city, the missionary can convert one of each.

Intriguing!  Your example made if very clear and you're right, it's too much of a power boost and I think this fixes it quite well.  Thanks also for spotting all those typos.  It looks like the majority of them are text/rule corrections I was feverishly typing today in the minimal amount of time I had to do so.  As for the homonyms, I always seem to have trouble with them as Novelty pointed out elsewhere.  What would I do without you guys?!   

[Novelty]

OK, just the comments page 1 because I don't have much time now.  Apologies if Scott has mentioned the same things already.

Header - The title is missing

If you are using British English, then it should be -ise instead of -ize.

Extra pieces: The official carcassonne rules do not define what is (1) neutral and (2) meeple.  If you are going to use either or both of those terms, you'll have to define what they are.  Note that meeple isn't a word in standard English (neither American or British).

Apparently "disc" is used for musical disks - i.e. CDs, phonograph, etc.  A circular flat piece is a disk.  I didn't know that until I checked it out a while ago.

Play a tile - wait, there are tiles in this expansion???  I don't see any in the Extra pieces section.  I'm confused.

What is a cathedral tile?  If I run out to my local cathedral in the middle of a game and paint some graffiti (i.e. draws) on one of the tiled roofing, can I claim the missionary?   It might be better phrased as "a tile that depicts the cloister, shrine or cathedral"

Question about claiming the missionary - if it is already in play, can it still be claimed?  Or can it only be claimed when it is not in play?  The rules doesn't state this clearly.

"place it on that feature with the disc of his/her own color under it " - Don't you think it would be a bit unwieldly to place the disk under the tile???

I like the idea of a missionary feature.  What exactly is it?

What exactly does the missionary-as-monk do at the shrine place?  Can someone still place a heretic on the shrine place?

Footnote 2 and the first sentence of preparation says the same thing.  I don't think Footnote 2 is required.

Who is the "My" in the Footnote 1?  Is the rules document being personified?  Or would it be better to use "It is suggested that..." instead?

What exactly does footnote 5 refer to?

There's a bit of a blank space between the Deploying and the Scoring sections.