Sandbox - Matt's Market Wars variant

[mjharper]

This is not a completed proposal for a variant, but I want to suggest the idea and see what others make of it. I haven't play-tested it either: I'm on holiday and don't have the game with me.

The Problem
The value of Trade Goods decreases as more expansions are used, due to the fixed value of a majority being 10 points at the end of the game.

The Aim
To shift to a relative scoring method for Trade Goods which does not involve incidental external factors, such as the number of expansions used.

Proposed Solution
Whenever a city with Trade Goods is completed, the player completing the city takes the corresponding Trade Good Tokens as usual. However, scoring of the Goods takes place now, rather than at the end. I'll describe the process using an example.

Say the city contains two wheat and one cloth. The player with the current majority in wheat then counts the number of completed cities on all farms adjacent to the city being completed, and scores 1 point for each, except those which contain wheat themselves These score 0 points - they are considered to be competitors. The process is then repeated for the player who has the current majority of cloth, again scoring 1 point for each adjacent completed city, except those containing cloth. If one player has both the majority in wheat and cloth, then he or she scores 2 points for every adjacent completed city, except those which contain either wheat or cloth (or both) - these still score 0 (not 1). Then play continues. Trade Goods now score nothing at the end of the game.

Rationale
The basic scoring system should be familiar to anyone who has used 1st edition farmer scoring rules (still included in the RGG edition) - scoring takes place from the perspective of the city - but instead of counting farmers, you count adjacent completed cities. This is principally what gives the method a relative score: the more expansions you use, the larger the farms, and the more cities you will build. Hence, the number of completed adjacent cities will increase, and the likelihood of there being an completed adjacent city with the same Trade Good will also decrease.

The 'same Trade Good' method also decreases the score in games with fewer expansions, where the proportion of cities with Trade Goods will be higher. It also increases, for example, the value of cloth, compared to barrels - there may be more cities with barrels, but there is also more chance of there being an adjacent completed city which also contains a barrel; and there is more chance of a city containing multiple barrels, which has no effect on scoring (only on who has the majority).

The Tokens should be awarded before scoring, firstly to reward the player completing the city (anything which rewards a player for completing other players' cities is good in my book); secondly, if the Tokens were awarded afterwards, when the first city with a given Trade Good was scored, there would be no player with a majority.

I thought that scoring should take place 'in game' rather than at the end, since there's already enough to do at the end, and the system is fairly complicated - manageable in small doses, but not all at once, perhaps. Also, it would decrease the points scored from Trade Goods, since there aren't too many completed cities about at the start of the game. And it allows different players to control the majority, and score accordingly, at different times in the game.

The idea behind penalising players with multiple monopolies is simply to allow other players to catch up more easily - especially in a two-player game, where it is certain that someone will have multiple monopolies.

Final Thoughts
I'm pretty sure that this method will increase the number of points scored from Trade Goods, even (perhaps especially) in a game with few expansions. Questions I can think of: is it too complicated? Does it put too much emphasis on Trade Goods? Does it add to strategy, or just provide 'cash crop' overkill?

I'll play-test it myself when I get home, but if anyone has any thoughts...

[albie]

I like the concept. My only concern is that it sounds like it might bog things down too much too often when you are counting up the cities. To me, the most time consuming scoring is farms. If you have to interrupt the game up to 20 times (it will probably be quite a bit less, since completed cities will likely have more than 1 trade icon) to count up cities and farms, it sounds like it would take quite a bit of time. And this might have to be done multiple times for each occurrence because there could possibly be several relevant farms and/or more than 1 trade icon. I guess it would have to be playtested to see how it would go, and maybe others don't have issues with counting farms and cities.

By the way, a question. If multiple farms feed the same city, do you count the city multiple times, or just once?

[canada steve]

Interesting idea Matt. I will try it out with a couple of the guys I play against, who enjoy a more tactical game and see how it pans out.

I think Albie's concern about slowing the game down with all the extra scoring may be a concern but we will see.

[Gantry]

What concerns me the most is this!!   

I'm on holiday and don't have the game with me.

 

[mjharper]

@albie: Each city should only be counted once for each Trade City. But I guess that would add to the complexity again...

@albie & canada steve: Although it might slow the game down a bit, hopefully the dependence on completed cities on farms should mean that it isn't too much... at least in the early part of the game. We'll have to see.

@Gantry: LOL. I had 'trained' my girlfriend's sister to love Carcassonne and to have most of the expansions so that we could play when we visited, but she's moved to Bucharest and taken them with her. And carrying 10 expansions from Germany to Romania via coach is no fun... 

[Allan]

I like the ideas in this post. After reading this, I started to think about how we might play these in our games. After the last game I came up with the following ideas. Let me know what you think of them.

I was thinking that instead of farms, maybe the cities should be connected by roads and rivers instead. It seems more realistic, since trade goods would generally travel by road(or river) and not over farmland. Things like crossroads or other things that end a road for the highwaymen would not stop the route. Only dead ends and cities would end the trade routes. Goods would be sold in the cities and not moved through them to other cities. Your rules about a city already having that trade good would still apply, improving the value for the scarce goods. This should add some strategy to the placement of the trade goods as you would want a city that is connected to a road to score the goods.

The other idea I have is to allow the person who collects the goods to score the points instead of the person with the monopoly. They would get a point per good per city. So if they had two wine in the city, then each city that counted for scoring would give them 2 points. Having never had a monopoly on any trade goods, I find myself never bothering to collect any. This would give everyone an incentive to keep trying to collect trade goods, even if they can't get a monopoly. For the player with the monopoly at the end of the game, they would get bonus points for capturing the market. I was thinking 1 point per completed city without that trade good and 3 for any completed city with that trade good in it. This would keep the bonus relative to the number of expansions since the more expansions you have, the more cities you should have.

I am going to try and convince my wife to try these rules out the next time we play. I might have to rethink my strategy on trade goods with the ideas in this topic.

Allan

[mjharper]

Some interesting thoughts.

I like the idea of using roads and rivers instead of farms - you're right, it's more realistic - but a couple of issues strike me. Firstly, only in The River II is there a tile which connects a city to a river, unless you say that any tile with both a city and a river on it is 'connected', even if there's no visible link (that would mean 8 tiles and 10 cities segments).

The other problem is, what do you do with a city which doesn't have a road leading from it (or doesn't have an adjacent river)? The virtue of using farms is that they are inseparable from cities, while it's quite possible to have cities without any roads at all. If such a city contains Trade Goods, then is it an autarky? Does it score zero? Sure, the Tokens still contribute to a majority - I suppose the only way see what happens is to try it out, and see whether non-scoring cities affect the score much (might actually balance the game better, and encourage players to keep building).

I'm not so keen on the majority scoring system, though. Yes, it adds 'competition', and you're right that my system means that there is no incentive for a player to collect Tokens when someone else has an absolute majority (4 out of 7 Tokens, for example). But that's true of the original scoring method too, so I don't think that's a problem in itself(I wanted to keep the scoring as similar as possible to the original idea). But there's two bigger issues.

Firstly, my original suggestion of scoring during play already makes Trade Good scoring much more complicated. Adding to that a complicated scoring system (more complicated than the original) at the end of the game seems unnecessary.

Secondly, the system you propose duplicates the King and Scout expansion, where the owner of the King scores 1 point for every completed city at the end of the game. Many people think that is overkill, because you can pick up 40 points with all expansions combined - if there are three types of Trade Good, though, that's a potential of 120-odd points, and that's without taking into account '3 points for every city with the Trade Goods'. Way too much, and far too complicated.

The system I proposed does have a problem, though (as your comments made me realise) - that if I complete a city with Trade Goods and take the Tokens, but still do not have the majority, then the player with the majority scores instead. I trigger scoring for the other player. Maybe that isn't such a good idea, as it means players without the monopoly are less likely to complete a city. The fact that their 'market share' will grow isn't a big enough incentive.

So maybe we should do away with monopolies altogether? Follow your suggestion -  the person who collects the goods scores then and there - and that's it. At most we can leave the original monopoly scoring system at the end of the game - 10 points for a monopoly in a given Trade Good - but since that contradicts the 'relative scoring' principle I was trying to achieve, let's forget that as well. To have a monopoly you'll have to have collected more Tokens - and thus scored more often - and that's reward enough. But - thinking out loud - if there are two of the same good in a city, you only score once (encouraging players to stop building mega-cities).

Phew, that was a long one. Sorry. I'll try to summarise:
- I like the idea of using roads/rivers instead, even if it means some cities won't score at all.
- I like the idea of the 'completing player' scoring rather than the monopolist - but I think maybe that we should avoid monopolistic scoring altogether¹

I'll give it a go… Maybe we shouldn't call it 'Market Wars' if we go this way, though.

Matt

1 Down with Microsoft!

[Hypnotoad]

One of the things I like best about the general idea behind several expansions is: They encourage other players to help out in building completed features.

More features are being completed and focus is shifted towards building rather than just trying to prevent everyone else from building. It adds a nice tactical dimension to the game where you're always either getting points while giving away a potential tactical advantage, or vice versa. You're always both giving and taking, but with a less cut-throat approach, which appeals to quite a few, without losing but rather perhaps gaining in tactical considerations.

Thus I'd most like to see points for trade goods be rewarded to the person that completed the city, which is in line with the original intent of the expansion, just now changing the relative scoring. It'd also mean that every last resource was of value, instead of them losing significance when someone has the total majority.

The new farm scoring rules apply to each individual farm, something I've found people are much more able to grasp as a concept and not to be too confused about, as opposed to the old city centered scoring which most people hated. So if scoring is to happen I would like to keep the new individual farming method of counting, both for consitency and lack of confusion.

Also immediate scoring might be preferable, although I reserve judgement on this. The less suprises at the end of the game and the more points being awarded throughout the game will make the game easier to follow. Perhaps a point per completed city on adjacent farms? With or without resources, at least initially to test to what degree the points tend to rack up, for simplicity in counting. Also since all the resources are now in play, points might be getting quite high.

This also gave me an idea for the king & scout, why not award points for completed cities/roads throughout the game whenever a road or city is completed? This will distribute the points some as the award changes hands, it'll enlighten people as to the points they're currently awarding someone else through their building, and it'll reduce tedious and lengthy end-game scoring. Hmm, thoughts?

[mjharper]

This also gave me an idea for the king & scout, why not award points for completed cities/roads throughout the game whenever a road or city is completed? This will distribute the points some as the award changes hands, it'll enlighten people as to the points they're currently awarding someone else through their building, and it'll reduce tedious and lengthy end-game scoring. Hmm, thoughts?

I'd heard this one before - always seemed like a good idea to me!

[mjharper]

Session Report

Okay, I didn't think this should go under the proper session report area, since it was really an excuse to try out this variant!

Alina and I played with just the basic game and T&B, which was weird in itself - we're used to using everything (using the tower to split it into a manageable game). We ended up building three big cities, two of which were uncompleted at the end of play. The completed one was shared and score 34 points. We pegged level for most of the game, with the lead passing back and forth constantly. Final score (without taking account of trade goods): Alina 166, Matt 157. With trade goods (under the usual system): Matt 187, Alina 176. If we'd been playing with the King and Robber Baron, incidentally, I would have scored an additional 10 points from the King, and Alina would have scored 17 points from the Baron (the were a lot more completed roads than cities).

So, on to the variant. I counted the score both ways suggested above. Firstly, from the perspective of the farms (although awarding points to the player who completed the city - not the one with the majority) - this yielded a total of 10 points over the entire game (6 for me, 4 for Alina). Admittedly, there were eight trade goods caught up in the large unfinished cities, so that may not be representative. The second method - using roads to connect cities - actually produced 0 points. Even ignoring crossings, only two cities were connected with each other (via several routes, to be sure), and one of  those was the 34-point city, which contained every type of trade good and therefore scored 0 for the second city. The second city contained a barrel, but was neither completed nor connected when the other one was finished, and so was not viable anyway.

I think the problem is that, although trade via roads and rivers is more realistic, Carcassonne itself is not realistic. In reality, nobody builds roads in circles, or starts a road in the middle of no-where which leads no-where. So what you end up with is 17 completed roads, and only two connected cities. Of the two methods, scoring trade goods via adjacent cities (as in 1st edition scoring) seems more viable as a method of scoring, even if it isn't as realistic.

On the other hand, it does seem to make sense to keep in the original endgame monopolistic scoring method as well. Obviously, scoring via farms only produced 10 points total, which is hardly worth the effort. Also, scoring the cities as they are completed renders the trade tokens useless - there's no need to give them to a player if you award points immediately. And both of use found circumstances when we would have normally placed a tile to complete a city to gain the trade goods, and then didn't because the city didn't have any adjacent cities which could yield points. For example: Alina passed up the chance to complete a city containing a cloth token and a barrel, opting to place a pig on a seven city farm instead - had she done so, we'd have drawn on barrels, I'd have won wheat, and she'd have won cloth, and the final score would have been Alina 179, Matt 177. But there was less incentive to close other people's cities, because scoring was so conditional.

The situation would be better with more expansions, I'm sure. For a start, there are plenty of other reasons to close another player's city. But still, I'm inclined to think that the variant would still work best if it supplemented the original scoring system, rather than attempted to replace it. So, having the majority of wheat at the end of the game scores you 10 points. But you can pick up additional points over the course of the game itself. Btw, the brief interruptions for scoring didn't hurt at all - and we counted using two methods as well. Of course, with mega-farms in mega-carc, it might be more difficult…

In conclusion, I'd have to say that the variant is pretty useless in a basic game, although farm-based scoring does have an some effect. The results might be quite different in a game of mega-carc; maybe road-based scoring would come into its own then, although I doubt it. For the next play-test, I'd recommend:
- mega-carc
- placing player scores
- farm-based scoring
- majority=10 points
And if none of that works, then probably the best thing to do is abandon the idea altogether, or try to think of another method of relative scoring. (I won't get my Variant Designer badge though )

[Gantry]

I think the problem is that, although trade via roads and rivers is more realistic, Carcassonne itself is not realistic. In reality, nobody builds roads in circles, or starts a road in the middle of no-where which leads no-where.

Interesting playtest results, we haven't had time to play in a few weeks so I'm playing vicariously through any session reports!

Your observation above is a very good point, so much so that I added it to the guide on how to develop a variant (it's in step #1), thanks Matt!

[Hypnotoad]

This also gave me an idea for the king & scout, why not award points for completed cities/roads throughout the game whenever a road or city is completed? This will distribute the points some as the award changes hands, it'll enlighten people as to the points they're currently awarding someone else through their building, and it'll reduce tedious and lengthy end-game scoring. Hmm, thoughts?

I'd heard this one before - always seemed like a good idea to me!

Is it suggested as an official Carcassonne Central variant, or could I flesh it out and snatch a spiffy new badge!? 

[Hypnotoad]

Session Report
I would have scored an additional 10 points from the King, and Alina would have scored 17 points from the Baron (the were a lot more completed roads than cities).

In our usual variant, River I&II, T&B, I&C, GQ, they usually end up being worth over 25 points each.
Re-introducing the 4 points for a two-tile city rule, made sure those were a nice way to generate quick points without have more meeples tied up anywhere, which is usually a pretty important strategy.

I also feel that with or without mega carc, this basic combination of expansions leads to fairly small farms compared to the original games. Sure there are a few decent ones, but with points often reaching up to 200 points and above, that's just in the right ball park.

having the majority of wheat at the end of the game scores you 10 points. But you can pick up additional points over the course of the game itself. Btw, the brief interruptions for scoring didn't hurt at all - and we counted using two methods as well. Of course, with mega-farms in mega-carc, it might be more difficult…

I was just about to suggest this.
Not having to fiddle with the small trade goods would perhaps be as much of a relief as anything else, but on the other hand, keeping the majority system does add both points and incentive to make use of all the trade goods, which sounds like nice both as a play mechanic and as a points system.

[mjharper]

This also gave me an idea for the king & scout, why not award points for completed cities/roads throughout the game whenever a road or city is completed? This will distribute the points some as the award changes hands, it'll enlighten people as to the points they're currently awarding someone else through their building, and it'll reduce tedious and lengthy end-game scoring. Hmm, thoughts?

I'd heard this one before - always seemed like a good idea to me!

Is it suggested as an official Carcassonne Central variant, or could I flesh it out and snatch a spiffy new badge!? 

It's just one of those things that's sometimes mentioned on threads about 'favourite house rules'. I think I heard it a couple of times at BGG. So I don't think it quite warrants a badge just yet.I guess that depends on how you flesh it out…

[mjharper]

Session Report
I would have scored an additional 10 points from the King, and Alina would have scored 17 points from the Baron (the were a lot more completed roads than cities).

In our usual variant, River I&II, T&B, I&C, GQ, they usually end up being worth over 25 points each.
Re-introducing the 4 points for a two-tile city rule, made sure those were a nice way to generate quick points without have more meeples tied up anywhere, which is usually a pretty important strategy.

I also feel that with or without mega carc, this basic combination of expansions leads to fairly small farms compared to the original games. Sure there are a few decent ones, but with points often reaching up to 200 points and above, that's just in the right ball park.

having the majority of wheat at the end of the game scores you 10 points. But you can pick up additional points over the course of the game itself. Btw, the brief interruptions for scoring didn't hurt at all - and we counted using two methods as well. Of course, with mega-farms in mega-carc, it might be more difficult…

I was just about to suggest this.
Not having to fiddle with the small trade goods would perhaps be as much of a relief as anything else, but on the other hand, keeping the majority system does add both points and incentive to make use of all the trade goods, which sounds like nice both as a play mechanic and as a points system.

I think you're right about farms, actually - they do seem to balance out a bit as you add expansions. It doesn't seem that often that we end up with a mega-farm, and in the game above we both had pigs on a seven city farm (28 points) while Alina had another six-city farm. There might be more farms, but they don't really seem to get much bigger.

And I think that the King/Baron balance out a bit more too - you end up with about 40 points each in mega-carc, rather than the over-emphasis on the Baron that we saw. In the end, some aspects of the game work better with more expansions; and some, like Trade Goods, work worse…