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Re: Speaking of German table games...
You mean The River? I think it's made its way over here... I
bought Carcassonne for my uncle's family for Christmas, and the
box and contents were just like my set except that the box had
something stamped on it about the expansion, and the contents
included the expansion tilesheet and a slightly changed rules
booklet that mentions how to use it.
Not the river (though BSW has that as an option as well). There is an expansion set of new tiles and slightly different rules. The biggest change (aside from the new tiles, which can throw you off if you've learned the distribution of the original set) is the addition of an additional meeple -- a double-strength meeple (counts as two), which complicates the strategy a bit. It's pretty much still the same game.
Re: Good Stuff
Oh, also, it's nice to have them fill empty seats, but it seems
like there should be a way to disable that if you only wanted to
play a 2- or 3-person game; maybe there is and I overlooked it.
I think you can "lock" a seat so that nobody can take it, but I don't know if that keeps the bots out.
[b]Re: Speaking of German table games...[/b]
Well how about that. Learn something new every day.
Apparently it has the dazzling name of <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewitem.php3?gameid=2993">Carcassonne: The Expansion</a>. No mention of it at Funagain or in rec.games.board. Some some mysterious Germanic discussion in de.rec.spiele.brett+karten that doesn't reveal much either when beaten with a Babelfish.
Looks like I may need to go try it out at bsw...
[b]Ah ha[/b]
BSW doesn't have English instructions for it, but they do have <a href="http://www.brettspielwelt.de/de/Hilfe/Anleitungen/CC-Erweiterung/">German instructions</a>, which basically seem to say:
<table border=0 cellspacing=10><tr><td><img src="http://www.brettspielwelt.de/de/Hilfe/Anleitungen/CC-Erweiterung/carso20.gif"> <img src="http://www.brettspielwelt.de/de/Hilfe/Anleitungen/CC-Erweiterung/carso22.gif"></td><td>A <b>pub</b> (6 cards) on a road makes that road worth double to thieves if completed. However, pub-roads get zero points if uncompleted at game end.</td></tr><tr><td><img src="http://www.brettspielwelt.de/de/Hilfe/Anleitungen/CC-Erweiterung/carso32.gif"></td><td>One or both <b>cathedrals</b> (2 cards) in a completed city makes each tile and pennant worth 3 instead of 2. Like the roads with pubs though, an uncompleted city is worth nothing if it includes a cathedral.</td></tr><tr><td><img src="http://www.brettspielwelt.de/de/Hilfe/Anleitungen/CC-Erweiterung/carso27.gif"> <img src="http://www.brettspielwelt.de/de/Hilfe/Anleitungen/CC-Erweiterung/carso36.gif"></td><td>Looks like there are two tiles (or types of tiles? there's supposed to be 18 new tiles total) that are treated as 2 tiles each for road scoring.</td></tr></table>
And the giant meeple of course!
Looks sorta neat, hope it isn't an arm and a leg though (unless there's more to it).
Re: Ah ha
A pub (6 cards) on a road makes that road worth double
to thieves if completed. However, pub-roads get zero points if
uncompleted at game end.
"Pub?" Are you sure? We just refer to them as lakes.
Looks
like there are two tiles (or types of tiles? there's supposed to
be 18 new tiles total) that are treated as 2 tiles each for road
scoring.
Yes, both those tiles "break" roads.
And I think the new piece should be called a "megameeple," but I haven't tried to get people on BSW to call it that yet. 8-)
Re: Ah ha
"Pub?" Are you sure? We just refer to them as lakes.
Apparently it's a pub (Wirtshaus) next to a pond or small lake... I guess a recreational spot like that must boost the road traffic so the thieves can really clean up. :-)
a few more bits
I saw the recent Rio Grande newsletter and noticed that:
- The Carcassonne expansion will be available in April for $12, and it also includes markers to be placed on the scoring track when you exceed 50 points, and another set of pieces so you can have 6 players. The thought of 6 players seems odd... I dunno, seems like more than 3 or so players would make for lots of downtime. You ever played it with a larger group?
- Princes of Florence will be reprinted in April. Good to know that I didn't miss the boat on that one. They also had a list of games going out-of-print for some open-ended amount of time: The Black Rose, Katzenjammer Blues, Medieval Merchant, Samarkand, El Caballero, Ricochet Robot, Union Pacific, Money, Big City, Ta Yu, and Stephenson's Rocket, 4 or 5 of which I've looked at with some interest. Annoying really to see how fragile the toehold in the American market is for these types of games. Kinda makes it seem like if I waffle too much over which $50 games to blow my budget on, they'll vanish and I'll only be able to get them on eBay for obscene prices.
Re: Offline games renaissance [nt]