OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Wed Dec 20, 2017 12:51 pm

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2017 12:38 pm Son had a game day at school where they played Settlers of Catan and monopoly. Came home giddy about Catan, so I bought him the base game for Christmas. Hadn't been in a gaming store in years, so I let the guy upsell me on Carcasonne. I'm thinking Carcasonne is more likely to be played because you can play it with 2 players and it's easier to understand, is my understanding.

I'm not a board gamer but I am sort of excited to try this out with the kids.

Carcasonne is great, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Dec 20, 2017 1:09 pm

We have a knowledgeable cards here that can steer you to what floats your boats in terms of themes and mechanics. It’s a golden age of boardgaming right now, with plenty of options.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Wed Dec 20, 2017 1:32 pm

GreenGoo wrote:Son had a game day at school where they played Settlers of Catan and monopoly. Came home giddy about Catan, so I bought him the base game for Christmas. Hadn't been in a gaming store in years, so I let the guy upsell me on Carcasonne. I'm thinking Carcasonne is more likely to be played because you can play it with 2 players and it's easier to understand, is my understanding.

I'm not a board gamer but I am sort of excited to try this out with the kids.

Carcassonne is a great game that I think you will really enjoy. In my opinion it is far superior to Catan. I happen to still like Catan but I will shears choose Carcassonne over Catan if given the choice. And yes it plays very well with two.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Dec 20, 2017 2:34 pm

I realize I wasn't completely clear. I bought both Catan and Carcasonne, so we'll have a little bit of a choice.

And yeah, there were a TON of board games on the shelves. There was an XCOM game that caught my eye, just because I love Xcom so much. Of course I realize that a board game is fun because of its mechanics, not it's branding, so even though there were a bunch of names that piqued my interest, I knew better than to buy anything sight unseen, so to speak.

I'm happy to hear the votes of confidence in Carcasonne. I mostly bought it because staying in business as a game store can be difficult, and I spent many, many hours in game stores in my youth, so I felt like giving him more business. I went there to buy a set of dice. I left 120 bucks (CAN) lighter. Catan was a spur of the moment buy, and while I refused the upsell on the expansion (for 5-6 players), Carcasonne was cheaper and he seemed to think it would be a good game for my kids, given what I told him about them.

So what the hell. We'll see if I can pry them away from their tablets long enough to get a few games in.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Dec 20, 2017 7:34 pm

Carcassonne is easy to understand, fast to play, great for kids, and surprisingly strategic. There is an app version too, but that is counter to prying they away from tablets.

I will always love Catan. It was the gateway game that got me back into gaming in college. It was the gateway game that got my wife into gaming. That said, I rarely want to play it anymore. I must have played it hundreds of times (at least 20 times in one extended weekend once). I will pick most any game (other than Flux or Munchkin) if given the chance.

I laughed when you mentioned the Catan expansions, because Carcassonne has like 15 expansions (most are smallish some are more expansive).

My suggestion is to get the kids into Carcassonne, then move to Ticket to Ride or, better yet, Small World. It won’t be long before you are arguing for 8 hours over who legitimately should own Mecatol Rex in Twilight Imperium.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Wed Dec 20, 2017 8:58 pm

You cannot win that argument without rolling many dice.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 12:15 am

I saw ticket to ride and remembered it mentioned positively here on OO, although the specifics I didn't pay attention to at the time.

What's holding me back from doing more board gaming (and D&D) with the kids is that they are not willing to do any of the work involved in understanding the mechanics and rules, and I'm seriously lazy in my gaming these days. I expect the computer to do all the heavy lifting while I enjoy the pure playing of a game.

If these two games take off and there is not just the usual initial excitement but sustained fun and desire to play, I will almost certainly branch out into other popular games. Note however, that this is not a specific attempt to get my kids into board gaming. If we get a few games in and it's enjoyable, awesome. If it doesn't take off, I have no intention of trying more and more games looking for something that will grab their attention.

Everything said about Carcasonne has me excited to try it with my kids. As I said, it was an impulse buy when being upsold on it, and that it turned out to be a good purchase (based on responses here) is better than I expected.

Will have to wait until Christmas day though.

Ænima · Post by **Ænima** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 11:38 am

Ticket to Ride is the best gateway board game in my experience, and it isn't even close. It's four short pages of rules, the choices during your turn are simple, and the pieces are great and inviting (everyone loves trains). I've gotten dozens of people in my generation, my kids generation and my parents' generation board gaming with that game.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:13 pm

I actually really enjoy Catan, so having both is not a bad thing. Carc is just... so good. It certainly hols up. My wife and I still love pulling it out to play despite now owning many more games since we initially picked up Carcassonne rather randomly.

In terms of some of the other games you mentioned... XCOM is a really great board game. But I wouldn't jump to it. It is cooperative, but very intense. I love having it in my collection but when we are done playing it everyone is stressed out. Usually people don't want to pull it out again real quick. It doesn't cover the tactical parts of Xcom but instead rather focuses on the overall strategic picture including research, deployment of forces, and even budgeting under stressful situations (which sounds funny but really is what happens).

The other one you mentioned -Ticket to Ride- is one of my all time favorites. We just played one of them a couple of nights ago. I still really enjoy it a lot after all of these years. Obviously I'm not alone as it has almost as many expansions as carcassonne out for it (but it should be noted that in my opinion the Carc expansions have gone majorly down hill while TTR expansions have stayed pretty strong with one of my favorites coming out in the last couple of years).

I know you aren't really looking for more advice at this point... but... being the excited fans of games we are I can't help but name a couple more games I would recommend.

Smallworld- Great game of area control that is beautiful and fun to play, scales incredibly well from 2-5 with great ease, and is very fun to play. I saw it mentioned earlier as a recommendation and I have to fully agree with it. Gives great conflict without leaving anyone feeling completely defeated and plays within 60 minutes or quicker. I look to it as the Risk fix.

Pandemic- Perhaps the best cooperative game. Cooperative i always a novel concept with people newish to modern board gaming, and this game just does it right. Plays in under an hour as well, and plays well from 2 players up. Plus if you like ti it leads down the path of Pandemic Legacy which is one of the best experiences I have ever had.

Kingdomino- Last one I will mention. Tiny box, low price point, plays in 15 minutes (truly) while still being an absolute joy to play, beautiful art, and it scales fantastic 2-4 players. Honestly I recommend this game to everyone.

THose are my unsolicited recommendations because I can't help myself. Hopefully your family enjoys Carc!

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 2:28 pm

Highly, highly, highly second the recommendation for PANDEMIC. I think it's the perfect balance between simple rules and strategic complexity. Plus it also has a bunch of expansions and variants that are a ton of fun as well. My personal favorite variation (of the non-legacy variety) is PANDEMIC: REIGN OF CTHULHU. Not only do I enjoy the horror theme, but it in some ways simplifies the game mechanics without diminishing the challenge.

One of the guys I game with every week used to be a Catan-only guy. I introduced him to PANDEMIC one day and he has been hooked on board gaming every since. Over the past year, we've played some of the most challenging co-op games out there. So I've seen first-hand proof what a gateway drug it can be.

XCOM is a great game but I wouldn't recommend it if you're just starting out. It's pretty brutal difficulty-wise and the fast pace (there is a time limit on turns) can be intimidating until you get some co-op experience under your belt.

Some other games I'd recommend are FORBIDDEN ISLAND and FORBIDDEN DESERT - not only are these inexpensive, they are great entry-level co-op games. I'd also recommend CASTLE PANIC with the WIZARD TOWER expansion. CASTLE PANIC base game is fine, but you may find it too easy without the expansion.

One of my favorite things in the hobby is to watch people convert from "There are board games other than Monopoly???" to "I thought the third expansion offered an interesting twist on worker placement mechanics, but ultimately failed to live up to the high marks set by the second expansion's excellent rebuttal of traditional Eurogaming conventions."

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 3:01 pm

YellowKing wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2017 2:28 pm "I thought the third expansion offered an interesting twist on worker placement mechanics, but ultimately failed to live up to the high marks set by the second expansion's excellent rebuttal of traditional Eurogaming conventions."

Man, I hated that game. Never again!

Some of us are less eloquent than others.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 5:00 pm

I appreciate the recommendations guys, and I enjoy reading about the games you guys like, so no worries on unsolicited comments. I would think posting in this thread is a kind of solicitation in itself.

Fingers crossed for the reception of the 2 games I do have. I'm getting a little more excited as I wait for Christmas so I can bust them out.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 5:57 pm

Today, my son's second-grade class got to bring board games from home. The teacher just posted a picture of him teaching Forbidden Island to a bunch of other kids.

So proud.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:01 pm

Working on getting all of my games in my new shelves. No clue how to best organize them. Guess I'll go with the "try and get everything into the shelves first, THEN sort them out" game plan.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 10:26 pm

My 11 year old and I have played Aeon's End every day this week. I still try to nudge him towards a better strategy, but he has it pretty well down and has good ideas. In today's game the nemesis barely got into tier 3 and he actually bought a card destruction spell without me prompting him. Not as early as I would have liked, but you can't have everything. My deck had 7 cards at the end... hand size is 5 and you start with 10 cards. Yeah, I may like deck thinning a little TOO much. We also used their turn order web app so I didn't have to shuffle turn order cards.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 10:51 pm

Played three (pure) solo rounds of SPIRIT ISLAND. First two rounds I played standard rules and got my ass handed to me. Third round I went with tutorial rules (no blight card, progression cheat sheet for choosing powers), and did a little better. Got my spirit fully unlocked but still succumbed in the end. This game is TOUGH. While I understand the high level strategy, I haven't yet been able to successfully implement it.

It's OK though, because I enjoy the challenge. When these games come along that I can't beat, I become borderline obsessed with them until I crack the code. Would much rather have that problem than easily beat it a couple of times and let it collect dust on the shelf.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sat Dec 23, 2017 6:05 pm

Two games into charterstone. I love it. It's a new take for the legacy model and so far it just works. Of course initially I thought seafall worked too so... Guess we will see. But after two games I really do love it. More impressions to come after more plays.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sat Dec 23, 2017 9:52 pm

Yeah, let us know how Charterstone works out. Your warnings about Seafall saved me from that purchase.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sat Dec 23, 2017 11:28 pm

Charterstone is on my holiday list, and I'm hoping that my sister will deliver it if she couldn't find Spirit Island.

New Star Wars spaceships are inevitable, since she's the reason I went all in on X-Wing v. Tie Fighter.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sun Dec 24, 2017 4:52 pm

I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but a mutual friend of ours ordered Spirit Island a couple of weeks ago after seeing it in stock again online.

We played one game of Escape from 100 Million BC and two games of Mansions of Madness 2nd edition Friday during our annual holiday game day back in Ohio. We lost the first two games and kind of won the last. But man I had fun with MoM...especially the 2nd game of that as it was more of a murder mystery that saw all of us running around a mansion trying to figure out what was going on...only to end up with all of us accusing the wrong person and fighting it out with the supernatural results. Mucho fun, even if we only partially won.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Dec 25, 2017 12:35 am

I finally beat a pure solo game of SPIRIT ISLAND. This time I bucked the game's recommendation of the four starter spirits and went with a "moderate difficulty" spirit that I saw in a playthrough. These spirits have more innate powers (hence more complex to play), but it also gives them a bit more flexibility which is needed in a solo game. I learned a LOT about the game in this one play.

Let me tell you - I thought I was a veteran co-op player that knew his stuff. This game humbled me real quick.

The brilliant mechanic of having Slow powers play AFTER the enemy turn will really force you to throw out all your old habits and think in ways you've never had to think before. There are times when you just have to place blind faith in your cards and hope that when the time comes to actually play them, they'll do you some good. It's a game of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" taken to its extreme, and being able to let immediate problems go in order to focus turns down the road is a brain burner.

I had a great example in my one win in which I basically had five powers that were activating. Three from my hand and two innate powers. I had been sweating over my turn for ten minutes, because there was a very specific thing that I needed to do and I was trying to run through every permutation to see how I could accomplish that goal. Then finally it all clicked, and I realized that by playing all five cards in a specific order, I could do it. I felt like a freaking genius. If one power had been played out of sequence, the entire plan would have fallen apart, and I realized that I had never played a game in which I'd had to puzzle a single turn out to that degree.

Now, that was with me playing solo with ONE spirit. Imagine a four-player game, where everyone at the table is going through those same permutations of their turn simultaneously, while also trying to figure out how their actions will interplay with everyone else's. Holy shit.

I've played some tough games that required a lot of thought, but SPIRIT ISLAND is in a league of its own. I'm duly impressed at how such a seemingly simple game on the surface hides such a brain-melting blend of tactics and strategy underneath.

My only word of advice is to be patient. The rules aren't hard, but it will require several playthroughs before you even begin to understand all the nuances. I've got 6 games under my belt at this point, and I still feel like a total n00b. My next goal is to try to win solo with two spirits, but even the thought of that is making my head hurt (in a good way).

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Mon Dec 25, 2017 1:17 am

I'll be joining in the effort to beat Spirit Island. Most of the Chicago crew likes coop games, and it will be interesting to see if we can get a more complex game to the table often enough to overcome it.

Udar4450 · Post by **Udar4450** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 8:28 am

I played Team Yankee with a friend last weekend, using not the game's recommended 15mm or 1:100 figures, but some 6mm/1:300 ones from Heroics&Ros, the game realy gets congested and looks silly in 15mm. My East German force was smacked by my friend's British force because his Milan anti-tank missile spam out-spammed my T-55 horde... I really hope that Battlefront will some day stop seeing the Soviets as a video-game-mook type of force.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:55 am

Any thoughts on CLANK! or HARRY POTTER HOGWART'S BATTLE? Received both for Christmas and wondering if they're worth keeping or if they should hit the exchange list.

I know Clank gets pretty good reviews, but wasn't specifically on my wish list. Harry Potter I'm torn on - I know it's more of a light deck builder and probably won't be high on my list of favorites, but on the other hand I can see it being a good family game.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 10:19 am

Coop is your Clank expert.

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 10:45 am

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:55 am I know Clank gets pretty good reviews, but wasn't specifically on my wish list. Harry Potter I'm torn on - I know it's more of a light deck builder and probably won't be high on my list of favorites, but on the other hand I can see it being a good family game.

We've played through the first two years of Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle. We enjoyed playing with it but haven't gotten back to the game for a month so it's not that compelling - and my wife and kid are both HUGE Harry Potter nuts so the game had an advantage just because of the setting.

If you like deck builders and/or Harry Potter it's worth keeping.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 11:05 am

I really enjoyed Hogwarts battle. It's a good deck builder. The first games are pretty boring if you are experienced with deck builders so if you keep it take the games advice and so to game 4. Fun cooperative deck builder with a campaign. If you're a fan of Deck builders and Harry Potter than it is awesome. And it has fantastic components.

7 games into charterstone and so far loving it more and more. I'll probably write a review when I'm done and post it here too, but basically it is not disappointing at this point. In fact I'm liking it enough that I'm planning on getting a recharge pack to play it again with my brother at nights on a ski trip in a few months. That would be a five player game which I think will really amp it up even more. Really enjoying the growth of the game.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 11:12 am

Family gave me Colony and Ponzi Scheme for Christmas, both of which I enjoy.

For those that don't know:

Colony is a dice game with card acquisition/upgrade mechanic that allows you to add/manipulate your results to further other goals.

Ponzi Scheme is a game where you acquire funds that pay you initially with a large payback to come. Each round, the clock moves, and any payments due are paid out. Eventually, people can't pay back the required funds, and go bankrupt. Whoever has the most funds to flee the ensuing dragnet wins. There is trading involved, which even coop didn't hate when we played.

Fishbelly · Post by **Fishbelly** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 2:13 pm

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:55 am Any thoughts on CLANK! or HARRY POTTER HOGWART'S BATTLE? Received both for Christmas and wondering if they're worth keeping or if they should hit the exchange list.

I know Clank gets pretty good reviews, but wasn't specifically on my wish list. Harry Potter I'm torn on - I know it's more of a light deck builder and probably won't be high on my list of favorites, but on the other hand I can see it being a good family game.

Harry Potter Hogwart's Battle can be a bit "swingy", depending what order you draw the villains during the game. I love the game for one reason though, because it delighted my wife and daughters and they always want to play more. Any game that can suck them into board gaming is OK in my book. It might be a bit simplistic for my tastes, but as I get older I have (finally) learned that is a good thing for novice players.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 2:31 pm

Watched a how to video for Carcassonne, so I guess I'm ready. Scoring looks like it may get tricky, and meeple play could take some getting used to.

The version I got has the rivers expansion so I still need to learn how that fits in.

Will try a game tonight or tomorrow.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 2:42 pm

Scoring the fields is the trickiest part, unless they've changed those rules in recent years for the better. Everything else is fairly straightforward.

If I recall correctly, you lay out all of the river tiles first and that creates a sort of backbone/obstacle for the rest of the board to be built around.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 2:45 pm

GreenGoo wrote:Watched a how to video for Carcassonne, so I guess I'm ready. Scoring looks like it may get tricky, and meeple play could take some getting used to.

The version I got has the rivers expansion so I still need to learn how that fits in.

Will try a game tonight or tomorrow.

Scoring the farms is where things get a little tricky. Once you get the hang of it it becomes second nature.

The river expansion is almost a must have in my opinion so I'm glad they've started including it with the base games. It breaks up the mega farms the form without it. It's just used during a quick setup phase. You can easily play without it first to keep it simple but once everyone starts understanding farming the mega farm problem will generally start to show up.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 2:51 pm

Santa brought me Spirit Island for Christmas. I've just played it once, solo with two spirits (Vital Strength of the Earth and River Surges in Sunlight) using the beginner rules. I love the rich combination of crunch and theme, although it's probably too crunchy for my gaming partners (aka wife and son), so it will likely remain a solo game for me.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:14 pm

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:55 am Any thoughts on CLANK! or HARRY POTTER HOGWART'S BATTLE? Received both for Christmas and wondering if they're worth keeping or if they should hit the exchange list.

Thought I would share a review I wrote about the game on BGG (there are spoilers that are not tagged in my reivew). Long and short of it is I really thought the game was a fun ride, a bit on the easier side at 2 players, but captured a lot of the fun of the Harry Potter Universe. I wish it had gone full on legacy.

My final thoughts from the review-

USAopoly has impressed me with their production of this game. It is fun to play, the campaign works, and the theme is one that is underused (in the hobby gaming world) despite being a massive IP. While as a cooperative game it is slightly too easy, it is still a good ride and one I don’t regret taking. It was fun while it lasted. Sadly I think the full potential of this game was missed by not going full on legacy with the game, it could have been something really special.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:15 pm

My wife and I have been playing 2-player Charterstone. Without spoiling, I just want to say it is fantastic. Basically it is a build-your-own worker placement game focused on efficient engine building rather than blocking and “feeding.” The game teaches you the rules as it goes, so you can almost open the game and start. There are a few minor issues with making sure you follow some minor rules right and that you understand the iconography. But the game just feels like a great adventure of discovery and building.

The best part is, unlike other legacy games, you can keep playing after the legacy elements are over. Basically you have a customized board you can keep using.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:21 pm

baelthazar wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:15 pm My wife and I have been playing 2-player Charterstone. Without spoiling, I just want to say it is fantastic. Basically it is a build-your-own worker placement game focused on efficient engine building rather than blocking and “feeding.” The game teaches you the rules as it goes, so you can almost open the game and start. There are a few minor issues with making sure you follow some minor rules right and that you understand the iconography. But the game just feels like a great adventure of discovery and building.

The best part is, unlike other legacy games, you can keep playing after the legacy elements are over. Basically you have a customized board you can keep using.

Absolutely feeling the same way about it. Loving it. I'm very curious to see how fun the game will be to continue playing once it is completed. But it is one of the biggest hits of this year for us so far.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 1:15 am

I broke open Hogwarts Battle tonight hoping my daughter would want to play (she declined

). However, I decided to just play a couple of solo rounds with two characters.

It's exactly what I thought it would be - a simple but fun entry-level deck builder. I only played the first two books which are of course extremely simple, but I saw enough to be certain this will be a great family game.

Still on the fence with Clank, but only because our gaming group backlog is so high I know this one isn't going to get to the table. I know it's soloable with the app and I've watched a couple of playthroughs, but I'm not really into "beat your best score" as an endgame goal. On the other hand, I think the clank mechanic is pretty cool and the theme appeals to me.

Redfive · Post by **Redfive** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 12:26 pm

Got together with 3 other neighborhood dads last night and played Pandemic and Terraforming Mars.

Only my 2nd time to play Pandemic..I'm aware of it's reputation and multiple expansion though. I like how you may think you have things manageable and in the blink of an eye the world has gone to hell.

I was the scientist and we were able to find a cure on turn 2 so we were really optimistic..until we had a cascading outbreak and ran out of the yellow cubes..game over.

This was I think my 4th play of Terraforming Mars. The game is a bitch to teach because of the sheer amount of info dump you have to present to new players but I've found--like many here I suspect--that if you can get just one turn under your belt it goes a very long way towards grasping the rules.

I came in 2nd place as I was initially going for a card centric strategy but couldn't secure enough victory points so had to switch to trying to develop the tiles on the board in mid game but the eventual winner had too much of a head start. This is a great game but I think I'm ready to try some other things. My gaming time / schedule availability is pretty limited and TFM tends to hog up most of the night.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 7:34 pm

Ok, 13yo son and I finished our first learning game. Reading the rules in the box, farms are actually considered supplementary rules, so we dropped farms from the play for this game.

Son was giddy the whole game, and at one point he lapped the scoreboard while I still only had 4 points. The game is quite simple if you remove farms and don't use any expansions. I'm fairly sure I just had bad luck, although he stole a long road from me, which was a great play. Maybe I'm terrible.

The final score was son: 105 Goo: 68

I took some notes for questions I had as we went along. The more we played, the more likely I felt I knew the answer to some of them, but I'm going to write them out here and see what you guys have to say.

1. If the opponent has a meeple on a partially completed feature, and I play a tile that extends that incomplete feature, I cannot place a meeple on my tile, correct?
1b. Same situation, but I own the original meeple. I can't put 2 meeples on the same incomplete feature.

Pretty sure I know the answer to those 2.

2. This one is easy to recognize visually, but harder to explain. Hmmm. Gonna try some ascii.

Code: Select all

-------------	|
|	        |
- \	        |
|   \	        |
|    \	        |
|   	\       |
|        \      |
|-------|---|
		------------|
		|		|
		- \		|
		| \		|
		|  \ 		|
		|   \		|
		|     \		|
		|-----|-----|

Ok, good enough to get the point across, tired of trying to get everything squared up. The diagonal lines represent a city wall, with the city being on the left side of each tile. For both tiles, the top of the wall starts on the left side of the tile, and the bottom of the wall ends on the bottom of the tile.

So my question is, what tile is playable directly below the top tile and directly to the left of the other tile? What tile can join those 2 tiles? There is the tiniest gap/break in the wall, and there are no tiles that have a wall just across the very tip of one corner.

2b. There is a city tile with no walls on it (the entire tile is city space), so I assume it's supposed to be in the center of a 3x3 city. What happens if there are no 3x3 cities? The tile wouldn't be playable, ever, would it?

3. There are at least six monasteries in the base set. That seems like a lot. Can monasteries be placed side by side, directly touching each other? I would guess that is ok, with the "other" monastery just counting as a normal surrounding tile, and vice versa. Is this correct?

That's it for now. No farms, no rivers, no Abbots, yet.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 8:49 pm

1. You can never put a meeple on a feature with another meeple on it, whether it's someone else's or your own. The trick to the game, however, is to place meeples in such a way that they might wind up sharing a feature that someone else has claimed. You may even want to try and put more than one of your meeples on a feature to ensure you get all the points.

2. You would want a tile with at least 2 city edges to join those adjacent city edges. That all city tile you mention would work, and I believe there are plenty of other tiles that would work too, but there are so many editions of Carcassonne out their and we had several expansions mixed in so I can't be sure.

That all city tile could be used almost anywhere. Even if it's never finished you'd still get partial points.

3. Yep, no reason not to stack Monasteries like that. Surrounding one makes it easier to surround an adjacent one.