Completely Annotated Rules - work in progress!

[mjharper]

I finally managed to post a draft of the extended version of my Annotated Rules - the Completely Annotated Rules! You'll find it under the Rules and FAQ section of the downloads. There's about three times as many footnotes and the whole thing has been reformatted to fit into the box of the basic game, with a facing-page layout in case you want to bind it. I wouldn't advise actually printing it out yet - there's a lot of work to be done before this is in any way finished. All the expansions, for a start. But if anyone has any comments, I'd be grateful.

I also updated a number of the other files in the download section:

Rules for:
- Traders and Builders
- The River
- The River II
- The Princess and the Dragon
- The GQ expansion
- The basic game
- and the main Annotated Rules file

and a couple of other things too:
- Selected Variations
- Overview and Summary

[Tobias]

The links doesn't work for me But I'm using Opera ... maybe that's it?

[mjharper]

My mistake, sorry. Should work now…

I'm using Opera too, and I wondered why it was telling me there was an illegal url. Note to self: Opera knows best!

[mjharper]

Another day, another update. Well, version 3.6 was a week old and never got posted. But today i added RGG 'proofs' to all the Incorporated & Depreciated FAQ, and completely reworked the Tile Distribution Lists. They now work alphabetically so that 'cities' come before 'farms' come before 'roads'. Rivers come last, the exception, and are signified by 's'. So the old tile 'ffrc' would now be 'cffr'. A little easier to remember . And all the lists for the individual expansions have been updated to match, with all the tiles rotated to fit the description properly. Again, easier for anyone who's interested in the shorthand.

That's probably the last major update before I get the Completely Annotated Rules out…

As usual, available from the Downloads section.

[Allan]

Hi,

First I wanted to say thank you for all your hard work on this project.

I just got the game a couple weeks back, and we enjoyed it so much that I went out and got the expansions. I was actually going to return the basic game and get the Big Box, but the store I bought it from didn't have any in stock. Instead they gave me all the expansions and the game at the Big Box price. Afterwards I was curious if there was anything different in the Big Box and a quick search found this site. It is nice to see the differences and have a consolidated set of rules to play from. I was so impressed, that I printed out all sixty pages on the office color laser printer to have a hard copy for everyone to read.

I also wanted to give you some feedback on your latest changes. After reading the Annotated rules and the Completely Annotated rules, I must say I prefer the Annotated version. It was easy to read and the information seemed to be where I would expect it. The Completely Annotated set seems to break up the flow of the instructions and there is a lot of information that is only usefull if you are going to use certain expansions. It seemed to me that some of the information was being presented out of order. I did like the farming examples (65 and 66) on scoring though. It was nice to have an example that showed the points would not be radically different but the awarding could be done simpler.

Thanks again for your hard work,
Allan 

[mjharper]

Yeah, some of the info is out of order, introducing all the expansions much earlier in the notes, and so on. I'm not sure I prefer it either, but I'm not sure how else to organise the text...

And thanks for the words of encouragement! 

[Hypnotoad]

I've used the Annotated rules quite a bit, printed and updated people I've played with regularely or just casually once or twice.

Pretty much all of the new rules and clarifications adds to the game, and making them available to the world in such a fashion has greatly increased many peoples appreciation for this game.

Amazing work, keep it up 

[mjharper]

Question: how many of you think the new Completely Annotated Rules are overkill?

[Hypnotoad]

I haven't actually read the C.A.R.

The annotated ones had mostly what I required but if the complete version adds something vital I'd gladly look at it. What is its goal again?

[mjharper]

The aim is to, well, completely annotate the rules. The Annotated Rules only deal with issues between the HiG and RGG versions, and adds (some) notes about previous expansions. The Completely Annotated Rules (which currently only cover the basic game) are meant to include notes about subsequent expansions as well. It's meant to be comprehensive, rather than merely useful. However, I'm beginning to suspect - as Allan suggested - that 'comprehensive' actually means 'less transparent', and as such less useful.

The version of the rules for the basic game which are online at the FAQ section (start here) are the same as those in the C.A.R., by the way.

[albie]

Wait a sec. There are the Annotated Rules and the Completely Annotated Rules? So, the 60-page beast is the Annotated Rules, right? And the C.A.R. is going to include even more stuff? That's good by me! I absolutely love the Annotated Rules (assuming that's the 60-page pdf). There is a ton of good info in there that has already cleared up quite a few rules issues for our group. I think from this point onwards, we will always have a laptop near the game table so we can quickly look up rules. Great job on this one!

Now, I guess I will have to check out the C.A.R. too.

[Gantry]

First off, I admire the effort you put into the FAQs, thank you!  I suspect that like me, most people occassionally will need to reference the rules or a vague rule for clarification.  Having the CAR around still helps, as does the AR.  I haven't decided which one is more useful though, they are both useful in their own way.

The one comment I'd like to make is that because of the cost and effort of printing on my inkjet printer, I'd rather wait than print out 60 pages of anything if I knew there was going to be a revision coming out soon.  That is to say, numbering the documents with versions is a great idea, but it would help a great deal more if you put somewhere when the next version was going to be expected to be released, or if that version is complete as of whenever.  Then I can decide whether or not it is worth printing, or waiting for a forthcoming edit.  Or even mention that the documents are/are not complete up to expansion X.  Does this make sense (other than make me think I'm cheap when it comes to ink)?

[mjharper]

For the moment, the Annotated Rules are pretty much finished. I wouldn't advise printing out the Completely Annotated rules as anything but a draft, though - too much needs to be added.  I can't put up a roadmap of any kind, either - next week I'll be teaching again and so I'll have less time. And I'm uncertain about whether the C.A.R. are overkill, which has put a hold on things. But when they're finished I'll put up a more comprehensive list of changes, along with page references, to make it easier for people to see what's new and decide if a new print-out is necessary.

My general idea was also that the C.A.R. would replace the Annotated Rules - otherwise it's just too much maintenance. A spelling mistake might need to be corrected in five documents (C.A.R. complete, C.A.R. individual game, A.R. complete, A.R. individual game, website) and that's just far too much effort. So bearing that in mind, the question is: should I keep developing and expanding the C.A.R. to inculde all the expansions, or should I just work on updating and maintaining the A.R.? The latter option would also mean the rules for the expansions would make it online much faster...

[albie]

OK, I just scanned through the CAR and I must say, I like it. I like the way you can read through the basic rules and if you are just playing the base game, you can pretty much ignore a lot of the footnotes and just refer to the main text. However, if you are using expansions, the footnotes provide all the pertinent info you need. Yeah, you have to jump back and forth between the main text and the footnotes, but that's not too big a deal in a PDF doc. This type of layout makes it easy to get all the info pretty much all in once place.

When using the AR, you have to potentially jump around to a bunch of different sections to find rules/scoring changes. Of course, I find the layout of the AR useful in a lot of situations too. It's nice to have all the rules and tile layouts organized in their own sections so you can see what additions have been made.

So really, I find both documents extremely useful. I for one would encourage you to continue with the CAR, but that's easy for me to say - you have to do all the work, and I get to just sit back and reap the rewards!

[mjharper]

Thanks for the comment. The CAR will include the tile distribution lists as well - individually with each set of rules and as a consolidated set later in the document.

I suppose one way around the maintenance issue would be to have the main document use the CAR, but have the individual documents for each expansion use the AR; that would allow you to choose what you want depending on which expansions you have and what level of detail you want. There just wouldn't be a single document containing all the annotated rules.

Maybe the website could also use the AR too...