RamblingRocket
Vagabond
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« on: October 21, 2008, 10:14:35 PM » |
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First off I will say "Wow", as I haven't checked the site for a while and I can see lots of interesting variants.
A while ago, I posted variant rules for the tower, to make them less severe. However, as time has gone by, the rules I now use have been toned down yet again. They are now at a stage where they are reasonably accepted by all who I play with.
TOWER RULES VARIANT Mk II
Towers are used to spy-out the surrounding area, undermining the efforts of other followers. However, if a follower decides to hold up in a tower, so as to escape vandetta's, then the tower can no longer be used for this purpose, and just becomes a defended hideout for that encamped follower.
Since I like the Towers alot, and wanted to use them as a part of our standard Carcassonne semi-friendly play, the rules I use have developed to what follows.
1. Towers no longer remove followers from the board. Instead, if a follower (or multiple followers) is(are) in the shadow of a tower, it has its majority value reduced by one (which in some respects is effectively the same as removing it). A follower with a majority value of zero can not score points for a completed feature. However, it does still occupy the feature, so if another player wants to score points for that feature, they must sneak into it in the usual way. The tower just makes it more likely that the affected player will not score points, or will be more easily overwhelmed by invading follower.
2. A follower is considered to be in the shadow of a tower as per existing tower rules that would normally allow a tower to capture a follower.
3. Any player may cap a tower by placing a follower on top of it. Once capped, a tower may not increase in height. Also, once capped, the tower no longer effects other surrounding followers (they have their normal majority values) since the tower can no longer be freely used to spy-out the area as it is now occupied. A capping follower can only be retrieved if they are in the shadow of another tower of greater height, in which case they are retrieved as soon as this occurs. Otherwise, the follower is stuck hiding out in the tower.
4. At the end of the game, followers capping towers earns their player one point for each block in that tower.
5. All other tower rules that do not conflict with the above amendments remain the same.
The above rules allow towers to still be mean, but there are ways to work around them, meaning more strategy in their use. Luck still plays its part of course. You can reduce a followers majority value to zero and possibly close the feature in a following turn, causing no points to be scored. Yet it is nowhere near as mean as just removing the follower from the start.
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