Carcassononne, first player

[arsic94]

Hi guys,

Can someone explain to me how is decided who will play first?

I consider myself for a good player and I am playing only 1-1 just like in the official tournaments all over the world. And the first player has one more piece to play. Last five games I played 2nd and lost 2 of them on the last move. I am now really confused since even when we played a rematch, I was second again. It's not fair!

[demiurgsage]

I agree that 1st player has an advantage in Carcassone. I don't know why the designers made the game with 72 tiles not 73.
As to your question the turn order is absolutely random. So you have a chance to be 2nd player any number of times. Even if you were 2nd player 5 times in a row, you have 50% chance to be 2nd player in the next game.

[arsic94]

I guessed, but that is sad. It's not that hard for developers to put additional counter which will count difference between how many times has player played first or second. Give me one hour and I can develop it

In my board game club and on tournaments, we discussed those 73 tiles and which one should be the best to remove (because 72 can be divided by 2, 3 and 4). One curved road or city with 3 open sides and field without a road. That way would be 8 curved 8 straight roads, or 3 cities with 3 open sides and field without a road and 3 cities with 3 open sides and field with a road.

I would like to hear someone else's opinion on this

[sourisdudesert]

Hi.

BGA policy is to implement official variants. On Carcassonne we implemented 1st edition and International rules. If you find somewhere an officially published rules that bring an interesting variant on this we may implement it

[demiurgsage]

Hi, sourisdudesert.
We, BGA users, don't communicate the game designers. So could you ask the game designers for a more balanced version of the rules for your site?

[veme]

BGA policy is to implement official variants.

This is a lie.

I've decided to stop campaigning to try to get you guys to change the Takenoko rules, but there are multiple ways in which they do not match any official variant (one of which significantly impacts strategy). When I pointed this out, I was told essentially "Gee, looks like you are right, but we like it this way so we aren't going to change it." There are also games with unfixed rules bugs that have been known/reported for years now.

I mean, I don't care if you change Carcassonne, and I've given up on ever actually playing Takenoko on here, but I am going to continue to call you out whenever I see you feeding people this line - because it is demonstrably untrue. Y'all just do what you want to do; at least own it and stop trying to willfully deceive people into thinking you prioritize faithfulness to official rules.

[demiurgsage]

BGA policy is to implement official variants.

This is a lie.

I don't know what the particular case with Takenoko but the main reason they don't fix bugs is they don't have people (and money to hire people) to do it.

[veme]

Yes, I've heard this argument. Somehow they find time to add games, rework layouts, add new karma systems, etc. I feel like I have had this conversation before...

My point is that if it is a 'policy' at BGA to stick to official rule sets, then it is a policy that is adhered to very loosely (it is the #1 thing I personally wish they would do better), and is obviously very low on the priority list of the developers - so it is dishonest to use it as an argument for not changing Carcassonne.

[sourisdudesert]

Needless to say that these latest arguments are so untrue and pointless that I'm not going to answer.

[veme]

Whether or not my argument is pointless is up to you, but I am curious what you think I said that was untrue. I can easily back up my claims with specific examples.

You could have fixed some rule bugs in the time it took implement new games, design and implement the karma system, change the layout etc. Therefore, faithfulness to rules is a lower priority to you than all of those other things you do before you fix the rules. And sometimes you just decide to keep incorrect rules by fiat, blithely ignoring your own hypocrisy.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. If this is your policy then it should be acted on, and if it isn't, then you can't use it to glibly shoot down a legitimate argument for balancing Carcassonne.