Hi. Could you explain me with some example what is the real difference between international rules (3 points for city touching each field) and First edition rules (3 points for most farmers around each city)? Thanks.
Field scoring
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Re: Field scoring
This is my understanding of it based on what someone once posted to me when I had the same question. The two statements sound alike to me - it's a subtle difference in wording.
In the first, the international rules, you are looking from a field's "point of view." So you follow that field around everywhere until it gets blocked by something, and count each (completed) city touching that field as 3 points. Of course that is to the player(s) with the most meeples in that field. So when scoring, you're checking the fields one at a time. It seems this is the way it is most played.
In the second, the very original rules, you are looking at it from the city's point of view, so that all meeples in all fields surrounding that city will count. So if two fields were touching a city, you would take both fields into consideration when determining who has the most meeples. When scoring, you're checking each city one at a time. As far as I know, that only existed in the very first edition, and I don't think a lot of people even know about it. I'd never heard of it. (I learned the game around 2012/13 and that rule was long gone.)
I think the easiest way to deal with this is looking at which point of view you are taking, respectively: field's point of view and what cities are touching that field, OR city's point of view and which fields are touching that city.
I hope that makes sense.
In the first, the international rules, you are looking from a field's "point of view." So you follow that field around everywhere until it gets blocked by something, and count each (completed) city touching that field as 3 points. Of course that is to the player(s) with the most meeples in that field. So when scoring, you're checking the fields one at a time. It seems this is the way it is most played.
In the second, the very original rules, you are looking at it from the city's point of view, so that all meeples in all fields surrounding that city will count. So if two fields were touching a city, you would take both fields into consideration when determining who has the most meeples. When scoring, you're checking each city one at a time. As far as I know, that only existed in the very first edition, and I don't think a lot of people even know about it. I'd never heard of it. (I learned the game around 2012/13 and that rule was long gone.)
I think the easiest way to deal with this is looking at which point of view you are taking, respectively: field's point of view and what cities are touching that field, OR city's point of view and which fields are touching that city.
I hope that makes sense.
Re: Field scoring
For whatever reason, my group has always played by the First Edition scoring rules.
Which is why I noticed, in my first-ever BGA Carcassonne game, that BGA's "First Edition scoring" isn't actually "First Edition"; because it gives 3 points per supported city, when it should be 4 points per the First Edition rules.
Which is why I noticed, in my first-ever BGA Carcassonne game, that BGA's "First Edition scoring" isn't actually "First Edition"; because it gives 3 points per supported city, when it should be 4 points per the First Edition rules.
Re: Field scoring
(It isn't Second Edition, either, because while that *is* 3 points per city, 2nd edition uses the "field's point of view" like International does, rather than the "city's point of view", as explained by the previous poster.)
Re: Field scoring
The original (very first) way of scoring the farms is the ONLY way that makes sense. Every other way, the fields score the same as cities (probably less) but you loose your meeple for the rest of the game.
The Farm with the most meeples supplies a city. So you have to score each city according to the largest (most meeples) touching it. Each city is only supplied by one farm (for 4 points), but each farm can supply multiple cities. This makes it worth sacrificing a meeple for the rest of the game because of the huge point potential. There is a big risk, too, because someone can sneak in more meeples, just like in a city, or, they can win cities from another farm.
This makes Carcassonne a game that requires you to pay attention to more than just one thing. It makes it fun. You can use coins or meeples of a color that weren't played, to keep track of which cities have been scored.
The Farm with the most meeples supplies a city. So you have to score each city according to the largest (most meeples) touching it. Each city is only supplied by one farm (for 4 points), but each farm can supply multiple cities. This makes it worth sacrificing a meeple for the rest of the game because of the huge point potential. There is a big risk, too, because someone can sneak in more meeples, just like in a city, or, they can win cities from another farm.
This makes Carcassonne a game that requires you to pay attention to more than just one thing. It makes it fun. You can use coins or meeples of a color that weren't played, to keep track of which cities have been scored.
Re: Field scoring
Which farm scoring rule you prefer is a purely personal choice. It is fine if you prefer the 1st edition rules - unfortunately they are not correctly implemented here.
You wrote: "Each city is only supplied by ONE farm". If you played it this way then you misinterpreted the rules of 1st edition.
In 1st edition, each city is supplied by ALL farms that are neighboring the city borders. These can be 2,3,4 or even 10 farms, since a city does not need to be completely surrounded by a single farm. All the farmers of these farms are added and thus the majority for this one city is determined. Whoever has the most farmers in all the corresponding farms added up gets 4 points for this city.
Please note that even with the international rules farms are in general VERY important and it is well worth placing farmers and "losing" them for the rest of the game. With international rules you are just not aiming for majorities for cities but instead you are aiming for majorities in large farms.
You wrote: "Each city is only supplied by ONE farm". If you played it this way then you misinterpreted the rules of 1st edition.
In 1st edition, each city is supplied by ALL farms that are neighboring the city borders. These can be 2,3,4 or even 10 farms, since a city does not need to be completely surrounded by a single farm. All the farmers of these farms are added and thus the majority for this one city is determined. Whoever has the most farmers in all the corresponding farms added up gets 4 points for this city.
Please note that even with the international rules farms are in general VERY important and it is well worth placing farmers and "losing" them for the rest of the game. With international rules you are just not aiming for majorities for cities but instead you are aiming for majorities in large farms.
Re: Field scoring
There have been far too many rule changes for the farms. The rules that I read are clear that each city is only supplied by one farm. This makes it so that you have to pay attention to the entire board in order to defend your ability to supply each city. Why would anyone be stupid enough to use a meeple on a farm if it were to score no differently than a city? It would make more sense to just ignore the farms completely until the last round or two and concentrate on cities until then.
As an aside to this thread.... when did the rule about not being able to enclose an empty space get eliminated? This game has been completely disemboweled because people can't figure out simple rules. It was a very good, simple game originally, but now it should be thrown in with the ranks of monopoly. It is pretty bad with the latest rules.
As an aside to this thread.... when did the rule about not being able to enclose an empty space get eliminated? This game has been completely disemboweled because people can't figure out simple rules. It was a very good, simple game originally, but now it should be thrown in with the ranks of monopoly. It is pretty bad with the latest rules.
Re: Field scoring
What about an animation during the score count to understand better how field's rule works?
Something like colouring the field and highlight the meepels that made the supremacy on it. (or something like Kingdomino counter)
Something like colouring the field and highlight the meepels that made the supremacy on it. (or something like Kingdomino counter)
Re: Field scoring
@Not-Sure:
I have to disagree. There have not been ANY rule changes for the last 18-19 years (!) at least. If we are discussing these old rules we are going far back into history. The 1st edition farmer rule was only officially used before 2001, i.e. before the game got promoted "Spiel des Jahres". Already 2001 the 2nd edition farmer rule was published by Hans in Glück. And I believe when the game was promoted "Spiel des Jahres 2001" it already had the 3rd edition farmer rule - which is called "international rules" because all major RL tournaments (world championships,...) are played that way.
Please note, that there NEVER was a rule that an empty space may not be enclosed. If you played it that way you were using house rules - which is fine.
As I play Carcassonne since the game came out in 2001 and I regularly play tournaments you may rely on my words. Otherwise just look up any official rulebook from the publisher.
I have to disagree. There have not been ANY rule changes for the last 18-19 years (!) at least. If we are discussing these old rules we are going far back into history. The 1st edition farmer rule was only officially used before 2001, i.e. before the game got promoted "Spiel des Jahres". Already 2001 the 2nd edition farmer rule was published by Hans in Glück. And I believe when the game was promoted "Spiel des Jahres 2001" it already had the 3rd edition farmer rule - which is called "international rules" because all major RL tournaments (world championships,...) are played that way.
Please note, that there NEVER was a rule that an empty space may not be enclosed. If you played it that way you were using house rules - which is fine.
As I play Carcassonne since the game came out in 2001 and I regularly play tournaments you may rely on my words. Otherwise just look up any official rulebook from the publisher.
Re: Field scoring
Hello Euklid,
Wikipedia lists two Carcassonne Editions before "Spiel des Jahres", and both had the city-perspective for farm evaluation. And they scored 4 points per Farm, which is definitely a bug in BGA.
Reduction to 3 points came with the Spiel des Jahres Edition. Perhaps the farmers were considered to be too strong. With the Spiel des Jahres Edition, there was also the restriction that one city can give points only to one farm (which was confusing and difficult to track).
After 2001, there was one more rule change: the exception of only 2 points for small towns was removed, and the "points only to one farm" restriction was removed too. The small town rule is debatable, it's too easy to get quick points that way. And Farms get a huge relevance boost, because now you can get a lot of farm points for a city if it's connected to several farms.
According to "Das Grundspiel im Wandel der Zeiten" on carcassonne-forum.de, this rule change was in 2002. And since then, the rules for the base games are unchanged.
Greetings
Robo
Wikipedia lists two Carcassonne Editions before "Spiel des Jahres", and both had the city-perspective for farm evaluation. And they scored 4 points per Farm, which is definitely a bug in BGA.
Reduction to 3 points came with the Spiel des Jahres Edition. Perhaps the farmers were considered to be too strong. With the Spiel des Jahres Edition, there was also the restriction that one city can give points only to one farm (which was confusing and difficult to track).
After 2001, there was one more rule change: the exception of only 2 points for small towns was removed, and the "points only to one farm" restriction was removed too. The small town rule is debatable, it's too easy to get quick points that way. And Farms get a huge relevance boost, because now you can get a lot of farm points for a city if it's connected to several farms.
According to "Das Grundspiel im Wandel der Zeiten" on carcassonne-forum.de, this rule change was in 2002. And since then, the rules for the base games are unchanged.
Greetings
Robo