Does anyone actually play this game for fun?

[CinnamonSunflower]

I quite agree with how unfair it is to block your opponents. I had the same thing yesterday when I played a game of football. Every time a player on my team tried to score a goal, one of our opponents blocked the ball from going into their net. That is clearly unfair, as the game is about scoring goals, not blocking your opponents. They even had one player who had a pair of gloves on and caught the ball whenever it came close to their net. That is quite clearly cheating - the game is called football for a reason, and you should not be allowed to handle the ball. When we challenged our opponents after the game they said it was within the rules, and we could have done the same if we had wanted to. Why on earth would that make any difference? It doesn't matter what the laws of the game say, the only thing that matters is my personal sense of what is and is not sportsmanlike, and everyone else should be forced to play the same way.

They may have beaten us 37-0, but it was a pyrrhic victory for them as they must have felt so much shame for cheating against us. How can anyone enjoy playing the game that way?

[Jellby]

the game is called football for a reason

Yes, although the reason, given the variety of games called "football", is unknown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(word)

[CraftyRaf]

I'm glad you ask this question. Yes, I play it for fun, in fact, I love playing Carcassone. And, yes, I do like to win. And, yes, it happens very often to lose, too.

I came from playing Carcassone-physical game where is no such thing like blocking.

And how many of those players played in a carcassonne national team, the world cup, the carcassonne champions league, or were in the top-100 of any arena?

What about soccer? If an attacker launches a shot with the idea to make a fabulous goal, what do you say to the defender who blocks the shot? Bad sportsmanship? It's exactly the same for Carcassonne, but in Carcassonne you are BOTH the attacker (scoring), the defender (blocking) and you play with multiple balls (meeples). The goal of the game is not to make new friends, but to win the game (Although I made a lot of new friends within the community of high-level carcassonne players!). As mentioned by others: If you want to lay tiles piecefully with a friend, try a jigsaw puzzle.

[Meeplelowda]

I'm glad you ask this question. Yes, I play it for fun, in fact, I love playing Carcassone. And, yes, I do like to win. And, yes, it happens very often to lose, too.

I came from playing Carcassone-physical game where is no such thing like blocking.

And how many of those players played in a carcassonne national team, the world cup, the carcassonne champions league, or were in the top-100 of any arena?

Probably none. The style of play in competitive leagues is considered shameful by the anti-blocking faction and if they were to try to enter the national competitive sphere they'd be in for a rude awakening.

But all these soccer analogies are missing the point that soccer has a defined position of a goalkeeper who is supposed to do this. The anti-blocking faction would tell you the proper analogy is if one basketball team brought in a 6th person who just stood by the net blocking shots. Of course, the rules of basketball prohibit this, so there would need to be a rule change to allow it. But guess what game doesn't need to add rules to allow blocking?

[JinaJina]

Blocking is simply a tactical move within the game. Not a must, but neither a can't. It is like many games, the grows with the tactical evolution of it. ...and if you have to write all tactical possibilities in the rules, no one would read it anymore because your rulebook would be too thick. If you wish learn more about the tactical possibilities of Carcassonne, there are some good books about it on the market, written by people who love the game and looked at it in all of his facettes. I understand that people like to play games without tactics, nothing wrong with that, but nothing wrong with trying to understand the game and discover all it's possibilities. Now it is the moment that the other players need to understand that people can have fun while doing that, and respect that as well.

[CinnamonSunflower]

But all these soccer analogies are missing the point that soccer has a defined position of a goalkeeper who is supposed to do this.

No, that's incorrect - the goalkeeper is not "supposed" to do anything. The laws of soccer simply define what the goalkeeper is allowed to do (specifically, they are not penalised for one specific offence that any other player on the pitch would be penalised for), and leave the rest to common sense.

In soccer, as in all professional sports, if something is not explicitly banned by the laws of the game, then it is permitted. Otherwise, things would become unmanageable.

If a group of people playing a boardgame choose to adopt house rules amongst themselves, then nobody is going to object. However, once you start to participate in competitive events, you have to accept that your opponents are permitted to do anything that is not banned by the rules. If you don't think something should be allowed, your only recourse is to petition the makers of the game to ask them to change the rules, or switch to another boardgame. There are plenty of games on BGA with minimal player interaction - if it upsets you when one of your opponents attempts to win the game by preventing you from scoring, try Wingspan or Ark Nova instead.

[Romain672]

In at least one soccer match, I think teams were penalised for 'not playing' (ie just pass the ball in their side between themselves) to make a draw which were good for both teams.
I don't know the rules of soccer for knowing if it was legal or not, but I suppose there was some rules about the team who needed to try to win every match or something like that.

But for me that part is a good example, in theory that should be legal, but if the referees anticipate that, they could add edge cases to disallow it.

But then, if that happen again (and it's possible, even if final matchs are in the same time now): for the players, the goal would be to tie the match without the jury thinking they were not trying to win.
Which... Is absolutely weird


We often talk about fair play, even in competitive sports. That means not doing absolutely everything legal. There is some gatekeep like you can need to pay a penalty if you do something really wrong even if it was your last match of your life. But still, we regularly put human judgements on those cases, to try to not make a strict limit, and have people abuse of that limit.

[CinnamonSunflower]

In at least one soccer match, I think teams were penalised for 'not playing' (ie just pass the ball in their side between themselves) to make a draw which were good for both teams.

There are certainly examples of teams that have been criticised (in the press, or on online forums) for playing this way, but the greatest criticism is generally directed at the organisers of the competition for creating circumstances where this can happen. It cannot be eradicated completely, but nowadays it is usual for the final matches of any event to be played simultaneously, to reduce the likelihood of it happening.

I doubt you will find any examples of teams being penalised (as opposed to merely being criticised) unless the conditions of the contest had an explicit rule banning "not trying hard enough".

We often talk about fair play, even in competitive sports. That means not doing absolutely everything legal. There is some gatekeep like you can need to pay a penalty if you do something really wrong even if it was your last match of your life. But still, we regularly put human judgements on those cases, to try to not make a strict limit, and have people abuse of that limit.

Taking soccer as an example again, "fair play" means "not committing fouls". I cannot think of any sport where you can be accused of playing unfairly if everything you do is strictly within the laws of the sport.

[Jellby]

I cannot think of any sport where you can be accused of playing unfairly if everything you do is strictly within the laws of the sport.

Humm... underhand serve in tennis? https://tenniscreative.com/underarm-serve/

I doubt you will find any examples of teams being penalised (as opposed to merely being criticised) unless the conditions of the contest had an explicit rule banning "not trying hard enough".

Still in tennis, there's the "best effort" rule (https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comment ... ning_when/) But then again, it is a rule of the tournament, part of the written code of conduct, and decided by the umpire. Not something one of the players makes up when they're losing.

[CinnamonSunflower]

Humm... underhand serve in tennis? https://tenniscreative.com/underarm-serve/

No professional tennis player is going to accuse another player of unfair play if they use an underhand serve - it is a perfectly legitimate tactic. It's a good example of the point I am making - if something is a legal play, then in a competitive event you simply have to consider the possibility that your opponent will do it. Objecting to your opponent using a legal tactic is poor sportsmanship - but using that tactic is perfectly fine.