Carcassonne Board Game

This was the content of this page before we started thinking that the Coast tiles would only come into play when the tile map aproaches the edge of the table

Building a Coast Line around a Center Scoreboard

Looking at the standard 30 Coast tiles, there are 15 straight coast tiles in the first 3 columns, one of which is also a River terminator, and there are 5 tiles that seem to create the outer edge of a coast line that could surround the Scoreboard.

There are also 9 tiles that seem to create the inner edge of a coast line which would basically create a lake within the tile map.

Two of these tiles are also river terminators that would be helpful when the river does not terminate pointing away from the scoreboard.

Since we will be playing with a Center Scoreboard, we are not trying to create a body of water inside of our final tile map. We are trying to create our final map that will be surrounded by a Coast line that will basically prevent us from running off the edge of the table!

The easiest way to overcome most of this problem would be to eliminate 4 of the inner edge standard tiles. This would leave us with only 3 River Coast tiles. Another way would be to make a couple of minor modifications to the original Coast tiles.

Do not print the standard and tiles, replace them with and an extra copy of .

Plan A: We play with standard 24 River tiles including the following terminators:
Plus the fork,
We can keep all 5 of the Coastal River tiles face up on the table

And each player, as they draw a standard river terminator, can decide to play a Coastal terminator in its place.

When all of the rivers are complete, we enter the Coastal Phase with 15 straight Coastal tiles, 6 Inward turning Coastal tiles, and 6 Outward turning Coastal tiles.

Having an even number of Inward and Outward turning Coastal tiles should keep the coastlines fairly straight as they surround the Scoreboard at a relative distance.

Table Edge / Coast Line / around Center Scoreboard

The basic concept is that we are going to play with one of our standard Center Scoreboards, and, we are only going to use the Coast tiles to insure that our tile map does not run over the edge of the table we are playing on.

The table that we usually play Carcassonne on is 39.5 inches wide. Each Carcassonne Tile is almost exactly 1 ¾ inches square which would allow for almost 22 ½ tiles, take away the 4 tiles that make up the Center Scoreboard, that only leaves room for room for 9 ¼ tiles on each side of the scoreboard.

SO, if we create a 1 ¼ No Tile Zone, and a 1 tile Coastal Bump Zone to allow the random placement of an "inner edge" coastal tile immediately followed by an "outer edge" coastal tile, then, a Coast tile has to be laid on the map on the 7^th row from the Center Scoreboard immediately after any tile is placed on the 6^th row from the Center Scoreboard!

This leads to a lot of questions:

• Depending on the tile that was places on the 6th row, what tiles are allowed on the 7th row?
• If the player who places the 6th row tile is also the player who then places the 7th row tile, does that player get to choose any tile they want for that tile?
• If so, can they choose one of the Monetary tiles and place a meeple on it?

So, now it comes down to some other questions:

• Should there be just one single stack of random Coast Tiles?
• Should there be a separate stack of no-value Coastal Tiles?
• After all of the River tiles have been played, should we combine all of the Coastal Tiles in a single stack and allow each player to choose if their next tile is drawn from a random standard stack, or from the random coastal stack?

During the River phase of our games, these are the types of Coastal Tile situations that we can expect.

	River		Road		City		Field		Monastery		River 2		River 3
Row 6								Do We
Row 7								Allow

Row 6
Row 7
Row 8

When the River 2 or River 3 situation occurs, that is when the next tile has to be one of the Outer Edge Coastal Tiles that will be placed in Row 8. Moving forward, after the River Phase has been completed, the Coastlines can be extended with randomly drawn tiles from the remaining Coastal Tile stack. BUT, however, you can never place another Inner Edge Coastal Tile within the 8th row.

Row 8

This leaves us with a lot of questions: do we start the River Phase with all of the Coastal tiles divided into 4 stacks?

River
Road
City
Field

So, basically, we are going to start the game with all of the standard River Tiles, and 22 Coast Tiles divided into 5 stacks; 4 Road / Coast tiles, 3 City / Coast tiles, 7 Field / Coast tiles, 3 River / Coast tiles, and 5 Inner Edge / Coast tiles just in case we are forced to terminate one or more of the Rivers with an Outer Edge River Tile.

The question still remains: what do we do with all of the unused Coast Tiles when all of the River Tiles have been played? Do we combine all of the remaining unused tiles (except for the unused River Termination tiles) into a single stack? Then during the standard tile placement phase of the game, can any player merely draw a tile from the combined Coastal Stack? Also, at this point, do we also include the remaining 7 Inner Edge Coast tiles?

One thing we need to talk about is the actual spacing. After you place a tile on Row 6 from the Scoreboard, the outer edge of that tile will be only 5¾ inches from the edge of the table. Then when you add the Coastal Tile to Row 7, that tile will be only 4 inches from the edge of the table. And if the situation occurs where the Coast takes a turn toward the edge of the table and immediately turns back onto a Coast Line, the new Coast Line will be only 2¼ inches from the edge of the table. If we decide to start our Coast Lines when Row 7 gets a standard tile, the Coast line could get within only ½ of an inch from the edge of the table.

Our New House Rules for a Center Scoreboard Coast Line

Eliminate
Add

We are going to use 29 of the 30 original Coast tiles, plus 3 additional tiles that we created. We are going to eliminate the original solid blue tile, we split the standard River Coast tile into 2 additional corner tiles, and we modified the original Road Monastery tile to create an additional Field Monestary tile.

The only purpose for this expansion is to keep our tile maps from running over the edge of the table.

At the start of every game, randomly shuffle all 32 of the Coast tile and divide them into the following 5 face up stacks:

Row 8
River
Road
City
Field

Play the game as usual with the River, then the standard tiles.

At any time during the game, whenever a player places any tile that is about 6 inches (3 tiles) away from the edge of the table, that player gets a "Coastal Second Turn".

• Based on the edge of the new tile that is facing the edge of the table,
• Draw the face up tile from the top of that Coastal Stack and place it on the board next to your original new tile.
  • Yes, you are allowed to claim features on the Coastal tile.
  • Monasteries and Gardens are scored as usual, but the solid water tiles that would normally be part of the 8 surrounding tiles are not required to complete the feature, so you just score less points when the feature is "complete".
• If the new Coastal Tile also creates a coast line that is pointing away from the center of the table again, take a "Coastal Third Turn".
• Draw the face up tile from the top of the Row 8 stack and add it to the edge of the first Coastal Tile so that the new new coastline is parallel to the edge of the table.

Let's take a closer look at this Row 8 bump situation

Row 6
Row 7
Row 8

Row 6
Row 7
Row 8
Row 9

When an Inner Edge River 2 or River 3 situation occurs, that is when the next tile has to be one of the Outer Edge Coastal Tiles that will be placed in Row 8 to turn the Coastline back to parallel to the edge of the table. Moving forward, after the River Phase has been completed, the Coastlines can be extended with randomly drawn tiles from the remaining Coastal Tile stacks.

What if a city tile is then placed next to the River 2 or 3 tile in Row 7, and the City Coast tile also requires a second "bump" tile to be placed in Row 9? Do we allow the tile map to expand to within less than an inch from the end of the table? Or do we set up a house rule that would allow us to choose a different City Coast tile when there is a Row 9 situation?

Row 6
Row 7
Row 8

We are going to have to come up with some house rules, similiar to the No U-turn rules for the Rivers, for how we handle the situation after a Row 8 Coastline has been created. Basically creating our own No Row 9 rules!

Basically, this extra 32 tile fan-expansion should not add any extra time to our games. The player has no choice on what tile to draw for a second or third coastal turn, and for the most part, it can only be placed on the board one way.