Before using The River
and/or The River II you may want to avoid arguments by agreeing the following
points:
The complications regarding
"U" turns are fully explained in the section below, together with an
optional rule you can use if you want to ensure a tidy, complete river (the
official rules do not require the
river to be completed).
The other two points are
simpler. The statement from Hans im Glück is "Officially, the farm goes around the spring.
So it is a connected farm. I personally prefer to use it as a division, since
otherwise, despite the river, there is still only one large farm." So you just need to make a decision as you
start the game as to whether there is one farm on that tile or two.
Which tiles should you use
if you want to combine both sets of river tiles? You now have too many springs and lakes. The official ruling is very simple – just
discard one spring and one lake, so that you make one complete river with two
branches.
I would recommend discarding
the volcano/lake if you are not using The Princess & The Dragon, and
keeping it in if you are.
Personally I find 22 tiles
is too long a river, so sometimes we just use a selection of interesting tiles to
make a river-length of our own choosing, making sure that the number of
river-end-tiles is the same as the number of branches.
What is a "U" turn?
The original rules state
"a river tile may not be placed so that the river makes a "U"
turn". This has generated many
queries. The official response from Hans
im Glück is that only immediate "U" turns are
prohibited.
This can still lead to some
confusion, especially when you add the branch from "The River II".
Some other basic principles
to be remembered are:
Applying the same logic to
rivers it follows that:
Being specific on what you can and can't play, this
is the basic prohibition – two adjacent curves, placed to curve in the same
direction:
On the other hand, this is a
permitted "U" turn since it is not "immediate":
If you are using the river branch
from River II then these plays are all technically illegal, though of course
the curved river tile can still legally be played, just in a different
orientation or in a different place:
The complications start to arise when multiple wide
"U" turns are used as in this example. Although the last tile placed was a legal
play, it has left the river unfinishable. Following the basic principles stated above,
this is not a problem. The next player
just picks up each of the remaining river tiles and the lake and discards them,
then continues with the normal tiles.
The river remains unfinished.
The official ruling from
Hans im Glück is "Try to think while playing. Players may have an unfinished River...but
it‘s their own fault."
Note that it is illegal to
join the two branches to form a circular river:
Of course, if the tiles are
played to this position, the river is again, unfinishable.
If you decide that you want
to avoid the possibility of an unfinished river, as in these last two situation and make sure
that you always have a complete river, ending in a lake (especially if you are
using "The River II" and want to play the lake/volcano tile in order
to get the Dragon into play early), then you need an extra rule. The simplest one I have been able to state
is:
Optional Rule: "Each river tile must be placed so that it would still be possible
to play whichever river-ends are in play if they were the next tiles to be
played." (You may have to discard a
few tiles, but at least this keeps things simple and consistent and you can
finish the river.)
Invoking the optional rule: Completing the circular river above is
illegal, but with this optional rule, the one before it is also illegal, since
it prevents the river ends being played:
Invoking the optional rule: And in the other example above, this would
also now be an illegal play:
Invoking the optional rule: Even if the loop is bigger, playing a tile
like this would be illegal:
If you were using "The
River" and "The River II" combined, then yes, the next two tiles
might be curves which could be played legally to allow the river to be
finished, but that would require someone to look at the next two tiles to make
sure that it would work. It is much simpler
just to make such plays illegal, then you know that you can finish the river
without worrying about what is left in the pile.
This
document was produced by John Sweeney. Please send any comments to john@modernjive.com