Discuss Fan Expansions with Complete Rules

Introduction

List of tasks and guides to make Fan Expansions with Complete Rules section on WiCa great.

TO-DO LIST

Phase 1: create fan expansion pages for everything in the Carcassonne Central downloads area - IN PROGRESS
Phase 2: create fan expansion pages for everything in the German Carcassonne Forum downloads area
Phase 3: create fan expansion pages for everything in the Czech Carcassonne Forum downloads area
Phase 4: create fan expansion pages for everything on BoardGameGeek
Phase 5: review master fan expansion list from wolnic to see what still needs a page and make a plan

Considerations

Expansions that were released in stages should be combined into a single page.
Remakes of expansions in a different edition of artwork are not separate expansions.
There are other situations where it might make sense to combine expansions into a single entry.
Fan expansions for spin-offs also deserve some love and attention, but are outside the scope of this list. They can be done in parallel with this effort.

Suggestions

The JCloisterZone team would like to have tile images for fan expansions loaded into Fancarpedia concurrently with pages being created on Wikicarpedia. Shapes can be created later.
When fan expansions are implemented in JCloisterZone, they will typically create an expansion icon for them. It would be nice if expansion authors could add these icons as watermarks to their fan expansion, or at least give permission for someone else to add them.
It could also be nice if we can provide tuckboxes for fan expansions? But I don't necessarily want to slow us down with too many tasks; we can add tuckboxes later too.
Scott would like to promote fan expansions on the Carcassonne Central Facebook page, and is interested in 3D-ish mockups of fan expansion components to assist with that.
Some fan expansions that do not fit thematically with regular Carcassonne may fit better with one of the spin-offs which did not exist when that fan expansion was created.

Categorization Thoughts

It has long been recognized that when a list gets too long it becomes difficult to manage, and efforts are made to subdivide. There have been various attempts in the past to subdivide Carcassonne fan expansions using a variety of criteria (e.g. expansions without tiles versus expansions with tiles). I am not sure how well these distinctions are working for us.

I would like to propose a new way to think about subdividing fan expansions, which is to imagine that you are responsible for publishing an expansion into retail and you must choose one of the four box sizes to use:

Mini-sized box (e.g. Mage & Witch)
Half-sized expansion box (e.g. Inns & Cathedrals)
Regular-sized game box (e.g. Wheel of Fortune)
Big Box-sized box (e.g. Big Box 7)

I think that the size of box that an expansion's components would theoretically fit into is a good indication of the level of effort required to create those components for actual play, and will be more helpful for helping fans to find and try fan expansions. They might not be ready for printing hundreds of forest tiles, but a simple six-tile expansion like Fruit Trader is quite achievable.

Standardized rule pages

Each of rules was made by different author in different time. There are widely used different approach of written rules. It is good to rewrite then to standardized C2/C3 form known by other official expansions.

Basic structure of Fan Expansion page

Fan expansions disclaimer
Fan expansion ad description, which will be also used in SEO and Social media sharing - in <section begin="description" /> and <section end="description" />, - it will be create extra Template for it {{ExpansionDescription|colors...|image=...}} Like on Bards of Carcassonne
General info and comments - information about
- author,
- download section,
- ** expansion symbol (if any)
- Preview of tiles (if any)
- Print sheet of tiles (if any)
Content - summary list of total tiles by type, new figures with pictures, tokens with example picture, etc.
Use Template:Figure / Template:Piece names and images with requested count like on Black Dragon page.
Required expanion(s) - list of required expansion to play (check Black Tower)
New land tiles - list of specific new land tiles which are not usual and their configuration of features can be confused for players, like road under city from The Princess & the Dragon
Rules - finaly rules for expansion, each game mechanics has separated rules in Phases, where each mechanics started with name of it. If only one mechanics, use Gameplay header. In each header place Feature / Figure / Piece image to right corner. Like on Black Dragon page.
Rules history - list of large changes of rules in in ascending order (from first to recent change). Like on The Courier page.
Other expansions - list of rules for specific expansions made by Template:OtherExpansionRule template
Tile distribution - images of all tiles, all tokens, etc in expansion divided by discribution in order C3/C2/C1, WE3/WE2/WE1/WD. When multiple expansions on same page (like expansions The Wells, First Wells and Wells II on The Wells page), follow also edition order.
Footnotes - event that page doesn't contains any <ref> section, footnotes paragraph contains link to explain rule icons used in Other Expansion interactions.

Basic structure of Rules section

Preparation - prepare tiles, cards, where place tokens, neutral figures, how to distribute other game material between players
Gameplay - rules divided to standard rule phases 1. Placing a tile, 2. Placing a meeple and 3. Scoring a feature.

Final scoring has to be part of 3. Scoring a feature section placed at the end of section.

Game rules changed

By default, rules has to be played for Basic game. All interactions has to be added into Other Expansions section.
When expansion requires other expansion to play, then this expansion has to be mentioned in Required expansion(s) section.

Create other WiCa stuff

Create expansion symbol if not created. Please kindly ask Snearone to create one.
Create Name/Link templates - ask Bumsakalaka for it

Updating other pages

Every new expansion brings some new features, new figures / special figures / neutral figures / tokens / wooden pieces and maybe also something else. Add these into:

Template:Feature if there is new feature
Template:Figure if there is new figure
Template:Piece if there is new token / wooden piece or other game material

It is important also to update existing expansions pages to work with this new stuff like Figure / Piece.

Template:ScoringGroupDetermineMajorityInCity - Calculation of majority in the City
Black Dragon - Include new figures to the list of figures he can eat, or figures on new wooden piece
Black Dragon - Include new features to features where figures are protected against the Black Dragon
COVID-19 - Include new features to features where can COVID-19 spread
Vistas - Include new features to table of scorable and nonscorable features

Create all interactions for new expansion to existing expansions. And include them vice-versa:

For official expansions use approach used in German Cathedrals
For fan-expansions include them under Expansion selector in standalone paragraph like in Robber's Son

Working in progress

Expansion selector

UX changes

1. Set position sticky for <ul role="tablist"> for situations when expansion selector will have fixed height
Check Vistas with expansion selector or check following example if Expansion Selector is set to be available on this page:

Please select all your expansions to show only interactions related to you. All other interactions are hidden.

↑

Expansion selector requires JavaScript.

Preparing expansion selector...

2. Alphabetical order of expansions (except numbered large and minis) in Minor and Other expansions, visitors didn't know order of releasing of mini expansions (see also sorting of fan expansions .

Preselection expansions

Like Automatically preselect German Cathedrals by query parameter, for example ?selector=showWells or ?selector=showFamilyFeud,showGambplesLuck.
Maybe this extension Extension:UrlGetParameters can help, because it allows to read query value by {{#urlget:selector}} which can be set by data-selector-always="{{#urlget:selector}}".
In German Cathedrals are links to Fan expansion like The Wells. But when clicking to link, other expansion rule described interaction between German Cathedrals and The Wells are not showed, if visitor has no preselected German Cathedrals in Expansion Selector.
Another issue is Grey Coat of Arms which we want to link to Gambler's Luck but into Other Expansion Rules with selected Family Feud.

Dynamic Tabs

As there are no major and other expansions for Winter Edition, when you open Winter Scoring During Turn Sequence you get first tab empty with Major Expansions (0/0). This is not good, because by default filter, in WE there is none Major expansions.

My point is, if there is none valid expansions for selected filter, hide empty tabs. Which will be more clear and UX friendly, when going to mentioned Winter Scoring During Turn Sequence.

Dynamic selectors - DONE

Regular Expansion Selector is used for official expansions and all combinations defined in MediaWiki:ExpansionData.js covers only them.

Almost every fan-expansion brings new combinations for interactions rules. To not update and enlarge official combinations, define combinations direct in code.
For example: Rule requires Dragon or Black Dragon will be defined by string representing JSON: [ "OR", "showDragon", "showBlackDragon" ]. This json will be stored in data-expansion-selector and when Expansion Selector will be initialized, it checked all elements with attribute data-expansion-selector, create new internal selector like showDynamicSelector1 and replace this selector data-dynamic-selector to className on HTML element, to prevent do it twice. Check Example of usage.

Selectors for Fan expansions - DONE

~~Expansion selector doesn't support Fan expansions yet. So on fan expansion page are all interactions with fan expansions are always visible.~~

~~Ideas how to include fan expansions:~~

~~On Expansion_Selector_Labels include all supported fan expansions page like <div class="fan-expansion" data-input="BlackDragon">{{BlackDragonName}}</div>~~
When including expansion selector by {{ExpansionSelector|fanexpansions=true}} show Fan expansions tab and create all selectors like showBlackDragon by all .fan-expansion with value from data-input.

Issue is, that preselected expansions are shared between pages. It's important, that if user are in Game Figures and change selection in Expansion Selector, it will not delete Fan Expansions preselected on any previous page, when are Fan expansions showed in Expansion Selector.

Sorting fan expansion - DONE

There will be good to sort fan expansions during including then in Expansion Selector. Each record contains new parameter <code>data-sorting-value="{{BlackDragonName|variant=sorting}}"</code> which include translated sorting name of expansion.

Place Quick Selector on begin

Allow to show quick selector as first tab. Possibile solution by JS: $('li[aria-controls="tabs-quick"]').detach().prependTo('#_Tabs_ ul').find('a').trigger('click')

Dynamic append fan expansion selector to derived classes - DONE

Some expansions can be add to derived classes automatically without code stuff. For example The Wetlands are double sized tiles. So they should be counted in showDoubleSizedTiles. So adding attribute to fan expansion in Expansion_Selector_Labels like data-selector-appendclasses="['showDoubleSizedTiles']" will automatically add this expansion to showDoubleSizedTiles and also to derived classes uses showDoubleSizedTiles. Array is required, because fan expansion can be added to multiple different derived classes.

Fan expansion derivates of official expansions

There are fan expansions which uses same game mechanics which mini official expansions. Nice example is The Labyrinths or The Flying Machines 2. Game reference pages uses name of mini expansion to this game mechanics. So we can dynamically said that when FlyingMachines2 is in expansion selector, show all Flying Machines stuff.

One solution can be, that each mini will create selector with _Mechanics at end. Priginal selector well be kept as it is. And new derived class name will be created automatically like showLabyrinth_Mechanics = [OR,"showLabyrinth"] which will be dynamically appendable by data-selector-appendclasses, so The Labyrinths can be append to showLabyrinth_Mechanics and all stuff for Labyrinth will be showed if one or both from The Labyrinth and The Labyrinths will be selected.
Another solution can be, that each mini will create selector with Mini at end. Like showLabyrinthMini which will be selector for expansion itself. And create derived classname showLabyrinth = [OR,"showLabyrinthMini"] which will be dynamically appendable by data-selector-appendclasses, so The Labyrinths can be append to showLabyrinth and all stuff for Labyrinth will be showed if one or both from The Labyrinth and The Labyrinths will be selected.

This can be applicable for expansions which not has children (mini with children is The Abbot inputAbbotAndGardens).

Make WikiCarpedia Great / Yes we can

Feature value for scoring a Castle

It is not very clear, what is the value of feature when triggering score of a Castle. If will be great to add row which will tell visitor that this is value for castle scoring on Carcassonne Scoring During the Game.