Carcassonne: Catapult - Tips & Strategies

We had some house rules about how the catapult must be used.
1) The point of the catapult must be on the table.
2) Your arms are not allowed to be extended when catapulting (ie. launch from within your play area).
3) Cheering and Jeering is a must
4) The shooting angle must be less than 45 degrees. No Aiming directly down.

* * * JAHRMARKT (“Yearly Fair”) * * *

* Rulings variant for Carcassonne – The Catapult *

*** General rulings

* This is a variant for players who think dexterity elements do not fit the theme of the Carcassonne game yet they want to use the “Fair” tiles.
* General game rules and the rules of other expansions are used as normal.
* “The Catapult” rules are not used.

*** Specific rulings

** There is a new function of followers introduced: a Merchant:
* “Ordinary” followers, big followers and trolleys (from the Abbey and Mayor expansion) can be Merchants.
* “Mayor” followers cannot be Merchants (as well as pigs and barns can’t be ones).

** Whenever a player draws a Fair tile he may play it as normal, or he may decide keep it.
* If he plays the tile normally all standard rules apply.
* If he decides to keep the tile he must place a Merchant on it. The tile then lays next to that player (not on the map!). After doing so the player draws another tile. (Note that a lucky player may collect several fair tiles during a single turn!)

** If a player has one or more fair tiles in his resources at the beginning of the turn he may choose not to draw a tile from the sack, but play one of his fair tiles itself. But he is allowed to do so only if he is able to place the follower on that tile effectively converting the merchant into someone else: (a knight, a peasant etc).

** At the end of the game each fair tile with a merchant in players’ resources scores as -3 (minus three) points for their appropriate owners. (There are losses because the merchant had too much of his goods unsold.)