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Let's start with the restriction that WR's must not run between the sea and a site. Does this mean that this WR is disallowed?
If disalowed, the same restriction does not apply to the forest side of the board? And yet Alan Ernstein has stated that "building around the edges of the road sites is not allowed," which leaves unclear the legality of a WR like this one on the mountain side:
Mr. Ernstein goes on to clarify that WR's should not directly pass more than one endpoint. So this WR is forbidden?
Use of more than one stick for a WR is fine, even when used to skirt the edge of lake Chucuito?
Finally, though I believe it's been answered in the affirmative, this WR in the heart of Cuzco is completely allowable?
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Alan Ernstein
United States
Valparaiso
Indiana
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All of the images are legitimate road builds:
In images 1 and 2, you cannot build around the points at the edge of the board (water or jungle).
In images 3 and 4, you may pass points within the board. The clarification is passing points at the edge of the board as in the examples above.
In image 5, the starting regions of Cuzco are considered conquered territory. Therefore, you may build WRs through them.
Any other questions? I am happy to answer them.
Alan
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Mark M
United States
Florida
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Both the question and the answer to the question now make this perfectly clear to me. I understand now that you can't skirt around a point to get to another point when the coast (or forest) is involved. Now I may have the courage to finally try out this game with my group! Thanks to the OP and the designer. Great photo examples!
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Thank you for the reply, Mr. Ernstein. I'm still unclear what the restriction that WR's "must not run between the sea and a site" prohibits. What exactly is "run between"? Is this allowed?
This, obviously, is not allowed. But if the restriction is against going into the water, why not just say roads have to stay on land?
Then again, why even bother with a suspension bridge over water when the same thing can be accomplished by going over land?
If the multi-stick WR in image 3 above is legal, is a similarly long WR running next to the forest also legal?
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Alan Ernstein
United States
Valparaiso
Indiana
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The small sites along the coast and the jungle were intended to be on the "edge of the map" and therefore there should not be any space between the site and the coast. so, in example #1, there is not any land between the small sites and the ocean. In #2 and 3, the route is allowed. In #4, there should not be space between the small sites and the jungle.
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Alan D. Ernstein wrote: The small sites along the coast and the jungle were intended to be on the "edge of the map" and therefore there should not be any space between the site and the coast.
And so should the rule for WR's be "A WR must not run between the sea and a site nor between the forest and a site"? Meaning this WR on the forest side is not allowed?
Nor this one, moved just slight down a bit?
Quote: In #2 and 3, the route is allowed.
Goodness, I'm getting confused. These are both allowed, you say?
The one on the left passes over water. The one on the right seems to run afoul of your clarification above that WR's should not directly pass more than one endpoint at the edge of the board -- it passes two endpoints, but City at Tombez and the small site that's cropped off.
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Mark M
United States
Florida
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The Inca were great at building suspension bridges, but I think mainly over rivers, not inlets of the Pacific Ocean. Just going out on a limb here, I am guessing the rule is you can't do an end run around an end point on either side of the board. At first I thought this was an informative thread, but now I am just confused and not really enjoying the spirit of it any longer.
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Yes, I apologize. I seem to be getting more confused with each clarification. The rules could have benefited from some pictures of what sort of WR's are not allowed. As it is, I'm just trying to deduce the prohibitions little by little.
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Justus Pang
United States
Houston
Texas
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I suspect that as much as I like Roche's design work, this was an oversight on his part. It seems to me that little sites on the border are supposed to be ON the border and so you can't do long end runs around them. The city and garrison sites are NOT considered to be sitting ON the border
I suspect maybe Alan mis-saw the Tombez example and did not notice the cropped endpoint when he said that was ok. If my understanding of him was correct, you could bypass Tombez but not the cropped endpoint. And If my reading of his explanation is correct the all the examples you put in the last post would not be allowable....
But yeah this is getting confusing!
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Perhaps it would serve us well to appeal to the board of the original game, Tahuantinsuyu. As you say, the sites on the forest and sea edge seem, for the most part, impassable.
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Replying to myself here.
Good god, looking at the original board, the limitations of Wilderness Roads on the shore and forest edge are everywhere. The new board for Inca Empire completely alters the geography of the game.
This issue was never raised when Inca Empire was released?
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Justus Pang
United States
Houston
Texas
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smooth gameplay should never get in the way of great art.
edit: I should mention I bought this game primarily because I think the game looks really, really good (while happening to fill an unrepresented niche in my game collection and having a great rep on the 'geek.)
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Thing is, I'll now probably end up desecrating the thing with Sharpies to disambiguate legal Wilderness Roads around the borders, much like I did to my board for Clippers:
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In the original game, Tahuantinsuyu, the rules for Wilderness Roads demand that they must not leave the play area. The key issue, then, is what are the limits of the play area. If we can get this clarified, the ambiguities surrounding WR's should dissolve.
The discussion in the Tahuantinsuyu forum can be found here.
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Alan Ernstein
United States
Valparaiso
Indiana
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I hope this helps. These are the sites I would consider "on the edge of the map."
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And so Wilderness Roads cannot be built around them on the outer edge, correct?
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Alan Ernstein
United States
Valparaiso
Indiana
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Correct. Wilderness Roads must stay within the confines of the board. Otherwise your troops will either get washed into the ocean or get lost in the jungle. A sad fate to be sure.
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Thank you, Mr. Ernstein. Everything is clear now.
As an aside, was there some sort of mixup during the production phase of Inca Empire that resulted in the WR ambiguities described in this thread?
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Alan Ernstein
United States
Valparaiso
Indiana
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I think it was a bit of an oversight by a group of people already familiar with the game. Sorry about that.
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I hope I'm not being to much of an annoyance, Mr. Ernstein, but could I trouble you to do a similar map for the 3-player side of the board? Just the northern portion is a little unclear.
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Maarten D. de Jong
Netherlands
Zaandam
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Having purchased this game myself recently I've diligently poured over rules questions in preparation for my first game. This discussion I found to be clarifying as well as thought-provoking.
What I intensely dislike about the chart the author prepared is that it necessitates marking my game board to indicate which sites are considered to be the border of the map (or not, which is far simpler). There is, regrettably, no simple rule of thumb which would serve as a mnemonic in order to establish a border post's 'borderness'. I simply don't want to take a marker and start doodling on the mapboard: it's anathema to me. So for better or for worse I am stuck with the Roche-map, and have to find a way to make things work.
— I could of course prepare separate player aids which provide the necessary information, and subsequently hope that with time and experience the approximately 10 non-border sites will be memorised sufficiently well that the player aids are just there for reference. Advantage: it's as the author intended. Disadvantage: requires players to sometimes refer to an external source of information.
— There's clearclaw's succint definition that a WR may only be built in areas enclosed by roads (apart from the one boundary-restriction). Effectively this says that the outermost roads are the edge of the map. Advantage: clear and unambiguous. Disadvantage: not what the author intended, and removes some 'obvious' shortcuts bypassing interior sites.
— Follow the rules as written: no road between sea and site. This amounts to saying that the roads on the sea-side (say from Quito to Ranchillos) are the edge of the map, and that there is no edge on the forest-side. Advantage: clear and unambiguous provided the edges of the sea-side are agreed upon. Disadvantage: not what the author intended, removes some 'obvious' shortcuts on the sea-side while introducing a few new ones on the forest-side.
— I humbly present my own suggestion: use a ruler to draw a line from the start to end, dividing the local area into playing and exterior areas. If any sites are found to be located in the local exterior, the WR may not be built. In case of doubt, disallow. Advantage: allows for 'obvious' shortcuts which the human eye would recognise as such. Disadvantage: not as clear as the other solutions in some cases, results in a different set of WRs on both sea- and forest-side. Also not as as the author intended, but approximates it better than the alternatives.
In the end, I'm not sure the more involved solutions (marking and ruler) are worth the effort. There aren't many WRs possible which are 'obvious' bypasses to begin with; parallel solutions are never impeded. Regrettably I lack playing experience so cannot say whether the presence of 'obvious' bypasses is a must for game-balance: I can certainly think of situations where it is very useful to be able to build that particular WR, but how often do those arise...? That is something I haven't yet seen in any of the WR discussions to date.
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Hi, Maarten. For my board, I affixed removable labels cut out like pointers showing which sites WR's can bypass. Using removable labels allows changes later, should any new clarifications arise.
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Thomas Büttner
Germany
München
Bavaria
http://www.caaats.com
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The question for me is: Is the game "out of balance", if I simply don't allow WR outside of the "street network"? I don't think so, and this way I
a) don't have to damage my game board
b) don't have to explain, why some WR are allowed, when others are not.
For me, this is the best solution. 
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Justus Pang
United States
Houston
Texas
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I've gone with the clearclaw approach (wr's only within printed road boundaries). its the simplest and until we get a lot of plays in I think a few missing wilderness opportunities will be the least of our problems....
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Posted Sun Oct 16, 2011 10:36 pm
