Castel: translation errors in the german version

[Bruno Faidutti]

I've received this morning an email of a german player who just got the
german version of my game "Castel", and who asked me about the wording of
three cards. Here is the quoted email, and my answer:
At 11:13 +0200 31/05/00, Henning Kröpke wrote:
>Bonjour Monsieur Faidutti !
>
>Surprisingly I received my german copy of Castel yesterday. Till now I only
>had time to look through the cards and read the rules. The graphics are
>very beautiful, the rules are (at first sight) without faults.
>
>But it is still an german Eurogames edition, so I think three card texts
>are possibly wrong or unclear.
>
>I try to translate the german text:
>
>The rules states that every player receives cards for his "hand", after
>that facedown cards for his "draw pile" (Vorrat) and remaining cards go
>faceup in a "change area".
>
>Two cards use a different wording:
>Magier (magician): any one card is placed back on top of the "trade pile"
>of the corresponding player (Eine beliebige ausliegende Karte wird auf den
>Tauschvorrat des entsprechenden Spielers zurückgelegt).
No, this is a complete translation error. The card sent back goes face up
to the change area.
>Alchimist: Change two of your own hand cards with two cards of your "change
>pile".
>(Tauschen Sie zwei eigene Handkarten mit zwei Karten ihres Tauschvorrats)
>The french card on your website is a little bit to small, but I think the
>card text should be "trade pile", because it is forbidden to look through
>the personal "draw pile".
It should be "change two of your own hand cards with two cards of the
change area.

>At least the trader (Händler) is very strong: You may play a third action.
>Certainly you must replace three of your own tokens with tokens from other
>players. (Sie dürfen eine dritte Aktion durchführen. Allerdings müssen sie
>drei eigene Spielsteine durch Spielsteine anderer Spieler ersetzen).
>The german card text allows a third action and the removement of own played
>counters.
>Do you really wanted this strong ability or should it be a replacement of
>tokens from other players with tokens from the active player so the active
>player gets a third action but has three more cards in play that he
>possibly gets back ?
You are right. It should be "you must replace three tokens of other
players with your own tokens", which makes the card much less powerful.
>
>Thanks for some helpful remarks about these cards. I´m really looking
>forward to play this game, your other game about a medieval city
>("Citadels") is one of my favorite top 5 games this year.
These are three BIG errors, so I'll publish this answer on the german
boardgame newsgroup, to make the game more anjoyable and balanced for
everyone.
--
Bruno Faidutti
12 rue Armand de Pontmartin
30133 LES ANGLES
faidutti@free.fr
http://faidutti.free.fr/