Questions about pigs

Question

We recently purchased some Carcassonne expansions, and I have some questions about the pigs.

First, pigs can be placed on your field to increase the multiplier. But what if fields are merged? Do pigs count as farmers, or are they just multipliers? Example:

• Red has a field with one farmer and a pig.
• Blue has a field with just one farmer.
• The fields are combined. Does red win, or do both red and blue share the spoils where red has the x4 and blue the x3 multiplier?

Second, the expansion with the dragons introduces portals. Is it possible to place a pig through a portal, or is it meeple only?

Answer 1

Traders and builders rulebook:

The pig counts only if he owns the field. For ownership of the field, only the farmers are counted.

The PDF from Rio Grande Games for the princess and dragon does say that the magic portal can be used by a follower and the PDF from Rio Grande Games for Traders & Builders does call the pig a follower in the rules.

However checking with the Complete Annotated Rules that cites a lot of sources:

The original rules say: ’12 new followers in 6 colours (one builder and one pig for each player)’. In the Big Box rules, the builder and pig are no longer considered to be followers, which has a large number of consequences for their use. The RGG edition of the Big Box also changes this rule.

I've always played the portal as Meeple (big and small), Mayor and Wagon are free to be deployed but nothing else which is in line with the above statement.

Answer 2

Both get points.

Your pig gives you +1 for each city you gain points for (limited to the cities bordering the field the pig is in, of course). It doesn't give you an advantage for "winning" the points from a city. So in your example : yes, both players get the points : 4 for Red, thanks to the piggy, and 3 for Blue. (I don't get why you're mentioning "multipliers" though.)

I can't answer for the dragons, I don't own that expansion.