I recently played a game of Catan with Cities and Knights. We had a situation like the following (excuse the horrendously crude art). Where an Orange Knight (A) is breaking up some roads between two Red Settlements (B & C). My question is if orange played a diplomat card, would they be able to take either of the adjacent roads (indicated by the green arrows)?
The C&K rules say this under the Diplomat card details:
You may remove an “open” road (without another road or other piece at one end). If you remove your own road, then you may immediately place it somewhere else on the island (following all the normal building rules) for free.
An “open” road means a road that is at the beginning or end of a chain of roads which does not have any knight, city, or settlement of the same color at one end. If you remove an opponent’s road, it returns to his supply. If you remove your own road, then you may place it immediately on the board, free of charge (following the normal building rules—connected to your own road or settlement/city). You may remove your own road and choose not to replace it.
My contention is that yes, orange could take either road. I think this is the case because a knight has the ability to break up longest road, which to me, seems like a knight placed like this would break up any road into two separate parts. But I'm asking because the almanac is not explicit as to what a 'chain' in
An “open” road means a road that is at the beginning or end of a chain of roads
is. So although the roads would normally not be at the beginning or the end, now that there is a knight there, I believe that they are both 'ends' of a 'chain' of roads, which would mean they are eligible to be taken.
However, some of the other players disagreed. Is there anything that explicitly clears this up in the almanac or even in the FAQ's?