A follower (or ') on a tile, showing the walls and buildings of the town. The game board is a medieval landscape built by the players as the game progresses. The game starts with a single terrain tile face up and 71 others shuffled face down for the players to draw from.

1. Spiel Des Jahres

Spiel Des Jahres

On each turn a player draws a new terrain tile and places it adjacent to tiles that are already face up. The new tile must be placed in a way that extends features on the tiles it touches: roads must connect to roads, fields to fields, and cities to cities.

After placing each new tile, the placing player may opt to station a piece (called a 'follower' or 'meeple') on a feature of that newly placed tile. The placing player may not use a follower to claim any features of the tile that extend or connect features already claimed by another player.

However, it is possible for terrain features claimed by opposing players to become 'shared' by the subsequent placement of tiles connecting them. For example, two field tiles which each have a follower can become connected into a single field by another terrain tile. The game ends when the last tile has been placed. At that time, all features (including fields) score points for the players with the most followers on them. The player with the most points wins the game. Scoring During the players' turns, cities, cloisters, and roads (but not fields) are scored when they are completed—cities and roads when they are completed (i.e.

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Contain no unfinished edges from which they may be expanded), and cloisters when surrounded by eight tiles. At the end of the game, when there are no tiles remaining, all incomplete features are scored. Points are awarded to the players with the most followers in a feature. If there is a tie for the most followers in any given feature, all of the tied players are awarded the full number of points. In general (see table), points are awarded for the number of tiles covered by a feature; cloisters score for neighboring tiles; and fields score based on the number of connected completed cities. Once a feature is scored, all of the followers in that feature are returned to their owners. Feature Completed during play Game end City 2 points per tile + 2 points per pennant 1 point per tile + 1 point per pennant Road 1 point per tile Cloister 1 point + 1 point for each of the surrounding tiles Fields (Not scored) 3 points for each completed city bordering the field.

Older editions There are two older editions of Carcassonne, differing in scoring of cities and fields. Though, until recently, the first edition scoring rules were included with English releases of Carcassonne, third edition rules are now included with all editions (including the Xbox 360 and travel versions), and are assumed by all expansions in all languages. In the first and second editions of the game, completed cities covering just two tiles scored two points (one per tile) and one extra point for every pennant that resides in the city. This exception is removed from the third edition, in which there is no difference between two-tile cities and cities of larger size. The greatest divergence in scoring rules between the editions of Carcassonne is in scoring for fields.

In the first edition, the players with the greatest number of followers adjacent to a city were awarded four points for that city. Thus, followers from different fields contributed to the scoring for a city, and followers on a field may contribute to the scoring for multiple cities. The second edition considered different fields separately – for each field, the players with the greatest number of followers in a field scored three points for each city adjacent to the field, although points were only scored once for any given city. The third edition removes these exceptions and brings field scoring in line with the scoring of other features. Game interest. Walls of in France Carcassonne is considered to be an excellent 'gateway game' by many board game players as it is a game that can be used to introduce new players to board games. The rules are simple, no one is ever eliminated, and the play is fast.

A typical game, without any expansions, takes about 45 minutes to play. There is a substantial luck component to the game; however, good tactics greatly improve one's chances of winning.

Examples of tactical considerations include:. Conserving followers. Since each player has only seven followers, it can be easy to run out. This is especially important with fewer players, because then each player will play more tiles during the game. Joining in on other players' features. Often it is possible to add a separate road or castle segment near a big road or castle and join them up.

This allows a player to gain points from their opponents' work. Avoiding sharing. An advantage can be gained by preventing other players from getting points. This is more important with fewer players, or if the sharing player is doing well. Judicious placement of followers in fields. Followers in the right field can be worth a lot of points. However, once placed, they are there for the whole game.

Trapping opponents' followers. Not all possible tile configurations exist in the game. So if a player knows which tiles exist or are more common, they can create situations where it is hard or impossible for an opponent to complete some feature. The result is the opponent's follower is stuck in something half-completed.

Box contents. Distribution of tiles of Carcassonne, including The River expansion categorised by number of city and road boundaries The 2000 base box contains the following items:.

72 terrain tiles, each 45 mm (1.8 in) × 45 mm (1.8 in) × 2 mm (0.079 in). 1 score table of up to 50 points. 40 wood followers in 5 colors (8 followers of each color). Instructions on 4 sheets The 2014 redesign contains the same items as the original and also adds the following items:. 5 Abbot followers (1 in each color). 12 tiles from the River expansion.

Expansions.

Rated as a travel game - I'd give the regular version of Carc a 9. The tiles and meeps are smaller, but still very manageable. The bag doubling as a score track is clever. Still, this can't be played in the back seat of a car, nor would it fit on an airplane seat-back tray, which are two situations that most often come to mind when I think 'Travel Game'. This is more like 'Carcassonne: Leaves More Room In Your Luggage Edition'. For euro gaming in the aforementioned situations, I recommend the travel edition of Settlers.

Buy the full game. The pieces in this travel edition are only slightly smaller than the original set.

This means two things, ultimately - it isn't all that much more portable and it will never be compatible with the normal expansions. This version has none of the other common travel-related features, such as magnetic tiles/meeples to reduce sliding. (Magnetic Meeples! Oh my.) That said, I'd like to comment that our normal play set consists of the original game, Inns & Cathedrals, Traders & Builders, King & Scout, River 1 & 2, die Cartherer, and the mini-expansion from Games Quarterly magazine #11. All of these pieces from all of the sets fit into the original box with the original insert (without hiding pieces underneath.) The trick is to carefully lay the meeples flat in a ziplock sandwich baggie on top of the scoreboard. We almost always take it with us when traveling and have never had an issue with room. Although it could be further collapsed into a smaller package by removing the box from the equation.

The only thing I do like (and feel a bit envious of) is the scoreboard bag included in the travel set. We normally prefer to pull tiles from a bag, but this would not be possible if using the bag as a scoreboard. I can, however, see the advantage of having a cloth scoreboard, since it would be easier to pack.

I may have to design such a thing from an old shirt and printer-friendly iron-on paper. I really enjoy Carcassonne and I love having travel editions of games and I use them quite often. I was really looking forward to this game and I wondered how they would pull it off.

However my two complaints are: The score track is on the bag!? I use a bag to draw the tiles in the regular game, why didn't they include a separate track so we could use the bag to draw from is this version? Hopefully there's enough room in the box to add an additional bag. My second complaint is that maybe this wasn't the right game for a travel size.

The orignal Carcassone is easily travel ready if you just put everything in a tile bag. Same rating and comment as the original as it's the same game and the same tiles (just smaller). Very elegant in its simplicity. Pick up a tile, play a tile, score if you've completed an element you started earlier, place a meeple on one of the elements you've just placed to potentially score later. The key to its success is the claim now, score later feature - most tile layers you score with the playing of the tile itself. Combine that with offering people different elements to claim on each tile to offer choice, and fast turns to boot, and the game has broad appeal.