Carcassonne (board game)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Carcassonne | |
|---|---|
 Players place tiles and followers in a strategic fashion in order to obtain the most points. |
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| Designer | Klaus-Jürgen Wrede |
| Publisher | Hans im Glück Rio Grande Games |
| Players | 2–5 (6 with expansion) |
| Age range | 8 + |
| Setup time | 1–5 minutes |
| Playing time | 30+ minutes |
| Rules complexity | Low |
| Strategy depth | Medium |
| Random chance | Medium |
| Skills required | Strategic thought |
| BoardGameGeek entry (more...) | |
Carcassonne is a tile-based German-style board game for two to five players, designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published in 2000 by Hans im Glück in German and Rio Grande Games in English. It received the Spiel des Jahres award in 2001. It is named after the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne in southern France, famed for its city walls. The game has spawned many expansions and spinoffs, inspired several PC and console versions, and the wooden follower pieces from the basic game (colloquially called meeples, a portmanteau of my people[1]) have become a symbol of European board gaming.
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[edit] Gameplay
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. 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 abuts: roads must connect to roads, fields to fields, and city walls to city walls.
After placing the new tile, the placing player may opt to station a follower piece on that tile. The follower can only be placed on the just-placed tile, and must be placed in a specific feature. A follower claims ownership of one terrain feature - road, field, city, or cloister - and may not be placed on a feature already claimed by another player's follower. However, it is possible for terrain features to become shared after the further placement of tiles. 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 in them. The player with the most points wins the game.
[edit] Scoring
During the turn, when a city, cloister, or road is completed--cities and roads when there is no unfinished edge from which to expand, cloisters when surrounded by eight tiles--the followers on that feature earn points for their owning players. 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 amount of points. Incomplete features are scored at the end of the game, when there are no tiles remaining.
There are three editions of Carcassonne, differing only by minor scoring details. The first edition scoring rules are included with English releases of Carcassonne, while the third edition rules are included with the German releases. There are no plans to use the third edition scoring rules in the English release due to playtesting concerns.[2]
Completed roads and incomplete roads score identically: one point for each tile the road passes over.
Similarly, followers on cloisters award points based on the number of neighboring tiles: a cloister is considered complete when it is fully surrounded by eight neighboring tiles. Cloisters score one point (for the cloister tile itself) and up to eight points for the surrounding tiles.
In the first and second editions of the game, closed cities consisting of two tiles score two points (one per tile) and one extra point for every shield that reside in the city. This detail is omitted in the third edition, where there is no difference between two-tile cities and cities of larger size: in the third edition (and for larger cities in the first and second editions), the city scores two points per tile and a further two points for each shield that resides in the city. Incomplete cities at the end of the game score one point for each tile and one point per shield.
In these three cases, all of the followers are returned to their owners when completed, which can then be subsequently reused.
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Feature Completed Game end City Edition Two-tiles More tiles 1 point per tile + 1 point per shield 1st & 2nd 1 point per tile + 1 point per shield 2 points per tile + 2 points per shield 3rd 2 points per tile + 2 points per shield Road 1 point per tile Cloister 1 point + 1 point for each of the eight tiles surrounding it Fields 1st & 2nd Not scored. (See below.) 3rd 3 points for each completed city bordering the field.
Scoring for fields form the greatest divergence in scoring rules between the editions of Carcassonne. Fields are only scored at the end of the game, and depend on neighboring completed cities. In the first edition, the players with the most amount of followers adjacent to a city are awarded four points. Thus, followers from different fields may contribute to the scoring for a city, and followers on a field may contribute to the scoring for multiple cities. The second edition considers different fields separately -- for each field, the players with the greatest amount of followers scores three points for each adjacent city, although points may only be scored once for any given city. The third edition further simplifies this by removing the last detail, making field scoring similar the scoring of other features.
[edit] Game interest
Carcassonne is considered to be an excellent family game since the rules are simple, no one is eliminated, and the play is fast. A typical game takes only 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 way you get points from your opponents' work.
- Avoiding sharing. If you can prevent other players from getting points as well, this is to your advantage. This is more important with fewer players, or if the sharing player is doing well.
- Judicious farmer placement. Farmers in the right location can be worth a lot of points. However, once placed, they are there for the whole game.
- Trapping opponents' followers. If you know which tiles exist or are more common, you can create situations where it is hard or impossible for an opponent to complete some feature. The result is their follower is stuck in something half completed.
BrettspielWelt, as well as hosting online games of Carcassonne, holds a "Mega-Carcassonne" competition for the game played with the largest number of Carcassonne tiles. The current record, held by the Spielzentrum in Herne, Germany, is 5517 tiles.[3]
[edit] Expansions
Several official expansions for Carcassonne have been published, which add numerous additional rules, tiles and new kinds of figures. Together, they can more than double the length of the game. These expansions are compatible with each other, and may be played together.
- Carcassonne: The River (2001)
- Originally a free expansion distributed by Rio Grande Games through hobby shops in the United States. Instead of starting with a single fixed tile, a river is formed before the regular tiles can be used. Newer releases of Carcassonne include this expansion, and those that do state as such on the box.
- Carcassonne: Inns and Cathedrals (2002)
- Originally known simply as Carcassonne: the Expansion, Inns and Cathedrals adds some new tiles, and a large figure (colloquially big meeple) that counts as two followers. The Inns and Cathedrals for which it is named can be placed as part of roads and cities to double their value -- provided they are completed by the end of the game. Inns and Cathedrals also adds pieces to allow a sixth player to play.
- Carcassonne: Traders and Builders (2003)
- An expansion to the base game with additional tile types and strategic possibilities. The most significant additions are trade goods, which appear in cities and are collected by the player who completes the city, even if they are not the one who scores it (thus encouraging the completion of other people's cities). This expansion also adds two new kinds of followers, which are treated slightly differently from those of the base game: a pig follower (which increases the value of a field it's placed in) and a builder follower (which grants an extra turn to the owning player whenever the feature is extended). These can be placed on any feature already occupied by an ordinary follower of the placing player (regardless of the presence of other followers); neither influence ownership of features they occupy. Traders and Builders also includes an opaque cloth bag to allow players to better draw tiles.
- Carcassonne: King and Scout (2003)
- King and Scout is an expansion to both Carcassonne and Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers, titled King and Scout respectively. In King, the player who builds the biggest city becomes King of Carcassonne, and at the end of the game receives extra points for every completed city; likewise, the player who builds the biggest road becomes Robber Baron and receives points for every completed road.
- Carcassonne: The Cathars (2004)
- Originally published in the German board game magazine Spielbox, and republished in their Carcassonne Almanac with an English translation, The Cathars add four siege tiles where Cathars are shown breaking city walls. These halve the value of the city, but doubles its contribution to field scores. Tile images and full English rules are available from Board Game Geek
- Carcassonne: The Count of Carcassonne (2004)
- The Count includes twelve tiles depicting the city of Carcassonne itself, along with a large figure representing the namesake count. Like The River, these new tiles replace the single starting tile. The city of Carcassonne is divided into quarters, each one associated with one of the types of features available - cities, roads, cloisters and farms. Whenever a player completes a feature that earns points exclusively for players other than himself, he may place a follower in one of the quarters, and also move the Count to one of the four quarters. When any feature is scored, followers placed on the quarters of Carcassonne can "jump" onto that feature at the last moment (unofficially known as "paratrooping"), possibly claiming the points for a player other than the one who had previously owned it. However, the presence of the Count in any quarter prevents the followers there from being moved in this way.
- Carcassonne: The Princess and the Dragon (2005)
- The Princess and the Dragon is perhaps the expansion that changes the game's rules the most -- the new tiles include magic gates which allow players to place followers on any previously played tile (as long as the feature in question is incomplete), while the namesake princess and dragon allow new mechanics for followers to be removed.
- Carcassonne: The River II (November 2005)
- The River II is another river expansion, which may be played along with the first expansion. These new tiles include a fork in the river, as well as elements from previous expansions.
- Carcassonne: The Tower (March 2006)
- The Tower adds a vertical element to Carcassonne: the expansion comes with eighteen tiles with tower foundations, which allow a player to add a tower section in lieu of follower placement. When they do so, they may remove and take prisoner an opposing player's follower on any orthogonally positioned tile within the range of the tower, where the range of a tower is equal to its height in tiles (including unoccupied areas). These followers are held prisoner and can be either exchanged or ransomed for three victory points. The Tower also includes a tile tower for easy tile storage, also acting as a mechanism from which tiles are drawn.
- Carcassonne Big Box (2006)
- The Big Box combines The River, Inns and Cathedrals, Traders and Builders, The Princess and the Dragon, and The Tower along with the base set, with features that help players tell expansion tiles apart from those of the base set. Rule clarifications are also included.
Some locales also publish the mini-expansions (The River II, King and Scout, and The Count) together as a normal-sized expansion. Games Quarterly also published expansion tiles for Carcassone in its Winter 2006 edition, and will do so again for Summer 2007.
[edit] Spinoffs
Because of the success of Carcassonne, a number of games have been spun off from the main game, all sharing similar mechanics.
- Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers (2002)
- Hunters and Gatherers is a stand-alone game that involves the building of forests, rivers and wildlife rather than cities and roads. This game attempted to rectify some perceived faults in the original by eliminating cloisters, introducing a "special tile" system to encourage players to complete cities (now forests) owned by other players, and making the value of meadows vary both up and down with animals that appear on the tiles.
- Ark of the Covenant (2003)
- Ark is a biblical-themed version of Carcassonne by Inspiration Games based on the Old Testament, which includes the animal feature found in Hunters and Gatherers, as well as the Ark itself which may be moved in lieu of follower placement, scoring points for followers that they pass through.
- Carcassonne: The Castle (2003)
- The Castle is a two-player spinoff, designed by Reiner Knizia, where the game is played within the confines of a fixed castle. Players gain extra abilities by scoring an exact number of points, and tile placement rules are relaxed.
- Carcassonne: The City (2004)
- The City is a "deluxe-style" standalone game similar to The Castle, where tile placement is relaxed. The significant new rules involve the addition of city walls when the city grows beyond a certain size.
- Carcassonne: The Discovery (2005)
- An exploration-themed stand-alone game that involves mountains, seas and meadows. The significant change in this game is that followers are no longer automatically removed when a terrain feature is completed: they must be removed as a game action, in lieu of placing a new follower that turn. Players may choose to remove a follower from, and score for, a terrain feature before it is completed, albeit for fewer points; followers remaining on the map at the end of the game also suffer a score penalty even if the features they are standing on are completed.
[edit] References
- ^ usenet post explaining the origin of the term "meeple"
- ^ Carcassonne Farmer Scoring
- ^ Mega-Carcassonne at BoardGameGeek
[edit] External links
- Carcassonne and the many Carcassonne expansions and spinoffs at BoardGameGeek
- Rio Grande Games' home page for the game.
- Inspiration Games' biblical version of the base game.
- Carcassonne FAQ English translations of the German "Regelfragen" (rules questions) from the official home page.
- Complete Rules Summary, covering all expansions with rules presented as they appear in turn order. Incorporates all known official FAQ.
- Carcassonne Rules, Questions, FAQs and Clarification including Sequence of Play and Scoring Summary for all expansions.
- Rules Compendium An unofficial gathering of all of the rules of Carcassonne and its expansions with explanations on how the expansion interact.
