Carcassonne (board game)
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 by Rio Grande Games and Z-Man Games in English. It received the Spiel des Jahres and the Deutscher Spiele Preis awards 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 spin-offs, and several PC, console and mobile versions. A new edition, with updated artwork on the tiles and the box, was released in 2014.
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 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 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 separate field tiles 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 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 are scored when they are completed—cities and roads when they are completed, 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, 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.
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, 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 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
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
- 72 terrain tiles, each × ×
- 1 score table of up to 50 points
- 40 wood followers in 5 colors
- Instructions on 4 sheets
- 5 Abbot followers
- 12 tiles from the River expansion.
Expansions
Full expansions
;"Inns and Cathedrals" : Originally known simply as "Carcassonne: The Expansion," Inns and Cathedrals adds some new tiles, and one new figure.- A large figure that counts as two followers, when calculating who scores points for the completed feature.
- Special tiles with Inns and Cathedrals can be placed as part of roads and cities to enhance their value—provided they are completed by the end of the game. Inns add one point per road tile, while Cathedrals add one point per tile or pennant in a city. However, if the city or road is not completed, it has zero value.
- Six 50/100 point tiles to help keep score.
- Followers that allow a sixth player to play
- Trade goods appear in cities and are collected by the player who completes the city, even if they are not the one who scores it.
- A "pig" follower which increases the value of a field it is placed in.
- A "builder" follower which grants an extra turn to the owning player whenever the feature is extended or completed.
- An opaque cloth bag which players can use while drawing tiles.
- Tiles with "magic portals" allow players to place followers on an incomplete feature of a previously placed tile.
- Volcano and Dragon tiles that place and move the dragon.
- Princess tiles and Dragon figure allow for followers to be removed.
- A Fairy figure also allows protection to a follower and its tile from the dragon.
- Eighteen tiles with tower foundations, which allow a player to add a tower section and capture nearby followers.
- Tower pieces to build with.
- A cardboard tile tower for easy tile storage, also acting as a mechanism from which tiles are drawn.
- Abbey tiles that can fill in holes in the board and complete features.
- Mayors who can be placed as followers in cities.
- A barn that causes field scoring.
- Wagons that can score features and then move to a nearby unclaimed and incomplete feature.
- Additional tiles that, in response to fan feedback, fix specific situations that have been previously impossible to complete.
- 12 tiles from River II mini expansion.
- 12 tiles forming the city of Carcassonne as a 3x4 starting tile from the Count mini expansion.
- Count meeple to be placed in the city of Carcassonne.
- 5 tiles from King mini expansion.
- King and Robber Baron tiles for the player/s who have completed the largest city and road respectively.
- 5 tiles with Shrines from the Cult mini expansion.
- A physical catapult.
- 12 fairground tiles that initiate a round using the catapult.
- Tokens to be launched by the catapult.
- 12 Bridge pieces enabling players to bridge roads over field tiles.
- 12 Castle tokens so players can gain additional points from 2-tile cities.
- 12 new tiles, eight featuring bazaars which introduce a new auction element to the game and four miscellaneous tiles.
- 16 sheep tokens, featuring either one, two, three or four sheep each.
- 2 wolf tokens.
- 1 cloth bag for the sheep and wolf tokens.
- 1 "shepherd" follower in each of the six colors.
- 18 new tiles, 8 featuring hills, 8 featuring vineyards and 2 featuring cloisters.
- 20 new tiles, featuring Big Top or Acrobat tower
- 16 animal tokens
- 6 Ringmaster meeples, 1 in each player color
- 1 wooden circus tent figure
Mini expansions
- 12 River tiles that replace the single initial tile.
- King and Robber Baron tiles used to keep track of who built the largest road and city.
- 5 additional tiles, with combinations that were previously missing
- Four siege tiles where Cathars break city walls. These halve the value of the city but double its contribution to field scores. Monasteries allow followers in cities to escape and come back to their players.
- Twelve tiles depicting the city of Carcassonne itself. These replace the initial starting tile and support new game mechanics.
- A count figure, which can block paratrooping.
- 12 new tiles to create a larger, forked river
- A new spring with a road, which separates a field, thereby preventing some very large fields as allowed by the original River.
- 11 additional tiles.
- Six tiles depicting heretical shrines that can be used in rivalries with cloisters and abbeys
- Four new tiles and twelve chips to create tunnels
- Tunnels can also be built with The Princess and the Dragon tunnel entrances
- Six new tiles depicting three pairs of symbols allowing players to add or remove followers from other tiles
- Six new tiles depicting plague zones allowing players to remove followers from tiles.
- Six small tiles numbered from 1 to 6
- 18 flea chips
; Carcassonne — The Festival : Included as a bonus with the 10th anniversary edition of the base game.
- Ten additional tiles which allows players to either place a follower as normal, or take one back from any tile.
- Six additional followers, 1 for each color that represent phantoms and allow a second follower to be placed on a turn.
- This is the first expansion that does not include tiles, and is also the first time meeples have been released in plastic. Each meeple is a see-through acrylic of a different color to represent a phantom.
- 0 additional tiles.
- Not compatible with the 10th anniversary edition of the base game
Six stand-alone mini expansions, with each containing a tile for a seventh mini expansion.
1. Carcassonne — The Flying Machines
2. Carcassonne — The Messengers
3. Carcassonne — The Ferries
4. Carcassonne — The Gold Mines
5. Carcassonne — Mage & Witch
6. Carcassonne — The Robbers
7. Carcassonne — Corn Circles II '''
; Carcassonne — The Watchtower : Released through cundco.de, includes 12 tiles depicting watchtowers with specialized bonuses on each tile. When a player places a meeple on the bonus feature of the watchtower tile, he or she gets the bonus when that feature is completed.
; Carcassonne — The Markets of Leipzig : Released through cundco.de, includes 4 double-sized tiles that form the market town of Leipzig with 4 roads extending out to replace the starting tile. Whenever a player scores on one of the attached road networks, they may move their meeple to one of the 4 quarters of Leipzig and potentially score additional points at the end of the game.
; Carcassonne — The Fruit-bearing Trees : Released through cundco.de, includes 6 tiles with fruit trees on them. When the fruit-bearing tree tile is placed, 4 tokens are stacked face down on top of it. When another tile is placed adjacent to the fruit-bearing tree tile, the player may either collect the top token from the tree and score the points depicted or sell their collected tokens at the market.
; Carcassonne — The Toll Keepers : Released through cundco.de, includes 6 tiles and 6 toll tokens. Instead of placing a meeple, you may place your toll token on an open crossroads. When a road that ends at your tolled crossroads, you score points for the travelers, farms, stables, highwaymen, and gardens on the road.
Compilations
; Carcassonne Big Box- The original game,
- Inns and Cathedrals
- Traders and Builders
- The Princess and the Dragon
- Tower
- River
- Cult
- Siege
- Two blank white tiles for use in making custom expansions
- The original game
- Inns and Cathedrals
- Traders and Builders
- The Princess and the Dragon
- Abbey and Mayor
- Count, King and Cult
- River II
- 72 tiles with some new/different tiles as compared to the original base game.
- 40 followers and a scoreboard.
- A new start-tile which depicts the Wheel of Fortune
- The Wheel of Fortune – a new mechanic based on icons on 16 tiles allowing an element of "fate" into the game. Events that can be triggered include famine, plague, and fortune, among others.
- A large pink pig animeeple that moves along the rim of the wheel.
- The original game
- Inns and Cathedrals
- Traders and Builders
- The Princess and the Dragon
- Abbey and Mayor
- Bridges, Castles and Bazaars
- The original game,
- The Festival
- Meeple shaped storage box
- Acrylic meeples
- The original game
- Inns and Cathedrals
- Traders and Builders
- Mini Expansion 1 – The Flying Machines
- Mini Expansion 2 – The Messengers
- Mini Expansion 3 – The Ferries
- Mini Expansion 4 – The Gold Mines
- Mini Expansion 5 – Mage & Witch
- Mini Expansion 6 – The Robbers
- Mini Expansion 7 – The Crop Circles II
- The original game
- Inns and Cathedrals
- Traders and Builders
- Hills & Sheep
- The Wheel of Fortune
- Mini Expansion – The River
- New Meeples for 7 & 8 player games
- The new edition of the original game with river and abbot expansions
- Inns and Cathedrals
- Traders and Builders
- Mini Expansion 1 – The Flying Machines
- Mini Expansion 2 – The Messengers
- Mini Expansion 3 – The Ferries
- Mini Expansion 4 – The Gold Mines
- Mini Expansion 5 – Mage & Witch
- Mini Expansion 6 – The Robbers
- Mini Expansion 7 – The Crop Circles II
Spinoffs
;' : 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 owned by other players, and making the value of meadows vary both up and down with animals that appear on the tiles.
;The Ark of the Covenant : 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.
;' : The Castle is a two-player spin-off, 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. A downloadable expansion called The Falcon was released in 2015.
;' : The City is a "deluxe-style" stand-alone 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 : 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.
;' : New World is a stand-alone game that allows players to play Carcassonne in the New World, aka America. Players begin the basic tile-laying from a coastal edge and move westward, creating towns, hunting, farming, and trail blazing as they go along. Although terminology has changed, this game follows the basic rules of Carcassonne very closely but is more restricted than the basic game.
;My First Carcassonne : Unveiled at the Nuremberg International Toy Fair in February 2009 this is a short game for younger children inspired by Carcassonne, designed by Marco Teubner.
;Cardcassonne : This is a card game based on Carcassonne.
;Carcassonne: The Dice Game, 2011: A set of 9 specialized dice with city segments, meeples, and catapults, where players roll the dice to create cities to gain points.
;Carcassonne: Winter Edition : is a standalone Carcassonne game where the tiles are depicted with Winter Snow, the set contains the base-72-tiles plus an additional 12 tiles. An expansion called The Gingerbreadman was released in 2012.
;Carcassonne: South Seas : South Seas is the first title in the Carcassonne: Around the World series. A tropical-themed version, varying gameplay by adding a resource element that affects the point score. An expansion called Friday was released in 2013.
;Carcassonne: Gold Rush : Gold Rush is the second title in the Carcassonne: Around the World series of tile-laying games. Gold Rush, players return to the 19th century in the United States. Players mine for gold and complete railroads to score points. A new mechanic is the Tent which can be used to steal Golden Tokens from other players before they complete their mountain. An expansion called The Sheriff was released in 2014.
;Carcassonne: Over Hill and Dale : Over Hill and Dale is a standalone game in the Carcassonne series. In this new game, towns and castles are replaced by fields of fruits and vegetables. Fruit is collected, stables are built to house animals, and paths can be walked down to score points.
;Carcassonne: Star Wars : In this Star Wars version, the known rules of Carcassonne are simplified by removing the farmer mechanic, but Cloisters are replaced with Planets that can be attacked, by rolling dice to beat one's opponent. Co-op play is introduced with a 2v2 mechanism. A boxed expansion for this game was released in 2016.
;Carcassonne: Amazonas : Amazonas is the third title in the Carcassonne: Around the World series. It takes players to the Amazon rainforest, where players can expand villages, forests, and the Amazon River and tributaries.
;Carcassonne: Safari : Safari is the fourth title in the Carcassonne: Around the World series.
Video games
;Carcassonne for Facebook: A Facebook application.;Carcassonne for iOS: An iPhone and iPad application developed by TheCodingMonkeys. This version has a Metacritic rating of 93% based on 10 critic reviews.
;Carcassonne for Windows Phone: An Xbox Live-enabled Windows Phone 8 application.
;Carcassonne on mobile- and smartphones : Developed by exozet games. Release: July/August 2011.
;Carcassonne: The Computer Game: A PC-based version of Carcassonne that included AI, online, and hotseat modes. It was distributed only in Germany by games company Koch Media and discontinued in 2006.
;Carcassonne on BrettspielWelt : Includes the expansions: The River, Inns & Cathedrals, Traders & Builders, Princess & Dragon, and King & Scout, as well as options to score based on different rulesets used across various editions of the game.
;Carcassonne for Xbox 360: In 2006, Microsoft announced in a press release that Carcassonne would be an Xbox Live Arcade title alongside Catan and Alhambra. The title was published by Sierra Online and released on 27 June 2007; it includes all the tiles of the original game and those of "The River" expansion. This version of the game uses the 3rd Edition scoring rules by default; the game allows alternate and/or older rules for non-ranked and single player games. Sierra had promised to release the expansions as well. As of 30 October 2009, The River II expansion and King & Baron expansions are available. On 15 November 2007, Microsoft made Carcassonne available free of charge for seven days to celebrate the fifth anniversary of their Xbox Live service.
;Carcassonne for Nintendo DS: Video game news website Kotaku announced on 9 July 2009 that an iteration of the game will be released on Nintendo DS in 2009. According to Kotaku, the game will include the "River" expansion as well as three new "worlds" described as "Asian, Nordic and Arabic."
;JCloisterZone:A PC-based application implemented in Java.
;"Age of Thieves":A game made for AmigaOS 4.1
;Concarneau:A web version of the game implemented in JavaScript.
;Carcassonne: Tiles & Tactics:The official adaptation of the board game published on Steam. The game includes the Abbots and the River expansion as a DLC. A port based on Tiles and Tactics. It was announced in a September Nintendo Direct. It was released on 29 November 2017.
Tournaments and World Championships
International Carcassonne tournaments were held in Germany in 2003–2005.The first official Carcassonne World Championship was held at SPIEL in Essen, Germany, in 2006. An annual world championship has been held at SPIEL every year since 2006 with the exception of the fifth championship, which was held on 24 October 2010 during SPIEL but at an alternate location in Herne, Germany. Ralph Querfurth has been the World Champion in four editions.
| Year | World Champion | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Participants |
| 2006 |  Ralph Querfurth |  Michael Wischounig |  David Korejtko |  David Erdos | 16 |
| 2007 | Sebastian Trunz |  Chen Wei-Chi |  Janne Jaula |  Henrik Fürstenberg | 20 |
| 2008 | Ralph Querfurth | Martin Mojžiš | Sebastian Trunz | Stefan Leopoldseder | 20 |
| 2009 | Ralph Querfurth |  Daniel Geromboux |  Matej Tabak | Petri Savola | 20 |
| 2010 | Ralph Querfurth | Martin Mojžiš | Matej Tabak | Randy Dreger | 22 |
| 2011 |  Els Bulten |  Shinnosuke Komukai | Robert Mützner | Martin Moijzis | 24 |
| 2012 | Martin Mojžiš | Stefan Leopoldseder | Matej Tabak | Els Bulten | 26 |
| 2013 |  Pantelis Litsardopoulos | Martin Mojžiš |  Aleksejs Peguševs |  Marciej Smieszek | 36 |
| 2014 | Takafumi Mochizuki | Pantelis Litsardopoulos | Matej Tabak |  Ricardo Gomes | 34 |
| 2015 | Pantelis Litsardopoulos | Takafumi Mochizuki | Els Bulten |  Humberto Fukuda | 32 |
| 2016 |  Vladimir Kovalev | Pantelis Litsardopoulos |  Vannes Vansina | Matej Tabak | 36 |
| 2017 | Tomasz Preuss | Pantelis Litsardopoulos |  Davide Sandrin | Matej Tabak | 38 |
| 2018 | Genro Fujimoto |  Marian Curcan | Kolja Stratmann | Tomasz Preuss | 34 |
| 2019 | Marian Curcan | Ying Chien Chien |  Timofei Gretsenko | Paolo Ballabeni | 36 |