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A clever tile laying game. The southern French city of Carcassonne is famous for its unique Roman and Medieval fortifications. The players develop the area around Carcassonne and deploy their followers on the roads, in the cities, in the cloisters, and in the fields. The skill of the players to develop the area will determine who is victorious. Special rules for the 12 river tiles: Remove the special starting tile from the game. Instead, begin the game by laying the spring that starts the river. Set aside the lake tile and shuffle the remaining 10 river tiles face down and draw from these before drawing from the tiles from the normal game. These tiles are played and followers may be played as in the normal game with one exception: a river tile may not be placed so that the river makes a U turn. Followers may not be placed on rivers. Once these 10 river tiles have been played, the next player plays the lake and then play continues with the normal tiles. Klaus-Juergen Wrede created Carcassonne. It is for 2 to 5 players and takes about 60 minutes to play
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Technical Details
- A simple, clever tile laying game that brings new challenges with every turn- A classic euro-game
- Simple to learn, lots of strategy
- For 2 to 5 players
- A great game the whole family can enjoy
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By Carol A. Scheel (Middleton, WI USA)
I got this as a gift for my son and he was very pleased to get it. He said it was something he had played and wanted to have his own to enjoy.
By ONENEO (Buffalo, NY)
Sometimes you can feel the hype surrounding a game long before you ever play it. Such was the case with Carcassonne, a staple among Rio Grande's catalog since the year 2000 and a game that has spawned literally dozens of expansions and spin-offs. If all of these facts weren't quite enough to hint toward a winner, the game comes decorated with a host of awards it managed to earn along its storied decade of existence.
Written originally by Klaus-Jurgen Wrede, Carcassonne originally came into being in Germany by a firm called Hans Im Gluck and like most Rio Grande Games, was translated into English and reintroduced to the North American market shortly thereafter. The illustration credit goes to Doris Matthaus and Jay Tummelson rounds out the roster as the man behind the English translation.
Consisting merely of 84 cardboard land tiles, a single cardboard scoring track, 40 wooden pawns and a color rule sheet, I wasn't sure what to expect going in. It turns out that the reason for the game's near-legendary status among hardcore fans and casual gamers alike has more to do with simplicity in its game mechanics and a highly addictive formula that's nearly subliminal to learn but limited only to the imaginations of the players involved.
The system, which is deceptively simple, works like this: Players begin by shuffling then stacking the 83 land tiles then place the start tile in the center of the table. They then take turns drawing a tile from the stack and placing it immediately, in other words, no one ever has tiles in their hand. Laying the tiles is quite intuitive in nature as the only rules to follow are to make sure the roads connect. The strategy comes in the form of the scoring mechanic, which is derived at by when and where a player decides to place his pawns. Pieces in the city segments are labeled knights and score 2 points per tile, pieces on the roads become thieves and earn a single point per tile. Pawns placed in the cloister (monks) can earn 9 points and farmers can make oodles of points depending on how many nearby cities they supply with goods.
About the trickiest part is of course learning the scoring method/ point breakdowns (some pieces are scored immediately then the pawns returned to the player's inventory while others, like the farmers, aren't scored until the end of the round). The game comes to its conclusion once all of the tile pieces have been placed. Since there is an east-to-follow scoring card included, the need for a calculator or scratch paper is pretty much eliminated entirely.
Rounds take around 45 minutes but that time seems to decrease to closer to a half hour as players get into the swing of things. The recommended requirement of ages 8 and up seems pretty on par but, and as I've discovered is the case with many games, much of this has to do with the way the rules are presented in the book/ grasping the game for the first time. It would appear that teaching the game to others once an adult has a firm grasp on it could very well open up the game's playability to children of nearly all ages as the mechanics are brilliantly simplistic.
The art itself is nothing too fancy or elaborate, which most certainly contributes to the game's user-friendly charm. Pieces are all easy to identify and it really doesn't take long before the table is just completely occupied by sprawling cities and villages. An additional bonus to tile-laying games like this is that it is literally a new game each and every time it is played. Since there is no permanent game board, there are no patterns to learn or unfair advantages for veteran players over beginners.
In all, I find the game to be quite enjoyable and almost relaxing in its mechanic. Never does it feel like a direct competition between players so much as an opportunity to create various landscapes while earning points in the process. While the core game supports 2-5 players, this is one of few titles that can truly boast intuitive couple-play. In other words, playing with just one other person never feels like a scaled down version of the "real" experience.
Like so many timeless classic board games before it, Carcassonne's greatest strength and most enduring attribute would have to be its clever simplicity. It can be enjoyed by players of nearly any age and level of experience, doesn't grow old quickly, and offers up enough strategy to keep players coming back for more. It's hard to imagine a more successful formula than that!
By Aaron Mcbride (California)
I like that Carcassonne doesn't take too long to play, and that you have to think about what the other players are doing as much as what you're doing. The board tiles are made out of sturdy card board with a nice finish, so they should hold up for a while (although, it would be nice if they were plastic so they would last even longer).
By Game Fan (Harrisburg, PA)
Give this game a chance and odds are it'll win you over. Initial responses range from it looks too complicated, to board games take forever, and I don't like nerdy Dungeons and Dragons type games. Fortunately none of these assumptions are correct.
The truth is that the game is easy enough for people of any age to understand after playing once or twice. Usual playing time is between a half hour and an hour depending on how seriously the players take the game, and it doesn't have anything to do with Dungeons and Dragons.
What this game suffers from is poor marketing. The unusual German name and fantasy world cover art portray this game as something it is not. When in reality it is something that everyone who has taken the time to give it a chance has really enjoyed.
By Zimy (Washington, DC)
To preface, this is the first time a product on Amazon has ever moved me to review it. I am a fairly avid gamer -- not a hard-core gaming geek -- but I think a lot about games and have designed a few myself.
Over the course of 4 days, I played this game about 20 times. Carcassonne comes off as interesting. The premise is good, the rules a easy to learn, and there is without a doubt a lot to think about. The limitation on the number of pieces you can use is the big key to game, followed closely by strategic placement of tiles. The games are fairly quick, and you can occasionally have fun working together & trying not to cheat each other in games with multiple players.
The bad: way too much luck & not enough strategy. This is not quite Candy Land, but it is closer than it first appears. In most games, the value of City tiles can be disproportionately high. In a random distribution over time, drawing tiles in multiple games will level this out. But in a given game, it can make all the difference -- and usually does.
Why I gave this game 1 star: Even if each player plays with the best strategy available to place a given tile (which starts happening pretty quickly since the rules & strategy are easy to learn), there is no way to beat the player who happens to draw the best tiles. In short, once everyone knows how the game works, you are just going through the motions of trying not to screw up in a game with a pre-determined result -- ick.
That is about the harshest possible criticism of any game I think of . . . sorry Carcassonne. Play Dominion, Settlers of Catan, or even Set instead.
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