Carcassonne
2–5 Players | Ages 8+ | 45–60 minutes | $35
Carcassonne is a board game classic. Going into its 15th year, Carcassonne has introduced many families (including mine!) to the world of European style gaming. Despite its age, Carcassonne still hold its own in the wide world of gaming, and with new versions coming out regularly there has never been a better time to jump aboard the bandwagon.
So what is Carcassonne?
In Carcassonne, players build a picturesque medieval landscape, full of roads, cities, cloisters, and farmland. To populate this world, players add in their “meeples” in the roles of robbers, monks, knights, and farmers. On a given turn, players will perform the following actions:
- Draw and place a tile, matching its sides to its neighbors.
2. (Optional) Add a person to that tile.
That’s it! But wait, you say, how can that possibly be any fun?
The depth in Carcassonne come down to the rules of placing your workers. There are two big constraints here. You can only add a meeple to the tile you just added. Second, you cannot directly add a worker into a territory that another player controls. Players will need to think ahead; staking their claim to unconnected cities and roads before bridging these and sharing in (or stealing!) their opponent’s points.
Because of this, the game can be as cooperative or as cut-throat as the players prefer. Through table-talk, players can strike deals to help each other finish their projects, or muscle-in and try to take all the points for themselves. Tile placement is equally important. Since not all possible side combinations exist, you can put your opponent into a position where they cannot finish a project. You will have to make careful plays to prevent being boxed out.
The biggest downfall of Carcassonne for me is its scoring system. Each type of worker scores differently. Robbers, knights, and monks will be scored throughout the game, but farmers will only be scored at the end.
Additionally, incomplete projects will still score points, but not in quite the same way as if they had been finished. This is all very balanced, and the rulebook does its best to clarify these, but it often leaves new players confused. After a play through or two, however, most people have a solid grasp on scoring.
Fortunately, playing through a game of Carcassonne is a relatively quick prospect. The game is over when tiles run out so with more players the game actually seems to go by faster, since there are fewer decisions made per player in the game. My family regularly finishes a game and are ready to start again, each one eager to rehash their strategy. To achieve this speed of game play I would suggest using a simple house rule. Each player draws their next tile at the end of their turn, giving them a while to think about their upcoming move while others take their turn.
Overall, Carcassonne is a light, family friendly affair which plays quickly, but with a good deal of strategic depth. Players who want to extend the game’s time and increase its depth will be happy to see a world of expansions to the base game. None of these are strictly necessary, but they can be a good deal of fun to dabble with.
