Carcassonne, by Rio Grande games
This was one of our first board game titles. We got it some 10+ years ago, after being introduced to it by the friendly staff of a local game store. She described it as being a "no-brainer".
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| The cover of our copy |
Inside you will find a short rules explanation, a scoring summary, a score track, a bag of meeples and a set of colorful game tiles. I believe our copy is the 1st edition, and I understand that some of the artwork and rules may have changed through the editions.
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| All the components |
The box comes with a cardboard insert which holds all the game tiles on one side, and the meeples on the other. The score track,and the rules go on top. The insert feels too big with too much space being wasted, instead of making the score track and the rules smaller thus able to fit in a smaller box. We usually get rid of the cardboard insert the moment we open the box as its a waste of space most of the time.This one we kept as it holds the components nicely, even if it is too big. If ever we do get some expansions for this game, there is more than enough room inside to keep it all in one box.
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| Insert with tiles and meepls |
The game tiles are all beautifully drawn, with an unequal number of copies for each. Most have some part of a castle, and around a half have a road going through them. A number of them even have an icon of a shield in the top left corner, and this is used during scoring.
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| Game tiles all sorted out |
On the back-side all the tiles have a light art, while one of the pieces has a darker art on it. This one is the starting tile, and you always begin the game with this one.
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The objective of the game is for the players to build upon the medieval landscape, trying to make the biggest city, although there are other ways to gain points.
To start, the players lay down the starting tile in the middle of the table, and shuffle the rest of the tiles into separate stacks, face down, close to each player. Than when its their turn, a player takes the top tile from the stack, flips it face up, and decides where to place it. Each new tile has to connect with any tile already on the board, as can be seen in the image bellow. After this, the player has a choice of placing one of his meeples on the tile he just placed in order to score points. This will lock the meeple if the feature the player is building is still incomplete, up until the feature is finished, and the player gets his meeple back. The game ends when you use the last tile available.
No matter how you place the tiles, you will always have a different game, as the number of tiles, the order they come into play and the way the player can set them up makes this game infinitely replayable.
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| Just an example of a map you can create |
The scoring summary explains how to place your meeples on each tile in order to score points, having them become a thief if placed on the road, a knight if in a city, a monk if in a cloister, or a farmer if placed on the green areas around a city.
Each time you score points, you move your meeple around the score track. If ever you pass the final number on the track,just lay the meeple on its back and continue moving him that way, to show that you have made it through the track once.
You may end up with some incomplete features when the game ends. These also score points in the end, just less than usual.
There are many expansions and spin-offs available, as well as video game variants for pc, mobile and consoles. The base game has a very affordable price point, but with the many, many expansions this could add up.
We find the base game so good that we still have and play it after more than 10 years of owning it, yet we never felt like we needed to add any expansions to it.
Our score: 8/10
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