Carcassonne Game History and How to Play
The Carcassonne game was designed by Klaus-Jurgen Wrede and published in 2000. It is available in both German and English. Carcassonne is a tile-based board game that 2 to 5 people can play. The recommended age is at least 8 years old. The game’s name comes from the town of Carcassonne in southern France, which is a medieval fortified town known for the walls of its city. There are several spin-offs and PC and console versions of this game as well.
Setting Up
It takes approximately 1 to 5 minutes to set up this game, which isn’t too bad at all compared to other games. When you open the box to play the game you will find the following items needed to play:
- 72 tiles with terrain
- 1 score table up to 50 points
- 40 wood followers (meeples)
- Instructions
Playing the Carcassonne Game
The game begins by placing one of the terrain pieces face up with all of the other terrain pieces shuffled and placed face down. Each player will then take their turn drawing terrain pieces. Each new tile must be placed in a way that keeps extending the landscape. There are road pieces as well as fields, cloisters and cities and tiles will need to be placed next to another piece of the same type.
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After a player has placed their tile, they have the option to place a follower on the newly-placed tile. This shows ownership of that terrain and the follower must be placed on a specific feature. After all tiles have been placed the game ends and the player with the most points wins the game.
Scoring in Carcassonne
During the turn of each player, cities, cloisters and roads are scored only after they are completed and cloisters when they have been surrounded by 8 tiles. At the game’s end, all incomplete features are scored and then points are awarded to the players with the most followers in one particular feature.
City tiles earn 2 points each plus 2 points per pennant for ones completed during play or just 1 point each at the end of the game whether complete or incomplete. Road tiles earn 1 point each and cloisters earn 1 point each plus 1 point for each of the surrounding tiles. Fields are not scored during game play but at the end of the game, 3 points are awarded for each completed city bordering that field.
Carcassonne Game Expansions
There are a few Carcassonne game expansions that will allow you to build an even larger landscape. This will also extend the duration of the game that already has a playing time of 30 to 90 minutes for the standard 72-piece version.
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Carcassonne remains popular because the rules of play are easy to follow, it’s a quick game and players are never eliminated. It is also considered to be an excellent “gateway game” by many other board gamers – as in it can easily introduce people to other board games.
