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Jan 27th, 2011 at 23:25:07 - Carcassonne (Other) |
Carcassonne: Thursday, Jan 27th (Games One and Two)
Carcassonne is a multiplayer board game for 2-5 players. It is named after the medieval town of Carcassonne in southern France, and as you may have guessed the theme of the game is also medieval. Players use randomly selected tiles containing roads, fields, fortified cities, and cloisters to create a game board and score points by completing objects such as cities or roads that their characters, called meeples, control.
= Players =
The representations of players in Carcassonne are called meeples. Each player is given seven meeples at the beginning of the game and can place them on any un-previously claimed feature (such as a city or road) of the game board during his turn. Meeples can be regained by completing features on the game board that contain a player’s meeple.
= The Board =
The game board is made up of 72 tiles with varying terrain composed of roads, cities, fields, and cloisters in different configurations. At the beginning of the game, a single tile is face up and the other 71 are randomly shuffled face down on the table. Players take turns choosing a tile and assembling the game board so that the pieces fit together to form cities, roads, etc. Some pieces are more rare than others, so while randomly drawing a tile is completely chance-based, there is a good bit of strategy in what to do with that tile after it has been drawn.
= Scoring =
Scoring in Carcassonne happens in many different ways. One of the easiest ways to score during game play is to complete a city or road (no unfinished edges to expand upon). Upon completion of a city, the player receives two points per tile containing part of the city, as well as two points for every tile in the city that contains a pennant. Upon completion of a road, the player receives one point for every tile that contains part of the road. A cloister is completed when the game tile is completely surrounded by eight other game tiles. As this is a bit harder to do, a completed cloister is worth nine points.
When all the game tiles have been placed as part of the game board, a final round of scoring occurs before the game ends. Any uncompleted cities that a player controls are worth one point per city tile plus one point for each tile in that city containing a pennant. Uncompleted roads in a player’s control are still worth one point for each road tile. Uncompleted cloisters in a player’s control are worth one point for the cloister and one point for each of the surrounding game tiles. Fields are only scored at the end of a game and are worth three points for each completed city bordering a field that a player controls.
During game play, two features claimed by different players may connect in a way that multiple players have control of the same feature. In this situation, points are given to the player with the most meeples on a given feature. If there is a tie number of meeples on a feature, all of the tied players receive the full number of points for that feature.
= Game Play =
First Session: I played Carcassonne as a group of three people (the other two I will refer to as Yellow and Purple based on their meeple colors). As this was my first time playing the game, I went for quick scoring features immediately. I tried to complete short roads and small cities to quickly gain points. I was pretty proud of myself, racking up a quick lead while Purple had zero points and Yellow was lagging behind. The game continued in this fashion with Purple still hovering close to zero points for the entire game and Yellow a good ten points behind me for most of the game. As the final round of scoring commenced, I was sure I had done quite well for my first round of Carcassonne, but Purple had been laying down meeples in fields and there were quite a few completed cities throughout the game board. I ended up finishing in third (of three) close behind Purple but far from Yellow’s score.
Second Session: For my second game of Carcassonne, I decided that I should rack up some points on mega-cities and the surrounding fields. I started building large cities away from the other players’ tiles. As we made our way through the 72 game tiles, I kept expanding and expanding but I could never quite finish my cities. I ended up with at least three to four quite large cities in a couple of fields. During the final scoring round, I received a good many points for my cities, but only half of what they would have scored if they had been completed. I scored zero points for my meeples in the fields, because both fields contained no completed cities. I ended up finishing in second in front of Purple, who had also tried to complete a couple large cities, but again behind Yellow. Maybe after a few more tries, I’ll finally be able to match Yellow’s cunning skills at meeple placement.
= Overall =
Carcassonne is a board game with simple rules that is quite fun to play. There is an element of luck to the game, but a player with a good strategy can win most games. The game also has a ton of expansion sets to keep a player interested for a long period of time. It’s definitely quite an addicting game.
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