Carcassonne Review

Review by William Keech

The basics
The perfect introduction to "German" or "Designer" games. It has all the elements of a truly great game; strategy, luck, top notch playing pieces, outstanding game mechanics and simple rules.

Goal
The basic goal of the game is to score the most points by laying down tiles that have various objects on them, such as roads, cities, fields, and cloisters. As you lay these down, you can place your followers on them to earn points. Points are scored both during the game and at the end.

Gameboard
The gameboard is actually a set of 72 tiles plus 12 more if you have the "river expansion set". As the game progresses the board is built, one tile at a time. Soon cities, roads, farm fields, and cloisters emerge and grow. A river will emerge too if you own the expansion (which, by the way, is free for the asking... and will soon come standard with the games itself).

Game components
The tiles are gorgeous and of the highest quality (which, thankfully, is the norm for German games) and the little wooden followers are just too damn cute for words.

How to play

Players take turns in a clockwise order and execute the following actions in the following order;

The player must draw and place a new tile
The player may deploy one of his followers to the land tile he just placed.
If, through the placement of the tile, cloisters, roads or cities are completed, they are scored.

The placement of tiles has to meet the following criteria;

The new tile must be placed with at least one edge abutting a previously placed tile. It may not be placed "corner to corner" with another tile.
The new tile must be placed so that all field, city, and road segments on the new tile continue to a field, city or road segments on all abutting tiles. i.e. You cant dead end a road with a field tile.
In the rare instance where a tile cannot be placed, it is simply discarded and the player draws another tile.

Pretty simple huh? But wait, here's the hard part...

You now get to deploy one of your followers on the tile, if you so choose. The rules for placement are as follows;

You may only deploy one follower on your turn.
You may only use a follower from your supply (your limited to seven) but these may be replaced if you score a road, city or cloister before the end of the game. (This is where most of the strategy comes into play)
You may only deploy your follower to the tile you just played.
You must choose where on the tile you want to deploy your follower. In a city (knight), on a road (thief) in a field segment (farmer) or in a cloister (monk). The only limitation is that you may not place one of your followers on a road, city or field segment if that segment connects to another tile that has a follower (from any player) already on it.

Pretty hard huh? Yeah, I didn't think so. Believe it or not, that's about the hardest part of the game. Like I said... "simple rules".

If you run out of followers, you still continue to lay tiles on your turn. If you complete a city, road or cloister, you score it and get to return the follower to your supply. Farmers are the only ones that cannot be returned. They are scored only at the end of the game.

At the end of a players turn in which the last tile is played, the game ends, and the final scoring is done.

My opinion
Like I previously stated, this is a great introduction to the world of "German" games. Because of its random tile placement, every game is different, which results in a very high replay value. The rules are pretty simple and can be mastered in a few turns, the strategy on the other hand is a little bit harder to master, you may have to play this game at least twice to get a good grasp on it. I highly recommend this game. Its fun, lighthearted and just a blast to play.

Number of players: 2-5	Complexity:	Strategy:	Luck:
Playing time: 30 minutes	Manufacturer: Hans im Gluck / Rio Grande