Summary
Create a medieval French countryside to claim the landscape
Players: 2-5 players
Gametime: 30-45 minutes
Gameplay
Set up the game
- Place the starting tile in the center of the table.
- Shuffle the remaining tiles and place them face down in a draw pile.
- Each player chooses a color and takes their corresponding set of meeples (or player tokens).
Build the landscape
- On each turn, draw a tile from the draw pile and place it adjacent to an already placed tile.
- Then, you can choose to place one of your meeples on a feature of the tile, such as a road, city, monastery, or field.
- You can also choose to pass on placing a meeple.
Score points
- When a feature is complete, such as a road or city, you score points for it.
- The player with the most meeples on a completed feature scores the most points.
- You also score points for completing a large city or long road.
Manage your meeples
- You only have a limited number of meeples, so you must manage them carefully.
- Once a meeple is placed on the board, it stays there until the feature it is on is completed.
- You can also choose to take back a meeple from the board by forfeiting any points it may have earned.
End the game and count final scores
- The game ends when all tiles have been placed.
- Players score final points for incomplete features, such as incomplete roads and cities.
- The player with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.
Here is a video from Rodney Smith teaching us how to play Carcassonne
Review
An award winning game with easy rules and strategic meeple placement, Carcassonne has great re-playability. With each game a new landscape emerges, a new challenge to place meeples and a new way to block the opponents. Carcassonne is a classic tile-laying game that is easy to learn and has a lot of depth. The game is well-designed with high-quality components and beautiful artwork and can be a great start in your board game journey.
Difficulty: Easy
Likeness: 65%
Purchase
You can purchase Carcassonne on Amazon here