Earlier this
week I discussed Rio Grande Games. At
the end, I mentioned Carcassonne,
which is a “must have” game for everyone.
Realizing I have never reviewed it, I thought I would correct that
problem today.
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| (Image by Big Woo) |
My wife
would tell you that Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride are the two games that
everyone joining my gaming group should play before playing any deeper games. They show new players who are generally used
to Monopoly, Risk and probably their
kids’ roll-and-move games something
entirely different; games that have a lot more going on and are incredibly
fun. I am not so exclusive. However, Carcassonne
scratches the strategic itch in a way that many games do not. There are a lot of reasons why you should by
this game.
(Just to
clarify – I am not one of those that believes a game must be strategic to be a
good game. Many games, like Bananagrams for example, are primarily
tactical, and are very fun. However,
there are times when I want to play something more strategic. Hmm, maybe I need to talk a little bit about
strategy vs. tactics in an upcoming blog.)
The first
gotcha for new players is the fact that there is no board, just a blank table
and a bag of tiles. The board is built
during the course of the game! On their
turn, each player lays a square tile with several possible terrain features on
it: city, monastery, road or field.
Tiles must be place so that they touch a tile already on the table, and each side must match the
features of adjacent tiles. The player
may then place a token (meeple) on the tile just placed to claim it. Once enough tiles have been place to build a
complete road, monastery or city, they score points. Farms are scored at the end of the game. As you might guess, with a somewhat abstract
theme and both ongoing and end game scoring, this game classifies as a “Euro”,
a European style game.
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| Carcassonne in play (Image by Aaron Tubb) |
First of
all, Carcassonne plays 2-5 people,
and six with the Inns and Cathedrals
expansion. Many games claim to do this,
but few actually are a good game with the full range of players listed on the
box. I’ve talked about this before, so I
won’t dwell on it. Suffice it to say
that Carcassonne works really well for 2-4 players, and is
still a good game with 5 or 6.
Regardless of whether it’s two people alone after the kids are in bed,
two couples getting together, or a fairly large family, this game will work for
any number.
For the
amount of strategy in this game, it is accessible to new players. This game is easy to teach, and is one of those
uncommon games that can be taught in stages.
Cover the basics of tile placement in a few minutes, then after a turn
or two explain in more detail how scoring is done. As the game rolls along, the game explainer
can show how players interact in the game.
At the same time, there are many experienced hobby gamers that are completely
willing to play this – including me!
Once again, it covers the range of players.
Lastly, this
game accomplishes all of this in an hour.
With some experience, the games will move quickly. A few years ago and another job ago, I played
at lunch with a couple of others. Once
everyone knew the game, it was not uncommon to get in two games within our hour
lunch. The three of us even managed to
play three games in an hour one day! The
game length is just about perfect for any evening.
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| This is the one expansion to get! (Image: Surya Van Lierde) |
Carcassonne has a lot of
expansions. A lot. Some are very good, and some are downright
silly. Personally, I think there is only
one worth getting: Inns and Cathedrals. This
expansion adds one more player (the sixth player) and several more tiles. Two tiles have cathedrals on them, and
several have inns on them. Cathedrals
make cities high risk, high reward propositions; inns do the same for
roads. They can be played for yourself
to increase your score, or played late in the game to foul up your opponents
big plan. Of course, it may not work out
as planned! I would leave the other
expansions alone. While Carcassonne can be bought in a “Big Box”
version that includes several expansions, I would save my money (and my shelf
space) and just by the base game and Inns
and Cathedrals.
I guess the
biggest endorsement of this game is that we own 3 copies. Yes, I said three. Three copies of Inns and Cathedrals, too. One set is at home (and it has a few more
expansions which largely just sit in the box).
One set is at my wife’s place of work, and one is at her mother’s house
out of town. This is a game that we all
enjoy, which can be a trick in our household!
It hasn’t made it to the discount stores yet, but I have seen it at
Barnes and Noble as well as game stores.
It’s
Your Move!
Related Posts:
- Publisher Profile: Rio Grande Games
- Games of Grief: How many players does this support?
- Expending My Thoughts About Expanding My Games…
- Bait Games – Getting your family and friends to play
