Carcassonne

Overview

Players take turns drawing and placing landscape tiles, building a medieval map together. Placing a meeple on a road, city or monastery claims it, and the game is about knowing when to commit one and when to hold it back.

Designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Hans im Glück, with Z-Man Games publishing in English. This entry is checked against Z-Man's current 3rd edition rulebook and supplementary rulesheet (©2000, 2021).

You may know a road meeple as a thief and a city bonus as a pennant. The current rulebook calls them travelers and coats of arms. The box also includes two mini-expansions, the River and the Abbot.

1. Components

Item	Count
Tiles	The rulebook describes "84 land tiles"; separately, "12 tiles show a river". The start tile and the river tiles have dark backs
Meeple	40, 8 in each of 5 colours
Abbots	5, one per colour
Scoreboard	1

2. Setup

1. Place the start tile face up in the middle of the table.
2. Shuffle the other land tiles face down into several stacks everyone can reach.
3. Each player takes the 7 meeple of their colour as their supply and puts an 8th on 0 on the scoreboard.
4. For a first game, leave the river tiles and abbots in the box.

The youngest player starts, and play goes clockwise.

3. A turn

Three steps, in this order.

1. Place a land tile

Draw exactly one tile and place it face up next to a tile already on the table, so that it continues the landscape: roads meet roads, city meets city, field meets field.

In the rare case that it can't be placed anywhere, return it to the box and draw another.

2. Place a meeple (optional)

You may place one meeple from your supply, and only on the tile you just placed.

Where	Role
On a road segment	Traveler
On a city segment	Knight
On a monastery	Monk (or nun)
Lying down on a field	Farmer, part of the supplementary rules (section 6)

You cannot place a meeple on a feature that already has another meeple on it.

That applies to the whole feature, not just the tile. If the road or city segment you just placed connects to one that already has a meeple anywhere on it, you can't claim it.

3. Score points

Every feature your tile completed scores now, for everyone with meeple on it, not only for you. Then those meeple go back to their owners' supplies.

4. Completing and scoring features

Feature	Complete when	Scores
Road	Both ends are closed by a village, city, monastery or other feature, or it loops back on itself	1 point per tile
City	Fully enclosed by walls with no gaps inside	2 points per tile, plus 2 per coat of arms
Monastery	Surrounded by all 8 neighbouring tiles	9 points: 8 for the neighbours and 1 for itself

A three-tile city with one coat of arms scores 3 × 2 + 2 = 8 points.

A completed two-tile city scores 4, plus 2 for each coat of arms. That's the normal city rule; the current rules have no special case for small cities.

5. More than one player on a feature

You can't place a meeple directly onto a claimed feature, but two separately claimed features can later be joined into one by another tile. Then:

If there are multiple meeple on a single scored feature, the player with the most meeple on the feature scores the full points for that feature. If multiple players are tied for the most meeple, all tied players score the full points.

A tie isn't split: each tied player scores the full amount. This is the main way to take over a city: start a separate city next to it and join the two later.

6. Farmers (supplementary rules)

The rulebook recommends adding farmers after two or three games.

• A field is a connected green area, separated from other fields by cities, roads, the river and other features.
• Farmers are placed lying down on the field of the tile you just placed, only if nobody already has a farmer on that field.
• Farmers are scored only at the end of the game. They never return to your supply during play, so each one is a meeple you lose for the rest of the game.
• At the end, each field scores 3 points for each completed city touching it. Unfinished cities count for nothing.
• The majority rule applies as for other features: most farmers take the full score, and tied players all score it in full.

7. End of the game

The game ends when the last land tile has been placed. Then everything still on the board is scored:

Unfinished feature	Scores
Road	1 per tile, the same as a finished one
City	1 per tile and 1 per coat of arms, half the usual rate
Monastery	1 for itself plus 1 per neighbouring tile
Field	3 per completed city touching it

The majority rule applies to each one. Most points wins; a tie means more than one winner.

8. The mini-expansions

The River

Twelve dark-backed river tiles replace the start tile. Put the source tile on the table, shuffle the others, and put the lake at the bottom of the river stack. Players draw river tiles until they are all placed, and each has to continue the river. A river bend can't turn the same direction as the previous bend, so the river can't loop back on itself. No meeple may go on the river itself. Then play continues with the normal tiles.

The Abbot

Each player also has an abbot, which can be placed only on a monastery or a garden. Normal meeple can't go on gardens. A completed garden scores like a monastery, 9 points.

Its special ability: on a turn when you don't place a meeple, you may take your abbot back from the board and immediately score its monastery or garden for however many tiles surround it so far. At the final scoring an abbot scores like a monk.

Commonly argued

• Tiles must continue the landscape on every side they touch.
• A meeple can only go on the tile you just placed.
• You can't claim a feature that already has a meeple on it, anywhere along its length. You can join one later from a separate claim.
• Tied majorities both score in full. Points aren't split.
• Completing a feature scores it for everyone on it, whoever placed the tile.
• Farmers stay on the board all game and score only at the end.
• Unfinished cities score half at the end: 1 per tile and per coat of arms.
• A two-tile city scores 4 plus any coats of arms. It isn't a special case.
• Travelers and coats of arms are what the current rulebook calls thieves and pennants.

Where this comes from

The current Z-Man Games 3rd edition rulebook and supplementary rulesheet, ©2000, 2021 Hans im Glück, downloaded from Z-Man's Carcassonne page. Older boxes have not been compared with it.

Where this entry and your rulebook disagree, the rulebook wins. Tell us.