I recently picked up The River II to play with my kids. I have the Big Box, so we've been playing with the original recipe version for a while now, and I thought I'd try this one for a bit of a change of pace.

The expansion consists of twelve tiles, including a source tile and two lake tiles, one ending at a city section and the other at a volcano. Also included is a tile which separates the river into two sections (hence the two lake tiles). The remaining eight tiles are river sections, including a cloister, a unique city tile with a bridge spanning the river, a tile with an inn, and a pig farm. The tiles represent a nice variety of formations and work well with other expansions. The inn can be used with Inns and Cathedrals and plays exactly like the inn tiles from that expansion. The pig farm can be used to add one to the score for farms, just like the pig from Traders and Builders (the bonus is in addition to the bonus from the actual pig piece). The volcano provides a place from the start of the game for the dragon to spawn, if the Princess and Dragon expansion is being used. And the pieces can be combined with most of the pieces from the original River expansion, so you can create a rather long river if you so desire.

The river is used in place of the starting tile from the base set. The source tile is placed first, and then the branch tile. The lake with the volcano is set aside to be placed last. The rest of the tiles are drawn and played until all available tiles have been placed. Followers can be played on these tiles as normal. The last player then places the volcano tile, and then plays a tile from the regular set (as a follower cannot be played on the volcano tile). Play then continues as normal.

So how does it play? I enjoy the expansion quite a bit. It's a great set to use when playing with kids, as it provides a lot of options once the regular tiles are begun. It creates a larger, more spread-out map than what will sometimes be created when using the normal starting tile. One problem that can arise is that large farms can be created by wrapping around the source tile. The mini expansion from Games Quarterly fixes this issue nicely by providing a new source tile that contains a road.

We like to change up the rules a bit to add some variety. We shuffle all tiles, including both lake tiles and the branch tile, into the stack. When all open ends of the river have a lake tile, then the river is done and we move on to the regular tile set. This means that, at times, we won't have a branch and the length of the river varies from game to game. It's another way to use the set that allows for something different.

Some have noted that using the river can make a game less competitive. I can see how this might happen, as the game begins with several formations already in play. However, what I've seen so far is that multiple conflict areas will instead be created, as players compete for several different formations right from the start.

In all, I think this is a fun expansion that provides a solid beginning to a game of Carcassonne. It's an excellent expansion to use when playing with kids. It can also benefit players who want to use certain expansions, in particular The Princess and the Dragon. However, I don't think that it is by any means a necessary expansion like Inns and Cathedrals or Traders and Builders. It's a fun option that can be used to supplement or provide a nice change of pace.