I love expansions. I love Carcassonne. Simple math should indicate that I love Carcassonne expansions. This is not the case because I really don't care for most of them. Traders and Builders breaks the game by giving extra turns. Inns and Cathedrals ruins the delicate balance in scoring by making roads worth more. I'm completely ambivalent about the river. So why do I like The Princess and the Dragon so much?


Rules

As a Carc expansion, it maintains the basic Carc rules. Place tile, place meeple, score feature, rinse and repeat. But like all expansions in this series, P&D adds it own spices to the Carcassonne goulash (or Buillabase since we're in France).

P&D introduces the Dragon (Drageeple) and the Fairy (Feeple or Faireeple) as well as 30 new tiles. Some of the tiles have a volcano on them. When these tiles are placed, the Drageeple is place on it. No meeples can be placed on these tiles. There are also Princess tiles. When a tile with a princess is place connected to a feature with meeples on it, one of those meeples must be removed. If there were no meeples, you may place your freeley. Last, there are tiles with a Dragon picture. When these tiles are placed, players move the Dragon. Starting with the player who placed the tile, the Dragon moves one tile at a time orthoganally. This is repeated until the Dragon moves 6 times or gets stuck. The Dragon can't backtrack so if he hits a dead end, he's stuck. If the Dragon moves onto a tile with a meeple, that meeple is returned to its owner.....unless the Fairy is on that square! The Fairy can be placed on any tile as long as that player does not place a meeple that turn. The Fairy does double duty and not only protects you from the Dragon, but scores you 1 point at the start of your turn if you control her, and scores an additional 3 points if the feature she's standing on gets completed.


Gameplay

Carcassonne is Carcassonne and the general gameplay doesn't really change all that much. You still lay tiles, place meeples, score features, yada yada yada, but now you have a few more options. You can use a Princess tile to remove your opponent's meeple from a city. You can skip placing a meeple to place the Fairy, scoring you points every turn and protecting you from the Drageeple. You can move the Dragon and eat your opponent's meeples for breakfast.

All of these changes morph Carcassonne from complex strategy game to a slightly lighter "take that" form. This is in no way a bad thing, but it is drastically different from the base game and much different than any of the other expansions except maybe The Tower.


Components

The Drageeple is awesome. He's about as big as three meeples and is a nice burgundy color. The Fairy is much smaller and has a pointed head. Both are pretty neat and look really good on a Carcassonne table. The tiles are the same high quality as the base game but I personally feel like the volcanoes add a really cool touch of doom to the otherwise sunny French countryside. In fact, this whole expansion with its Drageeple, Faireeple, and Princess tiles gives the game a fantasy feel which goes a long way to making the game a bit more exciting thematically. Who really cares about building up an ancient French city? But if you tell people you're building a little fantasy world with Dragons, you're bound to get a bit more interest.


Compare it to....

Its Carcassonne with some "screw your neighbor" built in. So compare it to Carcassonne, but understand that this game is pretty different.


Overall

I'm a Carcassonne purist. For me, there is nothing better than the base game played cut-throat. But if you are looking for a fun alternative, I highly recommend adding The Princess and the Dragon to your Carcassonne collection. It adds a strong "take that" element all while retaining the fun of building a countryside. I don't believe you can play a hardcore game with this expansion, but it adds a new layer to the basic game.

I rate The Princess and the Dragon 8 out of 10. 8 is probably as high as I'd rate any expansion for any game (except 1910 for Ticket to Ride because I view it as necessary to the base game) so you can take that as strong endorsement. If you are a Carcassonne lover like my but would like to add something new and exciting to the game and don't mind the confrontational nature, I strongly advise you to pick up The Princess and the Dragon.