My girlfriend and I are relative newbies to the world of boardgaming, and we have been playing a lot of "gateway games", trying to lead up to more "gamer games". Of course, many of these games have been reviewed to death, so I won't try and explain the rules over again, but try and give our perspective as a newbie couple trying out these new fangled boardgames.

Carcassonne has become one of the classic gateway games. It was our gateway game, and a game that we've taught to many friends. Moreover, it is also a great two player game that we still play together. Carcassonne itself has an incredible number of reviews, but we never play it without the first two expansions, Inns and Cathedrals and Traders and Builders. In this review, I'll review why we don't play with The Princess and the Dragon in our two player games. I assume that you are already familiar with the basic Carcassonne rules.

The first two expansions to Carcassonne had elements that emphasized the construction and finishing of features. In contrast, the Princess and the Dragon is the first expansion to include elements that emphasized destruction. The Princess and the Dragon was actually the second expansion for Carcassonne that we got, after Inns and Cathedrals (to get the sixth player pieces). Probably like most newbies, this was mostly because it sounded like the coolest expansion---you get to play with dragons! And princesses! And magic portals! A little fantasy added to the mix! We cracked it out with a big group of our friends and had a lot of fun. However, after many attempts, we found that this expansion just doesn't work as a two player game.

We find the Princess and the Dragon adds more random and aggressive elements that work quite well as a multiplayer game, but not as much in a two-player game.

(However, to be absolutely transparent, at the least we have only played this expansion with Inns and Cathedrals and never by itself, which may perhaps make this review not the best to judge this expansion solely on its own merits. Nevertheless, this is probably a common situation for most Carcassonne owners, so hopefully there is still some value in this review.)


Princess and the Dragon Materials

New Tiles

This expansion ships with twenty-four new tiles made from the same thick and durable cardboard as the original. All of the art and markings match exactly with the original, which may be problematic if you ever want to separate the tiles. One of the common complaints with Carcassonne is that it has too much luck. Luckily (pun intended), as you add more tiles, the luck actually tends to decrease. With more tiles, there will be more features and more places to put your newly drawn tile, increasing the strategic possibilities.

One of the cooler new tiles is one with a cloister within a city. This is a nice change of pace, since most of the previous cloisters were surrounded only by farms and roads. The volcano tile with a single road gives you another powerful tool to join two fields separated by a road.


Magic Portal Tiles

There are six magic portal tiles included. The magic portal itself looks a little too similar to the volcano image, but has arrows coming out of it. In terms of gameplay, upon placing the magic portal tile, the player can then place a meeple on this tile or any other previously placed tile (significantly, the player can place a meeple on any uncompleted, unoccupied feature). At first glance, this seems like a good idea, since there usually tends to be several unoccupied features in play. Since you can always join and add a meeple to an unoccupied city or road, the magic portal is most powerful when used to populate an empty cloister.

However, we believe that this actually goes against one of the basic concepts in Carcassonne---meeple management. One of the tensions in the game is to use your meeples wisely. Do you try to control a feature now, or save your meeple for a better feature later? An unused cloister just means that you didn't manage your meeples very well.


The Fairy

There is a little white meeple called the Fairy (although it looks like a wizard) included. Instead of placing a meeple, the player can move the fairy onto any tile, including ones already containing a meeple. This has several advantages. The dragon cannot move into a space containing the fairy, which acts essentially as a dragon bodyguard. If you start your turn with a fairy playing bodyguard duty on your meeple, you gain one point. And if you complete a feature, you get an extra bonus three points for the fairy. The dragon bodyguard feature works okay, and it gives a player something to do when they cannot play a meeple, but in practice the fairy is extremely annoying to use. We constantly keep forgetting the score an extra point each turn, as well as on scoring the completed features regardless of the number of players.


The Princess

There are six city tiles that contain the Princess (which looks more masculine than feminine). If these tiles are placed onto a city that already contains meeples, the player can then kick out a meeple of his choice. This can often be a game-changing move as the ownership of a large city can hinge upon a difference of only one meeple. We often play highly competitively by actively trying to steal each other's cities and this provides another tactic for accomplishing that. A good addition.


The Dragon

And now for the biggest addition...the Dragon! Probably the coolest looking piece in the Carcassonne series, the dragon is a relatively large figure that towers over the surrounding meeples. There are six new volcano tiles. When played, the player cannot place a meeple and the dragon immediately flies to that tile. This makes placement quite strategic, since the dragon can potentially fly all the way across the board, away from your meeples and towards your opponents. In addition, there are twelve new tiles that contain a dragon icon. When placed, the dragon then moves! The dragon always moves six spaces if possible and cannot move onto the same space twice. However, each player takes a turn moving the dragon. If the dragon moves onto a space containing a meeple, that meeple is "eaten" and returned the player.

This is an interesting new mechanic to remove played meeples. Obviously, eating your opponent's meeple is a new offensive tool. However, the dragon can also serve to remove your own stranded meeples that would otherwise be stuck for the remainder of the game.

However, this is where this expansion fails for two players. With only two, the movement of the dragon becomes pointless---I'll move the dragon in one direction, while my girlfriend moves it into another direction. In addition, our meeple population density is relatively low (arguably, though, this is through including the tiles from other expansions). As a result, the dragon almost always fails the threaten us.

Nevertheless, this is where this expansion shines with more players. With more players, the meeple population density increases and there are more targets for the dragon to threaten. In addition, with more people, there is a lot of table talk as players try to convince others where to move the dragon. Temporary alliances can form to move the dragon purposely instead of randomly. This metagame makes this expansion much more fun, with almost a party game-like atmosphere, which is totally unlike the more strategic two player game!


Conclusion

The Princess and the Dragon expansion adds a fun fantasy theme as well as some more chaotic and aggressive elements to Carcassonne. This works quite well with a larger group of people (in which the game by its very nature is more random), but just doesn't jive with two players. For a more strategic game focusing more on finishing features, stick to the first two expansions. For a little more chaotic fun with more people, add the Dragon!