Well... this is my first review ever! So I hope it will be a good review and I also hope you'll enjoy reading it.

Carcassonne: The Castle

First of all you should know that this is a Carcassonne version for 2 players only. For some this might sound redundent, since the original Carcassonne plays quite well with two players. This is what I feared too, but let's see what makes this game different from the original.


The biggest difference towards the original game is the frame that comes in the shape of a Castle wall, which serves not only to register the players' score, but also to confine the game to a restricted area. Also new are the 18 wall tiles that are placed on specific parts of the wall frame, these provide a few interesting bonus opportunities for the players. Other then that you get the usual set of meeples + one keep per player. The keep serves to keap track of the largest house each player has built during the game, at the end of the game, the player with the largest house gets a big bonus.

The basic idea is actually the same as the original, you have tiles that may contain any combination of four elements (Towers, houses, courts and roads), if you get through the rules, the first thing you might notice is that, other then in the original game, in this version there are no restrictions as to how you should place the tiles. You just need to place it next to a starting area at the wall frame, or you place it next to any of the tiles already in game, only that in this game you can place houses next to towers or to courts, only the roads need to be continued as in the original Carcassonne rules. After placing the tile, as usual, you may place one of yout meeples as per the original rules (on areas not already occupied by opponent or yourself), and if you score you get your meeple back to re-use it. This time around, you score whenever your area of control (be it the tower or the house) is completely surrounded by other tiles that do not continue the respective type of area, you also score if you complete a road by the same rules of the original Carcassonne, and the courts, as in the original, are scored only at the end of the game.

You see... not much is different in this game than in the original but just a few minor changes to the original set of rules. So why should you own this if you already have the original game?

I actually think it is worthwhile. So let me explain you why:

THE SUBTLETIES

The changes that have been introduced to this game in opposition to the original game, make for very subtle changes in the actual gameplay. So you have to pay attention to figure out how these might actually reflect on the game, which, at first don't really seem to stand out. In my opinion:

Frame vs open area:
The thing about the original game is that you place tiles in any direction without any restriction (except the tile placing rules of course), in a two player game this tends to make the two players built in two opposite directions. There is a lot of space for every one, so players don't need to directly interfere in each others' game, this obviously doesn't mean that occasional direct competition wouldn't occur, especially if one of the players is building a very large castle for example, the other might want to smuggle his meeples into it in an attempt to get a hold of those many points on the expences of the other players' hard work.
In this version of the game though, since the area is rather small, an element of direct confrontation is introduced, and there is only very little way past it. It's like the two opponents are thrown into an arena in which they have to compete, there is no other way to go. The area is restricted, so this makes for a more confrontational gameplay.

The tile placing rules
One of the things players may have some difficulty coming around in this game are the tile placing rules. Since there are no rules as how to place tower, house and court elements, which may be placed next to each other, this may at first seem somewhat confusing. Not only because of "being used to" other rules (in case players are familiar with the original carcassonne rules), but also because of the visual impact this has. The effect that the original set of rules has on the original Carcassonne, is that everything looks very organized, castles with castles, fields with fields, roads with roads, and then the monasteries. This is not the same in this version, you will see a lot of houses adjacent to towers and the courts thrown into the middle of it all! Also the illustrations are in all very geometric, other then the illustrations from the original game. So in fact this is one of the aspects I consider to be less good about this game, the visual aspect, it is somewhat confusing and does need some getting used to:
BUT!
It was a necessary rule. Since the playing area is much more restricted, if the original rules where used, players would very soon be unable to place most of the tiles. So you see, this was a necessary rule change in order to make the wall frame a viable element, and since the walls main function is keeping the game more competetive and confrontational, this seems a good compromise. The only negative thing being the illustrations here, rather then the actual tile placing rule.

So you see that the biggest changes towards the original rules enhance the 2 player gameplay in a very subtle, but in my opinion, necessary way.

The wall tiles
The wall tiles as well represent a very subtle adaptation of the originals' version. In fact, they provide some of the elements to this game, which in the original come with expantions: mostly, the builders and traders expantion. there are 9 different tiles, each comes twice. These tiles are placed on the walls' corner towers, and players, in order to get these tiles, need to score the exact points that moves their score counting meeple onto that exact place on the wall. Which is an interesting choice of rules, since you won't get these tiles if you simply pass by, no, your score needs to place your meeple right on it. The tiles per se, give the players some bonuses they may need, such as playing an extra turn (as the builder in the affor mentioned expantion of the original game), you may score 4 points rather then 3 points for every market in the court (like the pig in same expantion), you may also score unfinished buildings (which you wouldn't score otherwise), and there's some other interesting tiles. But what this does is also a more controled scoring. In the original game you just wanted to make things as big as possible to score huge points! Now though, you'll be willing to do some more controlled lower scorings just to make sure you get that wall tile that is right ahead. So this is an interesting rule as well.

Last but not least: The keep
The keep works basically just to keep track of the largest house players built during the game. So at the end of the game, both players compare which of them has the largest house and that player gets some bonus points (this idea was adptad from the small mings and scouts expantion for the original game).


Summing it up:
In the end these rules are not much different to the original game, in my opinion they serve only to better adapt the original premiss to a 2 player game of Carcassonne. And in that regard I think it is a work well done. I would recomend this game to any carcassonne fan that plays it often against only one more person. Keep the original for when it's at least 3 players and play this one whenever it's only two. I think the subtleties make for a better game, but I also agree that these are indeed so subtle that maybe only real fans of the original game may be able to feel the difference in gameplay and that more occasional gamers that are already familliar to the game, may feel that this game is somewhat redundant.

For the sneeky work on the rules I give it an 8/10

Edit: a few typos.