Both a review and a little bit of strategy.
Repost of my reply to the Forum topic of "Is Carcassonne a waste of Money", I was encouraged by many to repost directly into Carcassonne.
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I'll start by saying that I far prefer the basic standalone set without any expansions - and that while others insist the game must be played with expansions, I have enjoyed over 900 sessions of the basic set quite enjoyably (especially 1vs1).


While I have all of the expansions and the stand-alone variants like Hunters and Gathers and Discovery I still go back to the base set *but* play with 'International' scoring rules rather than the first US edition scoring (how cities and farms are scored was amended in Europe in the second edition but Rio Grande Games kept the 1st edition translations as their version in the US even after subsequent reprinting which has caused some confusion between 'US' or '1st edition' scoring rules and 'international' such as used on BretSpeilWeld and as the default on our Xbox360 version worldwide).

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First, as the developer of the Xbox360 Live Arcade version, let me explain my playing experience to give context to this review.

For total personal playing experience, by now I have played:

the physical boardgame basic set approximately 100 times
- all of the expansions dozens of times each
- all of the sequels/stand alones (Hunters and gatherers, etc) dozens of times each

- our Xbox360 version:
- single player vs our AI at a variety of difficulty levels - over 70 times,
- multiplayer 'player match' over 70 times, and
- 2 player 'ranked match' 840 times (Wins 690 / Losses 150)
* For reference, the top Ranked match player in the world, Stormy AJ, has played over 11,500 Ranked games online! (Wins 7,858 / Losses 3,714 as of Dec 28, 2008).. that's a minimum of almost 3,000 hours of Carcassonne gameplay

My other gaming background includes a personal collection of over 400 boardgames, over 200 role playing supplements and rulebooks, and a gaming taste running the gamut from Squad Leader/Panzer Blitz/etc as a pre-teen to plenty of more 'family friendly' games like Ticket to RideTicket to Ride today as a 40-year old father of three children.

I mention these points to give some perspective on where/how I have derived my opinion on why I enjoy Carcassonne so much.

I also usually try to explain elements of the game in reference to other games people might have played and enjoyed.

I think of the game as a tiny bit of Cribbage, mixed with elements of a 72 card Blackjack card deck, and then a dose of VinciVinci and Diplomacy. In the end it is a good old world domination game but that is not obvious to most until several play throughs.

And to anyone that thinks it is ONLY a light game, please allow me to show you its depth in a ranked 2 player (one on one) match where the element of attack, defend and control fighting is closer to Go... but I'll get to that in the explanation of the tactics later.

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I'll now try to illustrate a few reasons why I think it might be worth your time to try...

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* Broadly approachable
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Since my social circle is diverse, I like to stock plenty of games that I can pull out for any crowd from experienced gamers to non-gamers alike. So I value this aspect highly but recognize that for others this may be less valuable.

Carcassonne's theme and art is 'non-threatening' and simple (bright green fields, cities and roads, monasteries). At first glance the pieces are understandable - the tiles are put together like dominoes or even like puzzle pieces which most people have experience with. Most any age can grasp this core portion of the gameplay -- taking turns to build the 'map' of the gameboard.

That by itself is enough to get started. I even use just playing through a dozen or so tiles by themselves without followers as a quick starting way to teach the basic action of the game to new players. Then restart and start explaining the use of the followers and scoring. I almost always leave out farms for first time players - as it is the hardest aspect for anyone to understand at first. Leave it as an 'advanced' level and the game still plays just fine and it can be added on the second play through as players have gained confidence with the basic actions of tile and follower placement.


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* Tactical depth - Part 1, Understanding the odds of the tileset
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But beneath this simplistic start is an element of tactical depth sometimes hidden by the nature of the pastoral theme and the 'random draw of a tile' mechanics.

The basic game uses just 72 tiles (1 starting tile and 71 others), but they must be thought of as grouped into 24 types:
- 13 of the groups have at least one road edgeside
- 1 group/tile is the single 'all city' piece with all four edgesides being interior city
- 1 group being monasteries with no road or city edgesides
- 9 groups having some city and some field edgesides

Within each group you should try to learn and approximate the odds of drawing a particular type of tile at any particular time. You then adapt your tactics of placement, looking for places to 'attack and defend', or where you might suffer from an opponent placing a tile to block something you are trying to accomplish. This part is a little bit like knowing when to hit, stay or fold in a cash game of blackjack based on the cards that have already come out and where you sit at the table.

The tactical nature really starts to reveal itself in the 'less' random one on one game. This is something I didn't really appreciate until we started building the videogame version. Before that, I had perhaps played the game twice as a 2 player game. The vast majority of my face to face gameplay experience from 2001 to 2004 had been 3 to 5 player sessions.

But in the 2 player game, you can really control the flow of the game through much better prediction of the tiledraws (each tile is only going to you or one opponent). This leads to a tight match of wits on who can set themselves up better for the endgame.

You really can shift the odds in your favor through playing tiles to enable your strategy, throwing away a tile just to make sure you don't setup your opponents for a counterattack on some of your best positions when you know the probability is high for a certain type of tile an opponent could use against you.

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* Tactical Depth - Part 2, Followers are really armies in disguise
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Here is where the 'approachable theme' of building in the pastoral French countryside is now clearly revealed as a clever ruse for a knock-down bloody fight for territory control worthy of any Avalon Hill boxed wargame - just minus the 2d6 and lookup tables.

The simple placement of followers is really deterministic combat for valuable scoring territory. With a limited supply of only 7 followers, not only do you have to master a balance of small 'hit and run' raids(immediate small scores of a few points where you finish an unclaimed item like a short road or small city) with long term commitments (farmers who stay on the board until very end of the game) and keeping a sizable reserve (the player who unwisely commits all 7 followers to the board will likely miss many oportunistic chances to react to their opponents, to defend, attack or raid).

I liken part of the followers game to mastering the art of 'pegging' in Cribbage. Keeping at least one follower in your reserve means you can always claim a tile you just placed and if that tile finished a small road or city you would not only get a couple of points but you get the follower right back. Just like a good pegging cribbage player is hard to beat, a player that 'pegs' 2 to 4 points every turn would slowly but steadily rack up the points.

But the core of Carcassonne is understanding the fight for control, either in defense of something you've already laid claim to or in recognizing how to attack an opponent's claim. We have nicknamed this 'glomming' as in 'glomming onto' an opponent's city or road or farm.

Since you can't place a follower onto an object (road, city, farm) already claimed by another player, you have to master the art of creating a new matching object that can eventually be joined to a valuable opponent's object. And recognize how to stop your opponents from doing the same to you.

Only the player with the MOST followers on a completed object gets the points. So to take over my city you have to successfully 'glom' twice. That requires long range planning and perserverance. But success can switch something like a 20 point city from my column to your resulting in a net 40 point delta.

While large cities are usually the most obvious object people fight over, it is also a viable strategy to fight for larger roads and farms. I find 'farm fights' the most tricky part of the game, and with beginners will sometimes play without farms at all just to get them into the spirit of the more obvious road and city 'glomming' tactics.



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* Replayability
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For an old grognard like me, I had become tired of most games where the map was fixed and the tactics felt pre-programmed because of that.
By the nature of the tile-laying gameplay, the board plays out differently every time. This challenges me to adapt and sense quickly where opportunities and dangers lie (e.g. I might get a follower trapped in an uncompletable placement).

One play through of the game may end up with many little cities leading to an increase in the value of going for farms. Another may lead to an epic battle for control of one or two large cities.
So as the tile placement plays out differently, tactics need to be adjusted on the fly. How quickly can I react to the developing situation?

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* Scalable from 1v1 to 3, 4, or 5 players
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Since I have a widely varying schedule for playing games this leads to a variable set of opponents (e.g. sometimes with my wife, the whole family, or with 4 to 12 friends or co-workers). This game plays equally well whether you have one or many friends over.

The tactics change dramatically from 2 to multiple opponents. Building a city 'together' with an opponent is a viable option in 3 to 5 player games while the 2 player game hinges on 'glomming' or stopping a 'glom' [see above].

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* Longevity through expansions
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While I agree that the base game must stand on its own for this point to have any merit, this is still a bonus for enjoying the game because it does have a rich set of expansions and "sequels" (i.e. Hunters and Gatherers, Castle and Discovery are stand alones) that are easy to learn once you understand the core 'glomming', 'pegging', and tile odds tactics of the base game.

If you do come to like it, there are lots of ways to play for years. I fully expect to play Carcassonne at least through my children leaving after high school (my 5 year old already plays with me on the Xbox and knows how to glom and peg with the best of them even if he doesn't know the odds yet).

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* Aggressive or friendly play
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By limiting 'blocking' moves or encouraging them (purely socially enforced), you can play a very aggressive cut-throat session or relaxed and casual. Blocking moves are where you use your turn to place tiles creating difficulties for the future placement of your opponent, usually to trap a follower into a city, road or monastery that won't ever be completed as a tile can no longer be placed appropriately.

In polite or friendly play, it is considered somewhat gauche or cheesy or overly aggressive. In a purely 'to the death' session, it is completely legit and strategically important to consider such a move or beware of your opponent making such a move.

Since the number of turns you will have is a fixed and limited supply, 'wasting' turns to purely block an opponent can sometimes leave you without as many scoring opportunities for yourself - and so I mostly avoid this tactic. In face to face, just be clear if you like a friendly or aggressive style. On Ranked Xbox Live matches, expect experienced players to use blocking tactics aggressively.

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* Who will win is rarely obvious, hard to lose on turn 1
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Even very late in the game there are many chances for a critical move to shift the balance. Compared to some games of Settlers of Catan that I've played where from the very start I felt either I or another player just had little chance to catch up, in Carcassonne an early lead or an early mistake rarely costs the player the game.

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* Large global competitive community
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You can go to almost any country in the world and find Carcassonne players. Really. There is a yearly competition with a championship at Essen that I got to observe in 2006 that had a young teenager from Malaysia competing against a player from the Czech Republic (I think)... very cut-throat and to the death in competitive play

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* FYI - Notes on our 'videogame' Xbox360 version
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If you are ever interested in a game online on the Xbox360, please look me up as my gamertag is: TayKayJay
- Matches CAN be put on timed, Ranked matches are automatically at 30 sec timed turns, making a full game last at most 36 minutes but usually plays in about 12 minutes (I love getting my territory control fix in 12 to 15 minutes, finding an opponent almost anytime online, and then being able to turn around and play 3 or 4 matches in an hour).
- We made sure to have a 'house rules' option to give players control over several variants such as city scoring methods (US 1st edition vs revised international scoring), disallow farms, etc
- Tutorial is, IMHO, a great teaching tool and reference to the tiles, flow of the game, and basic tactics
- Price: $10 for the basic game (with Rivers 1 option included) plus option to buy River 2 and King & Baron expansions for about $2 each
- Multiplayer can be played 4 player with one Xbox360 at the same location or on Xbox Live networked with 'Player Match' mode for up to 5 players or 1 vs 1 on 'Ranked' match mode (obviously from the list above my preferred way to play is Ranked 1 on 1!), letting you play with friends no matter where in the world they are
- A large (sold over 400k copies on Xbox360) international community of players, available 24/7 (I've played with players all over the USA and the world on Xbox Live and with the headset you can meet fellow players and make new friends)
- Setup / cleanup is 'instant' and undisturbable (the physical boardgame can get a little messed up while playing and grow in the wrong direction for your table layout on some occasions)
- A decent A.I. (on expert) that at least gives you a way to play a game any time
- 3D/graphics to clarify the gameboard not as eye-candy: we used 3D graphics only because we wanted to enhance players' ability to see what was happening during the game. When a city, road, or monastery is incomplete it looks exactly like the boardgame - a flat tile almost like a blueprint in a way. So I decided that when something is completed we should show it on the screen as changing into a completed object... the road gets paved, the walls of a city go up, the monastery rises up and its bells ring and the scoring player(s)' colored flag flies over the object. At a glace its obvious what has been completed and scored and what hasn't. We also added a button press to allow you to see who has claimed what farms and the extent of the farms though changing the color of the light green field to be shaded to match the color of the controlling player, one of the most confusing aspects for new and even experienced players to understand and 'see at a glance' in the physical boardgame experience.

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* Summary
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* Its simple theme is accessible
* It has hidden complexity and tactical depth that comes out the more you play and ESPECIALLY in 2 player mode
* It is immensely replayable through the shuffle of the deck of tiles, much like a deck of cards makes any card game replayable
* It scales well from 2 to 5 players
* It is expanded and has sequels for variety and longevity
* Supports friendly or 'hard core' aggressive sessions
* Hard to lose on Turn 1
* Large global competitive community
* There is a great version on your console giving you a way to turn your $300 Xbox360 into a table