What do you do when you run out of meeples? We've just gotten our game(3 players) and most of the meeples went on the board as farmers. What do you when you place a tile and have no meeple to use to stake a claim?

You score any completed features, and your turn ends. (See rules below.)

Note that you don't have to place a meeple every turn, either.

To be slightly less opaque: you need to manage your meeples, as they are a limited commodity. Placing a meeple as a farmer means you will never get to play that meeple again, and should you lock all your meeples in as farmers you never get to play meeples again.

So you always want to save some meeples for scoring in a way that will return the meeple to your supply.

So, when I play a tile, do I have to place a meeple??? The only other time I played this game(which was my first time) was at Christmas time and on 2 other players were familiar with the game.

You do NOT have to place a meeple everytime you place a tile. Indeed, many times you will not place a meeple on your just played tile.

The meeples are a limited commodity. The Knights, Robbers, and Priests (I think those are the correct names) are reusable through out the game. The Farmers go on the board and are not used for the rest of the game.

Farmers are a double edged sword. On one hand they can net you a lot of points, but they only score once...at the end of the game. Part of the strategy in Carcassonne is managing the balance between points gained verse meeple use.

I try and get a couple meeples involved in longer term (big point) projects like cities and lucrative Farmers. I balance those longer term meeples with a couple medium term churches, and roads. Then I keep the last couple for raiding and really short term high turnover projects.

If you are all placing Farmers are you sure you are remembering that you cannot place a meeple in direct opposition to any other meeple, even your own?

Peace

The complete rules to Carcassonne are:

Setup: Place the start tile in the middle of the table and place all other tiles in a bag or face down within reach.

Play in a series of turns, drawing tiles blindly (from the bag/supply) until all tiles have been drawn, then proceed to final scoring (below).

Turns: Each player’s turn consists of a number of steps, in order:
(1) The player must draw one land tile and place it adjacent to at least one previously placed tile. Each feature at the edge of a tile must be continued on any adjacent tiles. (An unplayable tile is discarded and a new one is drawn.)
(2) The player may deploy one follower to the tile just placed, in a feature that does not contain any other followers.
(3) If, through the placement of the land tile, cloisters, roads or cities are completed, points (see table) are awarded to the player(s) with the most followers on each scored feature. All pieces in scored features are returned to their owners’ hands.

Final scoring: After completion of the turn in which the last tile is drawn, the game ends and all features with followers are scored; points (see table) are awarded to the player(s) with the most followers on each scored feature. (Followers can be removed as points are awarded.)

Scorning Feature: Turn / Final
Road - Per tile: 1 / 1
City - Per tile; per pennant: 2 / 1
Cloister - Per surrounding tile; for cloister tile: 1 / 1
Field - Per completed city bordering: - / 3

Oh oh oh! Lets drag this in to a Carcassonne Field Scoring Controversy debate and scare him off for life!

There's no debate. The official rules are above. The other rules are a variant. You can use whichever you prefer. Whatever you think of latter though, they are certainly less suitable for a beginner.

Farmers score 4 points per complete city, unless the rules have changed.

They changed some time ago. That was for the 1st Edition. The current (3rd Edition) rules score 3 points per completed city for the owners of the bordering fields.

Some people in North America still use the old rules.

Then there are two sets of offical rules.