Note: This is my fifth “newbie review”, targeting boardgame-relative-newcomers such as myself. I have many years of gaming experience, but of the war- and card- variety. I started playing modern boardgames at this past year’s GenCon, and really ramped it up a couple of months ago when I discovered a few local boardgaming groups. I have found that the incredible variety of games and even types of games makes getting involved in the hobby a bit of a challenge, so I have started to write these reviews in hopes of identifying games that newbies can enjoy. As always, let me say that I am not trying to determine whether the game is good or bad, but whether a beginner will enjoy the process of learning. Can they pick up the rules quickly? Will they be lost in a fog turn after turn? Will the other players be gritting their teeth as the newbie destroys their beautiful strategies? Will they have fun?

Quick Overview: Carcassone is game unlike any other in my limited experience. It consists of a bunch of tiles, maybe an inch square, that have a picture on one side. The tiles each have the picture of a piece of a medieval land on it. Each edge of a given tile is fully covered by one land type: walled city, field with no road, or field with a road. The middle of some tiles (that have fields on all four sides) contains a chapel. So, for example, a tile may have two edges (there are no directional markers, you can turn the tile in any direction when you play it) as part of a walled city (so the wall crossing diagonally across the tile), and the other two with fields including a road. These tiles are turned face down and put to the side. The players each have seven little wooden guys, called “meeples” (which I find cute). One tile is drawn and put face up in the middle. Going clockwise, each player turns over a tile, attaches it to the map (at first only containing the one tile, but then of course growing). You can only attach like to like: field with no road to field with no road, city to city, etc. When you have placed your tile, you then have the choice to put a meeple somewhere on that tile (and only that tile), either in the walled city, on the road, in the chapel, or lying down in the field (depending on what land types are on the tile). The one tricky rule—you can not put a meeple in the same road/city/field as another meeple. However, sometimes two or more meeples wind up in the same place, as a road that initially does not connect can wind up connected, for example (same for cities). When a city or road becomes complete (the city is completely walled in, the road stops at cities/chapels/breaks on both sides, the chapel is completely surrounded by tiles), the player or players up to a maximum of two who have the most meeples there get points for it, and all players get their meeples back from that city/road/chapel to be placed again in future turns. The points are determined by the number of tiles that make up the city/road—two for each tile for a city, one for a road, and the chapel gets nine points fixed. The meeples lying in fields (farmers) stay there until the end of the game, and get points for the number of completed cities the field touches (that is, can reach without going over a road or through another city). When the tiles run out, the game is over. Most points wins.

Ease of Introduction: Carcassonne is a breeze to learn. Flip over tile. Place tile like to like. Put down meeple or not. Rinse, repeat. The “no two meeples in same city/road/field” thing will probably trip you up, but not more then a time or two. This is a beautifully simple game, emphasis on beautiful.

Game Experience: The remarkable simplicity, the surprising ways you can make your opponents miserable (that’s my city, now!), the unexpected complexity to the question: do I put my meeple on this tile or not, is a real joy, and is so almost immediately. Acknowledging that my gaming collection is somewhat limited, if a non-gamer friend asked me to pick out one game to try to convince them that boardgaming is a wonderful hobby, this would be it. Not because it is my favorite game, I should mention, it is not. But beyond the simplicity (obviously important in that situation), more then any other game I have played in the past few months, Carcassonne opened up my eyes as to what a game could look like, what it could be. I never would have guessed turning over a tile and either putting down a small wooden guy down or not could make for an interesting game. The fact that it does makes me wonder what else a game could look like. Maybe anything.

Externalities: I find one of the challenges as a new gamer to just jumping into the game is the sense that you will diminish the experience for others. Will the person who goes after you benefit disproportionably from your mistakes? Will you make the game random? In a two player game, it is moot—you will lose, your opponent will know this, don’t worry about it. In 3+ player, you will probably introduce some randomness, but I don’t think enough to matter. I wouldn’t worry.

Final Thoughts: Given my last review was of the cost-is-definitely-not-no-object Space Hulk, I have been thinking a bit about how much games cost. Carcassonne seems to come in a variety of packages, from the base set which is very cheap (maybe point-two Space Hulks?), to several “big boxes” which include expansions for more money, though less then buying the expansions separately. My advice, as a fan of the game and strong recommender of it for newbies everywhere, is to buy the base game. Maybe you will love it, and buy the expansions, and this advice will cost you money (sorry). But I haven’t tired of the base game yet, and there are so many games out there to play, there is no need to put your eggs all in this one basket.

I taught the game to my wife last night (it was only my 3rd play). I think this review sums up the game nicely.

It's a fun game. Easy to teach. Newbies can pick up the strategies quickly - my wife beat me! And it is inexpensive.

Will I buy it? I'm not sure yet, but I will definitely play it many more times.

Good review... A point to consider though...

Before buying, DO try one of the several places where you can play online for free, even if just "solo" for the learning experience. Play it first without, then WITH the first two expansion modules, Carcassonne - Inns & Cathedrals and Carcassonne - Traders & Builders.

Why? While some people think that the "pure" Carcassone is best, many think it is significantly improved by the first two expansions.

Why consider this up front? Because, by the time you've bought the base game and two expansions, you could have gotten Big Box 2 for the same price and gotten many MORE expansions at a huge savings. Though I wouldn't recommend playing with all the expansions at once, each one adds its own flavor when you want a break from plain vanilla Carc.

I completely agree... I would never play the game anymore without the first two expansions. They add a lot to the simple tile laying game. I especially like the "builder" meeple and the "big" meeple... tactically used to take over a city or farm. These expansions add nice elements to the game.

Are you sure that's right? The rules that came with my set say: 'When two or more players tie with the most thieves or knights, they each earn the total points for the road or city." [emphasis added]

I read this as meaning that no matter how many players have the most meeples, every such player scores. If a city or road in which more than two players tied for the most meeples were not scored, that would greatly affect the strategy in games with more than three players.

Nice catch. That would DEFINITELY change the game, even for two players, as it would no longer be possible to attain a majority and steal from the original owner. It's a large part of what makes the two-player game rather cut-throat.

I think you misunderstood my point. Nobody here is suggesting that someone would score a feature in which someone else has more meeples. However, Jim Stoker seems to be saying that no more than two players can ever score any one feature, no matter how many are tied for most meeples; that is what I'm questioning, and it's something that could obviously never affect a two-player game.