Carcassonne is a strategic tile-placement board game designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, inspired by the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne in southern France. Suitable for 2 to 5 players aged 7 and up, the game involves creating a landscape filled with cities, roads, monasteries, and fields, while strategically deploying followers to claim and score points.
Game Components:
- 72 Land Tiles: Depicting segments of cities, roads, monasteries, and fields.
- 40 Followers (Meeples): Each player receives 8 meeples in their chosen color.
- 1 Scoreboard: To track players' points throughout the game.
Objective: Accumulate the most points by completing and claiming various features on the map, such as cities, roads, monasteries, and fields. Points are awarded during the game for completed features and at the end for incomplete features and fields.
Setup:
- Starting Tile: Place the designated starting tile face-up in the center of the table.
- Shuffle Tiles: Mix the remaining tiles face-down into multiple stacks accessible to all players.
- Scoreboard Placement: Position the scoreboard nearby.
- Distribute Meeples: Each player selects a color and takes 7 meeples, placing one additional meeple on the scoreboard's starting position (0 points).
Gameplay: Players take turns in a clockwise order, performing the following actions:
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Draw and Place a Tile:
- Draw: Pick one tile from the face-down stacks.
- Place: Position the tile adjacent to existing tiles, ensuring that all connecting edges match appropriately (e.g., roads connect to roads, cities to cities).
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Deploy a Follower (Optional):
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Placement: After placing a tile, you may choose to place one of your meeples onto a feature on the tile you just placed.
- Features: Cities, roads, monasteries, or fields.
- Restrictions: You cannot place a meeple on a feature that is already claimed by another meeple.
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Placement: After placing a tile, you may choose to place one of your meeples onto a feature on the tile you just placed.
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Scoring Completed Features:
- Completion: If your tile placement completes a feature (e.g., a city is fully enclosed, a road has both ends closed, or a monastery is surrounded by 8 tiles), that feature is scored.
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Points Awarded:
- Cities: 2 points per tile, plus 2 points for each pennant.
- Roads: 1 point per tile.
- Monasteries: 9 points (1 for the monastery tile plus 1 for each surrounding tile).
- Meeple Return: After scoring, return the meeple from the completed feature to your supply.
End of the Game: The game concludes when all tiles have been placed. Final scoring includes:
- Incomplete Features: Score 1 point per tile for incomplete cities and roads; monasteries score 1 point plus 1 point for each surrounding tile.
- Fields: Farmers (meeples placed in fields) score 3 points for each completed city adjacent to their field.
The player with the highest total score wins the game.
