Strategic tile game (Rio Grande Games Carcassonne)

Member Name: jesperado

Product:	Rio Grande Games Carcassonne
Date:	07/01/09 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good for those who like tactical games

Disadvantages: Can get boring

Carcassone is a tile based game for 2 to 5 players. The game begins with one tile being laid and the other tiles being shuffled and placed in a pile face down. The next player then picks a tile and lays it next to the original so that the features of both tiles match up. For example: if the first tile is the middle of a city, the second must be laid with part of a city connected to the first tile. Tiles can contain parts of cities, fields, roads, junctions or churches. Once a tile has been laid the player can place a 'follower' - a small wooden figure - on any part of the tile that has just been laid and that player then becomes the owner of that feature e.g. road, city, field or church. The aim of the game is to claim as much territory as possible by the time that all tiles have been laid. It is not as simple as it first seems as territories owned by different players may link up over the course of the game - such as separate fields joining together through tiles placed between them - and in this case the player with the most followers in the territory owns it or if they have equal numbers two or more players share the points for the territory. Carcassone is a very tactical game and I wouldn't recommend it for younger children as it may be boring to them. I would suggest that if you enjoy strategy games such as chess you may enjoy Carcassone but it can be quite a long game so make sure you leave plenty of time to play it.

Summary: A good strategy game