Short and sweet board-gaming (Rio Grande Games Carcassonne)

Member Name: Trix1212

Product:	Rio Grande Games Carcassonne
Date:	22/01/09 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great for all abilites, varied and interesting game play

Disadvantages: Perhaps a little too simple...

I'd never heard of this game, just spotted it in a shop one day and thought it looked like fun. I love 'world building' games like Civilisation and thought it sounded a bit like a simplified version of that so decided to give it a go.

The basic idea of the game is to lay tiles along a river, creating (or discovering) the layout of the land around it and claiming for yourself those pieces of land which you think will be most useful to you and which will score you the most points.

The tiles are shuffled and placed face down, with each player taking a turn to draw from the pile and place their tile on the map. You then get a chance to 'claim' the land on the tile you have just placed by putting one of your playing pieces on it. This is, however, quite strategic as you cannot choose to claim an area that is already occupied by another piece. Once you do occupy a piece you need to concentrate on increasing the value of it before the end of the game. As value is added by the size of an area, but also by having it completed (for example, a completed building is worth much more than a bigger, half finished one) there are some difficult decisions to make about size vs. completion as the game goes on, and an incomplete area can tie up a playing piece which could have been put to better use later in the game.

As the tiles are randomly drawn and have to be fitted together in a logical order (the sides have to match, a bit like dominoes) there is no way to guarantee that you will be able to finish something you've started and the point scoring during the game becomes quite a balancing act, while the final count at the end can prove quite surprising and change everything for a clever player.

All round this is a great, fun game with enough variation to stay interesting for multiple plays. It's quite short (about 30 minutes to an hour), simple enough for anyone to learn (I'd recommend it for ages about 8 years and up) and can be played equally in a mixed group. There are also some optional expansions which can be added to the original game to shake things up a little and add some interest.

Summary: Simple yet clever, a great all-round game