Carcassonne (board game)

Carcassonne (/ˌkɑːrkəˈsɒn/) is a tile-based German-style board game for two to five players, designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published in 2000 by Hans im Glück in German and by Rio Grande Games (until 2012) and Z-Man Games (currently) in English. It received the Spiel des Jahres and the Deutscher Spiele Preis awards in 2001.
It is named after the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne in southern France, famed for its city walls. The game has spawned many expansions and spin-offs, and several PC, console, and mobile versions. A new edition, with updated artwork on the tiles and the box, was released in 2014.
The game board is a medieval landscape built by the players as the game progresses. The game starts with a single specific terrain tile face up and 71 others shuffled face down for the players to draw from. Each player's turn consists of three distinct phases:
To start each turn, a player draws a new terrain tile and places it adjacent to tiles that are already face up. The new tile must be placed in a way that extends terrain features on the tiles it touches: roads must connect to roads, fields to fields, and cities to cities. Connections are made across adjacent edges only; corners do not connect. A cloister tile may be placed adjacent to another cloister tile, as there are no connecting features. If the newly drawn tile cannot be placed anywhere legally, the players may choose to remove the tile from the game, or return it to the draw pile.
After placing each newly drawn tile, the placing player may opt to station a marker (called a "follower" or "meeple") on a terrain feature (i.e., a road, city, cloister, or field) of that newly placed tile to claim control of it. However, if the feature is connected to a feature already claimed by another player, the follower cannot be stationed on that feature. When stationing a follower, the marker is placed upright on the feature to claim that feature, except for a field, where the follower is laid down instead to emphasize that fields are not scored until the end of the game; the follower's role depends on the feature claimed, changing from thief/highwayman (road) to knight (city), monk (cloister or monastery), or farmer (field). It is possible for terrain features to become "shared" by opposing players when tile(s) are placed in subsequent turns that connect previously unconnected features. For example, two separate fields (each with a follower/farmer) can become connected into a single field subsequently by a newly placed terrain tile.
If any feature (except a field) is completed during a player's turn, the score for the completed feature is counted for the player that controls that feature; after scoring, the controlling "meeple" is removed from the board and returned to the player's stock. Each player has eight followers; since one is used to keep track of the player's score, only seven can be in play at any moment.
The game ends when the last tile has been placed. At that time, all incomplete features (including fields) score points for the players with the most followers on them. The player with the most points wins the game.
During each player's turn, completed cities, cloisters, and roads (but not fields) are scored before that player's turn ends. A player may complete a feature by drawing and placing a tile, claim it by stationing a follower on the newly placed tile, and receive the score for completing it all in the same turn, but the sequence of that turn means the player cannot redeploy the follower after it is returned to their stock. The stationing phase of the turn was completed by claiming the completed feature.
Cities are completed when they contain no unfinished edges from which they may be expanded, roads are similarly completed when they have closed both ends or form a loop, and cloisters are completed when surrounded by eight tiles. Points are awarded to the players with the most followers in a feature. If there is a tie for the most followers in any given feature, all of the tied players are awarded the full number of points. Once a city, cloister, or road feature is scored, all of the followers in that feature are returned to their owners. In general (see table), points are awarded for the number of tiles covered by a feature; a completed cloister scores nine points for the cloister plus eight neighboring tiles.
At the end of the game, when there are no tiles remaining, fields and all other claimed but incomplete features are scored. The score of each field is based on the number of completed cities that field touches. It is possible for a field to be completely enclosed by a road without touching any completed cities, or a field can touch only incomplete cities, in which case those fields will score no points.
There are two older editions of Carcassonne, differing in scoring of cities and fields. The current scoring rules were introduced in the German version in 2004, but until 2008, the first edition scoring rules were still included with the English releases of Carcassonne, third edition rules are now included with all editions (including the Xbox 360 and travel versions), and are assumed by all expansions in all languages.
In the first and second editions of the game, completed cities covering just two tiles scored two points (one per tile) and one extra point for every pennant that resides in the city. This exception is removed from the third edition, in which there is no difference between "small" two-tile cities and cities of larger size.
The greatest divergence in scoring rules between the editions of Carcassonne is in scoring for fields. In the first edition, fields were considered from the point of view of the cities. The player(s) with the greatest number of farmer/followers adjacent to a city were awarded four points for that city. Thus, followers from different fields contributed to the scoring for a city, and followers on a field may contribute to the scoring for multiple cities. The second edition considered different fields separately – for each field, the players with the greatest number of followers in a field scored three points for each city adjacent to the field, although points were only scored once for any given city. The third edition removes these exceptions and brings field scoring in line with the scoring of other features.
Consider the sample game #1 in progress on the 5×5 board shown; there are four complete cities: [B1]*[C1]*[C2] scoring eight points (three tiles plus one pennant) and three two-tile, four-point cities [C3]*[D3], [D3]*[E3], and [C4]*[C5]. There are two complete roads, scoring two points each: [A2]—[B2] and [B1]—[B2].
The largest field, bounded on the north by the roads in [A2]—[B2]—[C2], touches the two complete cities [C3]*[D3] and [C4]*[C5] and would score six points at the end of the game, more if the incomplete cities at [A2] and [C4]*[D4] are completed . In addition, the field could be extended by an appropriate piece in [D2] to touch the complete city [D3]*[E3].
Consider sample game #2 on the 6×10 board. In this example, followers are stationed on the board according to the capital first letter of the color name: "R"ed, "Y"ellow, "G"reen, "B"lue, and "P"urple, where purple is substituted for "B"lack to avoid confusion with blue.
There are three completed cities at [C2]*[D2]*[C3]*[D3], [F1]*[E2]*[F2]*[F3] and [H2]*[I2]. It is not possible to complete the city at [G4]*[G5]*[G6]; by examination of the available tiles, there is no tile that will fit in [H5] to continue all four edges, which also means the city in [H6] cannot be completed.
Similarly, because any piece that can be placed in [E1] must continue the three bordering edges, that piece in [E1] will connect the two fields that are currently claimed by the green farmer in [G1] and the red farmers in [C2] and [D2] alongside the yellow farmers in [H4], [H1], and [J3]. If no one else adds a farmer, yellow would claim the field by having the most followers in that merged field. The other shared-field situation is the red farmer in [D4] sharing a field with one blue farmer in [G5]. However, if a tile is played at [F6], it will connect to the field to the southeast; even though blue would have two farmers in the merged field, including the farmer in [G6], and would control the merged field, that field still does not touch any completed cities and would score no points unless the city at [C6]*[D6]*[E6] is completed.
There are two fields that have been completed and enclosed by loop roads in [I1]+[I2]+[J2]+[J1] and [C3]+[D3]+[E3]+[F3]+[F4]+[E4]+[D4]+[C4]. Neither of these fields touch any completed cities and so they would each score zero points. The Green farmer in [C5] is at risk of being enclosed in a loop and cut off from any completed cities.
The three cloisters at [H3], [E5], and [F5] include stationed monks because they are not completely surrounded by eight tiles; the two cloisters that are surrounded, at [G3] and [D5], are vacant because the claiming player(s) have scored those points. A tile played at [F6] would complete the surroundings for the blue monks at [E5] and [F5], scoring eighteen points for those followers.
Red has one knight follower in [D1], two thief followers in [B3] and [C4], and three farmer followers in [C2], [D2], and [D4]; this means that Red has only one follower remaining that can be stationed unless the roads or city are completed to score and return those followers to their stock. In contrast, purple only has one monk follower on the board at [H3] at this time, but that monk is effectively stranded until the end of the game: there is no possible tile that can be played in [I3] as there are only two single-road tiles (with a cloister) and those are already on the board at [H3] and [D5]. However, that monk will score eight points (one for the cloister and seven for the surrounding tiles) at the end of the game. Worse, the green knight follower in [H6] will not score any points and is stranded because the city will never be completed. Yellow has three farmer followers, one knight [J4], and one thief [I5]; both the knight and thief remain active and can be returned by completing that city and road, respectively.
The original board game has 72 tiles with city, field, and road features; the River mini-expansion adds 12 tiles with river features. The version of the game currently in print includes the River and Abbot mini-expansions.
The river tiles are used as an alternative to the standard CRFR start tile and have the same dark-colored back to indicate this. The starting river tile is called the source (a river tile with a single river edge) and the final river tile is called the lake (again with a single river edge); players take turns placing all twelve river tiles to start the game, including follower placement and scoring, if relevant, then after the lake river tile has been played, proceed to place the remaining 71 terrain tiles.
Kárná used a four-character tile code which described the feature on each edge of the tile as either a road (R), meadow (M, aka field), or city (C), written clockwise from an arbitrary starting edge. For instance, CRMR (modified as CRFR to conform with the terminology of this article) would describe the starting tile, starting from the top edge. With three possibilities for each edge, theoretically there are 81 (=3) possible tile combinations, but as some are duplicates because the tiles may be rotated arbitrarily, there are actually 24 possible combinations. Capaldi and Kolba, professors of mathematics at Valparaiso University, also counted 24 distinct types amongst the 71 non-river tiles of the starting set, although 5 of these were duplicates of other terrain tiles with the addition of pennant/coat of arms features. They assigned a single letter to each of the 24 types.
Carcassonne is considered to be an excellent "gateway game" by many board game players as it is a game that can be used to introduce new players to board games. In a 2017 Ars Technica holiday buyer's guide, it was described as "one of the absolutely foundational games of the modern board gaming hobby".
The rules are simple, no one is ever eliminated, and the play is fast. A typical game, without any expansions, takes about 35 minutes to play. There is a substantial luck component to the game; however, good tactics greatly improve one's chances of winning. Examples of tactical considerations include:
The game has been used in education to teach geographical concepts.
Several official expansions for Carcassonne have been published, which add numerous additional rules, tiles and new kinds of figures. Together, they can more than double the length of the game. These expansions are generally compatible with each other and may be played together.
Six stand-alone mini expansions, with each containing a tile for a seventh mini expansion.
Following the success of Carcassonne, a number of games have been spun off from the main game, all sharing similar mechanics. There is also a travel-sized version of the original game, Travel Carcassonne (Reise-Carcassonne), released in 2007.
The format of competitive Carcassonne tournaments is to use only the base game of Carcassonne (the original 72 tiles) and for games to be between only two players.
International Carcassonne tournaments were held in Germany in 2003–2005.
The first official Carcassonne World Championship was held at SPIEL in Essen, Germany, in 2006. An annual world championship has been held at SPIEL every year since 2006 with the exceptions of the 2010 and the 2023 championships, which were held during SPIEL but at an alternate location in Herne, Germany; and the 2020 edition which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Qualification for the World Championship is primarily reserved for national champions, along with the defending World Champion. Since 2023 a number of additional wildcard qualifications have been granted. This has included the winner of the Mind Sports Olympiad online championship, and top ranking teams of the World Teams Online Championship. In the 2021, each country was allowed to participate with two players, following the cancellation of the 2020 edition.
Ralph Querfurth has been the World Champion in four editions. Pantelis Litsardopoulos is the only other player to have won the World Championship on more than one occasion, having reached the final in five consecutive years. Els Bulten is the only female champion.
Since 2020 the Mind Sports Olympiad have run open international tournaments in a similar format to the World Championships. For 2020 and 2021 only an online tournament was held, but since 2022 both online and in-person tournaments have been held in London.
Online Tournaments
In-Person MSO Tournaments
As a result of the cancellation of World Championship in 2020, the community of Carcassonne Catalonia decided to create an online world championship for teams, to be played online for several weeks on the online platform Board Game Arena. Named World Team Carcassonne Online Championship (WTCOC), the format of the tournament is for each match to have 5 players selected by both teams. Each player is paired with an opponent who they play a best-of-3 games to make up a 'Duel'. The winner of each duel scores a point for their team in the match.
From the start of the second edition, in 2021, the WTCOC has been officially sanctioned by the publisher Hans Im Glück and World Championship organisers Spielezentrum. Beginning in 2023 the top 4 teams in the WTCOC have been able to send an extra participant to the World Championships in Germany. This was reduced to the top 3 teams in 2024.