Carcassonne - Board Game
Carcassonne
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 Rio Grande Games 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 and castle (the Château
Comptal). The game has spawned many expansions and spin-offs,
and several computer versions. The game's wooden follower pieces,
colloquially called "meeples," have become a symbol
of European board gaming.
The game board is a medieval landscape built by the players as
the game progresses. The game starts with a single terrain tile
face up and 71 others shuffled face down for the players to draw
from. On 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 features on the tiles it abuts:
roads must connect to roads, fields to fields, and cities to cities.
After placing the new tile, the placing player may opt to station
a follower piece on that tile. The follower can only be placed
on the just-placed tile, and must be placed on a specific feature.
A follower claims ownership of one terrain feature-road, field,
city, or cloister-and may not be placed on a feature already claimed
by another player's follower. It is possible for terrain features
to become shared after the further placement of tiles. For example,
two field tiles which each have a follower can become connected
into a single field by another terrain tile.
The game ends when the last tile has been placed. At that time,
all features (including fields) score points for the players with
the most followers on them. The player with the most points wins
the game.
Enthusicastic players use more than one set.
Click
here to read more at Rio Grande Games