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- Carcassonne Wheel Of Fortune Instructions
- Carcassonne Wheel Of Fortune Rules
- Carcassonne Wheel Of Fortune
- Carcassonne Wheel Of Fortune
Introduction
3 min read; Carcassonne Tiles. Updated: Nov 28, 2020 Nov 28, 2020. Carcassonne; Official Game Site Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune; Rulebook See official rulebook; Price (MSRP) $29.95. Carcassonne Wheel of Fortune is a standalone game, and the 7th expansion for carcassonne. It consists of the wheel of fortune, a 16 (4x4) sized block that represents the wheel and replaces the starting tile and a pink pig meeple that moves on the wheel, 40 followers in 5 colours as found in the standard game, a scoreboard and 72 tiles, some that differ slightly from the original in combinations.
Variants are different versions of Carcassonne game that share the same set of rules.
Promos
Various promotional editions.
CutCassonne
10 cut-n-play tiles for Carcassonne in the Second Edition style introduced in 2014 that were hidden on the bottom of the gift box 'Hans im Päckchen' given at out Essen 2014. No meeples were included.
You may cut out the tiles from the box and glue them on blank tiles, and use them as an expansion.
CutCassonne has the darker city backgrounds.
See rules for them here.
Carcassonne Demo-Spiel
Promotional mini game version of Carcassonne contained in the 999 Games 25th anniversary box in 2015. The game is for two players and contains 20 smaller tiles and 8 smaller meeples in red and blue (4 of each). No scoreboard is provided, and all base game rules apply, except farmers. Also released by Hans im Glück in a German edition.
Carcassonne Demo-Spiel has the darker city backgrounds.
See the rules here.
Carcassonne Solo Variant
Promotional variant based on the base game released in April 2020 during the 'Stay at Home' campaign. Hans im Glück published downloadable rules (in German and in English) for a one-player collaborative variant where the player (or a team) has to score the maximum number of points possible.
It follows the usual rules of the base game with some modifications:
- It uses 3 sets of meeples only (4 meeples each in 3 colors), and optional one abbot in another color as turn tracker.
- Scoring meeples on the scoreboard are placed initially in specific spaces.
- A stack with one third of the tiles is assigned to each color.
- Meeples must placed whenever there is an unoccupied feature (except fields).
- Only the meeple(s) with the least number of points can score a completed feature.
- The game ends when the player cannot place more tiles or cannot place a meeple in a turn (ran out of meeples in one color).
- The final scoring is based on the number of meeples placed on the board.
See the rules here
Carcassonne Print-and-Play Demo
Print-and-play game version of Carcassonne released in April 2020 during the 'Stay at Home' campaign. Hans im Glück published downloadable rules in German and in English (the latter provided by ZMG).
The game is for two to five players and includes 48 smaller tiles and a scoreboard to be printed and cut. Players have also to provide their colored pieces to serve as meeples: 5 for the game and 1 optional for the scoreboard, if used. All base game rules apply, except farmers.
See the rules here.
Limited Editions
Limited Edition 2003
The Limited Edition was released in 2003, and is considered by some as Big Box 0 or, at least, the precursor to the Big Box series.
Contents:
- Exp. 1 - Inns & Cathedrals
- Exp. 2 - Traders & Builders
Limited edition: Base game, Traders and Builders
This limited edition was released by Hans im Glück in 2004, and was supplied in a metal box.
Contents:
- Exp. 2 - Traders & Builders
Limited edition: Base game, Princess and Dragon
This limited edition was released by Hans im Glück in 2006.
Contents:
- Exp. 3 - The Princess & the Dragon
![Carcassonne Carcassonne](https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images4/1/0418/29/carcassonne-wheel-fortune-print_1_bf4aa83b383e3138dab39684a53553d8.jpg)
Tchibo-Edition
This was sold exclusively by the German trade company Tchibo from 2007. It was packaged with El Grande in a metal box.
Contents:
Limited edition: Wheel of fortune
Box front | Hidden certificate in the cover |
This limited edition was released by Hans im Glück in 2009. From the outside the limited edition is not recognizable as such, only when you take a look in the cover you will find the corresponding certificate. In total there are 500 copies.
Contents:
- Novel 'Wheel of Fortune' by Helene Luise Köppel
Limited edition: Base game, Crop circles
This limited edition was released by Hans im Glück in 2009.
Contents:
10th Anniversary
Hans im Glück released the 10th Anniversary Edition of the game in 2011 packaged in a giant blue meeple-shaped case to mark the 10th Anniversary of Carcassonne.
Contents:
- A meeple-shaped scoreboard
- 5 sets of colored, translucent meeples
Russian Wheel of fortune
The Russian Wheel of fortune was released in 2012 by Hobby World.
Contents:
- Exp. 8 - Bridges, Castles & Bazaars
Müller Exklusiv-Edition
This was sold exclusively by the German trade company Müller from 2013. It was packaged in a metal box.
Contents:
- Exp. 6 - Count, King & Robber
Limited edition: Winter-Edition, Gingerbread man
This limited edition was released by ZMG and Filosofia in 2013.
Contents:
Limited edition: Base game, Dutch monasteries
This limited edition was released by 999 Games in 2014.
Contents:
15th Anniversary
Hans im Glück released the 15th Anniversary Edition of the game in 2016.
Contents:
Saint Nicholas Scoring Board
The Saint Nicholas Scoring Board is a variant based on a scoreboard for Carcassonne II that was sold by cundco.de exclusively on Saint Nicholas Day in 2016. It was a limited edition of 150 items.
Two scoreboard spaces are marked with stickers:
- Space number 6 has a Santa Claus hat.
- Space number 24 has a Christmas tree.
The scoreboard is signed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede.
See the rules here
Limited edition: Markets of Leipzig
This expansion was first released as a limited edition of total 600 examples: the 1st 300 examples at the 'modell hobby spiel' in Leipzig from the 29th of September to the 1st of October 2017, and the 2nd 300 examples at the Spiel'17 in Essen from 26th to 29th of October 2017. This limited version was signed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and the CEO of Leipzig's trade fair center (Messe Leipzig) and contain 13 Followers/Meeples. A more general version is also available.
Contents:
- 13 different colored meeples
Limited Special Edition 2018
This was sold exclusively by CundCo from 2018. This was a special edition of the Carcassonne game in the form of a medieval book. The product was handcrafted using natural materials like vegetable tanned leather and hand-made paper.The edition was strictly limited to 100 copies with 80 copies available for sale to Carcassonne fans. Each copy was individually numbered, and accompanied by a certificate of authentication.
Contents:
- Base Game (First Edition artwork)
Carcassonne Maps
With Carcassonne Maps, HiG offer a new possibility to play Carcassonne. It is designed for the New Edition.
You can use your tiles and meeples in a country, build cities with real names and influence the course of important roads. There are also new ways to score points, for example by scoring a large city or by connecting roads to neighboring countries.
The map consists of high-quality, strong, linen-embossed paper and has the size A1. The map is delivered rolled up and the purchaser is recommended to flatten it by 'bending against' before use or to press it flat again under a few books. Alternatively, it can also be attached to the table with a removable adhesive tape (crepe, for example). The latter also has the advantage that it is not moved accidentally.
The map requires players to use their own game material from the base game and some major expansions, so it is not a standalone product but a complement to play a variant of the base game with extra tiles.
Current maps:
- Benelux
- France
- Germany (Deutschland)
- Great Britain
- Iberian Peninsula (Península Ibérica)
- USA East
- USA West
Map-Chips expansions
Additionally, HiG released Map-Chips, an expansion for Carcassonne Maps. Map-Chips, using the same tokens, provide an expansion with a different set of rules for each map. In France players will press wine, whereas Benelux players may pick face-up tiles stacked on islands. On the Iberian Peninsula, players go geocaching; on the British Isles, players might play twice as fast; and, in Germany, players have the possibility to upgrade their meeples.
Carcassonne Maps and Map-Chips rules
See all the rules here
Big Boxes
Carcassonne Big Boxes are a good (and usually cheaper) way for players wanting to get started with the game of Carcassonne as they typically contain a copy of the base game and a number of major, and sometimes minor, expansions. These have been released every few years, with a slightly different set of expansions each time. The following Big Boxes have been released.
Big Box
RGG version
HiG version
The first Big Box was released in 2006 by Hans_im_Glück.
Contents:
- River (RGG only)
- Exp. 1 - Inns & Cathedrals
- Exp. 2 - Traders & Builders (without the cloth bag for tiles)
- Exp. 3 - The Princess & the Dragon
- Exp. 4 - The Tower
The German edition of Big Box did not include The River (thanks to kettlefish)
Big Box 2
Big Box 2 was released in 2008 by HiG.
Contents:
- Exp. 1 - Inns & Cathedrals
- Exp. 2 - Traders & Builders (without the cloth bag for tiles)
- Exp. 3 - The Princess & the Dragon
- Exp. 5 - Abbey & Mayor
- Exp. 6 - Count, King & Robber
Big Box 3
Big Box 3 was released in 2010 by HiG.
Contents:
- Exp. 1 - Inns & Cathedrals
- Exp. 2 - Traders & Builders (without the cloth bag for tiles)
- Exp. 3 - The Princess & the Dragon
- Exp. 5 - Abbey & Mayor
- Exp. 8 - Bridges, Castles & Bazaars
Big Box 4
Big Box 4 was released in 2012 by HiG.
Contents:
- Exp. 1 - Inns & Cathedrals
- Exp. 2 - Traders & Builders (without the cloth bag for tiles)
- Mini #1 - The Flier (Flying Machines)
- Mini #2 - The Messages (Dispatches)
- Mini #3 - The Ferries
- Mini #4 - The Goldmines
- Mini #5 - Mage & Witch
- Mini #6 - The Robbers
- Mini #7 - Crop circles
- 6 blank tiles
Big Box 5
Big Box 5 was released in 2014 by HiG.
Contents:
- Base Game (modified version with additional Wheel of Fortune symbols on some tiles)
- River III (special edition of River I with vineyards and printed sheep)
- Exp. 1 - Inns & Cathedrals (including 8 50/100 points tiles instead of 6)
- Exp. 2 - Traders & Builders (without the cloth bag for tiles)
- Exp. 9 - Hills & Sheep (without the cloth bag for sheep and wolf tokens)
- The Wheel of Fortune (different version than the standalone version)
- Sets of pink and purple figures for players 7th/8th
Big Box 6
Big Box 6 was released in 2017 by HiG.
Contents:
- Exp. 1 - Inns & Cathedrals (including 8 50/100 points tiles instead of 6)
- Exp. 2 - Traders & Builders (without the cloth bag for tiles)
- Mini #1 - The Flier (Flying Machines)
- Mini #2 - The Messages (Dispatches)
- Mini #3 - The Ferries
- Mini #4 - The Goldmines
- Mini #5 - Mage & Witch
- Mini #6 - The Robbers
- Mini #7 - Crop Circles
Carcassonne Wheel Of Fortune Instructions
Russian Compilation 1
The Russian Compilation 1 was released in 2011 by Hobby World.The Bigbox has the name Suburbans and Inhabitants
Contents:
- Exp. 1 - Inns & Cathedrals
- Exp. 2 - Traders & Builders
- Exp. 5 - Abbey & Mayor
Russian Compilation 2
The Russian Compilation 2 was released in 2012 by Hobby World.The Bigbox has the name Noble Towers
Contents:
- Exp. 3 - The Princess & the Dragon
- Exp. 4 - The Tower
- Exp. 6 - Count, King & Robber
Russian Compilation 3
The Russian Compilation 3 was released in 2014 by Hobby World.The Bigbox has the name Science & Magic
Contents:
- Mini #1 - The Flier (Flying Machines)
- Mini #2 - The Messages (Dispatches)
- Mini #3 - The Ferries
- Mini #4 - The Goldmines
- Mini #5 - Mage & Witch
- Mini #6 - The Robbers
- Mini #7 - Crop Circles
Russian Big Box 1
The Russian Big Box 1 was released in 2013 by Hobby World.The Bigbox has the name Royal Gift
Contents:
- Exp. 1 - Inns & Cathedrals
- Exp. 2 - Traders & Builders
- Exp. 5 - Abbey & Mayor
Russian Big Box 2
The Russian Big Box 2 was released in 2019 by Hobby World.The Bigbox has the name Royal Gift
Contents:
Carcassonne Wheel Of Fortune Rules
- Exp. 3 - The Princess and & Dragon
- Exp. 6 - Count, King & Robber
- Exp. 8 - Bridges, Castles & Bazaars
Bundles
The following bundles have been released.
Bundle: Base game, Traders and Builders, Princess and Dragon
This bundle was released in 2005.
Contents:
Bundle: Base game, Tower
This bundle was released in 2007.
Contents:
Bundle: Base game, Catapult
This bundle was released in 2012.
Contents:
Bundle: Base game II, Inns and Cathedrals II
This bundle was released in 2016.
Contents:
Other
Carcassonne Travel Edition
The Travel Edition was released in 2007.
The tile size of the Travel Edition is smaller than the regular game, so it is not possible to add any expansion for the regular game, except The Phantom expansion. Meeples, too, are smaller than normal.
The game includes a bag for the tiles that is printed with a scoring table.
Carcassonne Start Tableau
The Carcassonne Start Tableau was released in 2015.
The tableau features the city of Carcassonne and offers additional possibilities to place tiles at the beginning of the game. The picture is known from The Count of Carcassonne, where it was included as single tiles.
Carcassonne for 2
Carcassonne for 2 was released by Hans im Glück in 2017.
It is a two-player version of Carcassonne that comes in a small metal box. There is no score track.
Contents:
- 48 landscape tiles (subset of the standard base game with additional tiles in other configurations)
- 12 meeples in two colours - 6 each in red and blue
Spin-offs
Various variants for Carcassonne spin-offs.
Winter Digital Download
In 2011, prior to the release of Winter Carcassonne, this was made available for download, for personal 'print and play', from the Hans im Glück web site. The intent was for the files to be printed onto stickers and then stuck to regular Carcassonne tiles. Style-wise it was based on the First Edition artwork, with a covering of snow. This edition contained the standard set of 72 tiles and standard rules. Once Winter Carcassonne was released in 2012, the download version was withdrawn.
Contents:
- 72 land tile images in a 6 page PDF file
Retrieved from 'https://wikicarpedia.com/index.php?title=Variants&oldid=99933'
In my first article in this series, I talked about the design of the game Carcassonne, breaking it down by parts and seeing how they all work together. However, Carcassonne is a lot more than than just the basic game. Nine supplements of various sizes have slowly expanded that base game, moving it in various directions (and not always the ones suggested by the original game).
Over the next few articles in this series I’m going to examine those supplements, to show how they’ve evolved the SdJ winning Carcassonne‘s gameplay. But first, a brief overview of all the supplements to date.
Each supplement adds new tiles to the game, but also provides some big new ideas:
The River. Adds a new starting setup to the game: a 12-tile river. (Now available as part of the base game.)
Inns & Cathedrals. Adds inns, which made roads worth double or nothing, and cathedrals, which made cities worth triple or nothing. Adds a “big meeple” who is worth double the value of the other meeples in token conflict. (Originally published as “The Expansion”.)
Traders & Builders. Adds cities with goods; a player closing a city now collects goods, worth VPs at the end for majority control. Adds pigs, which increase the value of one field. Adds builders, which allow faster building of one city or road.
King & Scout. Gives VPs to players who close the biggest road and city.
The Count of Carcassonne. Adds a new starting setup to the game: a 12-tile city. Adds a Count who can allow players to move meeples to regions just as they close & score.
The Cathars. Adds Cathars besieging cities, who decrease the value of the city to knights, but increase its value to farmers. (An exclusive micro-expansion; I mention it here for completeness, and I’ll include it in my various charts, but don’t think it has much relevence to the evolution of the game.)
The Princess & The Dragon. Adds a dragon which removes meeples. Adds a fairy which protects from the same & gives points when a location it’s at is scored. Adds magic gate tiles which let you place on any open, unoccupied region. Adds princess tiles which remove a meeple from a city.
The River II. Yet another alternative setup for the game: a 12-tile river, this time with a branch. Fixes some of the field size problems of the original river, and also has a link to each of the major supplements to this point.
The Tower. Introduces towers which can be used to capture nearby followers, or which can be “capped” by one of your meeples to protect your own.
In my articles on Carcassonne‘s expansions I’m going to draw a distinction between two sets of supplements. First is “Classic Carcassonne”, which is the original game plus the first two major supplements, Inns & Cathedrals and Traders & Builders. If you bought the gold-box Carcassonne that was sold in stores a couple of years ago, this was it. I also tend to include the mini-expansion, King & Scout, in this category. Second are the “later expansions”, which center on the two large supplements, The Princess & The Dragon and The Tower as well as the mini-supplement, The Count of Carcassonne, and the micro-supplement The Cathars. There’s a number of huge changes in design between King & Scout and The Count of Carcassonne, as we’ll see.
This week I’m going to concentrate on the “good” evolution of Carcassonne: how the classic expansions helped to balance the game and the tile mix (though we’ll also get our first hints at how the later expansions begin to turn from early ideals).
Balancing the Game
The Original Game: One of the real problems with the original release of Carcassonne was tile balance. In general the four different types of terrain could be pretty easily ranked. Roads were the weakest, because they scored just 1 point/tile. Cities came next at 2 points/tile, then cloisters, which were typically worth 4-5 points at placement and could be finished while working on other terrains. Fields, meanwhile, were the best, not because of their straight-up valuation, but because they could become so large that a single field could easily be worth 30-40 points at endgame.
Balance among arbitrary randomizers (e.g., cards or tiles) isn’t always desired. However, the less balanced they are, the higher the luck factor. Carcassonne suffered from two issues because of the lack of balance of the early terrains: (1) the arbitrary nature of the game was increased, because a player could do considerably better or worse depending on which terrain types he drew; and (2) the strategy of the game degenerated down to a single most successful path, the control of fields.
Classic Carcassonne: Classic Carcassonne, managed to notably improve this gameplay by improving this balance:
The value of roads and cities were improved thanks to the inns and the cathedrals of Inns & Cathedrals. The improvement to roads was the biggest because it upped the maximum value by 2x. Cathedrals, meanwhile, improved maximum value of cities only by 1.5x. Inns and cathedrals could each be used as spoilers, to devalue a road or city late in the game, but this is usually only of value in a city, because roads tend to be much easier to close and harder to block. Because of the blocking possibility the marginal increase of value to cities is even less than the 1.5x implies.
When the next supplement, Traders & Builders, came along roads and cities were further improved thanks to the builder. He allowed you to double build on the appropriate terrain type. I find that his best use is for road construction. Even after the classic supplements, roads are still a little less in value than any of the rest of the terrains. The builders lets you control your luck (for more on which, see my articles, Luck and Luck II). If you’re unlucky enough to get a lower-value road tile, here’s a way to make it more valuable: you get another turn.
Carcassonne Wheel Of Fortune
The effect of the supplements on cloisters is a little more subtle. The main issue with cloisters tends to be that it’s possible to get your meeples stuck there after your initial 4-6 point windfall for placement. In the original set, where you have 72 tiles and 7 meeples per player, this isn’t a big deal. If you get a meeple stuck every ten tiles (or every 2-5 turns, depending on the number of players), that’s fine. However with the tiles from the three classic supplements you add 47 tiles, and just one meeple, so your 7:72 ratio is suddenly 8:117. You now have to hold on to your meeples 40% longer before losing them, and thus the valuation of the cloisters drops.
The fields are actually slightly increased in value through the inclusion of the pig in the Traders & Builders supplement, who makes one field better. It’s very similar to the inns & cathedrals from the previous supplements, but not quite as good and not quite as plentiful. The field valuation did also decrease in these early supplements, but it was due to tile distribution, not any specific rule. I’ll talk about tiles shortly.
On the whole, looking at the new rules in the classic Carcassonne supplements, roads are notably improved in value, cities are somewhat improved, cloisters are devalued, and fields are slightly improved. Generally, points went up, but everything also moved toward a better balance.
(I haven’t discussed big meeples and goods. These and many other expansions had nothing to do with the idea of balance; I’ll talk about them more when I discuss issues of competition, cooperation, and complexity, in my next articles.)
Later Expansions: The later Carcassonne supplements seem pretty single-minded in bashing any higher-value terrain types. The Cathars decreases city values and The Princess & The Dragon makes cities chancier by giving Princesses an opportunity to remove meeples from them. In addition both The Princess & The Dragon and The Tower discourage long-term meeple placement on the board, by introducing dragons and towers to take them away. This hurts all meeple placement, but it’s farmers that it particularly discourages, because they’re the only one who stay on the board the whole game.
It’s possible that the later Carcassonne supplements actually continue to move valuation in the right direction. Dragons & towers introduce a player feedback loop, which gives players the explicit opportunity to attack any high-scoring terrains which remain too valuable. Meanwhile, the princesses attack only cities, and the value of cloisters continues to decrease thanks to the increased tile count. 7:72 becomes 8:165 with all the supplements in, over double the original ratio. Meanwhile, roads are scarcely touched, since they’ll be some of the last terrains hit by dragons and towers.
My feeling is that it’s been overdone, but that’s partially because I don’t like how the competition to cooperation ratio has changed, which again will be discussed more in my next article.
Below is a chart showing all the valuation changes in the later Carcassonnes. For reasons of space I haven’t listed the fact that dragons and towers can hit every meeple type; I’ve just listed their effects on fields, because it’s considerably greater than other results, thanks to the long-term commitment. Nonetheless, cloisters and cities can be dangerous thanks to these new predators too.
If you want to play a Carcassonne game with any particular terrain type valued more highly or lowly than normal, this chart should help out. It could make for some interesting variation.
Tile Distribution
The Original Game: The tile distribution of the original Carcassonne game was a bit subpar. Its biggest problems were threefold: (1) fields got too big; (2) it was too easy to block a space by making it impossible to fill; and (3) it was too easy to get into an opponent’s large terrain by a diagonal placement of a meeple near the terrain.
Thanks to Caracsssonne‘s expansions, this distribution has changed a lot.
Classic Carcassonne: The following diagrams show the tile distributions for the originalCarcassonne and each of the first two major supplements. In each case you can click on the thumbnail if you’d like to see a larger copy of the picture:
Original Game | Inns & Cathedrals | Traders & Builders |
(Thanks to Roy Levien [Aldaron] over at BGG who gave me the OK to use his helpful distribution pics in this article.)
Decreasing Field Size. Even just glancing at the tiles it’s easy to see that the newer distributions were intended to combat the large field problem. In the original 72 tile set there is just one full-tile city, which is exactly the sort of thing that starts to spread fields out. In the 18 tile set from I&C we have 2 full-tile cities, plus one tile with an entirely internal field. In the 24 tiles from T&B we find another 2 tiles containing only one internal field, plus another 2 tiles with an internal field as well as an external field.
In addition these supplements feature the first tiles which purposefully elongated cities to cut off fields. There’s one city “cap” in I&C (#7 in the I&C diagram) which cuts down to the opposite side of the tile and there’s three city “corners” in T&B, each of which draw out a corner to cut the field in two (#5, #10, and #16 in the T&B diagram, with oddly enough one per good type, one of many symmetries in tile distribution).
Perhaps a better way of looking at this is mathematical — by counting the number of distinct fields on a tile, ignoring all of those full city tiles. Distinct fields within a tile could be connected up based on how other tiles are laid above them, but clearly the higher the field/tile ratio, the more likelihood that fields will be cut up. The original Carcassonne has a field/tile ratio of 1.75. Inns & Cathedrals has a much higher 2.26 ratio and Traders & Builders edges up even more, with a 2.36. Playing all three sets together pulls the original Carcassonne‘s average up to 1.94 fields/tile.
(For what it’s worth, the 5 new tiles in King & Scout had a field/tile ratio of 2.25, right in line with the new average, plus one more full-city-and-internal-field tile.)
Looking at those numbers there’s little doubt that decreasing field sizes was a real goal as the classic expansions were released.
Decreasing Blocking. One of the frustrations with the original Carcassonne is getting blocked in such a way that no tile exists that can close your terrain. Fortunately the first few supplements introduced a couple of tiles to fit common situations that the original game didn’t. I&C includes two city-road-city-road tiles (#5 & #10 in the above chart for I&C), one city-city-road-field tile (#9), one city-city-field-road tile (#11), and one road-field-city-file tile (#9); each of these was a guaranteed block before. T&B supports city-city-road-field (#8 & #16) and city-city-field-road (#10 & #14) even better and also offers the only city-road-field-field tile (#2). (The opposite, road-city-field-field tile was remarkably neglected until King & Scout.)
Blocking is an acceptable and often good strategy in Carcassonne, but ensured blockage, with no chance of a tile draw for release can be very frustrating.
Decreasing Stealing. Finally the classic Carcassonne supplements managed to make it harder to steal someone else’s terrain by putting a meeple diagonally adjacent, then building in.
This was never a problem with roads, since there was so many tees. However, with the original Carcassonne it was impossible to keep someone out of your field if they placed diagonally, except by making the space in between impossible to fill (which is actually an OK strategy for fields, since you don’t need to close them). For cities, there were two adjacent double-cap tiles in the main set (#14), but that was the only way to keep someone diagonally adjacent out of your city, and here you don’t want to block out the space usually.
Carcassonne Wheel Of Fortune
![Buy Buy](/uploads/1/3/5/9/135909226/647120073.jpg)
As already noted the classic supplements introduced four elongated city segments, which could be used to block off diagonal fields. Much more notable were the city dividers, each of which could be used to create multiple adjacent cities. There are 9 in the two classic supplements (I&C #3, #4, and #6; T&B #6, #7, #9, #13, #18, and #23) bringing the ratio from 2/72 to 11/114, tripling the tile percentage from 3% to 9%.
The notable increases both overall and from I&C to T&B suggest that the designer saw the overease of capturing other peoples’ terrain as a continuing issue.
Later Expansions: I’d originally thought that I didn’t need to talk about the newer supplements when looking at tile distribution. After all, the aforementioned problems were largely fixed by the classic Carcassonne sets, and thus the newer ones didn’t need to worry much about changing the tile distributions.
I was surprised when I crunched a few numbers to see that the newer supplements in general go backward on all of the issues I mention above (other than blocking). If you add in The Princess & The Dragon and The Tower, fields start getting larger again, and it starts to get easier to get into other players terrains once more.
The follow chart shows how field/tile ratio and the percentage of separator tiles have changed from major release to major release:
Orig. | I&C | T&B | P&D | Tower | |
F/T Ratio | 1.75 | 2.26 | 2.36 | 1.80 | 2.06 |
Full Tile % | 1.4% | 11.1% | 8.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Field Sep. % | 0.0% | 5.5% | 12.5% | 3.3% | 5.5% |
City Sep. % | 2.7% | 16.7% | 25% | 6.6% | 11.1% |
The field to tile ratio is acceptable in The Tower but everything else is moving notably back toward the tile distributions of the original game, and the attendant problems.
Conclusion
One of the reasons that I like the classic Carcassonne supplements — meaning Inns & Cathedrals and Traders & Builders — is that they were all about tweaking the base game. The original Carcassonne was clearly a good game, else it wouldn’t have won the SdJ, but it had balance problems both in scoring and in tile distribution. These first supplements largely fixed those issues via a number of different and clever mechanisms.
In my next article in this series I’m going to look more at how cooperation, competition, and theme, and start to show how later Carcassonne supplements have dramatically changed the direction of the game.
Author’s Note: Clearly, there have been many more Carcassonne supplements since I wrote this article. Bigger expansions include Abbey & Mayor (2007), The Catapult (2008), Wheel of Fortune (2009), Bridges, Castles & Bazaars (2010), and Corn Circles, Plague & Tunnels (2012). There have also literally been a bajillion small supplements (many of them reprinted in the larger supplements). If I didn’t think that Carcassonne jumped the shark with The Princess & The Dragon (I do), I’d be sure it did with The Catapult. Anyway, I have no idea how these more recent supplements changed the tile distribution or the gameplay. I have a suspicion that tile distribution wasn’t really considered. Someday I may go through them all, just to suggest how each might change the game (because it’d be cool to expand this article series with a part 7). For now, this series continues in Part Three: Cooperation & Competition—SA, 7/17/12