# Carcassonne Expansions



## Crothian (Nov 21, 2008)

I've been playing a lot of this game and I know it has many expansions.  I'm wondering which are good and which are not.

I have the first River expansion and I feel it is a must.  The way it stretches out the board down a line of the river is very helpful.  Without it everything is just so clumped together that it was less enjoyable.  

I also have the new expansion Cultist, Siege, and Creativity.  I only have used it once but I like the way it allows one to hinder the other players ability to get points.  

I've played with River 2 and Inns and Abbeys.  I like both of them as they are simple to use and don't really alter the game all that much.  

What expansion do you like or not like?


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## Asmor (Nov 21, 2008)

The only one I really don't care for is the princess & dragon. The dragon's rarely effective and the fairy is just a nightmare to keep track of. Plus, the magic portals screw with one of the fundamental bits of Carcassonne (that you can't put a dude on a tile that's already been laid)

A lot of people could take or leave the tower. I think it's okay.

Inns & Cathedrals is pretty much a must-have, if nothing else for the 6th set of pieces, but the big meeples add a lot of interactivity to the game. The eponymous inns and cathedrals are also nice, though don't really add a whole lot.

Builders & Traders is another popular one, though it adds a lot to the game and moves a bit further from the simplicity of normal Carcassonne. May be a good or bad thing, depending. Personally, I can never remember what the pig does!

Haven't tried the Abbey & Mayor.

I like the River and River II combined.

I've only used the Count of Carcasonne once, and don't recall being impressed. My biggest complaints were that the art style was slightly different from normal carc, the setup of the tiles mattered, and most egregious of all, it meant not using the river!


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## MerricB (Nov 21, 2008)

The three best are Inns & Cathedrals, Traders & Builders and Abbey & Mayor. Each of those extends the basic Carcassonne experience and are really fun to play with.

I enjoy Princess & Dragon, although it's a little wacky, but generally avoid the Tower.

I never play with the River, as I dislike the set-up it gives the game, and rarely with King (& Scout) or Count of Carcassonne (although I like the last).

Only just got Cultist, Siege & Creativity, so can't comment yet.

Cheers!


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## Crothian (Nov 22, 2008)

Which is the one that has a king and Bandit that get passed around to whoever has the biggest city /road and extra points are given for each completed city/road?  That one sounded interesting.  

What does the pig do?  In Cultist, Siege, and Creativity the siege pieces give more points for the pig.


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## Asmor (Nov 22, 2008)

Crothian said:


> Which is the one that has a king and Bandit that get passed around to whoever has the biggest city /road and extra points are given for each completed city/road?  That one sounded interesting.[/sblock]
> 
> King & Scout (5 tiles for Carcassonne, 5 tiles for Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers, and 2 tokens for the king and thief)
> 
> ...


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## MerricB (Nov 22, 2008)

Asmor said:


> It increases the score of fields somehow, I just don't remember how... And since sieges also increase the value of fields from what I understand, that makes sense that they increase it with pigs too.




Pig makes each city supplied by the farm +1 point. So, if your farm supplies 4 cities, you score 4 more points (16 rather than 12).

Please note that the German scoring is 3 points/city supplied by the farm, and the later expansions presume that - they really don't work with the 1st edition scoring.

Cheers!


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## Crothian (Nov 23, 2008)

MerricB said:


> Please note that the German scoring is 3 points/city supplied by the farm, and the later expansions presume that - they really don't work with the 1st edition scoring.




That's why the math was wrong!!  For siege it says it double the points for a farm on that city giving 6 points.  That makes sense, thanks.


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## MerricB (Nov 23, 2008)

Crothian said:


> That's why the math was wrong!!  For siege it says it double the points for a farm on that city giving 6 points.  That makes sense, thanks.




No problem.

I always use the most recent German rules now; it makes farm scoring a lot easier. Basically, you treat each farm as a city - whoever has the most farmers in the field then scores the points for the entire field.

The field scores 3 points per complete city on its borders. If there's a pig, it's 4 points per complete city (+1 point).

The old (1st edition) scoring, which the English edition still uses in its basic set, has each city counting the farmers separately and scoring 4 points for the most farmers supplying a city.

A better explanation can be found here:
Carcassonne Farmer Scoring

Cheers!


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## Desdichado (Nov 24, 2008)

The nice thing about Inns &  Cathedrals is you can also ignore the special rules and just treat them as additional extra tiles if you want to.

I've got a couple of the "little" expansions that I like too.  The king's kinda nifty.  The count is a bit complicated, but if you just set it up and use it as jumping off point, without using the count special rules it makes for a nice change.  Suck.  I can't remember for sure which other ones I have.  I haven't played that in probably a year now, and we stuck all the expansions in the main box.


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## D.Shaffer (Nov 25, 2008)

I've been seeing a Catapult expansion for the game. What's that do to things?


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## Crothian (Nov 25, 2008)

D.Shaffer said:


> I've been seeing a Catapult expansion for the game. What's that do to things?




That's in Cultists, Siege, and Creativity.

Each of those are city pieces.  A city that is under siege is worth one less point per tile.  But it is worth double the amount of points to a farm.


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## Asmor (Nov 25, 2008)

D.Shaffer said:


> I've been seeing a Catapult expansion for the game. What's that do to things?






Crothian said:


> That's in Cultists, Siege, and Creativity.
> 
> Each of those are city pieces.  A city that is under siege is worth one less point per tile.  But it is worth double the amount of points to a farm.




Nope. It's a new expansion which brings the exciting world of dexterity-based game play to Carcassonne.

Color me less than impressed. This is one expansion I won't be picking up.

Here's hoping the next expansion has aquatic predators, so that combined with the catapult Carcassonne can _literally_ jump the shark.


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## Crothian (Nov 27, 2008)

Weird, I had not seen that.

I played last night with some friends using both Rivers, Sieges Cults and Creativity, Inns and Cathedrals, and King & Scout.  So five expansions that's the most I've used at once and it made for a really fun game.


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## Asmor (Nov 27, 2008)

I've played with all the expansions which come in the Big Box (Princess & Dragon, Builders & Traders, The Tower, Inns & Cathedrals, and The River). I might have done it all with The River 2 as well, but I'm not sure.

I haven't played Carc in a while, but usually when I do now I just use the base game (with the big meeples). It goes faster and you don't miss out on very much.

One cool thing about Carc, though, is that the game time is almost entirely dependent on the amount of expansions used. Since the game lasts for X pulls, it plays in the same amount of time with 2 players or 6.


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## Wraith101 (Dec 31, 2008)

Having now played  quite a few games with Cult, Siege and Creativity I can give some feedback on it. 

The siege tiles are brilliant. The mechanic is simple enough to use with all other expansions and it can be fun to kill opponents 20 pt cities!

The Cult is not so good, placing it so that a challenge can be pulled off at all is difficult (so far, it seems diagonal placement is the best way to go) and I would be tempted to double (to 18) the points that the winner gets. 

If anyone has any better ideas about the cults I would love to hear them because I doubt we will use them in the future.

Nothing to say about creativity at the moment. I expect we will clone some cool looking 3 or 4 way city tiles, or another one of those three way road intersections. 

To sum up, Siege alone is worth the purchase price. I probably wont play with the cult tiles (or just use them as normal cloisters).


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## Wraith101 (Dec 31, 2008)

Oh, and I forgot to mention the catapult.

When I saw it, I thought it looked very silly and probably a load of rubbish. 

I was right. . . 

That said, it is an effective way to break up the game, break peoples concentration and get everyone to stretch a little. 

I can see us using it as a brief distraction without actually trying to achieve much in game.


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