Carcassonne is a map-building and tile placement game, which was created by a german teacher of music and religion Klauso-Jürgen Wrede in 2000. And since then, for 20 years, Carcassonne has remained one of the most popular board games and is deservedly considered a classic.
An interesting fact: the term “meeple”, well known to all gamers was first used during playing Carcassonne. In 2001, at one of the Boston board game clubs, Alison Hansel, studying the components of the game, saw wooden people which were part of the game, and named them Meeple, from the words “my people”. This word was picked up and quickly spread among the players all over the world.
About the game
The rules of the game are very simple (that's why Carcassonne is considered the best game for beginners). Players should make a map of the medieval kingdom, using square tiles with painted roads, cities, fields and monasteries. Players place their meeples on these roads, cities, fields, and monasteries, which bring them victory points.
Game preparation
Starting tile is placed in the middle of the table
All other tiles should be shuffled and placed face down in a place convenient for all players.
Each player receives all 8 meeples of one color and puts 1 of them on the 0 of a points tracker.
Game process
In his turn, the player does the following:
- Pulls one of the closed tiles and attaches it to the tile on the table. The new tile must be in contact with already laid out, at least with one side. At the point of contact, roads must connect to roads, fields to fields, and cities to cities.
- Put a meeple on the just played tile.
The following rules must be observed:
- The player can only set one meeple per turn.
- The player cannot put the meeple on a road, city, or field if they belong to another player.
- The player chooses on which part of the tile to place the meeple. When the construction of the road is completed, each tile on which it passes brings 1 victory point. Each tile of the completed city is 2 VP, and the monastery surrounded on all sides is 9 VP.
If the just built tile completes road, city or monastery, the player moves his meeple on the points tracker.
The game ends when players put the last tile. The player with the most points wins.