My husband is a very experienced, cut-throat game player and usually I refuse to play with him. But he wants to play with our 8 year old, so I agreed to play to be nice and spend time with them. He taught our child Carcassone. I had never played before. It was fun and we played pretty close until the end, when my husband‘s farmers beat both of us by 40 points. Our child took it surprisingly well, but I think he should go easy on a child. He says I have a bad attitude about losing. He is going to insist on playing again tomorrow. I’m not a very good board game player, so I feel like there’s no way I can ever beat him. What is my best strategy? If I put all my guys as farmers, will that hose him enough to give our child a chance to win? Should I give up trying to score points myself and just actively take over/cut off his farms? We are playing the original game, no expansions.

Hi reddit,

I've been contemplating getting the dragon expansion to add to my collection, and I've noticed that much like the other expansions it has had a re-brand.

The rules have changed substantially, but as far as I can both versions support both versions of the rules, so I can pick and choose which rules to use depending on my mood. What isn't replicable though, is that there are different tiles in each version.

The original, called Princess and Dragon, has 6 extra tiles which are princess tiles: these add a dynamic whereby you can kick a meeple off a city when you connect to it. These don't exist in the new version.

The new version, called Dragon and Fairy, comes with 2 new 2-tiled river tiles which I like, because I get tired of having the river be so predictable.

I'm leaning towards buying the Princess and Dragon, because of the princess tiles. I was hoping to get some advice: Is the river so good that I should change my decision? Does anyone have experience with the princess tiles? Does the dynamic work well, or will I opt to skip those tiles more often than not?

We all know that https://wikicarpedia.com/car/ is a great online source for rules, with translations available in many languages. But if you’d prefer to keep the latest set of rules in printed form right inside the box, these printable PDFs might come in handy:

 

BASE GAME

Base Game: Standard

Base Game: Big Box

  

MAJOR EXPANSIONS

Expansion 1: Inns & Cathedrals

Expansion 2: Traders & Builders

Expansion 3: Dragon & Fairy

Expansion 4: Towers & Thieves

Expansion 5: Messengers & Mayors

Expansion 6: Jousts & Crests

Expansion 7: Siege & Defense

Expansion 8: Castles & Bridges

Expansion 9: Sheep & Shepherds

Expansion 10: Circus & Artists

Expansions: FAQs

 

MINI EXPANSIONS

The 4 Seasons: The Spring

The 4 Seasons: The Summer

The 4 Seasons: The Autumn

The 4 Seasons: The Winter

The Wonders of Humanity

The Drawbridges

The Bets

The Signposts

The Gifts

The Peasant Revolts

The Labyrinth

The Barber-Surgeons

The Watchtower

The fruit-bearing trees

The Festival

The Castles in Germany

The Halflings

 

No meeples were harmed in the making of this list.

---

Source: Official website (older rules are also available):

Base Game and Major Expansions
Mini Expansions

Sorry if the wording is confusing.

I was playing carcassone with my family the other night and we ran across a church with a road leading to it which sparked confusion. Do we count it as a road being completed when it touches another road, or do you wait until it is surrounded on all sides like a normal church?

Answers would be appreciated, thanks!

For the Dragon & The Princess expansion, but also for any expansion that involves eating meeples:

• Instead of outright eating the meeple, you can save it for 3 points if you can afford it.

So it creates a decision of space where strong meeples aren't annoyingly wiped out but make interesting decisions surrounding meeple management, making you able to decide to let the dragon eat badly positioned meeples, while some you would need to discern if they are worth it.

This sorta makes the dragon still exciting since it can for sure wipe out a good chunk of points if there are clustered meeples, but not as annoying to completely disabling commited players from the game.

Obviously as with all house rules the value could be adjusted but the idea remains.

In my rule leaflet for bridges, there's no rules on how you should handle setting a tile next to an existing bridge. Neither does the wiki.

This technically would mean that setting a field side tile connected to the bridge is as legal as setting a road side tile. Is there anything to counter that interpretation?