r/Carcassonne • u/Meepledrone • Jul 14 '21
For all of you who may not know WikiCarpedia, or WICA for short, it is a Carcassonne Complete Annotated Rules Wikipedia.
I've seen more and more references to WICA in several posts here on Reddit but I think nobody made a proper introduction to it yet. So here it is.
You may find it here:
Stop by and visit it if you have questions about the rules, any expansion or their interations. Or simply just for fun to know more about Carcassonne...
It provides all the info there is about rules and clarifications about Carcassonne and its many official expansions for:
You can find all the rules organized by edition and also some rules for selected spin-offs. The rules include additional sections and footnotes to provide additional details about the rules themselves and some clarifications about interactions between expansions. So it is a great resource to find answers. And even some WICA team members are also translating their favorite pages into their languages of choice.
On the home page you may also find a section called Reference Guides where all the information about the expansions is combined to provide a consolidated picture. Most of these pages are dynamic so you can select the expansions you are interested in to customize the information displayed. Here you are some of them:
Where does all this information come from?
The pages for the old edition are based on the CAR v7.4 (a great document consolidating all the rules and clarifications for the classic edition until 5/2015). Unluckily this document hasn't been updated since its last release so it is missing some classic edition expansion and all the new editon except the Abbot. Until Carcassonne Central is back online, you may also find the CAR v7.4 on BGG:
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/87531/carcassonne-standard-complete-annotated-rules
For the missing information, we used the source material from HiG and used the rules by ZMG for the base game and major expansions of the new edition.
As a side note, the Big Box 6 rules by ZMG include many mistranslations affecting the Mini Expansions mainly. You may find here a list of rules changes and discrepancies between versions and English publishers including the aforementioned mistranslations:
https://wikicarpedia.com/index.php/Summary_of_Rule_Sets_%26_Changes
We also updated WICA to incorporate additional clarifications to the rules available since 5/2015 and therefore not available in the CAR. And we continue to ask HiG for clarifications so the latest and most acurate information is available on WICA.
Hope this information is useful.
Have fun!
r/Carcassonne • u/BangerIHardlyKnowHer • May 29 '23
Rule of Thumb: Don’t Rush to Complete Cities
In Carcassonne, there’s a natural inclination to rush and complete cities, which isn’t always the best strategy. Yes, a completed city can score you quick points, but this approach often overlooks the long-term strategic value. By rushing to complete a city, you might be committing your meeples too early and limiting your scoring potential for future rounds. Consider each tile placement carefully. Sometimes, expanding an existing city or starting a new one can be more beneficial. By keeping your cities open, you create opportunities to place future tiles that can significantly increase your score. Always think about how your current move can pave the way for higher scores in the upcoming rounds.
Be a Road Warrior
Roads in Carcassonne often don’t receive the attention they deserve. While they may not score as much as cities, roads have their unique advantages. First, they require fewer tiles to complete, meaning you can earn points and retrieve your meeple faster. And secondly, roads are versatile and can fit in many parts of the landscape, providing more placement options.
Roads also can be a brilliant defensive strategy and an opportunity for sabotage. By building roads, you can interfere with your opponent’s plans and restrict their tile placement options. So, don’t underestimate the humble road – it can be a steady and strategic source of points.
Master the Monastery
A completed monastery can score you a hefty nine points, but it also requires careful planning. Monasteries need to be surrounded by eight tiles to be completed, making them a significant commitment and potentially a stuck meeple until the end of the game.
When placing a monastery, consider the landscape’s existing layout. Position your monasteries in areas where other players are likely to place tiles, increasing the chances of your monastery being completed faster.
Meeple Management
Meeple management is at the heart of Carcassonne strategy. Remember, a meeple, once placed, stays on the board until the feature it’s on is completed. This means that having all your meeples committed can leave you powerless in claiming new features.
The key is to strike a balance. While you want to score points by placing meeples on features, try to always have at least one meeple in reserve. This gives you the flexibility to seize unexpected scoring opportunities that may arise. Think of your meeples as a resource to be managed wisely, not just tools to score immediate points. This balance between scoring now and planning for the future is the essence of Carcassonne strategy.
Farming for Victory
Farms are probably one of the most complex aspects of Carcassonne. They’re high-risk, high-reward features that can significantly impact the game’s outcome. When you place a farmer meeple on a farm, it stays there for the rest of the game, no matter what. So, it’s crucial to choose your farming locations wisely.
The key to successful farming is to get in early and target fields on the board that you think will have multiple completed cities by the end of the game. You cannot place a farmer on a field that already has a farmer on it. By getting in early you have the advantage over your opponents who will have to find more creative ways of getting into the big lucrative field by connecting up other board tiles.
The big risk with farmers is the prospect of getting into a farming “war” where you and your opponent place more and more farmers to win the field but lose on scoring opportunities due to the meeple commitment. If you find this happening, be cautious not to overcommit your meeples to farming, as this can leave you with fewer options during the game. Striking the right balance is crucial to mastering the art of farming in Carcassonne.
Connect and Conquer
One of the more opportunistic strategies involves connecting to an opponent’s city or road. This move can be a game-changer, allowing you to share or even steal points from your competitors. The key here is to carefully analyse the board and predict where your opponent might be trying to expand. By strategically placing your tiles, you can join their features and put your meeple, effectively becoming a part of their city or road.
This tactic not only earns you points but can also disrupt your opponent’s plans. However, be wary of inadvertently giving your opponent an advantage. The goal is to be a leech on their points, not set them up for a larger score. This strategy requires careful planning, a keen eye for opportunity, and a little bit of audacity. If executed well, it can tilt the game in your favour.
For the full strategy guide, check out my blog 📷 Carcassonne Strategy Guide
r/Carcassonne • u/ghoststegosaur • 1h ago
I‘m at the Hansemuseum in Lübeck right now and they just told me that the expansion ist currently out of stock.
But they‘ll get more in the future.
r/Carcassonne • u/peepypenguins • 16h ago
In the pictured example, the highlighted tile has been placed completing two cities. Both of Red's Meeple (Meeples? Meepi?!) were already down, and in placing the tile a Meeple was not placed anywhere. Given that it is two separate cities, would Red score 10 points (4 for the small city, and 6 for the large city) or 8 points because you could the tiles instead of cities?
Thanks!
r/Carcassonne • u/Alexqret04 • 13h ago
So tonight I played a game with my brother to test the newly-printed Crop Circles tiles we’d crafted today, to see if they’d work well and fit with the rest of the game. Turns out, they are fantastic together, they almost look official!
Then, as we played, the map turned out to be… an absolute mess, as you can see. But Crop Circles was really fun to mess around with
To play we used River, Expansions 2 and 8, and both Crop Circles, as shown. In the end, I emerged victorious 231 to 155, with this absolute disaster of a map
r/Carcassonne • u/Party-Armadillo8422 • 22h ago
Developer here. Seizer is an online carcassonne alternative. You can play instantly on the browser at seizer.io or download the iOS App or the Android app for smoother experience.
One requested thing from this sub was a way to turn off the tile hints. The host can now hide tile hints in the game settings. The tile reference won’t show how many are left, and the dead spots option will be disabled. You count the stack yourself.
Other improvements since my last post:
-> when you challenge someone, you can edit settings like expansions, tiles in hand etc.
-> game replays show every player's hand.
r/Carcassonne • u/peepypenguins • 1d ago
In the pictured example with the red meeple and the field occupied both highlighted, is the red area the correct boundary of the field?
Also, in games is it perfectly legal to have placed a monastery below the highlighted meeple knowing that the space to the right would not be able to be filled if both monasteries with a road have already been played?
Thanks!
r/Carcassonne • u/Pablo_Jenkins2963 • 2d ago
Forty-five meeples for five people means nine meeples each: one for scoring and eight for claiming features. The base game includes seven regular meeples plus one abbot so I'm guessing it's the same here.
r/Carcassonne • u/Settlers_of_Crypto • 4d ago
My wife kind of hates me right now. 😅
The very last tile after two days of playing allowed me to add a large meeple through the crop circle rule and steal a field worth almost 50 points. (Pointing out that I still would have won didn’t really help calm things down…).
But I’m still amazed at how much of a difference a single tile made. And how she never managed to draw a single tile that would have closed her very oblong city, which contained a cathedral and loads of meeples and points.
Carcassonne is truly not a game for peacekeepers! 😄
r/Carcassonne • u/NGC_54 • 4d ago
The rules for the new expansion The Hansa can now be read on WikiCarpedia: https://wikicarpedia.com/car/The_Hansa.
I must admit, the rats make for a clever mechanic.
r/Carcassonne • u/thewonderfulinternet • 6d ago
I recently found a reasonably priced H/G, and was reviewing rules before it arrives and noticed this.
The bottom right tile is being scored twice. I was under the impression that it only scores once since it’s only one tile.
If this is the case, is this ruling the same in vanilla Carcassonne? I thought city scoring was based per tile that the city is made up of.
r/Carcassonne • u/Lzydude11 • 6d ago
I have the big box, but it doesn’t fit more than 1-2 expansions. I’m aware of a modular insert floating around but it looks like if I choose not to get all the modules, vertical storage isn’t an option. I’ve looked around Etsy but couldn’t find anything else, anyone have any recommendations or is custom the way to go?
r/Carcassonne • u/Alexqret04 • 7d ago
This was way before I found out there were printable versions (I only came across things like wikicarpedia and carcassonnecentral very recently), so I drew them myself (that’s why they look so light compared to the official tiles)
Now that I’m aware of printing, I was thinking of actually expand my roster of expansions (which for now consists of C1 expansions 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8), by throwing a few mini expansions and maybe some fan content as well, now that I know . Figuring out how to make new meeples won’t be as easy though
r/Carcassonne • u/42Springpeace • 8d ago
We just finished a 5-hour game of Carcassonne big box with another 9 expansions, and I was the game master/rules guy. Which means that every single questionable interaction eventually ended with:
“Wait… is that actually allowed?”
So I’d really appreciate some clarification from people who know the rules better than I do.
First off all , is it true that the Inventors of Carcassonne didn’t expect the people to play with that many expansions ?
Flying Machines
* Can I fly from one Flying Machine to another Flying Machine?
* Can I use a Flying Machine to fly to the Markets in Leipzig?
* Can I use a Flying Machine to fly to a Magic Portal?
* More generally: what exactly counts as a valid destination for a Flying Machine when other expansions are involved?
German monasteries
* Does the Witch work with the German monasteries?
* If so, could I theoretically score something like 70–80 points from a German monastery with the Witch involved?
* Do the German monasteries interact with the Letters expansion?
* Could I use a Letter to claim/score a German monastery during the game and potentially get a huge amount of points?
* Can I use a Magic Portal to place a meeple on a German monastery?
River and river two
* do you shuffle everything to one pile ? Like the ends with classic pieces ?
* if so , do you or could you start multiple rivers ?
* with that many pieces of river , can you make one big circle ?
Toll Keepers
* If I have a crossroads, does the Tollkeeper open the road in three directions or four directions, or does the mechanic only care about the actual marked road?
* Is the interaction different depending on which type of intersection is involved?
And finally…
Is the Tollkeepers expansion actually fun to play, in your opinion ?
Thanks to anyone who actually made it this far. There were so many questionable mechanics that I figured it was better to ask the Carcassonne experts than confidently teach everyone the wrong rules.
And yes — there will probably be another rules question after I read the answers.
Edit: for those who are curious the scores where
r/Carcassonne • u/Educational_Seat_267 • 7d ago
Ive been wondering what the rarest Carcassonne Expansion for the OG Layout IS and how to Get them?
r/Carcassonne • u/Future-Amount-2049 • 8d ago
I’m missing some pieces from the big box, where can i get some of the missing parts?
r/Carcassonne • u/Pablo_Jenkins2963 • 8d ago
r/Carcassonne • u/Party-Armadillo8422 • 9d ago
Under my last post, someone asked for a way to see which gaps on the board are dead.
I make Seizer (seizer.io), a free alternative to play with Carcassonne game mechanics. That request was actually a common one for some time; and it is live now. Turn on Dead Spots in the in-game settings and every dead spot gets marked on the board.
It is off by default. So the game will remain simple when you first open it. Helpers like this live in the settings.
A few other things went live from player requests this week:
- Purple and pink looked like the same color. Purple is a clear violet now.
- Tapping a road next to a monastery put your meeple on the monastery. Fixed.
- Dragging the map could press the confirm button if your finger started on it. Fixed.
- You can turn on map coordinates, handy for talking about a move in chat.
Looking forward to getting more of those comments. Most of what I ship starts as a comment like that one.
Seizer is free to play on web, iOS and Android.
App Store: App Store Link for Download
Google Play: Google Play Store link for download
r/Carcassonne • u/invalidcolour • 9d ago
Instead of a road leading into a city, the road terminates so the farmland is uninterrupted. (Those patches aren’t supposed to be vineyards.)
r/Carcassonne • u/ZeakaXorrFitchus • 9d ago
Just got the Dragon & Fairy expansion, and I was wondering how placing a meeple on the monastery of the double river source tile works. The rulebook only says that the double tile counts as two adjacent tiles. Thank you for the help.
r/Carcassonne • u/tide347 • 9d ago
r/Carcassonne • u/KILL_UMBERRIDGE • 10d ago
You see the piece where there's 4 pieces they all end right before they connect? Does that make the fields connect. Thanks RESOLVED
r/Carcassonne • u/sebasley • 11d ago
Guys is there ANY tile that fits this space…?
