Review Details

Carcassonne

Product Rating:

Product Review (submitted on December 17, 2008):

Although many people seem to like this game, I'm not really a fan of it. I have heard that the expansions for Carcassonne does a lot to add to the fun and replay value of the game, but I didn't care enough about the base game to invest on expansions.

In Carcassonne, you turn over a tile and try to add it to the growing number of tiles that form roads, cities, and farms. After every turn, you can place one of your followers, called meeples, on a road, city, cloister, or farm. Points are scored and meeples returned when cities, road, or cloisters are completed. Farms, however, are not scored until the end of the game, meaning players must make a decision between immediate points and future points.

The game is quite fairly luck based, which is perhaps my biggest problem with it. There is a very few number of tiles and less of specific ones that you'll be waiting on for a long time. Whether you actually turn that tile over is another matter and can cause a lot of frustrating moments. There are some strategy involved with the game, it is not completely luck based. You can use the frustrating game mechanic to block opponents from finishing cities and roads and you can also try to compete or share large point scoring areas through tactical implementation and placement of your meeples.

Overall, the game is nice and fine for people casually playing board games. Myself, I can't see myself growing too attached to this game when there are equally well-designed and popular games out there that requires less luck.