Tuesday 26 May 2020

Carcassonne (PC)

It's beautiful and simple: and then you lose.

In this digital remake of the board game, up to 6 players (AI, network, or hotseat) take turns placing tiles on the board to create the landscape that is Carcassonne. The only rule when putting a tile down is that it must "make sense" to the surrounding tiles (no roads appearing from nowhere). When placing a tile, you also have the option of putting one of your five meeples down, and should the area its standing on be complete they score the length of the road or area of the city and then are returned to your hand for further use.

Clean and easy to use UI.

This leads to some strategy as having meeples wait for large zones to finish might get them stuck or blocked for most of the game, but the pay off could be worth it. The AI comes in a variety of flavors too, and I've only been able to beat the weakest. While I also think I'd prefer the tactile board game for playing this, letting the computer score stuff does speed things up. Worth trying especially if you don't have a table top gaming group. I give it 3 cloisters out of 5.

Insight: If playing with fields, don't put down your meeples too early as "farmer" meeples never return to your hand!

2 comments:

  1. When my son was much younger, he actually memorized all of the tiles in the base game, so he would routinely beat us because he knew what was left. I don't think he remembers those tiles anymore, but for a few years he had a reign of terror on this boardgame.

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    1. That's an interesting tactic! You should have mixed it up with some of the expansions? In any case that sounds like its time for a rematch! :P

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