Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Carcassonne Big Box Review - Part 2 - Inns & Cathedrals


The first major expansion to Carcassonne is truly an excellent example of an expansion. Inns & Cathedrals adds 18 new tiles plus 2 new tile types, an extra player making the game playable with up to 6 people, and giant meeples.

These simple additions adds just enough to the game without overwhelming it and the players. After playing a few games you should realize the power of sharing a territory. Points for an area is awarded to the player with the most meeples on an area. If there is a tie, all players with a meeple in the area gets the score. This is where the giant meeples comes in. Giant meeples counts as 2 meeples adding an interesting layer of gaming to sharing an area.

Connecting a road tile near a city is almost always a death sentence for the city. Road/city tiles are few but with Inns & Cathedrals chances of getting one of these tile is increased. Cities now has more chances to be completed.

The two new tile types , as you might have guessed, are inns and cathedrals. Inns are for roads and cathedrals are for cities but they both have the same idea. Each city or road tiles connected to these gives one extra point if completed but none if it is not completed. This adds a risk element to the game.

These additions from the Inns & Cathedrals expansion adds elements that are much needed but would not be missed to a game of Carcassonne. An exelent first expansion.


No comments: