Board game Analysis, Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a well known board game released in the year 2000. Set in the medieval age, the players try to occupy as much of the land as possible. Roads, farms, cities and cloisters are all fought over in an attempt to come out with the most points in the end.

Objects

The main objects in Carcassonne are the terrain tiles, which are used to build the board, and the followers, which are used to gain points. Each player starts with a set amount of followers while the terrain tiles are placed face down in a common pile. Terrain tiles have one or more kinds of terrain on them which changes how the tile interacts with other objects, both followers and other tiles. The four types of terrain in the main game are cities, roads, fields and cloisters. We also played with the river expansion. The difference from the main game is that instead of starting from a predetermined tile, the players instead start by placing a river on the board, other than that nothing differs from the main game.

Your followers change depending on which of these terrains they are placed. If your follower is placed in a city it becomes a knight, if it is placed on a road it becomes a thief, if placed on a field it becomes a farmer and if it is placed in a cloister it becomes a monk.

Relationships

In Carcassonne everything is related to the tiles. When you place a tile it has to be connected to another tile. It also has to fit into that tile. I can't for example place a field so that it is attached to a city. I have to place a field so that it connects to another field. This is true for all types of terrain. Carcassonne is designed in way that it almost always is somewhere where are allowed to place a tile. The only exceptions to this that I can think of is if there are no incomplete cities, but that is very rare and there is only one card in the game that would cause it.

Tiles also relate to the followers because depending on where they are placed they become different followers, which in turn affects how they relate with the terrain they are placed on. A knight for example has no relationship with a thief. The relationship between the tiles and the followers is also what determines the points you get. If you have a knight in a city and the city gets completed you get points depending how big the city is. Thieves and roads, as well as monks and cloisters follow the same relationship. When the road or cloister is completed the player with a thief or monk in it gets points. Farmers are a bit different because they get points depending on how many completed cities are touching the field they occupy at the end of the game.

Followers and tiles are heavily related, but followers don't have much to do with each other as mentioned. No matter how a farmer is placed, it cannot affect what a thief can do or how many points it gets. Two followers of the same type however do have a relationship with each other. You can't place a knight in a city that already has a knight in it, or place a farmer in a field in which there already is a farmer. The only way to have multiple knights or farmers in the same city/field is by merging two or more separate cities/fields. If that happens the player with the most of the relevant follower get all the points. If all players involved control the same number of followers in the city/field, the points are split evenly between them.

The only follower that doesn't have any sort of relationship with another follower is the monk. Monks score points by counting the number of tiles adjacent to the cloister it resides in, including the tile the cloister sits on. Because the cloister only sits on one tile, and because you can only place followers on a tile you just placed, there is no way a monk can influence another monk. The closest two monks can get each other is by sitting in two separate cloisters adjacent to each other, but the monks still have no effect on each other.

Main mechanics

What really makes Carcassonne, Carcassonne to me is the way you draw tiles to construct the map. As stated earlier the tiles is what influences everything in Carcassonne. If you were to give Carcassonne a static map, everything that makes Carcassonne interesting disappears. Because the player are drawing random cards there is no certainty that the player will be able to complete to the city they have been building the whole game. This, combined with the finite followers the player is given, makes it an investment to place down a follower. Farmers have the potential to give the player a big amount of points if there are many complete cities around the farmer. This makes it tempting to place a farmer in a field as soon as possible, but since the player can't control what cards he or she will be given there is no certainty that there will be cities around that farmer at the end of the game. If that happens the player have effectively played with one less follower than the other players have. On the other side of the coin however, the other players may have built a bunch of cities in that field that turns into the farmer into a worthwhile investment. I think that this kind of risk and reward style is what makes Carcassonne interesting to play, especially if you want to play it multiple times, and what makes it happen is that the players draw random terrain tiles.

Although I keep talking about unpredictable Carcassonne is, there is still an element of strategy and planning involved. If the player draws a cloister and knows that another player is trying to expand a city of his, the player can place the cloister in the vicinity of the city and as the other player expands the city, the player accumulates points from his cloister next to it. There is also an element of sabotage involved. If you are able to finish another player's road, you deny them from expanding it and denying the other player points that way. Placing odd city tiles next to an incomplete city can make hard or even impossible to finish it. What all this results in is a game in which you can never be certain that you are going to win. Although you can gain a advantage by planning ahead, you are never the surefire winner of every game of Carcassonne you play. This makes it so that novices have a shot of keeping up with more experienced players, making suitable to play with less experienced friends if you are just looking to have fun. However, sometimes players go into a game of Carcassonne with different expectations which can make the game less enjoyable for some. The biggest example is if one player thinks through every move he makes, while the rest of the players just want to play for fun. This makes the game slow for most players, and the thinking player might be annoyed that he is the only one playing the game seriously.

Target group

Carcassonne is marketed at people eight years or older. That they are aiming at a younger audience can be seen in both how the game looks and how it is played. Both the box art and the tiles are used to depict a colorful variant of the medieval age. The medieval age is often portrayed as violent and bloody, but this depiction focuses on building the land that the medieval age was set in. There are no wars or battles in this game that could make parents find it unsuitable for kids. Combining this with the easy to understand rules and the random elements involved makes it a game that is easy for kids to learn and play, that also interests them with its setting. The random elements makes it so that everyone has a shot at doing well while playing, even if they're not thinking hard on the decisions they make.

The very same reasons described above is also why Carcassonne is sometimes described as a “gateway drug” into board games for people that have never played them. Because most persons are able to grasp the rules of Carcassonne by playing one or two rounds of it it is perfect for people trying to get their friends into playing board games. By playing Carcassonne for an hour or two, inexperienced board game players can experience playing and understanding a board game and in turn decide if it is something that they enjoy or not.

Summary

Carcassonne is a game built around a random draw mechanic mangages to not get overly frustrating as some games relying on random draw mechanics can get. Its lighthearted style as well as its easy to understand rules makes it easy to pick up and play for anyone. Although it isn't very complex Carcassonne still manages to make experienced players interested by challenging  them to make smart investments and manage the risks of their decisions.

Positives

• Easy to pick up, learn and understand
• Random elements keeps the game fresh and interesting, even if you've already played it before
• You can never really be sure who the winner is until you've counted all the points

Negatives

• If people play the game differently the experience can be diminished
• Random is still random. You may play the odds, but you''re never really in control