Tabletop games
Carcassonne
Lay tiles to build roads, cities, monasteries and fields, and place your followers on them at the right moment.
- players
- 2–5
- minutes
- 45
You’ll need the game box. Marquoir sums up the rules and keeps score.
Setup
- The start tile is placed in the middle, face up.
- Each player takes seven followers (meeples) in their colour.
How to play
- Draw a tile and place it so that its edges match the neighbouring tiles.
- You may then place a follower on it: thief on a road, knight in a city, monk in a monastery, farmer in a field.
- You cannot place a follower on a feature already occupied by another one.
- A completed feature is scored immediately, and its followers go back to their owners.
Scoring
- Completed road: 1 point per tile.
- Completed city: 2 points per tile, plus 2 per pennant. Incomplete city at the end of the game: 1 point per tile and per pennant.
- Monastery: 1 point per tile in its square of nine, itself included, so 9 points once surrounded. Incomplete at the end of the game, it scores only the tiles placed.
- Field, at final scoring: 3 points per completed city it supplies.
End of the game
- The game ends when the last tile is placed.
- All incomplete features are then scored, followed by the fields.
House rules and pitfalls
- Field scoring decides most games, and it is the one everyone forgets during play.
Frequently asked questions
Can you place a follower on a feature that is already occupied?
No, never directly. But two separate features, each with its own follower, can merge when a tile is placed between them: the feature then has two followers, and that is the only way to share one.
What happens when two players share the same feature?
On completion, each of them scores the full points, not half. If they do not have the same number of followers on it, the player with the most followers scores alone; in a tie, both score the total.
How do you get your followers back?
A completed feature returns its followers to their owners straight away, ready to be used again. A follower placed in a field, however, stays there until the end of the game: a field is never "completed".
How exactly do fields work?
A follower lying down in a field (the farmer) scores, at final scoring, 3 points per completed city that field touches. Two fields separated by a road or a city are distinct. It is the scoring everyone forgets, and the one that decides the game.
Do you have to place a follower every turn?
No. Placing a tile is compulsory, placing a follower is optional — and you often hold back to keep your seven followers available, because without a free follower you can no longer place one.
What if the tile you draw cannot be placed anywhere?
A very rare case. Show it to everyone, discard it, and draw another one.
The box
- Released
- 2000
- Age
- Ages 7+
- Designer
- Klaus-Jürgen Wrede
- Artwork
- Marcel Gröber, Doris Matthäus, Anne Pätzke, Chris Quilliams
- Publisher
- Z-Man Games
- Mechanics
- MajoritéEncerclementCoup de grâceCarte évolutiveConstruction de motifs
- Contents
- 72 tuiles terrain (84 avec la Rivière et l’Abbé selon l’édition)
- 40 partisans en 5 couleurs
- 1 piste de score
- Expansions
- Carcassonne: Auberges et Cathédrales · 2025
- Carcassonne: Marchands & Bâtisseurs · 2025
- Carcassonne: Extension 3 – Dragon & Fée · 2025
- Carcassonne: Extension 4 – Tours & Voleurs · 2025
- Carcassonne: Extension 05 – Maire et monastères · 2016
Rules on video
Videos in French, hosted on YouTube.
Where to find it
Specialist French shops. Marquoir earns nothing from these links.