Z-Man GamesCarcassonne Board Game (BASE GAME) - Classic Tile-Laying Strategy for All Ages, Medieval Adventure Game for Kids and Adults, Ages 7+, 2-5 Players, 35 Minute Playtime, Made by Z-Man Games

My wife's favorite game. This version definitely looks better than previous versions, but I wish it was closer to the 20th anniversary edition, which is gorgeous by comparison. Still, I came to this game late in my gaming career, after playing much heavier games. My wife has played far fewer. My children are range all over. All of us enjoyed this game far more than we thought we would.

Carcassonne has become one of my household's favorite games. We enjoy it so well that we have since purchased a couple of the expansions and have taught quite a few people how to play. If you're on the fence, this is a great way to get into Carcassonne without jumping into it's 10 or so expansions. You get the base game, two mini-expansions, and great meeples.The Good: Artwork on the tiles is great. It looks good, and is easily understood. The included meeples are all painted wood and look fantastic. I'm pretty sure Carcassonne's meeples are actually credited with the now hallmark shape of a "meeple". The game has great table presence, like building an empire on your dinner table! Setup is relatively quick, I feel it plays equally well at 2 players as it does at higher player counts. This version of the game also includes the Abbot & River mini-expansions which I now include every time we play.The Bad: While the cardboard tiles & score track look great, take care when separating them from their cards. Several of mine didn't appear to be pre-cut well enough, and if you're not careful you can tear some of the printing.The Indifferent: Meeple placement & scoring rules can be a bit overwhelming for new players, especially if they are relatively new to modern board games. I recommend, and I believe the instructions do as well, limiting the scoring options for the first couple plays. For instance, we left out the two mini-expansions as well as the "farmer" for the first playthrough.Overall, my wife and I and our 10 year old son love this game, and we have had nothing but great reactions from others we've introduced to it. Now we play with all base rules, the two mini-expansions, and two additional expansions. That is a testament to the playability of this game once you learn how it works.

One of the greatest games made never the same when played.Only issue was box was crushed when received and some parts were damaged but still usable. Sad for a brand new purchase...

Got this for my son's birthday and my children love it, play it all the time. I'm still catching on

My wife and I love this game so much we bought a second one and now play with a nap twice the size

So fun! We also love the “mists” box which adds a component for cooperative play which works better for our family.

There has been a board game renaissance here lately, and I have missed out on it. So I thought hosting family for Christmas would be a good excuse to check out some of the new board games.After a trip to Barnes and Noble derailed by sticker shock and a certain misunderstanding between me and my wife over what I meant by “let’s buy a board game,” there were two conditions. One, we needed a game that five players could play (so Settlers of Catan was out). Two, we needed a game five board game beginners could figure out on the fly (so the Game of Thrones board game was out—one reviewer suggested each player watch the instructional video and one player read the instruction manual cover to cover twice). Carcassonne met both conditions and was priced to sell so we went for it.It turned out to be a great choice. For all the medieval trappings it is, as my father-in-law pointed out, ultimately a real estate game. It’s a straightforward set up. Each player places tiles with some combination of three features (road, city, abbey) and places “meeples” to control features. That’s it, tiles and meeples. No paper and pen are necessary and scores are kept by meeple on an accompanying scoreboard.I’ve played three games so far, two with five players and one with two players. The first game we tried to play on the fly and, well, we screwed a bunch of the rules up but it was fun nonetheless. I read the short instruction manual between games and by the second game we had everything figured out. Five player games are hectic. You only get to put down so many tiles, and your plans will constantly be affected by moves by other players. This was the most fun part, as every other turn devolved into half-shouted attempts at cutting backroom deals (we had been drinking). This is in contrast to the two player game I played with my wife, where we mostly played our own way, occasionally trying to place a tile to thwart the other’s plans (which seems tough to do).The replayability, I think, will be high. My wife is up for more Carcassonne game nights, and we already have a request to bring the game for Christmas. Three or four people is probably the ideal number to play, though. There is a lot of luck involved (i.e., the tiles you draw), but there are enough different ways to play tiles to keep it interesting for a while, especially with more players. The biggest flaw, I think, is that there is no penalty for failure to terminate roads and surround abbeys, only for failure to wall off cities. Board Game Geek lists the playing time as 30 – 45 minutes, but each of our games went well beyond that (we should really introduce a chess timer). The basic set comes with river tiles and an abbot meeple that we haven’t played with yet (two separate mini-expansions).UPDATE:We played another 5-player game with the river expansion tiles. The additional rules are admirably straightforward (and the reason we started with that instead of the abbot). It did make a big difference. It really spread the game out. For a 5-player game, that meant a lot less of the wheeling-and-dealing and backstabbing I talked about above. It was difficult, though, to do our own thing with so few turns and tiles per player. I think I prefer it without the river tiles, but that may be a bug or a feature, depending on your perspective.

Great game, especially because every time you play it's different.