I really wanted that mini-expansion and it was my fervent hope that some kind of “Abbot upgrade pack” would be introduced so that I could swap out my existing tiles with the new ones that had gardens added to them.

Whenever that other player is the active player and does something that causes their scoring pawn to move, the player who has a robber next to the active player’s scoring pawn will earn half as many points as the player who is scoring, moving their own scoring pawn and removing their robber from the board. There are a lot of factors to consider, making this one of the juicier mini-expansions of the bunch. New ferries along these roads alter paths, providing new opportunities to any of your enterprising thieves. Life circumstances, coupled with the FLGS I frequented closing its doors, conspired to prevent me from acquiring them at the time.But if you ask me, more exciting than being able to double up a meeple on a specific feature is the ability to remove one of your meeples from a specific feature entirely. This enlarges the map, provides more space for everybody and allows for easier personal optimization as opposed to collective optimization.

As you can well guess, this expansion creates an impetus to sneak onto other peoples’ features or, if all else fails, to try your best to prevent them from completing them. The Gold Mines mini-expansion consists of eight tiles with gold symbols on them and sixteen tiny wooden gold bars. Sorry for what might seem like an obvious question but I’m pretty out of the loop on the current state of Carcassonne. To enable personalised advertising (like interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies. As players earn points over the course of the game, they decide which of the two meeples are moved to track the points gained.

One of the earliest expansions for Carcassonne, the River expansion consists of 12 river tiles, which replace the base game’s original start tile. There’s nothing else you need to add to your setup other than giving the players their extra meeple. If you want to have anything and customize the game to your heart's desire, there is quite the number of purchases in front of you. If any of these tiles are present in a city when a player completes it, they gain the matching commodities from the supply.

The only feature that cannot be completed and which is scored at the end of the game are the fields. It’s also nice to have an option out there to be able to score a few points when your tile draws aren’t helping you complete anything. Here is a hallmark of good design that enhances cooperation: somebody who didn't have an interest in that feature suddenly does, knowing that he will partake on the points. Of course, the Big Box also contains the mini expansion "The Crop Circles" but also "The Abbot" and "The River".The effects of this expansion aren’t as noticeable in a three or more player game, but they are particularly potent at the two player count. This list has wallet-sized and wallet-friendly games; games for the first timer and for friends who have been playing for years. The Ferries expansion consists of eight Lake tiles—featuring four road segments that end at a centralized lake—as well as a number of wooden ferries, whose shape and size resemble Catan road segments that have been cut in half. It is particularly useful to players that avoid going for massive scoring opportunities, focusing on smaller ones instead.