Main Catalogue |  BOARD GAMES & CARD GAMES |  Rio Grande Games |  Carcassonne: The Castle

Carcassonne: The Castle Price: £23.99 Board game, 2-players, ages 8+ The imposing silhouette of Carcassonne sits like a throne in the Light of the setting sun. The city also acts as a fortress, protecting those who live there with its impenetrable walls. Visit the city to discover its many features and to learn why it is so magnificent. An exciting tile-laying competition between two players. Inside the castle walls, the city grows as the players place tiles and their followers: knights to guard the towers, heralds to spread the news, and merchants to sell their wares in the markets. The player who makes better use of his followers will lead the race around the castle wall, which is also the scoring track for the game. There are several items waiting on the castle wall for the first player to reach them. ++++++++++++++++++++ Counter Magazine review ++++++++++++++++++++ 2 players, 30 minutes designed by Reiner Knizia reviewed by Ben Baldanza Carcassonne: Keep `em Comin\' seems to be the theme for this franchise designby Klaus Jürgen Wrede. Extra tiles, stand-alone games, biblical adaptations,and now even the great Reiner Knizia hops on the bandwagon to design atwo-player version using the tried and true place-a-tile, place-a-followersystem. This time, the building is constrained within the walls of thecastle and not surprisingly when you pair a great game system with a greatdesigner you get a game that works wonderfully. As a Counter reader you certainly are familiar with Carcassonne: The Basics,so no need for telling you the foundational ideas in the game. The castlewalls are created in jigsaw-puzzle like manner from 10 pieces that fittogether creating 14 right-angle corners. A scoring track runs around theoutside and encloses 76 spaces for 60 total tiles. Players can score forbuilding houses and towers, constructing completed paths, and being merchantsat the game end. Paths work like roads in the basic game, except that pathswhich hold a fountain score two per tile rather than one. Also, path branchesdo not always break the path, so it is possible to have multiple ends toclose off before scoring. Towers score like cities, in that a completed tower scores two per tile.Houses are built in the same way, but score only one per tile. A specialpiece, called the ``keep\'\', marks the largest house completed by each playerand at game end the player with their keep on the largest house gets aspecial bonus. Since there are always 16 spaces left at the game\'s end,the player with the best keep scores one point for each missing tile inthe largest unfilled space. Merchants are like farmers, and score threepoints for each market that they serve. The standard Carcassonne rulesof placement apply, meaning that one of six followers is placed on a tileimmediately after the tile is placed, and once a path, house, tower, ormarket is manned no other follower can join in directly. Other than the modest differences in standard scoring options and the clever``keep\'\' idea, The Castle incorporates two ideas that give the game a newfeel. The first is that the only tile placement restriction is that pathsmust connect. This means that houses, towers, and markets can abruptlyend and at first this both feels and looks odd. However, given the constraintof the playing surface this is quite valid and it allows the ability toquickly recycle followers or hold out for the huge score. The second ideais the ``wall tiles\'\'. Fifteen of 20 tiles are placed on the corners of thecastle at the beginning of the game. Each corner holds two spaces on thetrack; for example spaces 12 and 13 form one corner while spaces 82 and83 form another. These wall tiles are all helpful and add flavor to thescoring. By landing on either of the two spaces making up the corner, youtake the tile and place it face up in front of you. Thus, while creatingscoring opportunities you often are looking for specific amounts in orderto collect the wall tiles before your opponent. This too encourages followerrecycling and multiple, smaller scorings versus fewer large scorings. The wall tiles, as stated, are all helpful. In this game, features notcompleted at game end do not score at all. With the right wall tile, however,you can score an incomplete house, tower, or path. Some of the tiles improvethe scoring potential: double the value for a completed house or tower,and four versus three points for each market in your ``farm\'\'. One tile isworth five points on its own, another allows you to take two turns in arow, and a final tile acts as two tiles added to your largest house whendetermining values for the ``keep\'\' bonus. The result of these ideas is a familiar yet fresh game. The wall tiles,flexible placement, and ``keep\'\' battles all must be considered and yet thereis somewhat of a ``Can\'t Stop\'\' mentality when deciding to cut off the houseor tower versus continuing it for a larger score later. Most versions ofCarcassonne play very well with two players, and yet being specificallydesigned for two makes the Castle even better balanced and tight.The Carcassonnejuggernaut seems to be strong as ever, and while it seems that the ideasshould have run out by now it is nice to see at least one more nice adaptation. More ...

Main Catalogue |  BOARD GAMES & CARD GAMES |  Rio Grande Games |  Carcassonne: The Castle