Carcassonne Expansions

Carcassonne is a fun tile/worker placement game with lots of expansions available.  You can get a bunch of them at once with  Carcassonne Big Box 3, or you can buy them separately.  I'll tell you what I think about the expansions I've played with, and some custom rules to improve them.  One cool thing about Carcassonne is that you can use or not use any mix of expansions.  You can even use tiles from one expansion, but not use it's special rules.





Inns and Cathedrals are new tiles that double the points from a road (Inn) or city (Cathedral).  But you don't get any points if you don't finish a road/city with an Inn/Cathedral.  It also adds a big person that counts as two units when placed, which makes stealing territories easier. And it includes a bunch of new tiles with different road and city combinations.  Strongly recommended, we almost always play with Inns and Cathedral rules.


Carcassonne: Traders and Builders adds trade goods that you get when you complete a city that contains certain tiles.  The trade goods are fun because they give you a reason to complete other people's cities.  It has a Builder which you put on a city or road tile, then you get one free bonus turn if you add to the city or road on your normal turn.  It also has a pig that can make every city connected to a field worth more points for your farmers.  Recommended, we almost always use the Builder and Trade Goods, but don't always use the Pigs. (We play the tiles, we just ignore the Pig rules)


Carcassonne Princess And The Dragon adds a Dragon (Trogdor) to the game.  When certain pieces are drawn he will rampage around and eat (burninate) your units (the peoples).  This is fun in principle, but in practice each person moves Trogdor one space, and he often doesn't eat anything.  So to maximize destruction play with lots of players and without the river expansion (so lots of untis are close together).  And use the Hungry Dragon Rule.  It  adds a lot of other complicated stuff that isn't all that much fun.  Recommended only if you think having the Dragon burninate the countryside is lots of fun.

Hungry Dragon Rule 

When it is your turn to move the Dragon, and he could possibly eat a unit by the end of his movement, you have to move him to another space where he either does eat a unit or could still possibly eat a unit by the end of his movement.  In other words, if the Dragon can eat someone, he will eat someone. 

Carcassonne The River 2 came with Carcassonne when I bought it.  It adds a phase before normal play where you place river tiles to create a long river with a fork that you build everything else off of.  It spreads everything out, and the game plays out very differently.  There are almost always many options to place a tile when you use the River.  Recommended because it is an easy way to make the game play feel very different, adds replay-ability.



Carcassonne: Catapult is a waste of time don't get it.  There are fair tiles that when places, have you use a crappy wooden catapult to flick things at the board.  They are hard to aim and have game breaking effects and aren't even fun when you ignore that.

 If you feel like farmers are overpowered, try the German farmer rules.