Carcassonne

1 Game Overview

Carcassonne is a tile-placement game set in medieval France. The game starts with just one tile on the table. On your turn, you draw a tile and add it to the growing landscape — cities, roads, monasteries, and fields slowly take shape as the board expands.

You place small wooden figures called meeples on features to claim them. When features are completed, you score points and retrieve your meeple. At the end of the game, you score incomplete features and farms.

Carcassonne is beloved for its elegant simplicity — turns take 30 seconds to a minute, it's easy to teach, and it plays beautifully with 2 players.

2 What's in the Box

• 72 land tiles (including 1 starting tile)
• 40 meeples (8 per player, including 1 scoring marker)
• 1 scoreboard

Each player gets 7 meeples to use during the game (the 8th starts on the scoreboard).

3 Setup

1. Place the starting tile (it has a dark back) face-up in the center of the table.
2. Shuffle all remaining tiles face-down into a draw pile (or several stacks).
3. Each player takes 7 meeples of their color. Place 1 meeple on the starting space (0) of the scoreboard to use as a scoring marker.
4. The youngest player goes first.

4 Taking Your Turn

Your turn has up to 3 steps:

Step 1 — Draw and Place a Tile (required)

Draw 1 tile and add it to the landscape. The new tile must touch at least one existing tile, and all edges that touch must match: roads connect to roads, cities to cities, fields to fields. If a tile can't be legally placed, discard it and draw another.

Step 2 — Place a Meeple (optional)

After placing your tile, you may place one meeple from your supply onto a feature on that tile (city segment, road segment, monastery, or field). You cannot place a meeple on a feature that already has a meeple on it — including one connected via already-placed tiles. (But if two separate features merge due to a later tile, both players can end up sharing a feature.)

Step 3 — Score Completed Features (required if applicable)

If the tile you placed completes any features, score them immediately and return all meeples on those features to their owners.

5 Placing Meeples

Meeples can be placed as:

• Knight (standing, in a city segment)
• Highwayman/Thief (lying down, on a road segment)
• Monk (standing, on a monastery — must be placed in the center)
• Farmer (lying down, on a field)

Once placed, a meeple stays there until the feature is completed (for cities, roads, and monasteries) or until the game ends (for farmers).

6 Scoring Features During the Game

Cities

A city is complete when it's fully surrounded by walls (every edge is covered). Completed city score: 2 points per tile + 2 points per pennant (shield symbol). All meeples (knights) in the city score — if two players tied, both get full points.

Roads

A road is complete when both ends are capped (by a city, crossing, or village). Completed road score: 1 point per tile. All meeples (thieves) on the road score.

Monasteries

A monastery is complete when all 8 surrounding spaces are filled with tiles. Completed monastery score: 9 points (the monastery tile + 8 surrounding tiles).

7 Farms

Farms are the open green fields between roads. Farmers (meeples lying down) score only at end-game — they never come back during the game.

At the end of the game: each farm scores 3 points per completed city it borders. If multiple players share a farm, both score if tied on farmers (or the majority scores if one has more).

8 End Game Scoring

The game ends when the last tile is placed. Score all incomplete features and farms:

• Incomplete cities: 1 point per tile + 1 point per pennant
• Incomplete roads: 1 point per tile
• Incomplete monasteries: 1 point for the monastery + 1 point for each surrounding tile
• Farms: 3 points per completed city the farm borders

The player with the most points wins. Ties are not broken — it's a shared victory.

9 Strategy Tips

• Don't use all your meeples early. You need meeples to score, and they're stuck until features complete. Spread them across a few features rather than locking them all in one big city.
• Farm early, farm sneakily. Lay a farmer down near a partially-built city that looks like it'll be big. Don't announce it.
• Invade cities. If an opponent has a meeple in a growing city, you can connect your own city segment to it and share the points — or deny them a completion.
• Build big cities and complete them quickly. A 4-tile city with a pennant completed early is 10 points and your knight comes home.
• Monasteries are reliable. A monk in a monastery will eventually score 9 points with no competition. Good for meeple management.