Carcassonne (board game)

Carcassonne () is a tile-based German-style board game for two to five players, designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published in 2000 by Hans im Glück in German and by Rio Grande Games (until 2012) and Z-Man Games (currently) in English. It received the Spiel des Jahres and the Deutscher Spiele Preis awards in 2001. 
It is named after the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne in southern France, famed for its city walls. The game has spawned many expansions and spin-offs, and several PC, console and mobile versions. A new edition, with updated artwork on the tiles and the box, was released in 2014.
Gameplay.
The game board is a medieval landscape built by the players as the game progresses. The game starts with a single terrain tile face up and 71 others shuffled face down for the players to draw from. On each turn a player draws a new terrain tile and places it adjacent to tiles that are already face up. The new tile must be placed in a way that extends features on the tiles it touches: roads must connect to roads, fields to fields, and cities to cities.
After placing each new tile, the placing player may opt to station a piece (called a "follower" or "meeple") on a feature of that newly placed tile. The placing player may not use a follower to claim any features of the tile that extend or connect features already claimed by another player. However, it is possible for terrain features claimed by opposing players to become "shared" by the subsequent placement of tiles connecting them. For example, two separate field tiles (each with a follower) can become connected into a single field by another terrain tile.
The game ends when the last tile has been placed. At that time, all features (including fields) score points for the players with the most followers on them. The player with the most points wins the game.
Scoring.
During the players' turns, cities, cloisters, and roads (but not fields) are scored when they are completed—cities and roads when they are completed (i.e. contain no unfinished edges from which they may be expanded), and cloisters when surrounded by eight tiles. At the end of the game, when there are no tiles remaining, all incomplete features are scored. Points are awarded to the players with the most followers in a feature. 
If there is a tie for the most followers in any given feature, all of the tied players are awarded the full number of points. In general (see table), points are awarded for the number of tiles covered by a feature; cloisters score for neighboring tiles; and fields score based on the number of connected "completed" cities.
Once a feature is scored, all of the followers in that feature are returned to their owners.
Older editions.
There are two older editions of "Carcassonne", differing in scoring of cities and fields. The current scoring rules were introduced in the German version in 2004, but until 2008, the first edition scoring rules were still included with the English releases of "Carcassonne", third edition rules are now included with all editions (including the Xbox 360 and travel versions), and are assumed by all expansions in all languages.
In the first and second editions of the game, completed cities covering just two tiles scored two points (one per tile) and one extra point for every pennant that resides in the city. This exception is removed from the third edition, in which there is no difference between two-tile cities and cities of larger size.
The greatest divergence in scoring rules between the editions of "Carcassonne" is in scoring for fields. In the first edition, the players with the greatest number of followers adjacent to a city were awarded four points for that city. Thus, followers from different fields contributed to the scoring for a city, and followers on a field may contribute to the scoring for multiple cities. The second edition considered different fields separately – for each field, the players with the greatest number of followers in a field scored three points for each city adjacent to the field, although points were only scored once for any given city. The third edition removes these exceptions and brings field scoring in line with the scoring of other features.
Reception.
"Carcassonne" is considered to be an excellent "gateway game" by many board game players as it is a game that can be used to introduce new players to board games. The rules are simple, no one is ever eliminated, and the play is fast. A typical game, without any expansions, takes about 45 minutes to play. There is a substantial luck component to the game; however, good tactics greatly improve one's chances of winning. Examples of tactical considerations include:
The game has been used in education to teach geographical concepts.
Expansions.
Several official expansions for "Carcassonne" have been published, which add numerous additional rules, tiles and new kinds of figures. Together, they can more than double the length of the game. These expansions are generally compatible with each other and may be played together.
Mini expansions.
Six stand-alone mini expansions, with each containing a tile for a seventh mini expansion.
1. Carcassonne — The Flying Machines (Carcassonne — Die Fluggeräte)
2. Carcassonne — The Messengers (Carcassonne — Die Depeschen)
3. Carcassonne — The Ferries (Carcassonne — Die Fähren)
4. Carcassonne — The Gold Mines (Carcassonne — Die Goldminen)
5. Carcassonne — Mage & Witch (Carcassonne — Magier & Hexe)
6. Carcassonne — The Robbers (Carcassonne — Die Räuber)
7. Carcassonne — Corn Circles II (Carcassonne – Die Kornkreise)
Spinoffs.
Following the success of "Carcassonne", a number of games have been spun off from the main game, all sharing similar mechanics. There is also a travel-sized version of the original game, "Travel Carcassonne" ("Reise-Carcassonne"), released in 2007.
Tournaments and World Championships.
International "Carcassonne" tournaments were held in Germany in 2003–2005.
The first official "Carcassonne" World Championship was held at SPIEL in Essen, Germany, in 2006. An annual world championship has been held at SPIEL every year since 2006 with the exception of the fifth championship, which was held on 24 October 2010 during SPIEL but at an alternate location in Herne, Germany. Ralph Querfurth has been the World Champion in four editions.