The 5th expansion pack for Carcassonne introduces new elements and challenges to mix up the game play – Abbey, Mayor, Barn and Wagon whilst still following the basic rules. There’s one for each player (up to 6) and you have them available to use, along with your meeples, at the start of the game. There are also 12 new land tiles that are added to pile of land tiles to be picked out during the game – new roads (tunnels and splitting roads), fields and cities tiles for new ways to calculate the scoring during and end of the game.
The Abbey is a tile that you can place any time during the game instead of taking one of the normal land tiles. You can only place it where there is an empty space on the board that has 4 tiles around it – top and bottom and either side. This works like a cloister in that you only score points once its completely surrounded by tiles (i.e. diagonally as well). This also completes other features – cities, roads etc. Once placed you can then place your meeple on it.
The Mayor is a big meeple that can only be placed within a city that has no other meeple in it. Note this only scores when there are shields in your city, each one counts as a meeple for scoring purposes.
The Barn is an object that can be placed once there are 4 field corner tiles that join each other – not interrupted by roads, cities etc. There cannot be a barn placed if there is already one by another player and it cannot be re-used once placed. This then dramatically affects how farms are then scored (and may take some getting used to as you get your head around in changing your strategy) as they’re scored immediately rather than at the end of the game. This is one of the biggest impacts that this expansion brings to mixing up the gameplay and is quite a challenge to change the way you’ve probably previously played this game many times.
The player with the most farmers where their fields touch completed cities scores more points as well. In addition this can work with the Traders & Builders expansion, where if a pig has been placed then it improves the scoring of completed cities as well! Once the immediate scoring has taken place farmers (and pigs) can be returned to their players to be re-used. There are also further scoring opportunities with the Barn at the end of the game for each completed city that it touches.
The Wagon is an object that can be placed on a road, city or a monastery, where there isn’t one already or a meeple or mayor. Once the feature has been completed the Wagon is treated as a meeple for scoring purposes. It can then be moved to another incomplete feature or be re-used later on in the game.
This expansion is ideal for fans of Carcassonne that want to further want to mix up the gameplay and have new elements, strategies and different ways to score during and end of game. In particular this will change your strategy on farming and instead of going for the long game for the scoring at the end, you may well go for immediate scoring of points and adapt your strategy for this. It works well with several other expansions, such as Traders & Builders, also The Princess and Dragon and The Tower expansions. The main game is required as well to play this expansion.
Are you ready to become the Mayor of Carcassonne? Available here
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