This was an accidental college assignment that assesses and modifies the board game Carcassone.
Carcassonne is a tile-based German-style board game that is designed for two to five players and was published by Rio Grande Games in 2000. The game is made up of 72 lands tiles that depict medieval landscapes, fields, cities and roads. Players take turns drawing tiles from a shuffled deck and then placing the tiles in correlation to other tiles on the board. From here on, players can place a “follower” piece on their newly placed tile to secure structures and score points. The player with the most points after all tiles have been placed wins the game. The board game has many expansions so for the purposes of this analysis, I will only be modifying the original version of the game. The changes that I have designed for Carcassonne are aimed to make the game less aleatory and more agonistic.
While designing these modifications, precautions were taken to make sure the game was still recognizable as Carcassonne. The modified game retains Carcassonne’s approachable nature; player turns still consist of simple actions, players are still not eliminated from the game, and the length of the game is still the same by keeping the tile count to 72. Players are still placing tiles to shape the playing field, so even with the modifications, the game keeps its high amount of player agency. The core essence of Carcassonne is still present, but the modifications made will allow for more strategic play than it’s highly chance-based original allows.
In Carcassonne, the luck of the draw plays a big role in a player's success. With an initial deck of over 70 tiles to draw from, strategy does take a backseat in some cases. Instead of being able to plan out moves 4-5 steps in advance, the limited knowledge that the player has of his own tiles makes Carcassonne much more reaction based.
Modification #1
Creating similarities to traditional card games, the first modification is to make all players draw 3 tiles at the beginning of the game. The players are able to use any one of their tiles to place down on their turn. When all players have run out of tiles, they will all draw another 3 tiles. Player’s tiles should not be revealed to other players when in an hand. This modification allows for richer strategy in a few ways, the most obvious being that it grants players more choice in their turns and allows them to plan out a few turns ahead. Probability also becomes a bigger part of the game; like in the card game poker, players will now have to determine the percentage chance of another player having just the right pieces to secure a jackpot of points.
While designing this rule, two things were kept in mind. First, the amount of tiles that a player is allowed in their hand should be kept to a low number. This was done to stop players from having an overabundance of factors to keep track of during their turn, and thus keeping the game approachable. Second, players should not be able to keep tiles out of play for the majority of the game by keeping them in their hand. Making players play down their entire hand before drawing new tiles makes players put more emphasis on the order of the tiles they place and when to put down followers.
Modification #2
The second modification to the game, removes some restrictions by allowing players to place follower pieces on any tile that is already in play. The current rules of not allowing the placement of followers in enemy occupied structures, roads, and fields still apply, but if there is any unclaimed structure on the board during a player’s turn, it is fair game. By giving players this expanded ability, players need to more seriously consider the repercussions of each placed tile. The strategies that can be employed become more elaborate when the strategist has stronger abilities at his disposal.
Most strategy games have tactics that become trendy after a beginning period of play and experimentation, and Carcassonne is no exception. Two common trends that can be seen in many Carcassonne games are the neglected roads and the highly sought after fields. At only one point a tile, completed or not, roads don’t prove to be worth the effort when it comes to scoring points. On the other end of the spectrum, fields offer 3 points apiece for each completed city bordering the field, and with fields being so easily interconnected, owning fields becomes highly valuable.
Modification #3
The last modification is designed to shake up these trends by changing the point value for roads. Followers on roads will earn 2 points a tile, but only if the road piece is bordering a city. With road pieces being worth more points, they will become more viable. A benefit of increased road creation around cities, will be the divvying up of fields. Because roads are the one structure that effectively divides fields, the appearance of more roads in a game will mean that reaping the full benefit from fields will become a trickier task.
The luck of the draw plays a big role in a player's success in a game of Carcassonne, but so do good tactics. A strategically placed tile is much more favorable than a randomly placed tile. The modifications detailed above have been designed to bring out more of the strategy element in Carcassonne by making some small changes and adding to the fundamentals of Carcassonne.