Board Game Analysis 1

So, long time since last. This time I am not going to write about programming or any digital game. We got a group assignment where we were to pick a board game, play it, and then write an analysis about it.

So, we picked Carcassonne with River expansion. It is a turn based strategy game for two to five players. The players take turn drawing tiles, placing them and followers in order to score as much points as possible by the games end, which is when the last tile have been placed.

There are a couple of features that can exist on each tile:

• Field
• Road
• City
• Cloister
• River (only with the river expansion)

The rules for placing tiles are that the player has to place the new tile side to side with an already existing tile. Each tile has four sides which each have a feature. The tiles can only be placed so that each side that has an adjacent tile must face the same feature: roads to roads, cities to cities, fields to fields and rivers to rivers.

When a tile is placed the player who placed it can choose if he wants to invest a follower somewhere on that tile. If it is placed on a road it will be a thief, on field and it becomes a farmer, in cities they become knights and monks in cloisters. A follower cannot be placed on a feature that is taken by another follower. For example, if a thief is already on that road, a new thief cannot be placed there. But, if a new road is started the player can place a follower there and later those two roads can be connected. If that happens, and both players have the same amount of followers, they share the scores that road gives. Otherwise the player with the most thieves on that road gets all the points.

When a feature is completed, for the road it is when there is either a crossroad or a city on each end, and no more points can be gained there, each follower it returned to the owners hand and score is given. The only followers that cannot return to the owners hand are the farmers, those stay where they are until the game ends.

 

The Best Sides of Carcassonne

The best thing about Carcassonne is probably that each play through will be different from the last. The players draw tiles and place them wherever they want, following the single rule that each adjacent tile must share the sides feature. The map will be different each time and this keeps the game interesting even if it doesn’t have so many different game mechanics.

Another great thing about Carcassonne is that you can choose how you want to play it, which strategy you want to try this time. For example, you might want to try to control as many farms as possible and try to convince the other players to create lots of small cities for you to score point from. Or maybe you want to try to sabotage as much as possible for the others, trying to lock their followers by placing tiles in such a way that is will be impossible, or at least hard for them, to complete features.

But for me, the absolutely best side of Carcassonne is to try to manipulate where the others place their tiles so that it will benefit me the most, or sabotage for the others.

 

The Worst Sides of Carcassonne

This one is hard, I really like playing Carcassonne. It might be that the game seems to take longer and longer to play each time the same group plays it. I think this have to do with the fact that you try to figure out where to place the piece in order to achieve the best chance of winning the game, either by scoring the most, sabotage the one that seems to be in the lead, or a combination of both depending on your play style.

 

Our Experience

Because I had played Carcassonne before we decided that I should pass the first game and let those that had not played it before try it out. We were seven in total but the game only supports five players so two had to wait.

No one seemed to care if they won or not the first game. We helped each other, coming with suggestions where to place the tiles, the different advantages and disadvantages with each spot.

The second game was a bit more competitive. Everyone understood the rules by now. We tried to manipulate the one’s turn it is, trying to make him put the piece where it would not sabotage for us. Explaining why it would be much better for him to put it somewhere else, that he would have a bigger chance scoring a lot of points. Each turn were fairly quick, we did not think all that much before placing the piece. I also think that this was the game that was closest in the amount of points the leads got. I think that it was only a two point’s difference, or something, between the first and third place, with fourth and fifth a bit further back, but not all that much. It was an even game.

The third game took a bit longer to play. The persuasion was increased even more compared to the second game. We tried as much as possible to make him place it somewhere so it would sabotage for someone else. This led to the turns taking longer and longer. The one who’s turn it was wanted to place the tile where it would be most beneficial to him. This led to us thinking over most of the places it could be placed and the advantages and disadvantages with each placement.

We tried to out compete the others farmers and knights. We created a huge city with I think six followers from three different players, when the tiles started to run low we realized that we would probably never be able to finish the city. This meant that the city was only worth half of what it would have been worth if we would have been able to finish it. So, what we learned from that game was that bigger is not always better. Sometimes one has to know when to abandon a project and start over somewhere else. 😉

The fourth game played pretty much as the third, except that I got two of my followers locked up really early in a city I could not finish because there was no tile that fitted in the opening. Someone did not like me that much, I would guess.

So, to summarize our games:

In the first games we tried to help each other out as much as possible. We came with good suggestions and played nice. The turns were fast and the games did not take more than 60 minutes.

The later games were much more about manipulating the others, trying to make them do as you wished while still thinking they did what was best for them. The turns took a lot longer, even though everyone understood the rules a lot better by now and no one had to ask about them. The reason behind this was that we wanted to place the tile at the best possible place; there were a couple of times it took about five minutes to place a single tile and follower. Those games took more than 60 minutes.

 

Target Audience

I would say that the target audience is those new to board games, those that have little experience in those but want to try them out. I think this because there are few rules so it is a relative easy game to learn and each game takes between 30 and 90 minutes, with most of them finished somewhere between 45 and 60 minutes. No one is ever eliminated in Carcassonne, which means that everyone is still in the game until the end. So no matter how new you are to board games or Carcassonne you will still be able to play for the entire game.

Even though a strategic play is advantageous in Carcassonne, I still think that a younger audience can have great fun playing it even if they can nothing about probability or planning so many turns into the future.

 

Game Summery

We had a great time playing, from start to finish, during all four games. At least I had it and did not hear anyone complain. Some of them thought it was too much luck involved in what tile was picked and such. I don’t think that was a negative side of the game, it was a strength that in order to score as much points as possible you had to estimate how large chance you had to pick a piece that would allow you to finish a city or road. And then weigh it compared to if it would be worth it to finish the city as soon as possible in order so score points and reclaim your follower, or continue building and increase the scores that follower could bring. There were a lot of tactical decisions to take into consideration before placing a tile and follower. Some of the questions I continuously asked myself whenever I placed a tile and if it would be worth placing a follower too were:

• Is it a road? They are somewhat easy to complete so I can get it back fairly quickly and not many pieces can hinder a road from being completed. But on the other hand, they are not worth so much per tile as cities.
• Is it a city? How easy is it to finish it? Have someone else claimed an unfinished city somewhere so I can compete with it? How easy can someone else try to compete with me if I place it here? Can someone get more followers than me here, and how big is that risk?
• Is it a field? How large chance is it that there will be lots of cities connected to this field? Will someone out compete me here? Is it worth locking a follower for the rest of the game?
• Is it a cloister? Can this cloister be finished? It is very rarely you will place a cloister and not put a follower in it because it is lots of easy points and not too hard finish the surrounding area.
• Is it close to the end? Then it is probably worth placing a follower if I got some free, because you can only place one each turn and if you have more followers than it is round left, then you have some followers you will not be able to place.

All in all, I think this game is the most fun when I play with others that think as I do, people who can see what I am up to and tries to ruin my day.

If you have the opportunity, try this great game out. You will not be disappointed 🙂