Naturelich Games

The Carcassonne board game is scheduled for release on XBox 360 Live Arcade. 12 new screenshots (with a more 3-dimensional view) are available on TeamXBox:

http://previews.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/1579/Carcassonne/p1/

Apparently, the game is scheduled for release in June shipping with The River expansion included for free. It is currently expected that The River II as well as King and Baron will be available as add-ons for an additional charge with the initial release.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jeremy Chambers is one of the most productive designers of inofficial Carcassonne expansions. In addition to Storehouses and Paths and The Horse, he has also created The Well and the Donkey.
This expansion is related to the legend of the devil and the well:

The Legend of the Devil and the Well (Carcassonne, France):

One night, a long time ago, seven archers were singing and making noise in the streets, swearing against the apostles and Saint Gimer. These non-believers met a donkey which was covered with a very rich cloth. They seized it, and one after the other rose on the back of the donkey. The animal lengthened as they took place on it, so that they all could sit down on its back! Suddenly the beautiful cloth changed into a funeral pall, and the donkey began to run in the streets. It stopped first at the cemetery, where graves opened, leaving passage to the died, who intoned a funeral lament. Then the donkey, which was in reality Satan, went to the Big Well and dived into the depth with the seven archers. They still belong to him.

This unofficial expansion contains:
2 Donkey tiles
3 Wheat Field tiles
5 Vineyard Field tiles

Donkey Tile
When the Donkey Tile is played every player that has a meeple in the city loses one of their meeples. If someone has more than one meeple they only loose one meeple. Lost meeples are removed from the game. (The tile pictures the donkey and “The Big Well” from the medieval Cité in Carcassonne.)

Wheat Field Tile
If a player has a farmer in a field that contains a Wheat Field Tile and touches a city that contains a wheat token, when the city is complete the majority farm owner takes the wheat token even if they were not the one to complete the city. The farm does not have to be complete for this effect.

Vineyard Field Tile
The Vineyard Field Tile works the same way as the Wheat Filed Tile. The Vineyard Field Tile works with the barrel tokens.

Carcassonne: The Well and The Donkey requires Carcassonne to play and also highly recommends Carcassonne: Traders and Builders for optimal enjoyment. If you don’t have Carcassonne: Traders and Builders just use the Wheat and Vineyard Field tiles as normal field tiles.

To download the files from BoardGameGeek, click here.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A tile from Carcassonne: The Horse. This expansion is designed by Jeremy Chambers. Carcassonne is designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Hans im Glück.

Carcassonne: The Horse is a fan-produced extension to Carcassonne. The game is designed by Jeremy Chambers who has created several great expansions like Carcassonne: The Invasion, Storehouses and Paths as well as the artwork on Vanguard variant.

Carcassonne: The Horse introduces 7 horse tiles, 2 wooden horses, and a six-sided die. The horse tiles are existing Carcassonne tiles with a smal horse icon on them. The 2 wooden horses are used in a game with 4 or more players. A 2-3 player game only uses one horse.

Placing and moving horses
Whenever a horse tile is played, the horse goes onto that tile. If playing with two horses, the horse that is not in play goes to the tile. If both are already in play, the tile placer decides which horse to move to the tile just placed.
The movement of the horse is determined by the six-sided die. Each time a road is completed the player that completed the road roles the die and then moves the horse(s) the number of tiles as determined by the die roll. The die rolls can be split between the horses if playing with 4+ players. The horse cannot go over the same tile twice in one movement sequence (similar to the dragon in Carcassonne: The Princess & The Dragon). The horse can be on the same tile as the dragon.

Scoring points
Anytime a feature is completed that has a horse on any tile of that feature, the scoring player gets 3 bonus points (if two horses are on the feature the scoring player gets 5 bonus points).

The horse tiles are available for download at BoardGameGeek: The Horse Tiles.

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Tile from Carcassonne: The Invasion by Jeremy Chambers. Carcassonne is designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Hans im Glück.

Created by Jeremy Chambers, Carcassonne: The Invasion is a new fan-produced expansion to the basic Carcassonne game, also included rules for Carcassonne: The Princess and the Dragon.

In this expansion, the Fire Salamander has returned to the lands of Carcassonne. Players who are willing can form an unholy alliance with these pyorphiles by using Smoke Cities. Altogether, 19 smoke city tiles are added to the game. Visually, Smoke Cities are "color-deprived" Carcassonne tiles that come with a twist or two. Here is a quote from the rules (the full set of rules is available on BoardGameGeek here:

Smoke Cities
The smoke cities count the same as standard cities for scoring purposes but they have a twist or two. When a player completes a smoke city it scores as normal, but the player may choose to leave their meeples in the city.

If a completed smoke city is connected to any other city by roads (blocking trees and farmhouses do not matter) the meeples of the smoke city can attack the other city when it is completed and give the smoke city owner the points (under normal majority meeple rules). The smoke city meeples would then return to the hand of their owner.

Dragons can fly over smoke cities, but cannot eat meeples that are in a smoke city. (A dragon and a meeple can be on the same tile if in a smoke city). Fairies cannot enter smoke cities. Towers can capture meeples from within a smoke city.
If you do not complete a smoke city you gain negative points at the end of play (equal to the number of positive points you would have gotten in a traditional city).

Farmers are afraid of what comes out of the smoke cities and will not enter one for any reason. Smoke cities that are 2 tiles do not count for farmers. Smoke Cities larger than 2 tiles count as -1 city for farming purposes.

Here is the tile set for this expansion.

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Storehouse tile - Carcassonne: Storehouses and Paths. An unofficial expansion to Carcassonne designed and illustrated by Jeremy Chambers. Carcassonne is designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Hans im Glück.

Download Carcassonne: Storehouses and Paths at BoardGameGeek by clicking here

Carcassonne: Storehouses and Paths in an unofficial expansion to Carcassonne. This expansion introduces 15 new tiles in addition to the basic game and two new mechanics. Storehouses will allow players to counter-balance strategies that are based around farm scoring. Paths will increase scoring for roads that are sometimes considered to be a "bad tile draw". Please find the detailed rules below.

Storehouses
Some of the cities are tired of the price gouging of local farmers and have built storehouses to combat this. If a city has a storehouse in it, it does not need the neighboring farm to feed it. In short, when counting farming points this city doesn’t give any points.

Paths
Not all of Carcassonne has been completely fixed in the transportation department. Paths are similar to roads except they are dirt and/or mud. Paths do not necessarily have to end at a destination either. It is possible for a path to end in a field. Also, some paths are in the process of being renovated into completed roads and just aren’t finished yet.

Paths that become roads on one tile (they can’t connect to a road on a separate tile) are scored the same as the road.

If there is a path, you may end the path by placing a field tile next to it. If a path ends in a field (on either end) it is scored at 1 point per tile.

If a path ends at a natural barrier (trees or farmhouse) it is complete and is scored at 2 points per tile.

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Carcassonne Vanguard. An unofficial expansion to Carcassonne created by Jonathan Wu and illustrated by Jeremy Chambers

Download the expansion at BoardGameGeek by clicking here.

Carcassonne Vanguard is a an unofficial expansion for Carcassonne that works without any additional map tiles. Instead, Vanguard tiles are introduced to give players different strengths and weaknesses at the beginning of the game. BoardGameGeek user Jonathan Wu was inspired by Magic: the Gathering Vanguard, when creating this design. Note: The 'Vanguard' is not play-tested and may be unbalanced. Jonathan Wu welcomes comments and suggestions. To comment, please go to the Carcassone Vanguard thread on BoardGameGeek. The Vanguard tiles have been illustrated by Jeremy Chambers.

Rules

• Before the game is started, set aside all Vanguard tiles, put them face down and shuffle.


• Each player picks a Vanguard tile and puts it face up in front of him.


• The Vanguard's abilities will affect the owner until the end of the game.

1) Mastermind
- When the game begins, draw 2 extra tiles and keep them in your hand face down.
- When you draw a tile, put it into your hand. Choose one from your hand to play.
- Your builder counts as a meeple (i.e., no extra turn is gained)
- If the tile pool has no tile after your draw, at the end of that turn, put the tiles in your hand to the pool.

2) City Constructor
- All Knights you controlled also count as a builder.
- Additional Builder in your city has no extra effect

3) Road Constructor
- All Thieves you controlled also count as a builder.
- Additional Builder on your road has no extra effect

4) City Master
- The score for cities completed by you is doubled.
- You may not put a Builder on your cities
- You get 2/3 of the scores for roads you completed
- Number of meeples reduced by 2

5) Road Master
- The score for roads completed by you is doubled.
- You may not put a Builder on your roads
- You get 2/3 of the scores for cities you completed
- Number of meeples reduced by 2

6) Archbishop
- For each cloister you completed, get 6 bonus points
- For each cloister completed by other players, you gain 3 points
- During your turn, before drawing a tile, you may place a monk in any incomplete, empty cloister instead of drawing a tile.
- You get 2/3 of the scores for cities and roads you completed
- You may put a Builder next to the cloister you owned. In the forthcoming turns, if you place a tile next to your cloister with a builder next to it, you have an extra turn for once. If the cloister is complete, the builder is returned to your pool.

7) Master Farmer
- (Under 3rd Edition Farm Rules) At the beginning of your turn, if any farm you own is complete, you get 5 bonus points and the points for each city adjacent to the field. Then, return the farmers of that field to owner's hand. (Notes: A Players may not put a farmer to a completed farm using Magic Gate)
Note: A completed farm means the farm is surrounded by roads or cities tiles completely, with no 'holes' inside the field.

Posted by Naturelich at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (2)

While enjoying the first game of the fourth expansion to Carcassonne I had a little bit of time to fool around with my camera. Carcassonne - The Tower (Carcassonne - Der Turm) basically adds the concept of towers to the game. These towers allow players to take meeples as prisoner. Here is how this works:

While the towers considerably slow down the game speed - causing analysis paralysis - the meeples enjoy themselves with some artistic exercises.

Pretty neat expansion, isn't it? ;)

Posted by Naturelich at 9:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Stonewall tiles Copyright by Jeuxparje. Carcassonne - Hunters and Gatherers is published by Hans im Glück and was designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede

Carcassonne - The Stonewall (Die Steinmauer) is an unofficial expansion to Carcassonne - Hunters & Gatherers (Carcassonne - Jäger und Sammler). The expansion was published by Jeuxparje in 2004 and is freely available for download from their site. The expansion set contains 12 new cards that add The Stonewall to the game. The stonwall tiles are used to start the game like Carcassonne - The River expansion does for the original game. In addition, this expansion provides rules for a variant of the King & Scout tiles. Edward Pollard has provided an English translation of the rules - available at BoardGameGeek, here.

Posted by Naturelich at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

A tile from Carcassonne - The Forest by G. Engelhardt and S. Högl. -- Carcassonne is designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Hans im Glück

Guntram Engelhardt and Sophie Högl have created an unofficial expansion to Carcassonne called The Forest. The expansion consists of 36 new cards. These cards feature a new unique design. Although it is nicely done, I don't believe this design is compatible with the original Carcassonne game. This is unfortunate as it does not extend Carcassonne. Instead, The Forest is best used as a stand-alone Carcassonne clone with a different theme. Unfortunately there are no rules provided, so we can only guess that putting meeples into the forest is like placing them in a city. The roads are similar and there are some buildings which could be the equivalent of cloisters. Rivers are also present but I believe they have no additional function. If only there were some rules...

Another disadvantage of this expansion is the fact that each tile bears a copyright notice. I find this a little bit too much as it hinders my willingness to print the extension. The Forest is unfortunately not adding any new gaming value to Carcassonne. Unless I am missing something.

The Forest is available for download on the official Carcassonne variant site (look for a file called Wald which is German for forest).

Posted by Naturelich at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

ekted's The Game Table-blog has published a great Ode to Carcassonne.

With modest plans for its design,
The Meeples came from distant lands,
With dreams of cloth and wheat and wine,
And roaming room for every swine,
They took their tools into their hands.

Click here, to read the full poem, but you have been warned - it does not have a happy end...

Posted by Naturelich at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tile from Carcassonne - Die Eisenbahn. (c) by Matthias Hecking.
Carcassonne is published by Hans-im-Glück Verlag and designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede.

Let's look at another inofficial extension to Carcassonne. Carcassonne: Die Eisenbahn (=Carcassonne: The Train) was fan-produced by railroad fan by Matthias Hecking in 2004.

Continue reading "Carcassonne - Die Eisenbahn" »

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Pirates and Plunder is an unofficial clone of Klaus Jürgen Wrede's Carcassone, designed by Brian L. Bird and Richard Thames Rowan. The biggest difference to the extensions I have reviewed so far: this one is a standalone game which cannot be combined with Carcassonne. Due to some legal issues, the authors now call the game Pirates and Plunder, without a reference to the original game.

Pirates and Plunder is a pirate-like game that recreates the Carribean sea. This sets the game apart from the classic medival motif. In addition it's not even related to the famous French walled city which posed as theme for the original game. I therefore guess it's only fair to omit the reference to Caracssonne. But interational copyright law is probably a bit more complicated - so I leave all this up to the experts and finally start concentrating on the actual review...

Continue reading "Pirates and Plunder - A fan-produced Carcassonne style game" »

Posted by Naturelich at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (1)

A good strategy article for the basic Carcassonne game has been published on The Game Table: click here to read Carcassonne: The Math.

A similar article is available on BoardGameGeek, here.

(via Musings, Ramblings, and Things Left Unsaid)

Posted by Naturelich at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new tile from Carcassone: The Fishing Hut. (c) by Jörg Krühne.

Fischerhütte (is the title of a fan-produced Carcassonne extension. The author, Jörg Krühne, has designed this expansion for a large game of Carcassonne including tiles from the following extensions:

• Carcassone (basic game)


• Carcassone - Inns and Cathedrals (the first expansion from 2002)


• Carcassonne - Traders and Builders (the second expansion from 2003 - German title: Händler und Baumeister


• Carcassonne - King and Scout


• and 3 times Carcassonne: The River


• and (of course) Fischerhütte

The extension extends the rules and available tiles in three major areas.

Continue reading "Fischerhütte - The Carcassone: Fishing Hut tiles" »

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The Laborer- tile from the unofficial expansion Carcassonne: Laborer and Mendicant. (c) by Christoph Berger

Christoph Berger has created an unofficial expansion to Carcassonne, called Carcassone - Knecht und Bettelmönch (Carcassonne - Laborer and Mendicant) . His idea is based on the official mini-expansion Carassonne: King and Scout (Carcassonne: König und Späher).

Continue reading "Laborer and Mendicant - inofficial Carcassonne expansion" »

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Carcassonne - Fruit Traders. (c) by Jonathan Wu.

Fruit Traders is the name of an inofficial Carcassonne add-on developed by Jonathan Wu. This expansion consists of 6 tiles and 6 pineapple tokens. Carcassonne: Traders and Builders is not required, but Fruit Traders plays better with this extension included.

Continue reading "Fruit Traders (inofficial Carcassone add-on)" »

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Carcassonne - Die Eroberer. The Siege. Copyright by Dieter Rausch, www.carcassonne-welt.de. Used with permission.

Dieter Rausch has put up a great Carcassonne fan page called Carcassonne Welt. This page features an inofficial, fan-produced Carcassonne extension called Die Eroberer (The Conquerors). To download the extension you will have to register. Apparently, this extension was so popular that people sold plenty of copies on ebay and this caused a lot of trouble. So, what is the content in this extension?

Continue reading "Die Eroberer - A Carcassonne extension" »

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Die Baumeister des Königs is a Carcassonne clone designed by original Carcassonne-designer Klaus-Jürgen Wrede. Interestingly, this German-type game has first been published in the United States under the title The Ark of The Covenant by Inspiration Games. This game is very closely related to the original Carcassonne game but not an extension. It's stand-alone and comes with tiles in different design and a slightly altered - religious - game theme. Die Baumeister des Königs is settled during the times of King Solomon, a famous figure in the Old Testament. The players are members of King Solomon's staff and have to build cities and roads - does this already sound familiar? In addition to this, the players have to promote sheep farming and transport the ark of the covenant. Prophets need to be placed on the cities to encourage repentance and adherence to the Ten Commandments.

Continue reading "Die Baumeister des Königs (The Ark of The Covenant)" »

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Families is the name of a fan-produced extension for Carcassonne. The author is Frederic Renaud. Of course, the basic Carcassone game is required to play this extension.

Game idea
The basic idea of the game is inspired by medieval family feuds: Two families cannot stand each other and cannot be in the same city. This expansion includes a set of new tiles with a different shield printed on them. These red/yellow shields represent the one family crest, while the original blue/white shields (from the original game) represent the second family.

Rules
If a tile with a family crest is put into a city, it is impossible to add a family-crest tile from the second family.

Additional Tiles
In addition to the family feud, the extension set contains a few new road and bridge tiles.

Continue reading "Carcassonne Families" »

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During my holidays the Carcassonne Almanach has arrived. This almanac contains all artciles ever published in Germany's biggest gaming magazine Spielbox. This includes reviews of the original Carcassonne game and all its extensions, interviews with the game publisher and author. This includes the rare US based Carcassonne sibling The Ark of the Covenant which has recently been published in Germany, too (as Die Baumeister des Königs).

First and foremost, the almanac also includes the rare extension Die Katharer (The Cathars) and their rules. This add-on was available in one of last year's Spielbox editions. This issue has been out-of-stock for quite a while now and here is your chance to get it.

Another interesting article deals with the new Carcassonne clone Carcassonne - Neues Land which is scheduled to be released for Essen 2005. The game is not an add-on to the original game but rather an entirely new game designed by Leo Colvini.

Great news for our non-German speaking friends: The almanac also includes an English translation of all articles.

You can order the almanac by following this link.

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Last week we played one of my latest game acquisitions: Carcassonne - Die Stadt (aka Carcassonne - The City). Designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede for 2-4 players, the game is published by Hans im Glück in Germany.

The first thing catching attention is the deluxe packaging of the game: a wooden box containing only quality components like nice wood pieces and linnen bags for the tiles. The rules are laid out on a few pages and explain the game in a lengthy but very clear way with a lot of examples.

Carcassone - Die Stadt is a standalone game divided into three rounds. The game is quite similar to older Carcassonne editions, but also adds some new elements to the game. These elements make it a challenging game - even for experienced players of older Carcassonne-style games. The basic idea is still adhered to: players have to build up a map (in this case the city of Carcassonne) by consecutively placing tiles. This will create a unique cityscape in which one can place his followers (onto markets, streets or buildings) who eventually will score some points.

After a specific (well-defined) moment in the game, players start building walls around city tiles. The players start building the wall next to a wooden gate. Walls always have to be connected to either this gate or other wall pieces. While the city still continues to grow the walls grow with it, leaving less and less areas in which the city may be extended.

Two interesting new ways of scoring points have also been introduced with the walls:

These two elements make the game far less predictable. Planning ahead is much more difficult and the number of options one has to calculate have increase drastically. In my opinion, this will make the game especially difficult for younger children. In addition, a raised level has to be put on chosing the right players to play with (especially if you are a non-planning person playing with all those tacticians who really want to calculate through all their possible options before making a move).

This put aside the game is real fun and a nice variation for all players who like Carcassonne at least a little bit. My game group has enjoyed playing this A LOT and we will certainly play it again soon.

Posted by Naturelich at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For a few months, Naturelich was not very active on ebay. Today, upon returning from Basel, I received my latest ebay-acquisition by mail. The October/November edition of Spielbox. My reasons for buying this issue are simple: it contains the Carcassonne extension Die Katharer which is (so far?!) only available in this issue of the gaming magazine. The extension consists of four new cards which contain part of a city which is under siege.

Some historical background: The Cathars were believers of a new religion (shall we say Gnostics?) in the 11th and 12th century. The Pope was not too happy about this and started a crusade which led his troops to Carcassonne. After plenty of years of fighting and the Inquisition getting their own share of fun, the Cathars died out.

But they are now revitalized in a board game. The Cathars tile can be connected to an existing Carcassonne city lowering the number of points scored for the knights inside the city (by one point per tile). They also increase the value of farmers! This new game mechanism allows you to steal points from others, while giving it to the your poor farmers... Robin Hood is back!

I am looking forward to my first gaming session...

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I suppose I am not a big enough fan of Carcassone to play it like this (site is in German only).

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