Carcassonne: A Guide to the Expansions
Small Expansions
The River
This comes free inside the original Carcassonne Game and provides a set of starting tiles that players takes turns to place. It gets the game going more quickly and leads to more options once you start drawing the normal tiles
The River 2
More river tiles with a fork and an extra lake to go at the other end of the fork. It also includes tiles with features that go with some of the larger expansions, but they can be ignored
The Count of Carcassonne
This expansion consists of twelve new starting tiles (forming the City of Carcassonne) and a Count figure (in purple!). Of all the small expansions, this one has the most impact on the game. At each scoring opportunity the Count performs a specific action, depending on the town tile the Count is on at the time. This action might entail extra points for the scoring player, or might be imprisonment for the player's follower, until the Count finishes his trip through the town. In this way players not only have to keep an eye out for the other players, but also take the positioning of the Count into consideration.
King & Scout
The smallest expansion; it contains just five new playing tiles and the King and Robber cards. The two cards are used to indicate which player has completed the longest road or largest city. The five playing tiles contain new features and are double-sided; the second side is an expansion for the Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers variant.
Large Expansions(numbered in the order in which they were released)
1. Inns & Cathedrals
This expansion fixes elements that some people dislike in the original game, particularly the low value score for roads. There is also a 'large' follower for each player that plays like a normal follower except it in the event of two players claiming the same feature, the large follower is worth two normal-sized ones. The new playing tiles include Inn-on-the-Road tiles and two Cathedral tiles, which both add one point per tile to the road or city if completed during the game, but they don't score if these features aren't completed.
This expansion also introduces a set of grey colour followers allowing a sixth player to join the original game.
2. Traders & Builders
Traders & Builders alters the game much more than Inns & Cathedrals. Players are encouraged to complete their opponents' cities (and their own) by the presence of goods tokens. The person who collects the most tokens of each type gets awarded extra points. In addition, each player gets a Builder and a Pig. The Builder gives you an extra turn when you expand the feature he is occupying and the Pig gives Farmers an extra point per city at the end of the game.
3. The Princess & the Dragon
There are three aspects to the Princess and the Dragon expansion. Firstly, Carcassonne is periodically attacked by a Dragon who goes on the rampage when a Dragon tile is played. The Dragon moves six tiles orthogonally (not diagonally), with players taking it in turns to decide where he goes. Any follower that gets in the way is returned to its owner. There is also a Fairy piece that can be moved to a tile occupied by a follower whom the Fairy then protects from the dragon and provides bonus points when features are completed. In addition to the Dragon and the Fairy, there are also Magic Portal tiles (which allow you to place followers on tiles that have already been placed) and Princess tiles, which remove knights from cities (they can then be replaced using Magic Portal tiles).
This expansion makes the game much more aggressive than the normal game.
4. The Tower
This provides a nice cardboard tower for holding all the tiles during play. There are new tiles with a 'tower base' feature, and a set of wooden tower pieces. Instead of placing a follower, players can place a tower piece on a base or on an existing tower. Towers can then capture any opposing followers within 'range'. Captured followers are held prisoner until they can be exchanged (for the opponent's captured pieces).
This is also a more aggressive expansion.
5. The Abbey & the Mayor
This expansion is a return to the kindlier, gentler days of Carcassonne before the Dragon, Count and Tower instilled aggression into the game. Each player starts with one of each of four new components:
The Abbey -can be used it to complete a 'trapped' features i.e. where an impossible tile is required for matching sides, as the Abbey automatically completes any feature that it touches.
The Mayor - acts a bit like the large follower found in the Inns & Cathedrals expansion, except can only be placed in a city and is worth as many followers as there are pennant flags in the city.
The Barn - placed at a junction of four tiles with a field segment (green) in each corner, even if there are other farmers in the field. It immediately scores like a farmer.
The Wagon - acts like a moveable follower. After scoring with the wagon, it can be returned to the supply or moved on to an adjacent, incomplete feature.
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