Carcassonne

Continuing to look at popular board games, today's review is of the 2000 release, Carcassonne.  For 2-5 players, it plays in 30-45 minutes.

Overview
Carcassonne is a tile placement game.  Each tile has a piece of landscape on it- monastery, road, city, field (and sometimes, combinations thereof).  Through successive tile placement, players create and expand a region consisting of many roads, towns, etc.  Tiles must be legally placed, which means:
- they must be adjacent to existing tiles, and
- they must continue the existing landscape (so a road tile must be placed adjacent to an existing road,  a city segment next to a city, etc.)

The goal, of course, is scoring the most points.  Points are scored with meeples, which are small wooden people you can place on your turn.  Meeples can be placed standing up on unoccupied* roads, in unoccupied towns, on monasteries, or lying in unoccupied fields.  They score points as follows:
- road (complete or incomplete): 1 point for each road tile in a road segment
- completed city: 2 points for each city tile in a city (+2 points for each coat of arms in that city)
- incomplete city: 1 point for each city tile in a city (+1 point for each coat of arms in that city)
- monastery: 1 point for each tile surrounding the monastery (including itself)
- lying in fields: 3 points for each adjacent completed city

A 2-player game in progress; image from here

If you have meeples on roads, in cities, or on monasteries that are completed during the course of the game, you score points and get your meeple back immediately- so you can use it again later!  Completed means:
- roads: both ends terminate in an intersection (or loop) or at a city (or monastery)
- city: it is completely enclosed by a wall
- monastery: it is completely surrounded by 8 tiles


Simplified Gameplay
Each turn, you:
- draw and place a tile
- if possible and desired, place one of your meeples in a legal area on the tile you just laid
- if applicable, score meeples on any completed roads, cities, or monasteries

Play proceeds clockwise until no more tiles are in the draw pool.  Then, score meeples in incomplete roads/cities/monasteries, score them in the fields, and see who wins!

Review
Carcassonne is a good game.  I get why it, like Catan, is so popular.  It's easy to understand, full of depth, and plays quickly.  The only bad thing is the luck component- you're at the mercy of what tile you draw on your turn.  That aside, this is a winner.

Rules can be found here.

Rating: A-

*'unoccupied' means no other meeples are present on a continuous segment.  So if you expand an existing road, and a meeple is already on an existing road segment, you cannot place a meeple on the newly-placed road segment.