Carcassonne rules

board | 2-5 players | 30min

Setup

1. Place starting tile in middle of table.
2. Shuffle remaining land tiles and place them face down away from the starting tile so players have easy access to them.
3. Youngest player decides who goes first.

Setup with river tiles

4. Remove starting tile from the table.
5. Place the spring tile in middle of table, the start of the river.
6. Set aside the lake tile and shuffle the 10 river tiles, placing them in a stack.

Player's turn

• Draw and place a new land tile.
  • If you're playing with river tiles then you must draw from the river tile stack if it exists. Play it by connecting it to the spring tile or the last played river tile.
  • You can't play a river tile that makes the river do a U turn.
  • Once the river tiles are all played, the next player plays the lake tile, and after that players draw land tiles like normal.
• You may deploy a follwer on the tile that you just played.
• If a cloister, road or cities are completed upon placing a tile, they are then scored.

Placing land tiles

• The tile must be placed adjacent to a tile already on the table
• The new tile must be placed so that all field, city, road or river segments on the new tile continue on any adjacent tiles.

Deploying followers

• You can deploy one follower from your supply onto the tile you just played.
• You must choose where to deploy the follower on your tile. Depending on your tile, your options can include:
  • A thief on a road
  • A knight in a city
  • A monk in a cloister
  • A farmer in a field
• You can't deploy a follower on a field, road or city that is already occupied by another follower.

Scoring

Roads, cities and cloisters are scored when they are each completed. Farms are only scored at the end of a game.

Once a road, city or cloister has been scored, any followers involved return to their respective players' supplies. Farmers stay on the board until the end of the game.

Completion

• A city is complete when the city is completely surrounded by a city wall and there are no gaps.
• A road is complete when the road segments on both ends connect to a crossing, a city segment, or a cloister, or when the road forms a complete loop.
• A cloister is complete when the tile it is on is completely surrounded by land tiles.

Scores

A player who has a follower on a completed city, road or cloister scores points.

• A city scores 2 points per tile + 2 points per pennant.
• A road scores 1 point per tile.
• A cloister scores 9 points (one for each tile).

If more than one follower shares a completed road or city, all points go to the player with the most followers on that road or city. If two players have the same amount then they both get the full amount of points.

Game end

The game ends once the last tile is drawn and placed, and final scoring then takes place. The player with the most points after final scoring wins.

• Incomplete cities are scored. They are worth 1 point per tile + 1 point per pennant.
• Incomplete roads are scored. They are worth 1 point per tile.
• Incomplete cloisters are scored. They are worth 1 point for the cloister tile + 1 point for each surrounding land tile.
• Farmers are scored, see below.
• If more than one player share a city or road, read the score section to see how to split the points.

Scoring farmers

Farmers score points by supplying food to nearby completed cities.

• Look at each completed city one by one.
• Find all the farmers in the same field as the city. Fields are the grass regions bound by roads, rivers and other cities.
• If only one farmer provides food for a city, the player owning that farmer scores 4 points.
• If multiple farmers can each provide food for a city, 4 points go to the player with the most farmers providing food for the city. If two players have the same amount then they both get 4 points.
• One farmer may supply and score several cities if more than one city are adjacent.