Game 75: Carcassonne

I can't imagine a better game than Carcassonne to have as our milestone 75th post; on the other hand, I can't believe we played 74 other games before we got to this classic!  We've had this game and a couple of (the many existing) expansions for quite a while, and all the pieces are mixed together, so we'll count this as one game.  We decide each time we play whether or not to play by all the rules of both of our expansions or to limit things a bit - as we feel the house rules should be for any given day.  In all the years we've had Carcassonne it hasn't lost any of its appeal for us.
I don't think I'd mentioned this on the blog yet, but I ALWAYS play green.  Not only is it my favorite color, but I've played it so much that I get confused if someone else plays green.  I will, however, give way if a guest is playing and would be broken-hearted to not be able to play green.  (Hosts should be gracious in that way, right?)
 The picture below is an idea of what the board ends up like, a countryside created by connecting a river, roads, farmlands and cities.  On each turn a player draws a tile and places it, with the option of placing one of their meeples on it as well as a way of scoring points.  This is the end of our game tonight, once we removed all our meeples and accounted for all the points.  I had a massive lead for the entire game - having more than lapped David on the scoreboard - but, as often happens, David edged past me with the points on his farmland at the end.  He's always been better at seeing territory.  I have to work on that!
 Below is how we start  .  .  .  the source of the river as the first piece, and all the other river tiles face-down.  Once all of these are placed we start drawing from the bag - a rather full bag given that it has all the original tiles plus the tiles from two expansions.
 Below is a picture of all the river pieces (the ones that are face-down in the picture above).
 The picture below shows the completed river with a few other pieces having been placed, along with the claiming of farmland, roads, cities and cloisters that we have been doing.
 And a little bit more building and claiming  .  .  .
 All the way to the end  .  .  .
I find it really satisfying how the pieces fit together to create a landscape.  I find the game visually satisfying as well as really engaging to play.
 Also, I love the medieval era, which this game brings to mind for me.
 When I visited Lincoln, England as part of my sabbatical 3 years ago, I took a roof-top tour of Lincoln Cathedral, and when I looked out towards Lincoln Castle from Lincoln Cathedral what came to my mind was the game of Carcassonne!  And now when I play this game I am reminded of these travels!  It works both ways, and it's all good!

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