How to play Carcassonne

How to play

Setup: Put the start tile, the one with the dark back, in the middle of the table. Shuffle the other land tiles face down into a few stacks everyone can reach. Each player takes the 8 meeples of one colour, puts one on the 0 space of the scoreboard and keeps the other 7 as a supply. For a first game, leave the river tiles and the abbots in the box. The youngest player starts and play goes clockwise.

Place a tile: Draw one tile and add it next to a tile already on the table, so that every edge it touches continues the picture: road meets road, city meets city, field meets field. In the rare case that a tile fits nowhere, put it back in the box and draw another.

Place a meeple: You may then put one meeple from your supply on a feature of the tile you just laid: a traveller on a road, a knight in a city or a monk on a monastery. You can't claim a road or city that already has a meeple anywhere along it, however far away.

Score what you finished: At the end of your turn, score every feature your tile completed, including other players' features. A road is complete when both ends stop at a village, city, monastery or other feature, or it loops round: 1 point per tile. A city is complete when its walls close with no gaps: 2 points per tile and 2 per coat of arms. A monastery is complete when all eight spaces around it are filled: 9 points. Move your scoring meeple along the track, then take meeples from scored features back to your supply.

Shared features: You can't join a claimed feature directly, but a tile can connect two separately claimed pieces into one. When it scores, whoever has the most meeples on it takes all the points; if players tie for most, each of them scores the full amount.

End of game: The game ends once the last tile is placed. Then score every unfinished feature that still has meeples on it: roads 1 per tile, cities 1 per tile and 1 per coat of arms, monasteries 1 plus 1 per surrounding tile. Most points wins; tied players share the win.

Farmers: After two or three games, add fields. You may lay a meeple down on a field as a farmer, but only if that field has no farmer on it yet. Farmers stay until the game ends; then each field scores 3 points for every completed city it touches, for whoever has the most farmers there.

The River and the Abbot: The River's 12 tiles replace the start tile. Begin with the source tile, draw river tiles (the lake goes last) until the river is finished, then carry on with land tiles; never let two bends turn the same way. With the Abbot, each player also has an abbot that can go only on a monastery or garden, and gardens score like monasteries. On a turn when you don't place a meeple, you may take your abbot back and score its monastery or garden at once.

Strategy

Meeples are your real currency: You have seven to place, and a meeple comes back only when its feature is scored. One stuck in a city or monastery that never finishes is lost for the rest of the game, so every placement is a bet on whether that feature will close, and how soon. Small and certain beats big and stuck: A short road or a two-tile city can finish within a turn or two and hand your meeple straight back. Big cities score more, and a finished six-tile city with two coats of arms is worth 16, but they need more particular tiles and give rivals time to muscle in. Left unfinished, that same city is worth only 8 at the end. Muscling in: You can't place directly into a claimed city, but you can start a separate city piece beside it and try to connect the two later. Match their meeples and you both score in full; outnumber them and you take it all. The same trick works in defence, and sometimes the best reply is a tile that leaves their city needing an awkward shape to close. Monasteries: A monk is worth 9 points if all eight neighbours fill in, and still scores 1 plus its neighbours at the end if they don't. Put monasteries where tiles are already landing rather than out on the edge. Farmers, once you use them: Fields are scored only at the end, at 3 points for each finished city they touch, so one farmer in a big field bordering several cities can outscore anything else you do. Farmers never come back, so most players place them from the middle of the game on, and watch for roads and cities that cut a field in two. Read the tiles: Every tile ends up face up, so keep a rough eye on which shapes have already appeared. A city that needs one particular tile to close is a real risk once most of those tiles have gone. Think about what you give away: The tile you lay can finish other players' features, and they score them on your turn. Before you place, check what your tile hands to someone else as well as what it gains you.

Tips

- Keep a meeple or two in your supply so you can claim a good city or monastery the moment it appears. - Finish small features quickly; every meeple that comes back is another claim. - Your tile can complete other players' features, and they score them, so check what you give away. - To share or take over a claimed city, start a separate piece beside it and connect the two later. - An unfinished city scores only half at the end, so don't sink meeples into one you can't close. - Put monks where the surrounding spaces are already filling up. - Farmers never return to your supply, so place them in big fields beside cities likely to be completed. - Every tile is played face up, so notice which rare shapes are already gone.

Player count & time

2–5 players in about 30–45 minutes. With two players you each place around 35 tiles and can plan and block closely; with five you each place about 14, and the landscape changes a lot between your turns. Z-Man also publishes an official solo variant, playable as a cooperative challenge too, in which you rotate through three colours and only your lowest score counts.

Expansions

The box already includes two small ones, The River and The Abbot. The numbered expansions begin with Inns & Cathedrals (inns and cathedrals that raise the value of roads and cities, a large meeple that counts double, and pieces for a sixth player), Traders & Builders (goods rewards for finishing cities and a builder figure) and Dragon & Fairy, formerly The Princess & the Dragon (a roaming dragon that eats meeples and a fairy that protects them). Hans im Glück revised the expansion line in 2025 with new art, some rule changes and a few new names, so check which version a rule refers to. Add one expansion at a time. Mists over Carcassonne is a separate cooperative game in the same style.

Common beginner mistake

Pouring meeples into one enormous city you can never finish alone. A finished three-tile city with one coat of arms scores 8 points and frees your knight straight away; a twelve-tile city left open scores only 1 per tile and coat of arms at the end, and keeps your meeples out of play all game. Start small, score, and reuse your meeples.

The farmer debate

The current rulebook settles it for beginners: fields and farmers are in the supplemental rules, and it suggests adding them after two or three games. Once the basic flow is familiar, bring them in. Farmers add the most long-term planning to the game, because a field's value keeps changing as cities around it are finished, and a farmer placed too early is a meeple you won't see again.