I basically am in charge of updating the wiki page for the Carcassonne series on BoardGameGeek and the issues has come up recently: what is an expansion? It may seem obvious, but Hans im Glueck has certainly not made it as clearcut as many games.
Let's begin with The Cult. The Cult released originally with the Count, King & Consort expansion (#6) which was itself a composite of three old expansions and a new one. The symbol on these tiles is a crown. Almost simultaneously, Spielbox released The Cult as a stand-alone promo, with a pentagon symbol on the tiles. Then a few months later, Rio Grande Games released Cult, Siege & Creativity, a "mini-expansion" that really combined a remake of The Cathars with a six-tile version of The Cult (which originally only had five tiles). Are these three separate expansions? They have separate symbols (or lack thereof) and the RGG version even has an extra tile.
Moving on to the most complex of the expansions, The Cathars. This was released twice initially, once in a standard Spielbox issue and once in a promotional Hans im Glueck almanac. Many years later, Rio Grande finally released a variant version of it called The Siege (included in Cult, Siege & Creativity) with new art but almost the same rules. Now, Hans im Glueck has released a version with helmet icons, new artwork, and two additional tiles. Are these three different expansions or are they all really just the same?
Then we get to the compilations. Both have already been mentioned. Cult, Siege & Creativity was a Rio Grande attempt to bring into production two otherwise unobtainable in English expansions: Cathars and Cult. Does this count as a single expansion or as two expansions packages in one box? Similarly, Count, King & Consort was released by Hans im Glueck as their sixth expansion but really just repackaged River II, King & Robber (but not Scout), and Count of Carcassonne, with a new expansion: The Cult. It wasn't released in English except as a part of the Big Box 2, where it was titled Count, King & Cult. Then Z-Man released it finally as a stand-alone under the name Count, King & Robber. So are the original mini expansions still expansions? Is the big expansion still truly an expansion (it has a number)? What is the status of all these different entities?
Disclaimer: This is purely a rhetorical conversation asking for opinions. No final answer is expected.
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