When our neighborhood group found Carcassonne in June of 2021, we each bought the 2017 Big Box version of the game. One of the major features that we all loved about the game was how each player would draw a “random” tile from the pile each turn. There was no way to get an advantage, no one was allowed to peek at their tile!
After a while we started buying other expansions and were somewhat disappointed by the fact that some of the backs of some of the expansions were slightly a different color. We looked into using a bag instead of just leaving the tile upside down on the table, then decided to just create 4 random stacks of tiles that each player would grab, pick up half the stack, then “randomly” drop the middle tile on the table without being able to see if there was a slight color difference.
Now we are reading a number of posts that “The tiles have rounded corners, which is slightly odd” and “But the uptick in the quality of printing on the new tiles, including the rounded corners is also nice.”
We are extremely concerned! Will these new tile be noticeable different that the existing tiles? If I look at the backs of the tiles upside down on a table, can I see the difference? If I reach into a bag, can I feel the difference? If the answer is yes, why would anyone want to remove one of the primary features of the game, you draw a “random” tile each turn?
Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5579.0