Yes, being able to track which farmer is supplying which cities is something that each player is supposed to do on their own during the game, but it becomes time consuming during games with multiple expansions when the number of tiles gets larger. Add to that the bridges that join fields across roads, and the time consumption expands greatly.
It is definitely not in the rules, but we are considering the use of M&Ms as a way of flagging each completed city with the matching color of the player(s) who control them. Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow are easy, we would use Brown for the Black player and Orange for the Pink player as needed!
If, for example, a city will be scored twice at the end of the game, by Red on one side of the road and Blue on the other side of the road, when the city is completed it will get two M&Ms. Two M&Ms of the same color tells everyone that we have to join those two fields or that player will score those cities twice. Two Reds and one Blue tells Blue to be careful that Red does not join the farms or he might lose his farm!
Again, this is definitely not in the rules, but it might speed up the game. And of course, it will be fun when you place your barn and get to eat all of the other player’s M&Ms!
What are your thoughts on this?
Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5571.0