Tonight I played three two-player spin-off games with my regular Carcassonne playing partner: Hunters & Gatherers, Carcassonne: the City and Ark of the Covenant.
Hunters & Gatherers
This was the first play of this game for either of us. It took a bit of time getting used to the graphics - it seems like it's harder to take a mental snapshot of the whole board than in regular Carcassonne or other spin-offs, but maybe it was just because it was all new. The huts didn't have an impact because we both ended up with both huts in the same river system - does it usually happen like that, where one river system becomes the dominant one and all players end up tying it? In the end I won by 42 points, mostly because I was able to keep my score ticking over during the game with a lot of river scoring. Those fish sure make a nice difference! The bonus tiles didn't have much of an impact; the sacred shrine was played but without a hunter, and the fire tile was in a farm that we shared.
Verdict: It was a nice game but I think I prefer the Ark of the Covenant for a simple spin-off game. Next time we'll include the Scout expansion and see what that adds.
Carcassonne: the City
This was only the second time we had played this and the first for over a year, so I was glad to play it again. In-game scoring was close the whole way but in the end I won by 55 points, greatly helped by having an 18-market residential area for 36 points. I also got more points from my guards on top of the city walls. We agreed to play this again soon because there's a fair amount of extra strategy and it would be good to focus on that without having to think about the rules.
Verdict: I love building the city walls and being able to place guards on top of them; it gives a great 3D look to the board. The inability to place a meeple to score a feature that was completed with the just-placed tile also adds a lot of strategy to the game. So in terms of game-play, I really like this game - it's just a shame about the artwork, especially of the markets. I try to convince myself that the artwork is OK but I would say the tiles are my least favourite of all the spin-off games I own (which are these three, plus the Castle and the Winter Edition). But at least the walls are great to make up for it.
Ark of the Covenant
We weren't sure whether to play Ark or the Castle for our final game of the night. Since we play the Castle fairly often, we chose the Ark this time; again it was only the second play for each of us. In the end my opponent won by 1 point! It was an 18-point farm that won it for her despite my attempts to add wolves to it whenever I could. To think that forgetting to get my 'fairy points' gained from moving the Ark (as I undoubtedly did at some point during the game) could have made the difference between winning and losing.
Verdict: I think the Ark is great if you want a quick game. The prophet, the ark and the different farm and temple scoring make it just different enough from the normal game to feel like a different game, but there's also some familiarity.
Photos before final scoring of all three games are attached. I'm green in all games.
Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2102.0