An approach to making Carcassonne more accessible to others.

[loki]

1. While the main copies of the game are kept secure (in little plastic bags inside a larger plastic box), a duplicate set (made up from my collection of duplicate copies of the game, which I am fortunate enough to be able to afford) is edited down to 12 river tiles and a 72 tile draw deck  made up from all of my preferred expansions (my mix has base game, I&C, T&B, A&M, P&D, Tower, H&S). I use non competitive Carcassonne Central variants for P&D - The Chatelaines and the Tower - Reeve and Quartermaster.  However no custom tiles or game pieces, everything as it is sold.

2. This draw deck is kept separate and is randomly mixed ready to pop in the draw bag, tile tower or placed face down on the table.

3. Full sets of Meeples are kept for each player in separate small ziploc style bags along with bridges, abbeys and tower pieces.  No counting, no sorting, just ready to hand out to each player.

4. The Big and Mayor followers are not easily differentiated by novice players so a white elastic band is placed around the waist and shoulder to differentiate.

5. The river is laid out on the table to give players plenty of choice in placing their first tile and to avoid having to “respond” to other player's first move.  Also this river layout includes 2 cloisters which no one can claim as the tile is laid before the start of the game.  However since the cloisters have connecting road segments, this is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how that “hard to understand” follower, the wagon, can be used.

6. Essential - Each player is given a double sided single sheet of paper illustrating and describing all the Structures, Meeples and Game icons with a brief description of scoring and how they are to be used.  Is this sheet as good as the game documentation ? NO.  Is it anywhere near the quality of the S-CAR? - NO . But it is good enough to get the game going and give everyone a chance to grasp the main elements and score lots of points.  I much prefer getting everything onto a single sheet double sided and putting it in a clear page protector.

7. First game was with someone who was normally reluctant to play as the base game had been “played out” too many times and adding in the expansions made the game too long especially when they did not understand how to play the different Meeple and tile types.

8. First game elapsed time with 2 players, from the entire set of game pieces starting out in the box to farms being scored was less than 60 minutes at a relaxed uninterrupted pace.  And I lost by about 100 points.

9. Just about every tile drawn resulted in a meeple being placed, a claimed structure being extended or being scored.  This avoided the “drawing yet another road segment” with “nowhere really to put it”.

10. The tile layout was very dense, almost a continuous sheet of tiles which supported cloister and tower / field granary scoring. A large number of meeples were in play for most of the game.

11. The usual obsessive meeple and tile counting took additional time after the game ended but I did this on my own afterwards as I am able to leave everything on the playing surface and tidy up later (no little kids to mess it up)

12. With luck this should lead to many more games and perhaps eventually playing with larger decks.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1868.0

[Rosco]

When I was initially reading this I was thinking 'not sure I like that idea'. However I downloaded the links anyway and looked at the deck and the rule sheet and actually I really like it.  It will be great for my wife as she likes the game but hates how long it can take.  I think I will do this too, not quite in the same way but similar.  I will just get the tiles and tokens put to one side in their own little tuck box.

I started asimilar rule sheet a while back but never finished it - you have now motivated me to complete it

[loki]

Thanks.  I had to reduce the quality of the examples considerably to fit the forum limit.   

[Hounk]

I wonder, that you use from B,C&B just the bridges, which I think are the hardest accessible feature, not rather the castles. But that's maybe, because you don't want to waste to many CFFF on "football cities", when playing with this set, so it is more likely to finish big cities, too. I would however suggest adding a few Besieger tiles, especially since you use both cathedrals. Fliers could be also fun, increasing the numbers of plain road tiles a little bit, but still adding an option to claim other features with them.

[loki]

I wonder, that you use from B,C&B just the bridges, which I think are the hardest accessible feature, not rather the castles.

If you are trying to encourage new players then saying to them “congratulations you have just completed a large city with many pennants, and a cathedral to boost your points score, but because I have this tiny 2 tile city with a castle token on it just beside your big city then I will also score a whopping 30 points” well that would kind of take the shine off of things.