1 vs. 1 - Base game only

[Scott]

A friend of mine invited me over to play some games this afternoon. He mentioned that he had recently acquired a game where you build cities and roads. Sure enough, it was Carcassonne. He has a Rio Grande edition from one of the final production runs, so no river tiles but at least the rules are 3rd edition so I didn't have to teach him anything.

I put down farmers on my first two turns, which surprised him. His experience has been that farms are not worth much. I think this is partly due to the lack of river expansion. He eventually put down a farmer as well, and joined his farm to mine. I managed to connect my two farms together and retake the majority, but towards the end of the game he managed to get another farmer down, making us tied. I quickly put down another farmer and managed to connect it with the final tile of the game. The farm ended up only being worth 18 points because we had only completed 6 cities. I had an unfinished cloister worth 7 points. I had only drawn 2 or 3 cloisters - he drew the rest and finished all except one which was never occupied because he didn't have a follower to place. I spent most of the game working on two long roads and two large cities, one of which wasn't completed. He did a lot of smaller cities and shorter roads. I forget the exact scores, but he was somewhere in the 100-150 range and I was in the 50-100 range.

Although I find 3+ player games to be more enjoyable, it was very nice to play Carcassonne again after so many years. I like planning how I want the landscape to be, and managing to pick up the right tiles to make it happen even though I picked up a lot of tiles I didn't really want. The only real disappointment was when I created the perfect "hole" for a cloister, and when he drew the last one, he didn't see the hole was there and put it down somewhere else.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=244.0

[kettlefish]

When I play the basic game for introducing new player in Carcassonne I always loose the game.

[BT]

Most of my games are 1 - 1. It's quite rare that I get to play a 3 or 4 player game. Since buying lots of the expansions, my Dad and I very rarely play just the base game, but if we do we always play with the river (actually, we usually play with both rivers). It would be interesting to see how different we would play against each other.

And kettlefish, it's good to know that I'm not alone in losing to brand new players

[Big Guy]

Majority of my games have been 1 - 1 as well. I'm a huge fan of how interactive 1 - 1 is.

And I always found the most frustration/reward out of making a plan, needing more and more specific tiles to follow through with that plan, and then either getting those perfect 3 or 4 side tiles that complete my feature, or watching as my opponent's score climbs higher and higher while I sadly play tiles that DONT support my faltering plan. That's always been the best part for me.

And in a game like that, anyone can win, and there's something to be said for a game that combines strategy with luck just right so that a newbie can best one of us :c).