Carcassonne

In the Year of Our Lord 2007

Before it arrived on the Xbox 360 in 2007, Carcassonne was first created as a board game in the year of our Lord 2000. Interestingly enough the board game was named after a real fortified city that sits on a hill in the south of France and it shares the same name as the games.

All three have a commonality that says it’s the Middle Ages. The game is a digital version of the board game which is a turn based strategy game compromised of randomized tiles. The game has a set amount of 70 tiles that are distributed between players. Each player gets one piece per turn. Once the tiles are all used up the game ends and a winner is determined by a point system. The video game is more flexible at generating tiles that are completely random compared to the pre printed pieces of a board game. This makes the Xbox game more fun as the possibilities are endless.

The randomized tiles will generally compromise of either a road with land that has a bend, a straightaway, or an intersection. There is an assortment of sections that have fortified buildings with segments of land. Lastly there is a monastery surrounded my land or with an attached road. The larger the section of road you build, the more surrounding land connected to completed fortresses that become fields, or walled cities you build the more points you can generate.

To receive points you will need to a place set number figures (tiny people called Meeples) on any of these tiles in order to claim them for points. Points are awarded once you either clam shell a minimum of two fortified walls together. Once again the bigger the city fortress the more points you can generate. You can string along as many pieces of road that you want, but both ends will need to connect to an intersection or a city/monastery to generate points. A monastery will need to be completely surrounded by other tiles in order to generate up to nine points. All unfinished builds will also generate you points once the game comes to an end

The strategy part of the game comes in the placement of your figures and tile pieces. Here are some examples, your opponent is building a large fortress that is incomplete. You can place an adjacent fortress piece next to their fortress which if you are lucky will draw a piece that then lets you connect the two unfinished sections. Once the fortress is completed you have now negated their points as you now also receive the same points from the build. If you are crafty enough and can place two figures into joining pieces and then the opponent’s completed fortress only gives you points.

The same can happen with a road, your opponent has a road made up of four tiles. You place a road near theirs without connecting it and then when you get another road tile you connect it before they close the road off with an intersections. Once the road is completed you now negate their points by also getting the same points. There are lots of possibilities to generate points.

You can play with up to four other opponents at varying levels of difficulty. Beside the game AI you can also go into a Xbox Live match and play against other gamers. This small Xbox 360 Arcade titles has a lot to offer with tons of fun that can easily have you playing for hours before you know it.

Carcassonne Gameplay