Carcassonne
Posted on Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 at 4:00 am under Games.Tags: carcassonne, german-board-games
German Board Games are the next big thing. You just watch. Our friends Scott & Amy introduced us to Settlers of Catan some years ago. Back then they were doing board game nights at their place. The first night we went they had multiple copies of Settlers set up around the house. We bought Settlers the next day, and we’ve added Puerto Rico, Dalmuti and Carcassonne to the list. Puerto Rico is our favorite game by far, not because I’m puertorican, the game could have been called Cuba and still be just as good.
Last night we introduced a friend to Carcassonne because it’s a gentle introduction to German games. It plays fast, it has simple rules and there’s an awful lot of luck involved. On the other hand, Puerto Rico and Settlers can seem daunting at first becuase they have lots of pieces, lots of rules and take a couple of hours to play. Keep in mind we play all games with our six year old daughter. How hard could they be.
A year ago these games were available on specialty gaming stores or on specialty websites. Not even Amazon was carrying them at the time. However today Toys R’ Us is carrying them, at least online. This means Amazon is carrying them as well. You see what I mean, it’s going to be big. All I need now is a cool board game coffee house nearby like the ones in Europe.
Buy from Amazon
Mar 2nd, 2006 at 9:11 am
steve picked up settlers the other night and we’ve played a couple of times now. we’ll introduce it to some friends this weekend on game night. thanks for telling us about it…now we jsut need to get the rest of them!
and hey…you guys move here and we’ll open that game cafe together!
Mar 2nd, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Intersting, I’ll have to check it out. One of my favorite games (though very rule-intensive), but VERY fun is killer bunnies. I don’t know if a six year old could pick it up — lots of reading on the cards.
Thought I’d share.
Mar 2nd, 2006 at 3:46 pm
deana,
how exiting? how do u guys like settlers? you are brave to try playing it without anyone there to guide u. i guess, that’s what rules are for.
Mar 2nd, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Yeah I think we are doing alright…still figuring out all of the little details…like we were counting the soldier cards as points…which aren’t really points…so no one has actually truly won yet. We are liking it though.
I have put the killer bunnies games on my amazon list along with the others you mentioned…plus about 10 others!!!! :o)
Mar 2nd, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Ahh, boardgaming! One of my favourite things in life is an evening with a good boardgame, a few good friends and a few bottles of wine.
For the uninitiated, check out http://www.boardgamegeek, which has all the info you’ll ever need on the HUGE range of amazing games out there. There’s a great game for every occasion and every type of player. Boardgaming is definitely taking off; I keep discovering that people are into games all the time - case in point, you, Melvin.
Current faves: the remake of ‘Fury of Dracula’, ‘Doom the Boardgame’, ‘Ticket to Ride’ and ‘Memoir ‘44′.
Mar 2nd, 2006 at 5:48 pm
We were just introduced to Carcassonne by some friends a couple of weeks ago and immediately bought it (and an expansion set) from Amazon/Toys R Us. Great game! You don’t have to pay as much attention to it as with Settlers, which is nice now that we have a 2 year old to attend to…
Have you played an 8 player Settlers game? There used to be better rules for it, but I haven’t found anything quite like our variation on google.
We take 2 full Settlers sets (minus most of the water from the 2nd set) and mix up the pieces so that when you lay out the board you have lakes and rivers. During gameplay, you can cross the rivers with a road + a sheep (for buoyancy, we’re guessing). Once you play this way, it’s hard to go back to a simple island! I’ll give you the details if you’re interested…
Mar 2nd, 2006 at 6:49 pm
ahhhh carcassonne… good times, good times!
Mar 10th, 2006 at 11:40 am
I guy I work with turned me on to . They are great and have been on the board game bandwagon for quite sometime. Especially good is that they maintain various lists and have all the games broken down by catagories. They also have a section on their site for the uninitiated. Check them out.
Mar 31st, 2006 at 8:31 am
Jeff,
I am interested in your 8 player Settlers of Catan set up. If you could give me detailed info about your map set up process and how you deal with stuff like number of development cards, that would be great. Please email me.
Thanks.
Apr 2nd, 2006 at 4:15 pm
jeff,
there’s a 5-6 expansion set u can buy. the way we played with a lot of people was to have multiple copies of settlers running several games.
Apr 10th, 2006 at 9:07 am
[...] Saturday night our friends Scott and Amy came for BBQ, Firepit, and a night of gaming. For the board game, we got to chose the game that first got us into german board games, The Settlers of Catan. Settlers is a famous game amongst gamers. I has won numerous awards including game of the year. It also has gained an expansion set for more players and variations of the game like Seafarers of Catan and a Catan travel edition. Settlers plays in about an hour, it simpler than Puerto Rico, more complex than Carcassonne and very, very addictive. [...]
Apr 17th, 2006 at 10:00 am
After reading this third post 9so far) about “German board games” and in this particular case you talk about the last one my girlfriend bought, I just have to leave a reply ;-)
In the Netherlands we have “999 Games” [999games.nl] that is releasing these games. “Carcassonne” is nice, but I’ve heard the version with the hunters / prehistoric-theme is one of the best so far. Have you ried it (yet)?
BTW I like your site / blog a lot, Melvin!