How to play Carcassonne

Contents

• 72 Land tiles: they indicate different road segments, crossings, city segments,
cloisters, and fields.
• 40 followers in 5 colors:
Each follower can be used as a knight, thief, farmer, or monk.
One of each player's followers is the player's scoring marker.

Overview

The players place land tiles turn by turn. As they do so, the roads, cities, fields, and cloisters emerge and grow. On  these, the players can deploy their followers to earn points. Players score points during the game and at the end.
The player with the most points after the final scoring is the winner.

Preparation

All land segments on this board are scored normally when part of a feature that is scored.
Shuffle the land tiles face down and stack them in several face-down stacks so that all players have easy access to them.
Place the scoring track near one edge of the table to leave room for the players to place land tiles in the middle of the table. Each player takes the 8 followers in his color and places one as his scoring marker in the large space at the lower left of the scoring track. Each player places his remaining 7 followers before him on the table as his supply. The players decide among themselves who will be the starting player, using any method they choose. 

Playing the game

Players take turns in clockwise order. On a player's turn, he executes the following actions in the order shown:
1a) The player must draw a new land tile.
†When a wheel of fortune tile is drawn, the player executes the appropriate action (see page 5).†
1b) The player must place the land tile he drew.
2. The player may deploy one of his followers from his supply to the land tile he just placed.
3. If, by placing the land tile, cloisters, roads, and/or cities are completed, they are now scored.
The player’s turn is over and the next player, in clockwise order, takes his turn in the same manner.
1. Drawing and Placing land tiles
First a player must draw a land tile from one of the face-down stacks. He looks at it, shows it to his fellow players (so
they can advise him on the "best" placement of the tile), and places it on the table, using the following rules:
•The new tile (with red borders in the examples) must be placed with at least one edge abutting one previously
placed tile. The new tile may not simply be placed corner to corner with a previous tile.
•The new tile must be placed so that all field, city, and road segments on the new tile continue to field, city, and
road segments on all abutting tiles (cloisters are always complete within single tiles).
An exciting tile-laying game for 2 to 5 players aged 8 and up from Klaus-Jürgen Wrede
The rules for this Carcassonne game are to a large extent identical to those of the original game.
In order to speed experience players through these rules,
†the changed and added rules have red backgrounds.†
city segment
field
segments
crossings
cloister
road
segments

In the rare circumstance where a drawn tile has no legal placement (and all players agree), the player discards the tile from the game (into the box) and draws another tile to place.
 

Deploying followers 

After the player places a land tile, he may deploy one of his followers,
using the following rules:
•The player may only play 1 follower on a turn. •The player must take it from his supply.
•The player may only deploy it to the tile he just placed.
•The player must choose where to deploy the follower on the tile, either as a:
•The player may not deploy a follower on a field, city, or road segment if that segment connects to a segment on
another tile (no matter how far away) that already has a follower (from any player, including himself) on it.
See the following examples:
If the player does not place a follower on a land tile in his turn, he may place a follower (if he has
one in his supply) on any empty crown space on the wheel of fortune (see right).
There can be only one follower on each crown space.
When a player has deployed all his followers, he continues to play land tiles each turn. Although a follower may not
be recalled, followers are returned to players when cloisters, roads, and cities are scored.
The player’s turn is over and the next player in clockwise order takes his turn, and so one. Remember: if, through
the placement of the tile, cities, roads, and/or cloisters are completed, these are scored before moving on.
3. Scoring completed cloisters, roads, and cities.
 

A COMPLETED ROAD

A road is complete when the road segments on both ends connect to a crossing, a city segment,
or a cloister, or when the road forms a complete loop. There may be many road segments
between the ends.
The player who has a thief on a completed road scores one point for each tile in the completed road (count the number of tiles; separate segments on a tile count just once).
The player moves his scoring marker forward on the scoring track a number of spaces equal to the points earned. If you pass 50 on the scoring track, lay your marker down to indicate a score greater than 50 and continue along the track.
road and field segments
are continued
Blue can only deploy a farmer as there is already
a knight in a connected city segment
Red earns
3 points.
Red earns 4 points.
on one edge the city segment is
continued and on the other edge
the field segment is continued
city segment is continued
This is an invalid placement thief knight farmer in a city segment monk on a road segment in a field segment in a cloister lay farms on their sides!
Blue can deploy his follower as a knight or a thief, but only as a farmer in the small field where the red arrow points. In the larger field area, there is already a farmer on a connected field segment.
or or or here or here 

A COMPLETED CITY 

A city is complete when the city is completely surrounded by a city wall and there are no gaps
in the wall. A city may have many city segments.
The player who has a knight in a completed city scores two points for each tile in the city
(count the tiles, not the segments). Each pennant on segments in the city earns the
player 2 points.
What if a completed city or road has more than one follower? It is possible through clever placement of land tiles for there to be more than one thief on a road or more than one knight in a city.
The player with the most thieves or knights scores all the points.
In a tie, each tied player scores all the points.

A COMPLETED CLOISTER

A cloister is complete when the tile it is on is completely surrounded by land tiles. The player with a monk in the cloister earns 9 points (1 for the cloister tile and 1 each for the other tiles).

RETURNING SCORED FOLLOWERS TO THE PLAYERS’ SUPPLIES

After a road, a city, or a cloister is scored (and only then), the followers involved are returned to the appropriate players' supplies. The returned followers may be used by the players as any of the possible followers (thief, farmer, knight, or monk) in later turns.

THE FARMS

Connected field segments are called farms. Farms are not scored. They exist only as places to deploy farmers. Farmers are only scored in the final scoring. Farmers remain in the field segment where they are deployed for the entire game and are never returned to the players’ supplies! To emphasize this, place the farmer on its side on the field segment. Farms are bordered by roads, cities, and the edge of the area where the land tiles have been played.
(Important for final scoring!)

Game end

At the end of the player's turn during which the last land tile is placed, the game ends. Then follows the final scoring.

Final scoring

SCORING OF INCOMPLETED ROADS, CITIES, AND CLOISTERS
For each incomplete road and city, the player, who has a thief on the road or knight in the city, earns one point for each road or city segment. Pennants are worth 1 point each. For incomplete roads and
cities with more than one follower, use the rules for completed roads and cities to determine who scores. For an incomplete cloister, the player with the monk on the cloister earns 1 point for the cloister and
1 point for each land tile surrounding it.

FARMER SCORING (for supplying the completed cities) Only completed cities are used for scoring farmers.
•The farmer must be in a farm that borders a city to supply it. The distance of the farmer to the city is unimportant.
•For each city a farm supplies, the player who deployed the most farmer(s) in the farm earns 3 points, regardless of the size of the city. If players tie with the most farmers, each scores 3 points.
•A farm can supply (score) several cities if they border the farm.
•Several farms can supply a single city. In such a case, each farm is scored separately, as descibed above.