Carcassonne Variants

By Kevin Graham

www.PortlandGamers.com

TRADING POSTS

Each player gets 2 Trading Posts. You can use just about anything for a Trading Post as long as they match each player’s
color. I use the huts from Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers.

Instead of placing a meeple on your turn, you can place a Trading Post. It must be placed on a city that you already have a
meeple on. You may place a Trading Post on a city
occupied by another player as long as you have at
least one meeple on that city too. However, you
cannot place a trading post on a city that already has
a trading post on it (yours or your opponents).

Once the city is closed, you can take your meeples
back like normal, but you must leave the trading post
where it is. At the end of the game you will receive 5
points for every closed city that your trading post is
connected to via roads.

Intersections in roads have no affect on the
connectivity of a trading post. A road between two
cities with an intersection is still considered a valid
connection.

In the example on the right, Blue scores 10 points (5
points per connected city) since the city with his
trading post is connected to 2 other cities via roads.
Red scores 5 points since it is only connected to 1
city.

THIEVES GUILDS

Each player gets 2 Thieves Guilds. The Thieves Guild must be placed on a road that you already have a meeple on. However,
it cannot be placed on the same turn that you placed the meeple on it. You may place a Thieves Guild on a road occupied by
another player as long as you have at least one meeple on that road too.

When a city that your Thieves Guild connects to via roads is closed,
you receive double the shield points for the city and the resource chits
(Traders & Builders Expansion) for the city. The owner of the city
gets no points for the shields and the person that played the tile that
closed it doesn’t get any resource chits .

If two or more people have thieves guilds connected to the city, they
both the shield points, but they don’t get any resource chits. The
player that closed the city gets the resource chits.

Once the road with the Thieves Guild on it is closed, the Thieves
Guild stays on the board and is not returned to your stock. You will
never get it back, so use it wisely!

You can use just about anything for a Thieves Guild, but they will
need to match each player’s color. The little wooden cubes that come
with most German games work well. If you don’t have any, you can
buy them from

http://www.woodnshop.com/CRAFT_BARPINS_BLOCKS_BOOKS_B
OWLS.htm

(Stock# 301781) and spray paint them to match each

players color.

CASTLES
Each player gets 2 castles. You can place a castle on any farm. It doesn’t matter if there are any other pieces are
on it. Once your castle has been placed, you want to try to place meeples on farmland nearby that you can later
connect to the farmland with the castle on it, similar to the way you would try to take over an opponent’s farm.
Each time you connect a meeple to the farmland with your
castle, you get 8 points. When you connect the meeple, you
also have the option of leaving him on the farm as a normal
farmer, or you can take him back into your supply. However,
you can only take him back into your supply on the turn that
you connect him to the castle. If you choose to leave him
there on that turn, he is stuck there on the farm for the rest of
the game as a normal farmer. The castle stays on the farm for
the rest of the game, so place it wisely.

If you end up connecting two of your castles together on the
same farm, you still only get the 8 points when a farmer
connects.

In the example on the right, red placed one of his castles on an
earlier turn. Then, on another turn, he placed his meeple on a
nearby farm. Now, he has a road tile that will connect the two
together. Since his farmer is now connected to his castle, he
receives 8 points and, if he wants, can take his meeple back
into his stock.

You can use just about anything for the castle, but they will need to match each player’s color. The huts from
Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers work well if you are not using them for another variant. I use pewter castles I
got off of E-bay. I glued them to little wooden discs that I painted to match each players color.

TAX COLLECTOR
Each player gets one tax collector. You can only play a tax collector on an unoccupied city. If later in the game
you can connect the city tile with your tax collector on it to a city with an
opponent’s meeple on it, you subtract 3 points from their score, and
add 3 points it to your score. The tax collector does not count as a
meeple when counting who has the most meeples on a city. The tax
collector is returned to your stock when the city is closed. The tax
collector can be assassinated if you are using the Assassins variant.

In the example on the right, Red placed his tax collector on an earlier
turn. Now, he is connecting the tile with his tax collector on it to a city
with Green’s meeple on it. 3 points are subtracted from Greens score,
and 3 points are added to Red’s score.

The create the tax collectors, I used a gold pen to draw a medallion
around the necks of one meeple of each color. I use the meeples from
a second set of Carcassonne I bought just for creating variants. A
cheap alternative is to just give everyone a penny. When you place the
tax collector, just use a normal meeple and place the penny under it.

PENALTY FOR UNFINISHED THINGS
You get -1 point for every tile of your unfinished cities, roads, or cloisters.

ASSASSINS
Each player gets 2 assassins. Assassins can only be played on
unoccupied cities, roads or farms. If you can connect both of your
assassins to a city or road with an opponent’s meeple on it, you kill
their meeple, removing it from the game completely. If they have
more than one meeple on the city/road, you only kill one of them
(your choice). Once your assassins have killed a meeple, they are
removed from the game.

Assassins

•

Can’t kill the builder (Traders and Builders expansion).

•

Can’t kill other Assassins.

•

Can kill the Tax Collector (Tax Collector variant).

The create the Assassins, I used a black marker to color the heads
of some meeples. I used the meeples from a second set of
Carc assonne I bought just for creating variant game pieces.

INVADING CITIES
Once the city is closed, instead of taking your meeples back like normal, you can choose to leave some or all of
them on the city. Then on a later turn, if you connect the city you left meeples on to another unclosed city via
roads, you can invade that city regardless of whether it’s already occupied. To invade it, simply move the meeples
from the city you left them on to the city you want to invade.

If you decide that the meeples that you left
on a city could be put to better use
elsewhere, during any of your turns you
can choose to take them back into your
supply. However, they will not be
available until your next turn.

In the example on the right, the blue
player left 1 meeples on a city after closing
it. Since blues city is connected to green’s
city by roads, blue can invade green’s city
by moving his meeple into green’s city.
Blue cannot invade yellow’s city since the
road is cut off by green’s city.

MOBILE KNIGHTS
This variant works similar to the Invading Cities variant, but the city does not have to be closed before you can
more your Knights. Knights can be moved from city to city via roads. They move from one city to the next. They
do not stop on every tile along the way. They can only move one city per turn. Knights can be moved into
connected cities regardless of whether they are already occupied. Once they are in a city that is scored, they are
returned to the players supply.

“If you have to remove the knights as soon as a city is scored, why would I want to abandon one city for another?”

•

The city you are moving to is larger than the one you are currently on.

•

The city you are currently on cannot be closed.

SHEPHERDS
Some of the farm tiles have sheep on them. You need good eyes to use this variant, because the
sheep are very small. When you place a meeple on a farm, you can choose to make him a normal
farmer by laying him flat, or you can make him a shepherd by placing him upside down. At the end of
the game each shepherd scores 2 point for every sheep on the farmland, instead of scoring for cities
like a normal farmer.

BRIBES
Other players can offer to pay you victory points if you will place your tile where they want it. Simply move your
score marker up the amount they offered you and move their back that many. This is a great way to add some
player interaction to the game. I can’t remember if I though of this variant, or if I saw it somewhere else.

DRAGON
This variant was inspired by the Ark of the Covenant version of Carcassonne. It works the
same as the Ark, but you subtract points instead of adding them. Here is how it works.
When the first city is closed, the player that closed it places the dragon on any tile of the city.
From then on, any player may choose to move the dragon up to 5 spaces (tiles) instead of
placing a meeple. If the dragon passes over or stops on a tile with a player’s meeple on it,
that player loses a point. The dragon cannot move over the same tile more than once in a
turn. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people already came up with this variant.

CITADELS

Each player gets two citadels. Your Citadel must be
place on a farm. It doesn’t matter if it’s controlled by
another player. If you can completely surround the
farm that your citadel is in with roads and/or castles,
you can take one meeple off of every city or road
(not farm) that the farm borders. You must take this
action immediately upon surrounding the farm. The

citadel is permanently removed from the game after the farm is
closed. In order to take this action, you must be the one to place
the tile that closes the farm. If another player closes the farm
with your citadel, your citadel is removed from the game with no
effect!

In the example on the right, Red placed a Citadel on a previous
turn. He now places the tile on the top left. Since the farm is
now completely surrounded by roads and cities, Red can remove
both the green and blue meeples, since they both border the
farm with the citadel.

I’m not sure how well this variant would work because I haven’t played with it yet, but I figured I would throw it in
here anyway.

To create the citadels, you can get little wooden lighthouses from

http://www.woodnshop.com/CRAFT_BARPINS_BLOCKS_BOOKS_BOWLS.htm

(Stock#

123318

). Then, just

spray paint them to match each player’s color.

If you have any questions or comments about these variants, you can contact me at

[e-mail]

.

If you are from the Portland Oregon area, be sure to check out

www.PortlandGamers.com