Carcassonne: question on how to score farmers

[iamthewalrus_3]

@MaxTheVool

On another Carcassonne topic, my friends and I quickly became disenchanted with the randomness of the pick-one-tile-and-play it gameplay, but didn’t want to go to some really complex bidding or hand-having system, which would have been too complicatd. So we came up with what has been a VERY successful compromise: on a player’s turn, she flips over n+1 tiles, where n is the number of players. That player then chooses and plays one of those tiles, the next player plays one of them, the next plays one, etc., until all n+1 are exhausted. Then the next player flips over n+1 tiles, and so forth. This adds quite a bit of strategy, as you have some information about what tiles are available, without removing a healthy element of luck and excitement. Also, this rules makes finishing large cities much more likely, as you’re far more likely to have dependable access to the type of tile you need.

That’s a great variant. I’ll have to try that with my group.

One that we’ve been pretty happy with for playing a shorter game (we play with several expansions, so a full game can be long) is to play to a set point limit. As soon as somebody reaches x points, the game ends and you count up all the points on the board. It makes for interesting games because it changes the relative worth of points on the board and points on the scorecard.