ae Carcassone

History (Timeline) of the Carcassonne Game

Carcassonne is a tile-based German-style board game for two to five players, designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published in 2000 by Hans im Glück in German. Depending on where you look on line, the first English versions of the game were published in either 2007 or 2008.

As the various expansions to the first edition of Carcassonne (C1) were created from 2000 through 2014, the artwork and details on the tiles continued to improve. Then, starting in 2014, the second edition of Carcassonne (C2) began its printing with higher quality artwork on all of the tiles.

  C1     C2    Expansions What each expansion does
20002014 Initial Board Game was created Initial Tiles with City, Road, and Field edges.
20012014 The River Alternate set of start tiles.
2014 The Abbot A meeple that can only be placed onto a Garden or Monastery
2014 The Farmer Meeples can now be placed on fields with special end of game scoring.
20022015 Exp 1: Inns and Catherrals Inns change roads from 1 to 2 points per tile, Cathedrals change cities from 2 to 3 points per tile; both are zero at end of game!
    Large Meeple   Counts as 2 meeple on a feature.
20032015 Exp 2: Traders and Builders Whoever closes a city gets the trader tokens while the owner gets the points, and the builder meeple can get you second turns.
    Pigs   Increases the value of a farmer's field.
    Builders   Gives you the ability for a second turn.
20052016 Exp 3: The Princess and the Dragon    The Princess can send one knight home, and the Dragon eats meeples unless they are protected by the Fairy
20052014 The River II Alternate River with a fork.
20062016 Exp 4: The Tower Build a tower high enough so you can see and capture a meeples.
20032015 Exp 5: Abbey and Mayor The Abbey tile can fill any four sided hole.
    Mayors   The Mayor meeple grows in value with every coat of arms.
    Wagons   After a feature is scored, the Wagon meeple can move to an adjacent unclaimed feature.
    Barns   The Barn is a Farmer that can't be outnumbered.
2016 Saint Nicholas Scoring Board Adds two extra turns to every game.
20082017 Exp 6: Count, King & Robber The original source for River II tiles.
2008 Exp 7: The Catapult This expansion is no linger part of the game.
20092017 The Water Wells Place Wells next to road to increase their value.
20102017 Exp 8: Bridges, Castles & Bazaars Change the edges of another tile, alternate scoring for two tile cities, and hold an aution for everyone's next tile.
20102017 Crop Circles Ability to add or remove meeples from the board.
20112016 The Festival Another way to remove a meeple from the board.
2011 The Phantom Transparent meeple that grabs a second tile feature.
20122017 The Flying Machines Flying machines on road and field tiles.
20122017 The Messengers An extra meeple on the scoreboard that lets you perform a message function.
20122017 The Ferries Wooden blocks that let you connect roads across lakes.
20122017 The Gold Mines Gold ingots are placed on tile, captured when features are completed, then scored at the end of the game.
20122017 Mage & Witch Two extra figures on the map. The Mage adds an extra point per tile while the Witch cuts your score in half.
20122017 The Robbers Another meeple on the scoreboard that steals points.
20132022 The Besiegers Atack the city wall and reduce its value from 2 points per tile to 1.
20142018 Exp 9: Hills & Sheep
20142020 Halflings Three sided tiles that only have to match two tile edges.
20152023 City Gates Expands the CRF tile edges to include City Gate edges.
2017 Exp 10: The Big Top The players who attend the circus score points each time the circus moves around the board. You can also score points for being a circus acrobat.
    Ringmaster The Ringmaster is a normal meeple who also scores points for being next to circus features.
2021 20th Anniversary Exp Add a meeple next to any existing meeple on the board. Claim any unoccupied incomplete feature. Take an extra turn.
2021 The Gifts Receive a future gift for helping another player: Add to Monastery, Road Sweeper, Cash Out, Change Position, Take 2.
2022 Flying Machines II Flying machines on city tiles.
2022 Ghosts, Castles & Cemeteries

The Rules for the Game of Carcassonne were and still are in constant flux. There was no way for the 2002 Rules for Inns and Cathedrals to include the current expansion rule “The ransom for a captured large meeple is the same as for any other meeple” because The Tower expansion that could capture and ransom your large meeple was not created until 2006.

The answer to this problem was to create the ever changing “Carcassonne Standard Complete Annotated Rules” PDF files. The last S-CAR v7.4, 339 page PDF file, was created on May 22, 2015.

Since that time, the task of carrying on the “Official English Rules” has been managed on-line by WikiCarPedia. Unlike many of the other on-line Wiki pages, the general public cannot change a page at will. There are only 9 individuals who control all of the changes to the English WikiCarPedia pages. They monitor the various on-line forums (Carcassonne Central, BBG, etc.), then meet as an on-line group to determine if a rule needs to be changed, or if a footnote has to be added to a rule. Then, each page keeps a history of changes so you can see who did what and when!

For example, the printed rules that were packaged by Z-Man Games with their latest production of The Tower expansion included an additional restriction by mistake:
“After placing a tile with a tower foundation, you may perform one of the four following actions:[...]"
The original rules by HiG*Caracassonne was designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Hans im Glück (HIG), the German board game and card game publisher, in 2000. do not mention that these actions require a tile with a tower foundation.
SO, a footnote was added to the WikiCarPedia page and ZMG has published an on-line PDF of the rules with the corrected language.

Another example was the misprint that the Dragon moved in step 1B, before the Dragon Tile was even placed on the board. There was a lot of chatter on both Carcassonne Central and BGG about this misprint, and CAR has decided to define the printed rules as a misprint.

The official 2B movement gives full control of the Dragon to the player who draws the Dragon tile. They can: Place the tile, Move the Fairy to protect their meeple, score a feature, and then make the first move of the Dragon.

The 1B movement makes the Dragon's movement completely random. It moves between the turns of two random players. The only advantage for the player who draws the Dragon Tile is that they get to make the first move of the Dragon. They cannot move the Fairy, which makes the Fairy movement during the game more strategical.

One of the best features of Carcassonne is that each group of players can choose and/or make up whatever rules they want to play by!
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