Carcassonne more strategy

Before I start analizing this second board game of Carcassonne, let me describe the setup. Instead of playing heads-up with my brother like in Carcassone strategy game 1, we are now playing with the entire family. So six player playing Carcassonne with the expansion “Inns and Cathedrals”. My sample of game is still very low, so I’m still a green player (so are my meeples this time) and I don’t really have a good strategy.

What I’ve learn from the first game was to take care of farms to make sure someone else will not control everything. Try not to build to big in late stages of the game. So from there, here’s how my second game of Carcassonne went.

Carcassonne strategy in game #2

Right from the start of the game I put one meeple has a farmer on the game board. I don’t want to repeat my mistake from the previous game. Now I need to wait my turn to come and watch Carcassonne building up in ways that I don’t really like. Other players are trying to put some farmer here and there on pieces of land that don’t connect yet. Trouble is at the horizon, everybody seems to want a little control there.

(Carcassonne player rushing to put farmer)

Finally it’s my turn and like the other Carcassonne players I want to increase my presence in the fields, so I took my big green meeple and put it down on a tile that is not yet connected to the rest of what I call “the main battlefield” (see picture above). Turns are passing by and I still don’t have a direct connection to the rest of the world. In fact, I need to get one of those tile with a cloister and a single road to it. You probably guessed right that I didn’t get this tile, that someone else did and he didn’t put it where I was planning to!

Carcassonne map (waiting for cloister tile)

I’m currently without my big Carcassonne meeple and there’s absolutely no way to get it back. If I count the number of meeple controlling the big battlefield, I can already figure out that I will not score points with my farmer. I have one meeple on a cloister that will not be completed before the end of the game. I have my big one and two other meeple in the field trying to farm for nothing, so all I have left is a few Carcassonne pawns to help me score on building city and roads. I didn’t really pay attention to cities since I was trying to save some resources to farm, so no big points there. I made a couple of points after the construction of a road (without an inn).

The game is over, I finished in last position. My two brothers and I tried the same strategy. We all went for the farms and ended up splitting almost all the points. My sister-in-law got stuck building large cities (another player strategically put a cathedral in two of her city, hehe) and my father tried a mix of road and city leading him to second place. The big winner was my mother. From beginning to end, she focused on roads and cloister. She scored double points for finished road and plenty more for uncompleted ones.

My other post on Carcassonne

Carcassonne strategy
My first game of this great board game, heads up with my brother. Find out what strategy came out of this game

Carcassonne round-up
Post containing a summary of all my Carcassonne strategy.