Image Courtesy of SuryaThis review continues my series of detailed reviews. I have tried to cover every aspect of the game and as such you may prefer to skip to the sections of most interest.
Summary
Game Type – Euro Game
Play Time: 30-50 min
Number of Players: 2-6
Mechanics – Tile Placement, Area Control & Influence
Difficulty – Pick-up & Play (Can be learned in under 20 minutes and takes only 1-2 plays to fully grasp)
Components – Excellent
Release - 2002
Designer - <PERSON> - (Bali, All things Carcassonne, The Downfall of Pompeii, Mesopotamia)
Overview
This review continues my detailed analysis of the Carcassonne series of titles and is the first of the expansions that I have looked at.
I have no plans to cover the basic play and strategy of the base game here. If you would like to know more about Carcassonne, I suggest a quick read of this review –
Carcassonne - A Detailed Review
Inns Cathedrals was released 2 years after the original game. It comes in a nice smaller box format and it is regarded as one of the ‘better’ expansions for the franchise.
This expansion review will outline what new elements and strategy are generated when using Inns Cathedrals and how that changes the feel of the play.
Components
Tiles – Inns Cathedrals offers up an additional 18 tiles to add to the Carcassonne mix. Tile distribution images like the one below are really handy if you mix a series of expansions together and want to separate them out again.
Image Courtesy of Aldaron
More Meeple – Inns Cathedrals allows a 6th player to join the fun. They have to settle for grey Meeple though. Why so sad?
Image Courtesy of mpot
Scoring Aide – A set of 50/100 scoring tiles help player's to keep track of their score should they 'clock' the score track.
Image Courtesy of bluef0x
Large Followers – A key component to Inns Cathedrals are the new Large Followers that effectively give each player an 8th Meeple for placement on tiles.
Image Courtesy of Ironmaus
Rules – The rules are printed on a small double-sided sheet, which means you will be able to absorb the new additions and get into playing within 15-20 minutes.
Image Courtesy of EndersGame
All in all the components are up to the usual high standard of any Carcassonne title.
New Elements
Inns Cathedrals offers 3 new additions to change the play of the basic game. 581
It also offered a couple of little extras.
New Tiles –
Image Courtesy of fivecatsInns Cathedrals adds 18 new tiles to the Carcassonne mix to make for a total of 90 tiles in play per game.
The Inns – Six of the 18 new tiles feature an inn nestled on a lake. All of these features are located next to a road segment, but some of them have a piece of city as well.
If a road contains one or more Inns, it will increase the value of each tile in the road network from 1 point to 2 points, provided it is completed. If the road is not completed by the endgame, then the road is worthless and will not score.
The Cathedrals – A total of 2 Cathedrals are featured in the game and they are surrounded by city on all sides (so they can only connect to city).
If a City has one or more Cathedrals present, each tile will increase in value from 2 points to 3 points (as well as any Pennants) provided that the City is completed. If a City containing a Cathedral is not completed by the endgame, then the City is not scored at all.
Large Meeple – Each player is also given a Large Meeple, which brings their ‘in-game’ total to 8 Meeple. This guy is placed in the usual way as standard Meeple but he is worth 2 standard Meeple when calculating who controls a feature.
Unusual Tiles – Included in the tile mix are a series of unusual tiles (see Component Image above) such as one tile that features 4 ‘City Ends’ with a field in the middle. Another includes a Cloister with road at either side and a pointy piece of City that runs diagonally across the tile. I’ll outline the purpose of these later.
Additional Meeple – Inns and Cathedrals also offers a 6th set of grey Meeple to allow a 6th player to join the fun. These of course can be used with the base game without adding anything else from this expansion. 84