There are ten Carcassonne expansions that throw in new tiles, meeples, and rules to earn points in different ways. As there’s so much choice, you’ll want to know which ones are the best to get first. Let’s rank all the Carcassonne expansions.
In the many years of Carcassonne’s reign, there have been many expansions and mini-expansions. However, I’ll only be ranking the expansions currently commercially available from their publisher, Z-Man Games. You may find plenty of other mini-expansions being sold second-hand, but I’ll be ignoring the discontinued additions.
Table of contents
The Count, King, and Robber
The Count, King, and Robber Carcassonne expansion is a bloated box full of new great features. I believe that this is an integral expansion that’ll make its way into every future game, making this less of an expansion but a cornerstone.
You are given two ways to start a game of Carcassonne: starting with a winding river that establishes a divide and opportunity in the land to build from or a huge 3×4 starting city. If your meeples are part of a finished feature where you didn’t score, they’ll get sent to a district of the city to be used in a crafty scoring system. However, the patrolling Count will make moving in and out of the city tricky.
Such fundamental features are why the Count, King, and Robber is so highly rated, but that’s not all. You will gain points from the King and Robber should you complete the largest city or road, and the presence of Cultists allows players to complete shrines for points and point denial competitively. It’s a huge expansion that’s a must-have.
Abbey and Mayor
The Abbey and Mayor expansion for Carcassonne is one that benefits every game I play of it thanks to the fantastic tiles and new meeples that can be placed.
The titular abbeys are strange tiles that can be placed adjacent to anything, which is perfect for plugging gaps and closing off features. Mayors are rather large meeples that take their strength from the valuable coats-of-arms on certain cities, meaning they can brute-force their way into dominating a city entirely on their own.
Abbey and Mayor also comes with wagons that can scoot off to another unfinished feature after you score for it and barns that boost the scoring of fields. With more versatility and a way to make scoring for cities and fields easier, this Carcassonne expansion may accompany every future game you play.
Inns and Cathedrals
Inns and Cathedrals is the first expansion for Carcassonne, and it adds a couple of inclusions that make it feel right at home. Respectively, the new Inns and Cathedrals are found in cities and roads and provide you double the points for those structures should you complete them. However, they make the feature worthless should it not be completed by the end of the game.
This leads to interesting dynamics where it can be valuable to build onto an opponent’s unfinished structure to prevent them from scoring big. Also, the new giant meeples are worth two meeples, allowing you to dominate features. The Abbot meeple also can be pulled back early on Monastery tiles to score early, meaning your regular meeples won’t get caught up.
Alongside the new tiles and meeples, the Inns and Cathedrals expansion adds compatibility for a sixth player and point tokens to keep track of scores better. Most Carcassonne players will have this expansion thanks to the simple and easy-to-implement additions.
The Tower
The Tower Carcassonne expansion adds some excellent conflict and player interaction with an insidious tower that grows larger and more powerful as players build upon it.
As players grow and control the towers on their turns, they’ll get to capture another player’s meeple in a range proportional to the size of the tower. To free an imprisoned meeple, a player must either spend three victory points or perform a prisoner exchange.
This expansion adds literally a new dimension to Carcassonne, as players will bargain with each other and engage in the gambit of expanding or claiming a tower. The Tower also comes with an accessory that makes it easier to store land tiles, just to sweeten the deal.
The Princess and the Dragon
The Princess and the Dragon expansion for Carcassonne turns the game into a fantastical story that fundamentally changes how players approach the game. Although it adds plenty of new mechanics and flavor, it’s one of those expansions that seems rather removed from the others, and some may not enjoy the direction it takes the game in. However, it’s incredibly fun, should it be for you.
Many new tiles get thrown into the mix alongside the Dragon, Princess, and Fairy. If the Dragon should get summoned via a volcano tile, then it’ll begin a rampage as it consumes any followers in its path. However, players can summon Fairies to protect their followers from its wrath. The Princess can be used to remove any meeple from a feature she’s a part of.
All of these features combined, including the other smaller rules, ultimately allow you to disrupt your opponents in new and exciting ways. However, other players will be using the same Dragon to try and eat up your own meeples, so be careful!
Under the Big Top
Under the Big Top adds the circus to Carcassonne, which in turn adds another way of earning a huge amount of points. Adding the Ringmaster, animal tokens, and ringmaster meeples, you’ll find exciting and interesting ways to score points.
Should a circus tile be played, the big top is placed on it and every player will want an excuse to place a meeple on an adjacent tile. If another circus tile is played, the big top will move, and players with adjacent meeples will score points based on the randomly selected value of the circus. Acrobat tiles allow players to repurpose their meeples and form literal pyramids for bonus points around a circus.
Finally, the ringmaster meeples in Under the Big Top score players’ bonus points should they be connected to any circus-related tiles but are otherwise normal workers. The traveling aspect of the big top creates a fun and dynamic feature that players will keep trying to flock to so they can win big. The rush and excitement of this Carcassonne expansion make it a pretty viable contender in this list.
Traders and Builders
Traders and Builders is a lighter yet easily fundamental expansion that adds builders, pigs, and goods (as well as a lovely linen bag) thanks to it being so simple. Any game can be complemented by Traders and Builders with only a couple sentences of explanation.
The chef-shaped builders are regular meeples; however, if you expand a feature they’re occupying, then you get to go again. Additionally, the pigs will boost the score of a farm they’re present in. They’re simple additions that add some flavor to Carcassonne.
Also, cities will have goods that a player will scoop up should they complete the feature, and a player who owns the most of a particular good will score extra points, meaning it may be worthwhile to complete another player’s feature to deny them goods and net more points in the end-game.
Hills and Sheep
Hills and Sheep is a smaller expansion but complements the base game and adds new mechanics. With the shepherds and sheep adding a luck-based point system and hills and vineyards improving your odds of scoring higher for base-game systems, Hill and Sheep is a lightweight yet fun addition.
The hills are essentially over-glorified tie-breakers with a view, and the vineyards provide bonus points for monasteries if you complete one. These two additions are minor and less impactful but still add variety.
The true excitement comes with the sheep system. Upon placing a field, you can place a shepherd and draw a sheep tile from the bag at random. On future turns, you can pull from the bag to grow your flock before bringing them into the stable for points. However, if you draw a wolf token, your flock will scatter, wasting your efforts.
Bridges, Castles, and Bazaars
Bridges, Castles, and Bazaars adds rather unique additions to Carcassonne, but they do fall a little flat compared to other expansions. They’re either easy to counter or simply aren’t too interesting in practice, although they do add a little wrinkle if you’re after something new.
Bridges are large wooden tokens that can be played to connect roads to make them more valuable. It’s just that they’re rather obtrusive and solve a particular problem that, most of the time, isn’t really a problem. The castles can be built in cities to score more points and allow you to get extra points from the next adjacent feature to be completed. However, savvy players can thwart your bonus by completing minuscule features, making the castle more of an inconvenience to all.
The Bazaars are interesting, as they open up auctions where players can spend victory points for tiles to meticulously plan their features. This is interesting and maybe even exciting in concept, but it hasn’t gelled well with every playgroup. Bridges, Castles, and Bazaars may fail to provide explosive new Carcassonne content, but it’s a mostly harmless expansion nonetheless.
The Festival
The Festival is a mini-expansion for Carcassonne that was made to celebrate its 10th anniversary and adds a handful of new festival tiles with a new symbol.
These tiles aren’t anything too interesting; however, if you place one, you have the option of either placing a meeple normally or withdrawing another meeple from another tile. This rare flexibility is merely a cherry on top of a regular game, hence why it’s ranked so low.
There have been other mini-expansions available in the past, but only The Festival is commercially available for the most recent Carcassonne edition.
Now that you know of all these incredible Carcassonne expansions, you can improve your medieval landscape with dozens of new tiles, meeples, and rules.
Published: Sep 8, 2024 10:17 am