XBLA Carcassonne

erilar · Post by **erilar** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 9:54 am

I played through the tutorial of the Xbox Live Arcade version of Carcassonne this morning. Very impressive - they really did a great job.

I really hope the sales of these titles are strong and that this trend of converting board games for XBLA continues - what a great way to apply technology to a low-tech hobby.

BTW, I heard that someone is working on a XBLA version of Talisman.

Post by **NukeHavoc** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:08 am

There have been several expansions for it, Rivers II and some sort of king/robber expansion (I'm not fluent in the myriad extras for Carcassone) so I think it's doing pretty well.

I've had some trouble finding larger multiplayer games online (3+ people) that I need to get the MP achievements, but I have as much fun playing the solo games against computers (and Jordan likes it because it has princesses).

erilar · Post by **erilar** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:01 am

I like the fact that local multiplayer is available for it too. Ones like Uno or Settlers wouldn't work, 'cause you would see each others' cards, but with Carcassonne it works.

Plus, I already have Hunters & Gatherers, so I'd probably have never gotten this original medieval version. But now I can, since it's very affordable, offers a new avenue for us to play, and makes it very hard to lose any pieces!

Seems like the mechanics are kinda different for this version too. For instance, once a feature is completed and scored, you can pick your villagers back up and put them in your pool. With H&G, I think your little dudes always stay on the table once placed, right? I forget...

Also on the board game subject, Mayfair recently announced that they are going to re-launch the tabletop Catan game (it's also Catan's 10th year in print). I've been wanting to get a copy for my house anyway, so I'm going to wait till Nov when this new version will be available. There's to be new art, and the box apparently contains some kind of tray that helps keep the bits organized. Plus, the box and tray are designed to accommodate the 5&6 player bits as well if one later purchases that expansion. I'm excited to see what they've done with it.

Post by **NukeHavoc** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:22 am

erilar wrote:Seems like the mechanics are kinda different for this version too. For instance, once a feature is completed and scored, you can pick your villagers back up and put them in your pool. With H&G, I think your little dudes always stay on the table once placed, right? I forget...

Scoring is the same, though the mechanics are different. In both games you've got the long and the short strategies; in H&G, you place hunters in fields and can't pick them up again until the end of the game, when you score the fields. Gatherers, on the other hand, are used to score forests and rivers, and you get those back when you score them during the course of the game.

The farmers in digital Carcassone are the equivalent of hunters (when you place them in a field, you don't get them back until the end of the game). I don't quite get the scoring in Carcassone; apparently you get points for Monasteries, Cities and Roads that you control at the end of the game, but you can also score them during the game by completing them then.