Carcassonne Expansion 2: Traders &Builders

This review is going to assume that you already own the original Carcassonne game, or that you at least already understand the basic rules - after all, like most 'expansions', this cannot be played on its own. So if you do not fall into either of the above categories, I suggest you instantly go and get Carcassonne itself, and when (not if!) you fall in love with it, then please come back and read this review later.

This is an almost essential add-on to the game. It adds new elements to the game which are fun, and actually enhance the game, without detracting from what attracted you to it in the first place. Ever since we bought this expansion, no-one has even suggested that we should play the game without it.

So what do you get for your money? Well, some more tiles for a start. The most important ones, as far as this expansion is concerned, are the new city pieces which may have a little symbol printed on them, representing wine, cloth or wheat. This relates to the 'traders' in the title. The player who completes a city gets a token for each symbol within it - so they might get 2 wine tokens and a wheat one, for example. At the end of the game, the player with the most tokens in each of the three trades gets 10 bonus points - which can obviously be a significant factor in the final reckoning. Notice that it is the player who completes the city that gets the tokens, rather than the player who actually owns it. This is obviously deliberate, to encourage players to complete other people's cities - and leads to some interesting decision making, as you could be giving points away to an opponent in the hope of benefitting at the end.

Next comes the builder. This is a tall thin 'meeple', and you get one of them in each of the six colours, so every player is given their appropriate piece at the start of the game. The way it works is as follows. Suppose you place one of your followers on a road. At some later point you will extend that road, and you can then choose to place your builder on the tile that you have just laid - this counts as the end of your turn, by the way - you cannot also place a follower in the field or city on the same tile. At a later time still, you will eventually add to the road again. This is when the builder comes in - once you have done everything you would normally do from placing that tile, you get to draw and play another one. Note, however, that, if this 2nd tile is used to extend the road again, you don't get to draw a 3rd tile. But with this one exception, you will get an extra go every time you extend the road.

Builders are obviously very useful. Everything that I have said about 'roads' in the previous paragraph applies equally to cities, though you cannot add a builder to a farm or a cloister. They behave exactly the same as other followers, in that they cannot be moved once played, and you only get them back when the feature is complete. Once again, it adds an interesting element to the game - if someone is profiting too much from their extra goes, is it worth completing their feature for them, even though they will score from it, in order to slow them down a bit?

The last element in this expansion is the pig. Not known for being either traders or builders, this is a slightly odd thing to include in this set, but serves a useful purpose nonetheless. Like the builder, each player is given the pig of their own colour at the start of the game. When you expand a farm that you already own, you can choose to play your pig on the tile you have just laid. In the final reckoning, the pig adds 1 point for every city served by that farm. Of course, you need to play this piece wisely. You only have one, and, once laid, it cannot be moved, so if an opponent manages to link up with your farm, and outnumber you, then you have effectively wasted the pig completely.

So, are there any downsides to this expansion? Well, if you want to be really picky, the trade tokens are fairly small pieces of cardboard, and look as if you could easily lose one or two (we haven't, by the way, but I'm always conscious that we might!). But this is a really minor point. Basically, if you love playing Carcassonne, this expansion can only increase your enjoyment, and comes heartily recommended.

After 'Inns and Cathedrals' comes an essential expansion. There are 24 new tiles, depicting trade goods: Wine; Cloth; Grain. Players who complete cities containing trade goods icons recieve a trade goods counter. These are totalled at the end of the game for extra bonuses. Also included is the pig, which increses the farmers score when played in a field and the builder piece that allows a player to have an extra tile from the bag (which is also included). There is plenty of room in the bag for quite a few expansions (certainly for the base set, Inns and Cathedrals, Traders and Builders, Abbey and Mayor, The Tower, King). How do I know... because we play them all in our games and use the bag all the time!

THIS GAME IS AN EXTENSION TO THE ORIGINAL 'CARCASONNE' GAME - DO NOT PURCHASE WITHOUT ALREADY HAVING THE ORIGINAL.

Once you have a grasp of the basic Carcasonne rules, I would recommend you buy the various extension packs one at a time. It takes a while to get used to the new rules but it is totally worth it. The game becomes more interesting as there are more opportunities for tactical gameplay.

The 'Traders' part of this extension is quite easy to understand. Some of the new fort pieces have pictures on them of one of the three commodities: wheat, silk and wine (although we call it beer in our household - the picture looks like beer barrels!). If you complete a fort that has commodities in it, you receive little cards showing that commodity. Note - it doesn't have to be your own city you complete! At the end of the game, the player with the monopoly of one of the commodities will receive ten bonus points.

The 'Builders' part is my favourite. The builder is a new playing piece, which unfortunately looks like a man with fake boobies on his head Blackadder-style. Once you have claimed a fort, on the next go, if you continue that fort, you can place a builder on it. On every subsequent go, if you build on that fort, you immediately get another go - because the builder essentially enables you to build faster. You can also put builders on roads in the same way.

The bag you get with this extension pack is fantastic - all the pieces fit in it and it is such a timesaver. We store the tiles in there permanently now. All in all it's a great extension to a great game. One last word of advice: if you're introducing Carcasonne to somebody new, take the gameplay back to the basic Carcasonne, or the numerous rules can be very off-putting!