Players: 2-5
Time: 30-60 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)
This review draws somewhat upon my description of the original River due to their similarities.
The Components
Caracassonne: The River II comes with a set of 12 tiles and a rulesheet in a small tuckbox.
The 12 tiles are all printed, as per the Carcassonne norm, on solid, linen-textured cardboard. However as soon as I opened the box I was struck by the color and vibrancy of the new tiles. I don't know if it's the enjoyable Doris Matthaus art, or something new in the printing process, but for whatever reason these tiles look great.
The rulebook is a tiny little full-color rulesheet. It does a good job of explaining how the river works, and in fact when reading these newer, clearer rules I discovered that I hadn't been playing the original River quite right.
The only problem with this release is the value proposition of $6 for 12 tiles, and that's what keeps its ratings down at "3" out of "5", or average.
The Gameplay
The River II expansion for Carcassonne allows for a different starting setup. Rather than beginning with the standard start piece, instead the players lay out the 12 river tiles to begin.
Starting Out: The first player lays down the source, then the branch, which turns the one river into two, and if he wants a follower.
The Rest of the River: The next 9 tiles are placed one at a time. A player may choose to place a tile on either branch. One of these nine tiles shows the river going into a city. At that point one of the branches will be closed, but the other continues until the tenth and final tile is drawn. That's the lake which caps the remaining river branch.
There are a few basic rules for placement: the river can't U-turn and the two branches can't join.
After each placement (except the final, lake tile), the player who placed the tile can choose to play a follower, as normal. Some of the various river tiles have cities, roads, or both. In addition, various of the tiles spotlight the major supplements for Carcassonne. There's an inn-on-a-road (from Inns & Cathedrals), a pig herd (harking back to Traders & Builders), and the lake has a volcano tile (which gets the dragon placed immediately on the board in The Princess & The Dragon).
The river itself doesn't have any effect, except to act as another divider of fields.
Relationships to Other Games
The River II is a supplement for Carcassonne, and a revision of the original "River", which has been distributed in all recent copies of Carcassonne. It's also the fourth mini-supplement for Carcassonne--little 12 tile expansions. The previous ones were The River I, King & Scout, and The Count of Caracssonne.
The Game Design
As I wrote in my review of the original River, the river offers pure variety to the game, and thus replayability. There isn't really much additional strategy, just a new starting position.
What does impresses me with The River II is that in just about every way it improves upon the original.
People complained that the original offered too large of fields; where that river created 5 distinct fields at game start, this one creates 7.
The original river was slightly methodical to play, because you always knew where each tile went, and thus the only options were a pair of tile orientations and potential follower placement. This new river now doubles those options (at least until you draw the castle) because you can play on either branch.
I also like the inclusion of elements from each major expansion to date, because it feels like it ties the whole game together.
The river isn't tremendously exciting, but it does a good job of offering some variety to a Carcassonne game and is well-designed. As such I give it a high "3" out of "5" for Substance: slightly above average.
Conclusion
The River II isn't hugely different from The River I but it does improve the design in small and incremental, yet notable ways. There's increased tactics thanks to a branch, resulting fields are smaller, and there's nice tie-ins to all the major expansions to date. If you play Carcassonne you'll probably want to pick up this tiny box.
