Players: 2-6*
Playing Time: 60-90 minutes*
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)

This supplement was originally produced by Hans im Gluck in Germany.

* Playing time & player numbers refer to this supplement used with the first supplement, Inns & Cathedrals; without that supplement, players run 2-5 and playing time is more like 45-75 minutes.

The Components

This supplement comes with the following components:

• 24 land tiles
• 20 trade good tokens
• 1 cloth bag
• 12 new followers in 6 colors
• 1 rulebook

Land Tiles: These are four-color on heavy cardboard, the same general quality as the tiles in the original game. A picture of all 24 new tiles can be found here. 20 of the tiles are city pieces which have trade good icons on them. Also included are a city with a right-turn road in front of it, a cloister with 3 roads leading into it, and a few roads which bridge each other.

Trade Good Tokens: The 20 trade good tokens are printed on thick cardboard, 4-color on one side, black and white on the other (which is a bit of a shame). They match up to the 20 land tiles featuring trade good icons. There are 3 different types of trade goods, and the tokens are divided unevenly between these types: 9 wine, 6 grain, and 5 cloth.

Cloth Bag: The bag is blue with a Carcassonne logo on it. It's large enough to fit all the tiles from all the sets and then some. I've been wanting a bag to draw Carcassonne tiles from since I first played the original game; it's good to have one now.

Followers: Each of the 6 player colors gets 1 each of two new follower types: builders and pigs. The sixth player color, which is gray, will only be useful if you aleady have Carcassonne: Inns & Cathedrals, which included a set of meeples for a sixth player. These followers, as with the originals, are all painted wood. The builder & pig designs are both cute, and quite distinctive from the other pieces.

Rulebook: as with previous rulebooks in this series, this one is two sides, printed in 4-color on glossy paper. Unlike previous rulesbooks, some of these rules are very hard to follow: the rules for using builders are never explained, but rather are portrayed through examples; I had to read it a half-dozen times, and both I and another player came up with some wrong interpretations before we finally figured out what was meant.

As with the original Carcassonne all of the components are very high quality, but the value-to-cost ratio isn't quite as good. Thus the Traders & Builders supplement earns a Style rating of "4" out of "5".

The Gameplay

Three elements introduced in this supplement notably affect the gameplay: the trade goods, and the two new meeples--pigs and farmers.

Trade Goods: 20 of the new city tiles feature a trade good icons within the city. There are 9 wine, 6 grain, and 5 cloth. These icons have no effect when the tile is played. Instead when the city is completed, the player who played the final tile is given a number of trade good tokens, which correspond to the trade good icons within the city.

The trade good icons are then saved until the end of the game. Whichever player has the most of each of the three trade goods then scores 10 points; in case of a tie, both players score the ten points.

As a variant, we scored points within our playtest game as soon as a player achieved an unbeatable plurality of the tokens, which give a little better indication of current score than just waiting until the end.

Pigs: Pigs can be placed within a field which already contains one of your farmers, when you play a tile extending that field. If you win the field a pig increases the value of the field from 4/completed city to 5/completed city. The following charts lists all of the potential scoring in Carcassonne and both supplements:

	Follower	Complete	Incomplete
City	Knight	2/tile + 2/pennant	1/tile + 1/pennant
w/Cathedral	Knight	3/tile + 3/pennant	0/tile + 0/pennant
Road	Thief	1/tile	1/tile
w/Inn	Thief	2/tile	0/tile
Cloister	Monk	1 + 1/adj. tile	1 + 1/adj. tile
Field	Farmer	N/A	4/completed city adjoining
w/Pig	Pig	N/A	5/completed city adjoining

Builders: Builders can be placed on a road or in a city which already contains one of your followers, when you place a tile to extend that road or city. Then, on a future turn, when you play an additional tile to extend the road or city, you immediately get an additional turn (though only one per turn--no doubling up). This is a full extra turn, where you draw a tile, place a tile, then place a follower if you so wish.

Relationships to Other Games

There are currently two major supplements available for Carcassonne: this and Carcassonne: Inns & Cathedrals. They can technically be bought in either order, though if you buy this supplement before Inns & Cathedrals you'll have two gray pieces that you can't use (because you won't have the meeples for the sixth player, which come in the prior supplement).

Two minor supplements have solely added tiles to the game. Carcassonne: The River has been incorporated into the main game. Carcassonne: King & Scout, due out later this year, will have 7 tiles for Carcassonne and 5 for sibling game, Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers.

The Game Design

When I read over the rules for this game, I was initially concerned with the constantly increasing complexity of the game, especially when combined with the previous supplement. And, I will have to admit that I believe that some of the elegant simplicity of Carcassonne is lost with these more reason supplements.

However, Carcassonne still remains easy to play because the new options are carefully compartmentalized. You only have to consider trade goods when there are trade goods available on the table in cities that could be easily closed. You only have to worry about Builders when you're adding to an existing city or road. Finally you only have to worry about Pigs late in the game, when you're sure you're going to hold on to a field, and when you're playing a tile that extends that field.

I might leave out some of these extra pieces if I was explaining the game to many new players, but for experienced players they'll quickly fall into place. And, you'll get the benefit of that much more variety in the game, and that much more replayability.

Another general issue worth considering is what all these new tiles do to the length of a game. The original Carcassonne, which had 72 tiles ran 30-60 minutes long. Now you can have those 72 tiles + 12 from The River + 18 from Inns & Cathedrals + 24 from this supplement. That's a 75% increase in total number of tiles, and thus you should expect a 75% increase in game length. If a 1-2 hour game is acceptable, and you've got enough table space, no problem. Else you might want to separate 20-50 tiles out at start to reduce game length back to Carcassonne's original hour or less.

One last comment on the general design: this supplement does seem to bias the game a bit more toward cities. The original game had about 60% city tiles, while introducing this supplement ups the mix to about 70%. Given the traditional weakness of roads in this game, that sounds like it might be problematic, but as noted below, the supplement also tends to up the value of roads even more (as Inns did in the previous supplement).

The three main additions to this game each have different gameplay effects:

Trade Goods: These goods are won by whomever completes a city, and thus they encourage other players to complete your cities. This is overall a good thing, because the game is quite simply more fun to play when you're able to successfully close your cities, retrieve your followers, and move on to other vistas. The goods also allow for some additional strategy, as you try and work out ways to achieve pluralities in each of the goods, and thus gain additional points for yourself.

Pigs: The pigs have a very minimal effect on the gameplay. With a good placement they might eke you out 3-5 extra points, but little beyond that. I think the best result from their introduction is that they offer an additional meeple to play late in the game when you might otherwise be out, and thus provide more interactivity for players who might otherwise be stuck.

Builders: One big effect of these pieces is that they can be used to increase the value of roads. In the original Carcassonne, drawing a road piece could sometimes feel like a wasted turn; this remained true even with the addition of Inns in the first supplement. Now, if you've placed a builder on a road, you can drop down your road tile and then get another turn. I think Builders also have two other very beneficial effects. First, they can increase your power to plan strategically. By placing a Builder on a road or in a city, you can really concentrate on building that road/city out through additional turns. Second, they can increase the chaotic factor in the game, because other players can never be sure when a bonus turn will occur. This can be particularly notable in the end game if you're counting on getting one last turn, then lose it because someone with a Builder takes an extra turn.

Overall the introduction of trade goods and Builders are both large and innovative changes to the gameplay of Carcassonne that really shake up the original game & finish resolving pretty much all of the problems that the original game faced. I'd thus rate this supplement with a Substance of "5" out of "5".

Conclusion

The first Carcassonne supplement, Inns & Cathedrals, largely won me over because it had new tiles and pieces for a sixth player. This one wins me over instead because it has exciting new gameplay possibilties. If you like Carcassonne, pick this up. It'll change the way you play the game.

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