Thursday, May 03, 2007

Wednesday 2nd May, 2007

After Ellie had retired for the evening Lisa and I broke out Carcassonne The Castle, again. It was a fairly close game, although Lisa managed to snag most of the tokens. In the end she won with 116 to my 109. She did well with the markets, although I did have the largest keep.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My wife and I love playing Carcassonne - Is Carcassonne the Castle more fun?

Social Work Dad said...

Hi Allen

Glad to hear there's more gaming-couples out there! Lisa, my wife, prefers Castle. As it is designed solely for two there is no compromise as there can be with other games that are scaled down when played with 2. The mechanics are different - the wall/scoring track can make it feel claustrphobic as you run out of spaces quite quickly. The tokens you can collect are really advantageous, although they do not guarantee victory. The biggest difference is that tiles can be placed so that they do not match neighbouring tiles but 'finish' them off. That took a bit of getting used to!
It also plays in 30-40 mins, when you get used to it, so it's ideal for us fitting in a game or two around our daughter's sleeping habits. It is a truly excellent 2 player game and the absence of expansions somehow makes it seem more complete in itself!

That said I tend to prefer 'normal' Carcassonne, although mainly because I am intrigued by how different a game it becomes with varying numbers of players and expansions. Lisa enjoys it as a 2 player every so often but prefers it with more. I tend to beat her at it more than Castle when the two of us play.

If you want a game solely for the two of you then I would invest in Castle - few games work as well for 2. If playing Carcassonne for 2 we think that the Builders and Traders expansion really adds something to the game. Inns and Cathedrals adds more tiles (and makes cities harder to finish), the Count we don't really like but the 12 tiles can make a beautiful replacement for the original start tile! Princess and Dragon is okay but is far more fun with 3 plus! Haven't yet played King and Scout or the Tower so can't give an opinion!

Hope that helps.... happy gaming!