The Count of Carcassonne


Released in 2004.
  • Official Variants
    Even the aristocracy are subject to certain rules, and cannot simply do whatever they may want. The following variants take this into account and constrain the freedom of the Count. Using these variants will lend the mini-expansion even more tactical possibilities.

    In both variants, the count may no longer be freely moved, but rather:
    • whenever a new follower is deployed to the city of Carcassonne, the Count is moved clockwise to the next city quarter; or
    • the Count is moved to whichever city quarter the new follower is deployed to.

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  • Moving followers to Carcassonne
  • Can a player who completes a road, city or cloister, but without profit, move a follower to Carcassonne and deploy another before the area is scored?
    No, no, no! That is completely forbidden!

    Scoring takes place first, and then, should the occasion arise, a follower may be moved to the city of Carcassonne. If a player uses a follower which is already in Carcassonne, then he or she profits from the scoring, and as such may not move another follower to Carcassonne.
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  • Until now it was impossible to deploy a second monk to cloister… With the new expansion, this has been made possible.
    That is exactly the point. There was never a rule that said only one monk could occupy a cloister. It was simply not possible because of the rules of placing tiles. This is the first opportunity of stealing a cloister away from a player. And deploying the big follower to a cloister may now also be worthwhile as well.
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  • If a player has no followers available but is eligible to move one to the city of Carcassonne (because, for example, he completed the city of another player), can he allow a knight to escape a besieged city and then move the same follower to the city? (Order: escape then city, or the other way around?)
    Moving players to Carcassonne takes place after scoring, so always at the very end.
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  • To clarify an earlier question: Can a player allow a follower to escape a besieged city via a cloister, and place the same follower in the city of Carcassonne on the same turn? (When does follower escape happen?)
    The knight escapes at the end of the turn, and so cannot be re-deployed in the same turn.
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  • Can a follower be deployed to the city of Carcassonne via a magic portal?
    No. The magic portal only allows followers to be deployed to tiles that can be legally occupied according to the usual rules, as if the player had just placed the tile in question. The city of Carcassonne is occupied according to different rules.
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  • Can the mayor and the wagon (or the barn) be placed in the appropriate quarter of Carcassonne City?
    Mayor and wagon: Yes; barn: no.
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  • If I place a barn on a farm on which another player has farmers, causing him/her to score while I score nothing, can I move a follower to the City of Carcassonne? (While there is no immediate score to me now, the barn is certain to score at the end of the game).
    Yes, that’s allowed. Only immediately scored points matter.

    A similar question arises with regard to trade goods, which may lead to points at the end of the game.
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  • If a player completes a city that contains trade goods, but scores no points for the city, does the acquisition of resources count as (potential) scoring and forbid the player moving a meeple to the City of Carcassonne? What if the trade goods acquired secure a monopoly and therefore make later scoring certain?
    Only immediately scored points matter.
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  • Say I have a heretic engaged in a challenge with a monk, and I place the tile which completes the monk's cloister, so that the monk scores 9 points and I score 0. Can I still move a follower to CC in this case?
    Yes, triggered scoring, received no points: conditions fulfilled.

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  • Moving followers from Carcassonne
  • Can followers in the city of Carcassonne be deployed to empty roads, cities, cloisters or farms?
    Yes, and when an empty road, city, or cloister is completed, players with followers in the appropriate quarter of the city [meeples in castle can only be deployed to cities, and so on] may be deployed and the scored immediately. In general, unoccupied cities, roads, cloisters do not earn very many points, and so this option in mostly useful for returning followers from the city of Carcassonne to the player's supply.
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  • Can a follower be moved from Carcassonne City to a farm with a barn - and if so, how many points does a player earn (1 or 3)?
    Yes, that is allowed: the farmer will then be scored immediately, and so scores only 1 point per city and is (importantly) not on the farm during the final scoring proper.
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  • Can I move followers from the city of Carcassonne (from the cathedral?) into a shrine during scoring?
    Yes, shrines and cloisters are treated in the same way.
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  • Imagine I have an unoccupied cloister next to an occupied shrine. I place a tile which completes both buildings, and choose to move a follower into the cloister from the City of Carcassonne. Does this declare a challenge, and if so, who wins?
    That’s not possible, since the unoccupied cloister is not scored (only occupied features are scored, while unoccupied ones are simply completed). So no follower can be moved there.
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  • When a challenge is resolved, both the monk and heretic are removed from play. What if that leaves one of the buildings incomplete? Can I reoccupy it using a magic portal or a follower from the City of Carcassonne?
    Gnnnn… (damn!)

    Yes, that’s allowed (if unforeseen).
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  • Final Scoring
  • How does follower deployment during the final scoring work?
    In principle very similarly to the way during the game. The ‘trigger’ for the final scoring is the player who played the last card and so ended the game.

    Beginning with the player on the left of the ‘trigger’ player, each player deploys one of his or her followers from the city of Carcassonne to an appropriate feature [meeples in castle can only be deployed to cities, and so on] on the board. Followers can also be deployed to incomplete roads, cities, cloisters or farms, since these will also be scored at the end of the game. This process continues until no player can take any more players out of Carcassonne. The Count still blocks the city quarter in which he is resident. Normally the player with the most followers in Carcassonne will be the one to deploy the last figure.
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  • How are the followers in the city of Carcassonne scored?
    They're not!

    There is no scoring in the city of Carcassonne. However, the followers can influence the usual scoring, in that players can move their figures to any city, road, cloister or farm that is currently being scored.
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  • Does the city of Carcassonne count when calculating the number of cities adjacent to a farm during final scoring?
    Yes.
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  • The dragon & the fairy
  • Does the dragon also eat the followers or the Count in Carcassonne itself?
    No, Carcassonne is safe! Since the meeples in Carcassonne aren't unambiguously on the tiles as such, and some problems would ensue (for example, what would happen to the Count?), the dragon may not enter Carcassonne.
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  • The dragon is unable to enter Carcassonne—but can it move onto the outer tiles? Can it fly around the outside of the city to reach a normal tile?
    In order to avoid the consequences described, that must also be forbidden. The dragon clears out the whole tile and doesn't distinguish between city or farm… that's also valid for Carcassonne.
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  • Can followers be deployed to the fields, cities and roads on the outer tiles of the City of Carcassonne via a magic portal?
    No, that would just cause trouble. Would they then be protected from the dragon, or could the dragon indeed move onto the fields and only rampage outside the city? But the dragon always empties the whole field.
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  • Can the fairy be moved to the outer tiles of the City of Carcassonne?
    It follows from the previous question that it can't.
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