Carcassonne Traders & Builders review

The next Carcassonne board game expansion we bought was Carcassonne Traders & Builders. And like Inns & Cathedrals, it adds some new elements that increase the ways players can score points. It also adds a new twist to the game that gives players an opportunity to play two tiles on their turn.

Plus everyone gets a pig!

The first thing we liked about Carcassonne Traders & Builders is that it includes pieces for a 6th player. Since the first expansion added pieces for a 6th player to join in the fun, it’s nice to see that the following expansions keep that in mind.

Now on to the new elements…

Traders

The ‘Traders’ portion in the game title relates to the addition of Trade Goods on some of the city tiles. There are 3 different trade goods players can collect – Wine, Grain, and Cloth. At the end of the game, the player with the most Wine tokens will score 10 extra points. The same goes for the player with the most Grain and Cloth tokens. And if players tie for the most of a particular trade good, they each get 10 points.

How do players gain trade tokens?
Simple. The player that adds a land tile that completes a city will gain a trade token for any of the goods symbols in that city. This is pretty cool because it doesn’t go to the player that controls the city, but rather the player that completes the city. Of course, it’s also great if you control the city and get points for its completion as well, but controlling it isn’t necessary.

So sometimes it will be advantageous to complete a city even if you aren’t the player controlling it. Sure that means that someone else will score the points for the city, but getting those trade goods may help you out even more.

It’s a trade-off decision, but we think that’s pretty fitting for it being related to ‘Traders’.

It also makes playing with Inns & Cathedrals a twist too – where players will purposefully extend a city with a cathedral in it so the person controlling that city won’t be able to complete the city and score big points. By adding Traders, completing cities is a good thing and provides more things to consider.

 

Pigs

If you’ve ever wanted a little wooden pig for your board games, we’ll now you can have one.

What does a Pig do?

It provides more points of course.

Just like other followers, pigs are placed by a player when they place a land tile. And like you might expect from a popular farm animal, they must be placed on a farm/field area. A player can only place a pig on a field area where they already have a farmer (not on the same tile of their farmer of course, but in the same farm area). Like a farmer, the pig stays on the tile for the remainder of the game.

When scoring farmers at the end of the game, the player earns 1 additional point for each of the cities he scores that has a pig in the field with his farmer(s). Of course, the pig only counts if that player owns the field. And for ownership of the field, only the farmers are counted.

Each player only gets one pig, so it’s a risky move, but rewarding when you place it right.

 

Builders

Like the pigs, Builders are added to a just-played tile and must be placed on a city or road where the player already has followers. But unlike the pig, the Builder doesn’t increasing scoring. Instead, the Builder gives players a chance to play two tiles!

How?

By adding to the city or road that has the builder on it.

If a player has a city or road with a builder on it and they later place a tile that extends that city or road, they then get to draw and place another tile. So while it doesn’t score points directly, the Builder does provide an advantage by getting two turns in a row.

While we like the way the Builder works, it also slows the game down. The rules for Carcassonne indicate on a players turn they draw a tile and then play it to the table. However, because there are lots of options when playing a tile, we’ve implemented the “draw a tile at the end or your turn” rule. That way, players have time to think about where they’re going to play their tile while others are taking their turns. Sure the board, and thus their options, will change some before it gets back to them. But they know what they have to work with and can play their tile more quickly when it’s their turn.

But when we add the Builder in the mix and a player gets to draw and play a tile as a second, immediate turn, it means more thinking time – which will slow the game down a bit.

 

The Bag

A simple, yet effective addition to Traders & Builders is the cloth bag for drawing land tiles. In the original Carcassonne you simply turn over all the tiles and stack them in piles to draw from. However, once expansions started to come along, that meant adding even more draw piles. And even while the publishers tried to keep everything consistent, they can’t guarantee an exact color match with every game print run. So the back of the tiles of the expansions might have a slight color variation.

Enter the cloth bag!

Not only does this eliminate the chance of recognizing certain tiles from different expansions because of the back of the tiles, but it also makes set up a lot simpler. Just toss all the land tiles in the bag and you’re ready to go. Better yet, do like we do and just store all the tiles in the bag. Open the box, give everyone their meeples, draw and play.

 

Final say

Similar to Carcassonne Inns & Cathedrals we like the new ways to score, new decisions to be made, additional player pieces, and the 24 new land tiles to grow the countryside even further. However, we’re more selective will the elements we decide to play with each game. Between the options, we like the trade goods the best. But that’s what’s so great about these expansions – you can still pick and choose which parts you want to play with. Want to leave the Builders out but keep the Pigs in, go for it. It’s up to you. But you can still enjoy all the cool new land tiles.

 

Summary of Added Components:

• 24 new land tiles (9 with wine, 6 with grain, 5 with cloth, and 4 without trade goods)
• 20 trade good tokens
• 6 builder meeples/followers (1 in each of the 6 player colors)
• 6 pigs (1 in each of the 6 player colors)
• 1 cloth bag