To play Carcassonne solo, you will need a copy of the Carcassonne base game. Choose 3 colors and set aside 4 meeples of each of those colors. Each turn, you will rotate through these 3 colors in clockwise order.
Put all the meeples of one color on the left, those of another color in the middle and the meeples of the third color on the right. Divide the land tiles into 3 piles, 2 piles of 24 each and 1 pile of 23. Shuffle the piles and place 1 pile facedown next to each color.
You can use an abbot of an unused color to mark which color you are using each turn. This can help you remember which color you will us each turn.
Place 1 additional meeple of each of the three colors on the scoreboard. Place the meeple of the left color on the first space of the scoreboard, the meeple of the middle color on the second space, and the meeple of the right color on the third space.
middle color
24 tiles ===== X
===== ----> ===== X X _
===== X \
X -> =====
X X _____ =====
X / / X
left (starting) / / X X
color ----- X right
^ start tile / color
\ /
\------------------------/
Each turn you will play with one of the three colors and try to score as many points as possible. However, at the end of the game, you count only the lowest points total among all 3 colors. Thus, you need to score points as evenly as possible among all 3 colors!
1. Placing a tile
Draw the top tile from the pile of the color being used this turn and place it following the normal rules.
2. Placing a meeple
After having placed the tile, place 1 meeple of the color being used this turn. Unlike the normal rules, you must place a meeple, if there is a free feature on the tile.
If there is more than one free feature on the tile, you can decide which one you want to place the meeple on.
Meeple cannot be placed as farmer in the solo variant.
_______________
X? | _ _ | |
| | | | | |
|= ===\(g) |
| || | \X |
|_______|___\__|
caption for ASCII illustration above: It is Green’s turn. First, you place a tile. Then, you must place a meeple either on the city or one of the two unoccupied roads. The road on the right is already occupied.
_______________
X? | | |
| | |
|=========\(r) |
| | \X |
|_______|___\__|
caption for illustration above: It is Green’s turn. First, you place a tile. Because the road is already occupied by Red, you do not need to place a meeple this turn.
If you must place a meeple because there is a free feature on the tile, but there are no remaining meeples of that color, the game ends at the end of that turn (after scoring, if applicable).
3. Scoring a Feature
If you have completed a feature with a tile, score it.
More than one color with the same lowest score: If multiple colors are tied for the least points, they count as having the least points for the purposes of scoring.
If you complete more than one feature in a turn, each of them is scored separately, one after another, following these rules. You choose the order in which features are scored.
Note: You can also complete features if the meeple color does not have the least points. If you do, you do not score points, but you will get your meeple back. This can be important to prevent the end of the game.
The game ends after a turn in which you either:
A) Must place a meeple, but cannot
OR
B) Have placed the last tile.
In either case, do not resolve scoring as normal. Instead, final scoring is resolved as follows:
You score 2 points per meeple on tiles. Just like scoring above, you score these points only if the meeple’s color has the least points. You choose the order in which meeples are scored.
Top caption: During Green's turn you complete Red's road (and put a meeple on the monastery). Because Red currently has the least points, Red's meeple moves up 3 spaces on the scoreboard for the road.
Second caption: Red's and Green's city is completed. Because Red currently has the least points, Red's and Green's meeples both move up 8 spaces on the scoreboard for the city.
Bottom captions: This tile placement completed three features. Yellow's road (3 points), Green's city (4 points) and Red's road (4 points). 0 Before score scoring Yellow had the least points, so 1 you choose to score Yellow's road first. 2 Next you choose to score Red's road, because now Red has the least points. 3 Finally you score Green's city. If you had resolved the scoring in a different order, you would not have scored points for all of the colors.
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If you find this solo mode too hard or too easy, try these options:
You can record your scores here. On the second line, you can leave notes of any options you tried (more meeple, more tiles, etc.) when playing that game.
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You can check off goals, if you completed them during a game.
2020 ZMan games, converted to gemtext