Carcassonne Central

Hello all.  I have recently been bit by the Carcassonne bug and am now going to start purchasing my own instead of relying on others to play. 

So the question is, what's the best way to all the expansions/tiles?

I would start with Big Box 2, then add Count, King and Consorts.  I start to get confused after that.  ??? I've heard mixed reviews about the Tower, and haven't heard much about Catapult either.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,
Mick

No no! Big Box 2 already comes with Count, King and Consorts. It's the expansion with all the crown watermarks. After Big Box, the purchasing order I would suggest would be:

The Tower
Games Quarterly #11
Cult, Siege & Creativity (you'll get duplicate Shrine pieces with this)
Wheel of Fate (when if becomes available in the US)
The River I (if you can find it)
The Catapult (definitely last on the list)

You won't need the Cathars since they are almost identical in function to the Siege tiles. I think most people here would agree with this order...at least roughly. Hope that helps!

Edit: Added GQ11. I knew I missed something!

Yep! I agree with Whaley.

I quite like The Tower, although it is not as popular as the other Carcassonne expansions (excepting Catapult). It makes for an aggressive game. River 1 is getting quite difficult to find, so best of luck. Leave Catapult until last. The Catapult is the only expansion (of those released) that I will not even bother with. The Cathars, as Whaley has said, are almost identical to Siege tiles, so no need for that set... unless you want to pay silly, silly prices for 4 tiles that work in almost exactly the same way as the Siege tiles!

Don't forget the GQ expansion is still available -search eBay for Games Quarterly 11 magazine. It comes with 12 tiles to add to your Carcassonne experience. Not absolutely necessary, but the spring is a worthwhile tile if you own any River set.

Hi Mick, welcome to the site and a great game!  I would mostly agree with these guys.  I would ask you a couple of questions first though.  Where do you live, and do you want to aquire them all at once or buy them a few at a time?  My next question would be how far are you interested in going, meaning, do you think you'd like to make fan-made expansions some day in the near future? 

Whaley is correct, the Big Box 2 already comes with the base set, Inns & Cathedrals, Traders and Builders, Princess & Dragon, Abbey & Mayor, and King, Count & Consort (which included the Count of Carcassonne, the King half of King and Scout, River 2, and 5 shrine tiles), and I would start with that.  I'm assuing you live in the U.S., is that right?  Unless you would like to support your FLGS (friendly local game store), I'd definitely go with either Fair Play Games (http://www.fairplaygames.com/games.asp) or ebay.  Ebay is about 2/3 the cost of my FLGS, some times less.  They're friendly, but not that friendly.  ;)  (Though I did buy my initial sets there.)

I'd go Big Box, Cult, Siege & Creativity (which comes with 6 shrines as opposed to 5 in the Big Box), The Tower, GQ11, and The Catapult.  A lot of people don't like the Catapult, but there are some of us that do.  I would suggest buying it simply for the unique tiles it has.  There are some tile formations that don't exist in other sets.  If you don't like the game mechanics, you can always go with Joff & Scott's The Jester and the Minstrel fan-made expansion.  It works with the Catapult tiles.  I'd also suggest you buy another base set.  I'd do this for two reasons.  It saves you the hassle of having to find a stand-alone River 1 set and you'd have 72 tiles to use to either make fan-made expanions with (not to mentions extra meeples which can come in handy) or you could give the set away to a friend who you'd like to introduce the game too.    I'll probably also buy the Wheel of Fate/Fortune, whichever it is, when it comes out.  It is basically a re-release of the original base set with a few different tiles and some new mechanics.  You could just incorporate it with the rest, or take out the corresponding tiles from the regular base game set and use them for fan-mades.  I think there are about 60 or so.  The extra meeples in this set could also come in handy.

Fair Play Games (http://www.fairplaygames.com/games.asp) is an excellent place to buy them becasue you can get everything on this list above for only $95.94 (pre-tax).  If you can bump that up to $125 with other stuff from your wish-list, or other extra sets or spin-off games, you'll get free shipping.  That would probably pay for itself.  Hope you find this helpful.  :D

I assume you are based in the US?

Here in the UK I bought a couple of expansions each month and by shopping around paid about the same as the big box cost.
I like the tower when playing with more than two people, it gets very nasty and spices things up.
I like to buy everything and have a complete set (just doing the same for Memoir 44 at the moment), but I won't buy the catapult, I just don't feel it fits in with the style of the game.

Hi guys.  Thanks for all the input.  It gives me a great start.  To answer a question a few of you asked.  I live in Canada (Toronto).  While there are a few LGS, I wouldn't call them FLGS.  They are hit and miss as to what they carry, and what they can/will order in.  I usually shop around to see who has it in stock, and/or best price. 

Again, thanks for all the help.  Time to get started!

Let us know how you make out.  :)

I found a LGS that didn't want to carry the carcassone games anymore, so it was selling of their remaining games cheap.  I pick up the base game (with the River I), I&C and T&B for 50% off each.  Sadly, they didn't have any other offerings, but it gets me started.

Yippee!!

Mick check in with Gantry on here as he will have more idea than anyone else where to get Carc stuff in Canada.

All of the guys posts I agree with but would say get as much river as you can it makes for a really interesting game especially if you have two River II.

You could try Strategies Games (http://www.strategiesgames.ca/) in Vancouver - hint, don't use the web site search feature it doesn't seem to find anything, just select All Games A-Z and jump to the C's.

They are my FLGS as they are right near where I live and work but also they're very helpful and will try to get in anything they don't have stock of.
 ;D

The German Boardgame Company is where I get alot of stuff from.  There in Kitchener, ON.

http://www.germangames.com/index.asp

I've bought all my stuff from Craving for a Game (http://www.cravingforagame.ca/). It's in the Central City Shopping Center in Surrey. Nowhere near my house, but not far from my dentist so I stop in on the way home. The owner is a great guy and very helpful.

Is The River 11 (http://www.boardgameguru.co.uk/carcassonne--the-river-11-1711-p.asp) a new expansion? ;D

That would be The River II, as in the Roman numeral for 2. The website you linked to just listed it incorrectly.

What I want to know is, where are 3-10???  ;)

I was only plugging because my FLGS is in the country of the person looking to buy all the expansions.

I have removed the post from Vulch about UK based suppliers as it isnt relevant to the topic, the guy is in Canada afterall.

I do think that a lisitng of suppliers, not as a thread would be a good idea, or maybe have it like the googlemap option about where they are in the world.

I only listed because Scott gave one in Surrey.

Surrey (pronounced /ˈsʌri/) is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire, and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford.[1] Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of Greater London since 1965.

That is, Surrey, Canada!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrey,_British_Columbia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrey,_British_Columbia)