Carcassonne Central

When we're playing the base game, I tend to keep the list of pieces out of sight. The reason being, if you know what tiles exist, and which are already in play, you can figure out what you can possibly draw and the chances of drawing it. This mightily informs some of the decisions you can make in playing new pieces. Why hide it? I know it would slow me down as I pore over it.

This probably becomes more complex and less useful the more tiles (expansions) are available in a game.

Any thoughts on counting tiles?

I equate counting tiles in Carcassonne with counting cards in Blackjack: it gives an unfair advantage to those with a good memory. If somebody wants to memorize the list, not much you can do about it. I think part of the fun is not knowing what you're going pull from the bag/tower until you see it.

I agree with Scott. 99% of all the Carcassonne games I have ever played were a 2player against my wife. I have a really good head for numbers, so sometimes I can't help to just know how may cloisters are left, but I'm not about to scan the board counting the straight pieces of road. We still only draw one tile at a time and take pleasure eyeing up "the best move" with lots of comedy involved. However, if you game with an old buddy that rubs his victorys in, go ahead count em up! It all depends how bad you want to win vs. having fun.....

Btw.....there's an app for that.....(tracking tiles played, what is left, etc)

Simple solution.

Buy two copies of the game. mix all of the tiles together, pull half out before each game. No-one will know the mix of tiles for each game. :)

+1

We do almost the same as Bixby. I have 2 copies of the game somewhat mixed up. So in each game I take about 80 to 90 tiles to play with and we always make sure that every player gets the same amount of game rounds. So at the end of the game we just add 2 - 3 tiles whatever is needed to make sure every player has drawn the same amount of tiles.

Yeah, honestly. 71 tiles in the original? What a hassle.