Carcassonne Central

I'd like to make marks on my tiles so that I can easily sort them.  Should I do it?  How should I do it?  Suggestions?

I understand why you want to do this. I can't bring myself to mark mine - one day they may be collectors items!!

Seems to me that it depends to a large extent on how you draw tiles - stacks like the basic game rules, the bag, the tower, or jumbled in the box. If you draw them without being able to see them then you could put a small dot of felt-tip marker on the back in different colours. But this won't work with stacks or tower (where you can see the top tile's back).

Any attempt to put a sticker on the back or front will be detectable by feel in the bag so you would have to do all the tiles including the basic game.

Probably would want to mark them all anyway, so a sticker might be the way to go.

I'm still contemplating forking out for the Big Box where the marking is already done for you. Thus far I've gotten by fairly ok with tile distribution sheets. Each player is given a tile distribution sheet for a particular expansion. They extract the tiles and make a stack. When all expansions are extracted, the remaining tiles are the base game. Even in this scenario, markings would still help though.

Personally I would not do it. You would more likely spoil them rather than make the tiles better.

I would definitely pay for the Big Box. That is what I did. I also wanted the markings on the tiles. When I bought Abbey and Mayor, I decided that I would like all the tiles marked in the same way for consistancy, and so I paid for the HiG Big Box. It cost me £37 (about €49 or $74) which included the shipping to the UK. I thyen sold my old copy of the game and the expansions. This had also added to my collection as I did not have the Tower or P&D at the time, so it was very worthwhile for me to do. I got my copy off eBay, using PayPal, and it came packaged well and very fast from Germany. I'm a very happy man :)

This is the guy that I purchased from in Germany:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Carcassonne-Big-Box-Grundspiel-4-x-Erweiterung-NEU-OVP_W0QQitemZ350024496305QQihZ022QQcategoryZ22165QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Carcassonne-Big-Box-Grundspiel-4-x-Erweiterung-NEU-OVP_W0QQitemZ350024496305QQihZ022QQcategoryZ22165QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

I marked mine with a pen, it seemed like the easiest way out. It's very small so if you don't know what to look for you usually don't see it.

I marked mine with a pen too—on the back. I don't really think that it makes enough difference anyway. I mean, how much does it help you if you know the next tile comes from P&D? A purist/tile counter would say that it helps a lot, but we usually play mega-Carc with (half) the tower dispenser, so tile counting isn't an option in any case. And if you play with the bag, it doesn't matter at all.

Under no circumstances would I mark the front of the tiles. That would just be barbaric.

Some expansions doesn't need markings though, like TT or P&D.

Does the big box tiles have markings on them to differentiate which sets it's from?

The Big Box does indeed have tile markings on the front of the tiles to distinguish which expansion the tiles are from. The basic tiles are unmarked. I&C is marked with a meeple. T&B is marked with a pig. The Tower is marked with a tower. P&D is marked with a fairy.

The markings complement each other.

The Abbey and Mayor expansion (not included in the Big Box) is marked with a barn, and the new King, Count and Consorts expansion is marked with a crown (on all tiles except those pertaining to The Count). This expansion replaces unmarked tiles from King and Scout and The River II with marked ones.

The GQ expansion is not marked.

The Cathars is not marked (but is easy to sort because they are marked! ;) )

It should be noted that The River is NOT included in the HiG Big Box.

Thanks for the answer Joff.  Are there any pictures about the big box markings on the tiles?  Does the CAR contain this infomation - if it doesn't, should it?

Take a look here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/172608 (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/172608) or http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/150646 (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/150646)
This picture shows the markings on the Big Box tiles.

What I did was mark mine with a hard pencil instead of a pen, with a letter or two abbreviation from the expansion name in a tiny tiny font near the tip of the C on the back of the tile.  Advantages:

the hard pencil doesn't rub off with play
you can't feel it in the bag
you can erase it if you want to preserve the tile
you can't see it unless you hold it close up because of the colour and small font size

This lets me sort the tiles back out after a megacarc game!

I have used small cut-up squares from Post-It flags like this for the Games Quarterly Magazine tiles:

http://www.amazon.com/3M-Post-Arrow-Bright-Colors/dp/B00006RSO4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_6?ie=UTF8&s=office-products&qid=1205014510&sr=8-6

They stick pretty well but are removable if you want and don't damage the tiles!