Carcassonne Central

We like to play Carc with all of the expansions we have got, and after ~3.5 hours each game takes, there are pretty huge amount of cities and especially roads around. Counting them one by one is rather boring and annoying, but since it's usually pretty clear anyway who's going to win, we just totally skip it.

However, sometimes we just absolutely have to count them to declare the winner. How have you people solved this problem?

Keep a tally on the castles and roads as they are completed.  Only fast way I have found.

I know some people just play that whoever holds the Kind and Robber Baron at the end of the game get 10 points. 

However, we play the regular way.  The best way I've found to count them is to put a meeple on each completed city and than count them as I take them off.  That way you can make sure you've got them all accounted for before you start removing/counting them.  Then we do roads the same way. 

For some reason I don't find this particularly challenging... I just keep a mental not of which cities I've counted as I work around the board. Robber baron is a little more difficult, but managable...

I use a meeple on the scoreboard to keep track of the largest city/longest road.  That way, I don't have to count them at the end of the game.

In Downloads/Public Downloads/Accessories there is a King and Robber Baron score sheet you can print off (prints to A5 and fits in box).  You use spare meeple colours to mark the size/number of roads/cities as they are created.  At the end of the game you can see instantly who has the largest/longest and how many exist.  :)

That's here (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=61) just to make things simple.  And please do give your thanks (aka merit point) to scotty13 for that King and Robber Baron score sheet if you do find it useful.

My preference for the King and Robber Baron tiles are detailed in "Favourite House Rules (for the CAR):
The King and Robber tiles are given to the player who completes the first city or road. After scoring each turn, the holder of these tiles gets a point for every city or road that was completed during that turn - but only if they held the King or Robber tile for that entire turn. At the end of the game these tiles score 10 points each, in the same way that trade goods do. This saves a lot of counting at the end and now makes the completion roads and cities score for you - even if you do not score directly off the completed feature. This fits in with the Traders and Builders gameplay.
Though it is only a house rule - I recommend that you give it a try. Makes for competitive play in the completion stakes.
My group are using the Basic game, River 1 & II, I&C, T&B, K&S, GQ11 and A&M as a regular playing set and have set the other expansions aside for now.

At the end of the game, if there is a close score with any players. we use meeples and trade tokens to mark, first each of the cities and then the roads to count the numbers. It certainly simplfied getting the numbers right.  Our games (2Players) usually find the roads get a greater score than the cities. We also use a special meeple (Players colour with a white belt line) to place on the claimed largest road or city.