Carcassonne for the iPhone

[vagabondriot]

An app version of Carcassonne was just released for the iPhone and iPod Touch, with a version to come to the iPad as well soon. It is the original game and is quite well made, all of the tiles are included and look great. The game is rather intuitive and has 8 different A.I. with 4 different difficulty settings for them. The app currently costs $4.99 but they will raise the price to $9.99 soon according to the website. Multiple humans can play at once on the same device, and games can be played over the internet as well with either friends or random people. The company that released it says they are currently developing the expansions as well. I gave it a shot and I enjoy it.

A link to the site: http://carcassonneapp.com/
And a review I enjoyed about the game: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/06/carcassonne-for-the-iphone-is-here/

[mjharper]

Will give it a look later. And thanks for the info!

[Scott]

Excellent! This is my very first purchase from the App Store.

[BenScar]

Looks lovely, does anyone know if this is a "proper" Carcassonne game or if it's been approved by the Copyright owners?
(I'm guessing it has, just wondering )

[vagabondriot]

Looks lovely, does anyone know if this is a "proper" Carcassonne game or if it's been approved by the Copyright owners?
(I'm guessing it has, just wondering )

If you look at the bottom of the link  http://carcassonneapp.com/ , you'll see that it is sponsored/supported by HiG. I'd assume that it has thus been approved by the copyright owners/it is a "proper" Carcassonne game

[xenoclone]

This is the officially licensed app. I have yet to try it, but it is getting rave reviews.

[Scott]

I played a three-player game today and it's much better than the old PC version. Plays basically like the real thing.

[vagabondriot]

The only real difference between the board game and this electronic version is that the app shows you all possible locations for a tile to go (part of the challenge of the board game is finding the best place on your own without help). However this is probably a necessary feature for an electronic version so I'm not really complaining. Also this made it very easy to teach my friends the mechanics of the game who were too lazy to learn from the physical board game. Now I have more people to play with and challenge.

[BenScar]

Ah yes, didn't notice the text at the bottom of the site, to busy downloading the app :-)

Very nice indeed, a polished and smooth application.  Just getting my brother to download it now (seeing as he got me hooked on the board game!).
Graphics are pretty, the voice over is soothing and explains it all well and playing against the AI is almost like playing against a person.

Time to register for an internet account and try some proper people (and see how badly I get beaten )

Thanks to the OP for posting up the good news.

[Drucifer]

I bought it day one when I noticed it was available since my friends went on and on about the 360 version and I never had the chance to play it.  The game is very polished and has a great tutorial that teaches you how to play.  For the introductory price of $4.99 it was a steal as it has peaked my interest in the board game and when I went to price it locally they said the Big Box 2 was $90 or so Canadian.  I'm sure I'll get it one day but for now I need to improve my game, the AI seems to beat me far too often.   

Anyway, the iPhone/iPod version has a great hot seat mode that lets multiple people play the game using the same device.  As already mentioned it also has online with random people or friends.  I played a couple random games and both times the other player quit.

[Scott]

I've definitely been feeling the pressure from the AI, and I've been playing on easy. I guess the people I play with are just less aggressive. The AI seems to prefer small cities, farming, and screwing everybody over.

[BenScar]

Glad I'm not the only one find the "easy" AI a little bit of a challenge.   It's beaten me a few times, although I got the better of it a couple of times as well!  Not sure I want to get whooped by one of the "higher" AIs

The Solitaire mode is something a bit different, I've only played it once so far but looks to have some good replay value.

[Drucifer]

I couldn't agree more about the AI.  I find it hard to try and determine what moves they are planning or their specific playing style.  

I've lost my share of games against the easy AI but then again I played two games against strong AI and one I lost by a very small margin and the second I destroyed them.  The second time the Countess focused completely on building the biggest city ever then when the match started to wrap up they decided to try and merge it with one of my cities so I managed to finish the connection and I got in the extra meeple to claim all the points.  Even though she had something like 3 meeples still not played she still didn't play them.  Not once did she try to claim the farm that I had control over and only once in awhile she would go for a small road.  In the beginning she was in the lead but by the end I had won by about 70 points.


Edit: 

Also to comment about the Solitaire mode it is actually very fun and unique.  The basic goal is to use your tiles as strategically as possible to build a city from size 2 to 6 consecutively and same with roads.  This does involve a lot of luck but it is still fun to try and beat your best scores.  You get to pick the "Game of the Week" which is a pre-selected town or you can play a random town.  Not entirely sure how many possibilities there are. 

Oh and my best score so far is 611.  I really enjoy playing it when I want to take a break from other players. 

[vagabondriot]

After about 40 games against the AI (before I dropped my phone and shattered my screen unfortunately), I never lost in one on one matches against the easy or hard settings. The easy setting actually seems to be one of the more difficult settings because they just put down their meeple on fields. The key to beating them just seems to be joining up their fields so they only get points for one field rather than for four or five. All of the AI difficulties rarely try to build their own city, but rather they attempt to get into your city and then to beat you out of it. Large cities are not at all a good idea against the AI. The AI also always, with no exceptions, will place a piece that strands your meeple by making your feature unable to be completed (this is rather annoying and is a result of the "X" being shown that says when a piece is no longer available for a spot). The evil computer setting is especially good at getting into your features. The hard setting isn't very hard at all, I have never lost one on one to a hard (although their strategy seems to change). The weird also switches strategies a lot, but they tend to focus on city building more than the other settings. When you play a game with more than one AI, it becomes infinitely more difficult. It is very difficult to win even when playing with the two easy players, and it is downright impossible to win when playing with five players. The computers will screw you over rather than helping themselves out, and when you have four of them doing this at once it is very difficult to get anything done (many of these games end up with most of my meeple stranded). Playing online is a lot more fun, although it is difficult to gauge how good your opponent is when on random (I mostly use the play against friends option with my normal group that I play with).

[Drucifer]

I have played about 5 games with 3 or more total players (at least 2 controlled by the AI) and I won twice.  All games were against the easy AI and I really lucked out because like you said when playing with multiple AI they are really tough on the human players.  All they are interested in doing is screwing you over and ensuring you can't make any more moves meaning your meeple gets stranded.  Of course since the AI is so damn smart they can quickly determine which tile to play where to perminately screw you out of your meeple.

I can't wait until our internet connection is fixed at the house so I can play some more online matches.  This would be tons more fun against humans.  For the time being though I will continue one on one matches and might try some 3 player matches again.  I might try a 5 player match just to see how bad I get slaughtered.