river expansion

[hmi]

Have a german version of carcasonne from the early days. Doesn't have a river expansion. love the game so much and want to purchase some expansion sets in particular the river expansion... but now find only river 2 is avaialble, which seems to rely on you having river1... which I don't and can't find.
Is there a problem if i purchase river 2 without having river 1? Or any otehr suggesions welcome.
- realise we are a bit slow off the mark, but have been really happy with the original version.
NB - will be buying english versions, german version was given to us by friends.

[mjharper]

No, you can use either river expansion on its own, or you can use them together. A couple of tiles from The River II are meant to actually replace similar tiles in the original—I'm talking about the lakes. And if you can get hold of the GQ expansion, that has still another spring, which is meant to replace the spring tiles in the river expansions.

I think everybody would agree that The River II is a much better expansion, with better integration with the rest if the game (the volcano and pig-herd, for example), a great fork in the river itself, and less tendency to lead to huge farms. All the original River really does is make the river longer.

So, in river-expansion buying terms (!), I'd list them in the following order of importance:
1) The River II
2) The GQ expansion
3) The River

Go ahead and get The River II; and welcome to the forums!