When I reviewed Cities last month I effectively called it the offspring of FITS and Carcassonne, and it occurred to me at the time that I have yet to cover Carcassonne in this space. Time to correct that oversight.

A perennial “gateway game” that has been around for more than a decade now, Klaus-Jürgen Wrede’s tile-laying classic Carcassonne (published in the US by Rio Grande) has received so many expansions over the years that it could potentially provide fodder for this column for a solid year. I will be focusing only on the base game for now.

Each player (from two to five) receives seven meeples (“followers”), with another one placed on the score track. Once the start tile is located (it has a different colored back), the remaining seventy-one tiles are shuffled (or placed in a bag) and the start player determined. Each tile contains one or more of the following features: a road, part of a city, or an cloister. On a player’s turn, they draw one tile and place it adjacent to an existing tile in such a way that any roads and/or cities on the new tile matches up with all surrounding tiles. They may also play one meeple on the new tile, if able; meeples placed on a road, city, or cloister claim that structure for the player, and no new meeples can be placed directly on it, although two separate claimed structures can be united by the careful (or careless!) placement of a new tile. 

When a structure is completed (a fully enclosed city or cloister; a road with two end points), the claiming meeple scores points based on its size and is then returned to its owner (even if it was just played); if multiple players have meeples claiming the structure only the majority player earns points (or all tied majority players). Alternately, a meeple may be placed on the field portion of a tile, effectively claiming all connected fields (with the same one-meeple-per-field restriction); these meeples do not score until the end of the game, so once you place one in this manner you basically lose it, although the potential payoff may be worth the investment. There are a few different rules for how to score these “farming” meeples, although the easiest (and best) is that they score three points for every completed city adjacent to their field. The game ends when the last tile is played, at which point any incomplete structures are also scored.

And that’s it, really. One of Carcassonne‘s strengths is its simplicity; with no reading required, games can be played in well under an hour. Game play can be further sped up by each player drawing a new tile at the end of their turn and knowing in advance what they will have to work with on their next. There is not a ton of in-depth strategy to be found in the base game, but Carcassonne is more than just a simple filler, like most solid gateway games. If you can find the base game (which often includes The River, a minor expansion) you should be able to pick it up for around $30 or less, but it is somewhat more likely that you will instead find some sort of “big box” version containing several expansions. No matter which version you actually pick up, Carcassonne will pay you back in repeated play several-fold. 

Trick-taking card games have been a staple of gaming for centuries, from Hearts and Spades to more modern variants like Wizard and Xactica. Japanese game designer Seiji Kanai puts his unique twist on the format in the form of Chronicle, published in the US by Z-Man Games. 

Chronicle consists of a 36-card deck, comprised of three suits valued 1-10 and six wild cards, and twelve “Historical Chronicle” cards that determine the scoring for each round. The object is to accumulate three Fame points, but the manner in which that is accomplished will vary from round to round.

Each round the entire deck is dealt out to all players (from three to six; if five are playing one card is discarded face-up before dealing), then the top card of the History deck is flipped over. This card will determine the conditions to earn a Fame point this round as well as indicating which player will begin: whoever has the specific card listed reveals it and begins with any card (s)he wishes. As with most trick-taking games, subsequent players must follow whichever suit (blue = power, green = wisdom, or red = love*) is lead; if a wild card is lead, the first non-wild card determines the lead suit. If a player cannot follow suit they must play a non-wild card face-down; wild cards are always considered to be “on suit” and can never be played face down. Normally, whichever player played the highest-valued card in the lead suit would collect all played cards, turn them all face-up, and put them in front of him/her as “allies”.

I say “normally” because each card has a special power, most of which take effect when they are played face-up; others modify how allies are counted at the end of the round. All of the similarly-valued cards across the suits have the same abilities, to keep things from getting too crazy. Of special note are the one-valued cards, which along with the “Demon” wild card are denoted as being “Evil”. Anyone who controls an Evil ally at the end of the round is disqualified from scoring that round unless one of two other conditions are met: 1) they also control the “Angel” wild card (which discards all Evil allies that player possesses before scoring); or 2) they control all four Evil allies, in which case they score an “Evil Victory” of two fame points while everyone else scores absolutely nothing. This is much more difficult than it sounds, as several other cards allow you to steal, discard, or otherwise eliminate cards or allies, and once one of these four cards is in the discard pile an Evil Victory is impossible.

A round ends when one player is out of cards in his hand; all other players add the remaining cards in their hands to their allies. Keeping certain cards (like the Angel) in your hand to surprise other players is a useful trick if you can manage it. Once the Evil-controlling players are eliminated, the remaining players check the current scoring condition. This is usually controlling the most/fewest of a specific suit of allies or all allies in general, plus a few curveballs; this is a count of raw cards without consideration of actual values, although it is important to note that the two-valued cards in each suit count as three allies when scoring, which can be a hindrance or a boon depending on whether the goal is to have the most or the fewest. Everyone who meets the condition scores one Fame point and then a new round begins unless someone has three (or more) Fame, in which case the game is over and that player wins; if there is a tie for Fame, you can either keep playing until the tie is broken or just let the tie stand.

A game of Chronicle is supposed to take about 30 minutes. However, your first session or two might take much longer as everyone gets used to what the cards do and how the game works. Our first session took over an hour, which was outrageous. Our second session was a much more reasonable 33 minutes, although that was played using the optional “two Histories” rule where we used two scoring conditions each round  that are scored independently; once everyone knows how to play this variant is highly recommended, even by the game designer himself.

Like most Z-Man card games, you can pick up Chronicle for $10 or less. Once you get past the initial learning curve it is a solid addition to a gaming library, even if it is a little long for what it is sometimes.

*Sadly, this isn’t a Legend of Zelda-themed game.

Martyn F’s Cities (published in the US by Z-Man Games) is a tile-laying game very similar to the perennial classic Carcassonne.

Each player has an identical stack of 24 unique tiles, with each tile being divided up into quadrants. Each quadrant can be one of four colors (red, yellow, blue, or green), with no more than two quadrants of the same color being present on a given tile. Players also get seven “tourist” meeples (pawns) to be placed for scoring purposes.

Play begins with each player arranging three randomly-drawn starting tiles so that they are adjacent diagonally (thus making a V pattern). The next thirteen turns involve playing a tile and optionally placing or moving a tourist on to one of the tile’s quadrants. Players are restricted to a 4×4 array when placing tiles, although the boundaries of said array are not set until the placement of tiles dictate them. Once sixteen tiles have been laid (with eight remaining unseen) the players score their tourists and the highest score wins.

There are three levels of scoring. If a Level One game is being played, players score one point per quadrant in a continuous series of parks (green) and continuous series of attractions (yellow), but only if a tourist is located somewhere within those areas; multiple tourists in the same area are redundant and the area is only scored once. On Level Two, tourists placed on terraces (red) score one point per  quadrant of a continuous series of water (blue) that they can “see”; Level One scoring is also in effect. Level Three scoring combines the two previous levels as well as awarding additional points for terraces adjacent to scored attractions and water adjacent to scored parks; the scoring for terraces is modified to include parks as well as water, with the tourists’ “view” being blocked by attractions or other terraces. My group has always used Level Three, and unless playing with inexperienced gamers (and/or young children) I would recommend doing the same.

What makes Cities interesting is the fact that all players are forced to use the same tiles within a given session. Much like Reiner Knizia’s FITS, only one player is really drawing tiles at random (including the initial three tiles); everyone else finds the tile that (s)he draws and places it as they desire. How each player places those same tiles will generate different cities and thus different scoring opportunities. Even more crucial, however, is the placement of tourists. Tourists can only be placed on a freshly-laid tile, although you can pick up an existing tourist to place it on the new tile. If you choose not to place a tourist, you can alternatively “walk” a tourist one quadrant in any direction, including diagonally but never onto a water quadrant. Even if two players manage to somehow create identical tile layouts, their tourist placement can still generate different scores. 

Cities supports up to four players, although if you really wanted to, that could be extended to up to four players per copy of the game. In theory, an entire room full of people could be playing the same game, bingo hall-style, and the game would still be over in less than 30 minutes. The only tricky part about playing Cities is scoring, and that becomes simple enough after a few games. Cities is a nice medium-weight game that plays quickly; although the strategy is somewhat dependent on the luck of the draw, careful planning can yield big points if the tile you need is pulled before another tile utterly screws you. You can pick up Cities for around $30 or less, which is a fair price for the thick cardboard tiles and wooden meeples. It is also available for free online play at both boiteajeux.net (free registration required, up to four players per game) and the designer’s own site (solo play only); the online versions are good practice, but both lack some features of the actual game, like being able to relocate tourists on to newly-played tiles.