How to Play Carcassonne: King & Scout

Game Objective

The objective of the game is to build a medieval landscape, completing cities and roads, and scoring points for them. Players compete to have the King and the Robber Baron at the end of the game, which grant additional points for completed cities and roads, respectively. Additionally, players can use new tiles and abilities to optimize their scores and strategies.

Preparation (Setup)

• Shuffle the 5 new landscape tiles with the other landscape tiles from the base game.
• Shuffle the 5 new tiles from Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers face down.
• Each player takes 1 tile from these 5 new tiles and places it face up in front of them. With 2 players, each takes 2 tiles. The remaining tiles are removed from the game.
• Set the King tile aside.
• Refer to the manual for details on this section.

Gameplay Flow

The game progresses in turns. In each turn, a player performs the following actions:

1. Draw and Place a Tile: The player draws a landscape tile and places it on the board, connecting it to existing tiles.
2. Place a Follower: After placing a tile, the player may choose to place one of their followers on a feature (city, road, monastery, etc.) on the newly placed tile.
3. Score Completed Features: If the tile placement completes a feature, it is scored and the followers are returned to the players.

Special Abilities of New Tiles:

• Shaman: Each turn, the player may remove one of their tribe members from an unfinished river or forest and return it to their supply.
• Other 4 New Tiles: At any time during the game, the player may place one of these tiles instead of drawing and placing a normal tile. When doing so, they must place a tribe member (or a hut with Agriculture) on the tile. The figure will remain on the tile for the rest of the game. Otherwise, they cannot place the tile.
• Scout: Once in play, each turn, the player may refuse the first tile they draw (including bonus tiles). They place the refused tile face down under the stack and draw a new tile, which they must place. When placing: there cannot be other gatherers in the forest, as usual. When the forest is completed, the scout counts as a gatherer, but is not returned to the player's supply after scoring.
• Hunter on the Bridge: When scoring, the hunter counts in the meadows on both sides of the bridge. The bridge does not connect the meadows. When placing: there cannot be other hunters in either meadow, as usual. The bear is worth 2 points.
• Canoe: Whenever a river in this river system is completed (regardless of which player), the owner of the canoe scores as many points as the largest lake at either end of this river has fish. When placing: there cannot be other fishermen on the river, as usual. When the river is completed, the canoe counts as a fisherman, but is not returned to the player's supply after river scoring.

Actions and How to Play

• Place a Landscape Tile: The player draws a landscape tile and places it adjacent to a tile already in play. Tiles must be logically connected (roads with roads, cities with cities, etc.). One of the new landscape tiles shows two separate city segments (one top-to-bottom, the other left-to-right). They can be connected by placing other tiles.
• Place a Follower: After placing a tile, the player may place one of their followers on a feature on the newly placed tile, provided that feature does not already have a follower from another player.
• King: When a player places a tile that completes the first city, they take the King and place it in front of them on the table. Later in the game, if another player completes a city larger than any other so far in the game, they take the King.
• Robber Baron: The Robber Baron works like the King. The Robber Baron always goes to the player who completed the longest road.
• Agriculture: When placing: there cannot be hunters in this meadow.

End of Game and Scoring

Refer to the manual for details on this section.

Final Scoring:

• The player who has the King at the end of the game scores 1 point for each city completed in the game.
• The player who has the Robber Baron at the end of the game scores 1 point for each road completed in the game.
• Agriculture: At the end of the game, the player scores 1 point for each tile in the meadow, regardless of the hunter's score.

Tips for Winning

• Try to complete large cities and roads to attract the King and the Robber Baron to you, as they grant significant points at the end of the game.
• Use the abilities of your special tiles strategically. For example, the Scout can help find more useful tiles, and the Shaman allows you to reallocate tribe members from unfinished features, freeing them up for new opportunities.