How to Play

Carcassonne: The Castle

2-2 players 30-45 min 7.1 Board Game Geek Rating

A standalone two-player tile-placement game set within Carcassonne's city walls. Players build paths, towers, houses, and courtyards using familiar Carcassonne mechanics, but tiles must fit within wall constraints. Victory comes from advancing around the castle wall scoring track, earning bonus tiles for reaching checkpoints first, plus points from completed structures and the largest undeveloped area.

Published 2003

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Gather additional components

For each additional player beyond two, you will need seven additional followers and one keep of a different color (meeples and barns from Carcassonne work well)

Place wall tiles for 3 players

Stack two wall tiles each on the first nine corner towers (beginning with 12/13); the last four corner towers will not receive wall tiles

Place wall tiles for 4 players

Stack three wall tiles each on the first two corner towers (beginning with 12/13) and two wall tiles each on the next six corner towers (beginning with 20/21); the last five corner towers will not receive wall tiles

Place wall tiles for 5 players

Stack four wall tiles each on the first two corner towers (beginning with 12/13), three wall tiles each on the next two corner towers (beginning with 20/21), and two wall tiles each on the next two corner towers (beginning with 32/33); the last seven corner towers will not receive wall tiles

Place wall tiles for 6 players

Stack five wall tiles each on the first two corner towers (beginning with 12/13) and four wall tiles each on the next two corner towers (beginning with 20/21); the last nine corner towers will not receive wall tiles

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Claim wall tiles from stacks

If there are two or more tiles on a corner tower when a player's scoring marker lands there, he or she looks at all tiles there, takes one, and returns the rest to the space (to be claimed by other players later)

Score features with ties

When a feature is scored, players who are tied for the most followers on that feature each receive the full points for that feature

Resolve largest keep ties

Players who are tied for the largest keep each receive the full points

Apply wall tile bonuses

Wall tiles used to score points affect only the player who plays them; other players with followers there do not benefit

Winning

How to claim victory.

Determine the winner

Players who are tied for the most followers on a scored feature each receive full points, and players tied for the largest keep each receive full points (standard Carcassonne: The Castle victory conditions apply with these modifications for multiplayer scoring)