I don’t think I reviewed a board game here yet. And I love playing board games. Winter is the perfect time to play them and one of the games I got to play the last few weeks is a game I got for my birthday a year ago, I think. It’s called Carcasonne – The Discovery. Basically what you need to do is draw a tile from the stack, attach it somewhere to the map laid out on the table and choose what you want to do: put one of your pawns on it or not, when you decide to claim it, you have to decide if you’re claiming sea, mountains or plains. The goal is to get your claimed territory as big as you can, but not too big, because you need to finish it.

The rules are really straightforward and because of the tiled board setup, every game is different. You need to use strategy, but also depend on luck. I really like the different variants of Carcasonne because of that and the fact it looks nice. The artwork of the game, the drawings are nicely done and after playing everything fits back in the box without everything getting messed up.

I think of all the versions of Carcasonne I played, I like The Discovery best, because it’s more interesting because of the variation: a lot of different factors have to be weighed in. Do you choose to be a sailor and count on the tiles of the sea and the harbour cities, do you count on the mountains and only get points for the cities in the mountains and on the neighbouring plains or do you choose to play for plains and get points for the tiles of the plain, but not for the cities. A big mountain ridge can score a lot of points, but if you draw tiles without cities on them, your mountain range will be worth nothing. However, if you go for the plain, you know you get at least one point for every tile that makes up your plain. If I had to rate the game on a five point scale, I’d give it 3.5 points out of five. I like the game a lot, but it’s not the best game I ever played or a favourite game.

Link: Carcasonne – Discovery (links to boardgamegeek.com)

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