Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is a German-style board game. As a member of the Carcassonne family of board games, it is developed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and distributed by Hans im Glück in German and Rio Grande Games in English.
Hunters and Gatherers has its setting in the countryside near Carcassonne, before the establishment of its famed city walls. Like the original game it is based on, the objective of the game is to score points through judicious placement of terrain tiles and followers (colloquially referred to as meeples).
The King and Scout expansion to Carcassonne provides an expansion to this game, titled Scout.
Gameplay
Like Carcassonne, Hunters and Gatherers begins with a single tile, and the game is over when all of the tiles are placed. At the start of each turn, a player takes a tile at random and places it adjacent to the existing tiles such that the features on the tiles are extended: meadows to meadows, forests to forests, and rivers to rivers. If a player draws a tile that cannot be placed, they must discard the tile and choose a different tile, until there is a tile that may be suitably placed.
After each tile is placed, the player may place one of their followers on the tile, which then claim ownership of a particular terrain feature: either a forest, river, or meadow. A player may place a follower only if no other followers have claimed the feature -- however, over time, it is possible that followers may share the same features due to placement of new tiles. If the completed forest contains a gold nugget, the player completing the forest (not necessarily the player who scored for it) then has a bonus turn, drawing a tile from a separate pile of bonus tiles, and after playing it, scoring occurs again if any other rivers or forests are completed. Note that "chain reactions" are not permitted -- only one bonus tile may be drawn per turn. The player playing the bonus tile, as with normal tiles, may choose to place a follower on the tile.
Each player has seven followers; two fishing huts and five ordinary followers.
Fishing huts are not present in the original Carcassone. They may be placed on any river segment or lake to claim ownership of an entire system of rivers (i.e. an entire body of water). Huts and ordinary followers do not influence each other's placement -- a player may have a hut and a follower on the same river, and opposing players are permitted to "share" rivers in this fashion.
The game is completed when the final tile is placed. The player with the most points after a final round of scoring wins the game.
Scoring
Points are scored both during the game, and in a final scoring after the last tile is placed.
Points are scored during the game for completion of rivers and forests. As in Carcassonne, only the players with the majority of followers in a given feature score points, with all tied players receiving the full amounts if a tie exists.
A river is considered complete when it either forms a closed loop or there is a lake or spring at both ends. They score one point for each segment (effectively one point per tile, unless there is a loop with only one lake), plus one point for each fish in the lake(s) that may be at each end of the river.
Forests, which act analogously to cities in Carcassonne, are complete when they are surrounded on all sides with no room for expansion. Unlike Carcassonne, however, they score two points per segment -- hence it is possible for a single tile to contribute to four or more points in the scoring. Forests also award two additional points for each mushroom patch found therein.
The followers on completed rivers and forests are removed and returned to the players' supplies. These followers may then be reused in the following turns.
At the end of the game, any followers on incomplete rivers or forests are removed -- incomplete rivers and forests (unlike Carcassonne) do not score for any player. It is at this time that meadows and huts are scored.
Huts award one point for each fish in the entire river system. River systems do not need to be completed to be scored.
Meadows, which contain various animals, will score for the animals that are contained therein, regardless of whether the meadow is complete or not. There are three types of animals that contribute to the scoring: deer, aurochs, and mammoths, which are each worth two points. However, each tiger will negate the scoring of a single deer (but not aurochs or mammoth). Any tigers in excess of the number of deer will not adversely affect the scoring for a meadow. The tiles with burning grass negates the effect of the tigers, allowing all deer to be scored on the field. Green discs are provided with the game to aid in this endeavor. There is also a bonus tile containing a shrine -- if a player has a follower on the shrine, only that player scores for the meadow, regardless of the number of followers contained within.
Scout expansion
When playing with the Scout expansion, each player also takes a special tile at the beginning of the game from a set of five (in a two-player game, each player takes two). Four of these five tiles are special land tiles that can be played in lieu of drawing a tile that turn. However, when played a player must place a follower (or a hut with Agriculture) on the tile that will remain there during the rest of the game. These tiles also grant an ability to the player who plays the special tile:
- The Scout allows a player to refuse the first tile drawn and draw another tile. This privilege can be used for bonus tiles so long as the ability was not used in the initial draw, and is not considered to be used when a player is forced to redraw. The follower on the scout is considered to be part of the forest on the tile, but is not removed when the forest is completed.
- The Hunter on Bridge allows the follower there to count in the scoring of the meadows on both sides of the river that the bridge straddles. One side of the river also contains a bear, worth two points as with other animals.
- The Dug-out allows the owner to score whenever any river in the system is completed -- the player receives as many points as the lake with the largest number of fish in the system. The follower is considered to be part of a river extending from the lake on the tile, but is not removed when the river is completed.
- The player with the Agriculture scores one point for each tile in the meadow at the end of the game. As a river runs through the tile, the player may choose to place a hut instead of a follower, following normal rules.
The fifth tile, the Shaman, allows a player to remove one of their own followers (not huts) each turn.