Carcassonne

• Place the scoreboard on the table (ideally at the side, not in the centre)
• Choose starting player:
  • Official method: Youngest player decides who starts
• Prepare river tiles:
  • Set aside tiles with dark backs from rest of tiles
  • Place water spring tile in middle of table
  • Set aside lake tile
  • Shuffle remaining river tiles and place in stack
• Each player receives:
  • 8 follower meeples:
    • 1 of these followers is placed on "0" space of scoring track
  • 1 big follower meeple
  • 1 builder meeple
  • 1 pig meeple
• Place remaining tiles into tile bag and place bag near players

Players will take turns, starting with the first player and going clockwise around the table, will do the following on their turn:

• Place exactly one tile:
  • If there are river tiles still unplaced, a river tile must be placed first
  • After all river tiles have been placed, the lake tile must be placed next to complete the river
  • After the lake tile is placed, for the rest of the game, a tile is randomly drawn from the bag
• Optionally, place one meeple on the tile just placed
• If tile being placed completes a feature, the feature is scored and any meeples on feature are returned to player

When placing a tile, the following conditions must be met:

• The tile is orthogonally adjacent to an already placed tile
• Any features on the new tile (roads, cities, farms, etc.) must extend the features on the edges of tiles adjacent to new tile:
  • If new tile cannot be placed legally, the tile is removed from the game and new tile is selected
• When placing a tile that extends a road or city feature:
  • If feature being extended contains your builder meeple, you may immediately take another turn after this one
  • If on that extra turn you place another tile that extends the feature containing your builder meeple, you do not get a second extra turn

When placing a meeple, the following conditions must be met:

• The meeple can only be placed on the tile that was placed this turn
• When placing a follower meeple, large or small, no other meeples can be on this feature:
  • If tiles in subsequent turns join two features together, meeples remain on the tiles they were placed on
• A builder meeple can only be placed on a road or city feature:
  • They can only be placed on a road or city containing your meeple(s)
• A pig meeple can only be placed on a farm feature:
  • They can only be placed on a farm containing your meeple(s)

When scoring a completed feature:

• Only the player with the most follower meeples on the feature scores it:
  • Large meeples count as two standard follower meeples for counting meeple majorities
  • Builder and pig meeples don't count for counting meeple majorities
  • In case of ties, all tied players score the feature i.e. not divided between players
• After scoring, meeples on scored feature are returned to their owners:
  • Farms are never completed, and thus any meeples placed on farms are never returned to players

The game ends when the final tile is placed.

Final scoring then commences as follows:

• Score incomplete cities, roads and monasteries
• Score farms

The player with the most points wins