GBP (£)
USD ($)
The 3rd expansion set in this most iconic board game. Carcassonne, for me, improves with expansion sets. The simple tile and meeple placing game set in the French town of Carcassonne. The base game is fairly straightforward and somewhat simple, which is great as an entry point. However you quickly want more from the game and that is where expansions play a huge role and add so much more. The Princess & the Dragon throws the game into chaos.
Carcassonne is a reasonably civilised game, I think that is important to note. You lay your tiles, you play your meeples, you score your points. There’s a bit of squabbling over cities and farms at times as players try to get the most meeples into the scoring item and take the full score, but this happens only a few times in any given game, typically. Here’s what the new features bring.
The Princess
As you might expect. A new expansion comes with many new tiles for evolved gameplay. Some of these tiles have a little Princess icon printed on and typically come with a city. If you lay this tile into an already established city (not complete) with meeples in, the Princess removes one meeple (the player who drew the tile) of their choice. This may open up an opponent's city and leave the area abandoned, free to then add a new meeple without the need to merge in. If you have a trapped meeple, you could take it back allowing you to use the meeple to score elsewhere.
The Princess can hugely disrupt play and leave your opponents very upset with the decisions you may take. Players do not have to utilise this ability, they could just lay a meeple as normal.
The Dragon
If you are upset by what the Princess could do. The dragon is a wrecking ball and can really make a mess of things. The volcano tile spawns the dragon, this is another new type of tile. Then, tiles with the dragon icon on start the dragon event, which is never generally good. Starting with the player who drew the icon, take turns clockwise to move the dragon on a square. Critically the dragon cannot return back to any squares it moves from in this event. The dragon moves 6 times in this event. If any meeples happen to be in its way, they aren’t for much longer because it eats them. Return these meeples back to the players pool. This is horrendous if you are on the receiving end of such a play. Of course, on the flipside, hilarious if it isn’t happening to you.
These 2 factors cause havoc in the game. It is very un Carcassonne like from the game up to this point. We don’t destroy things in the game but now we do. Plenty of meeples get hurt along the way in The Princess & the Dragon.
The Fairy
It’s fair to say the meeples need some help from these new dangers. This is the role of the fairy. On a player's turn, instead of playing a meeple they can choose to play the fairy instead should they want to. They can attach it alongside one of their meeples in play, which can include stripping away from an opponent's meeple if already in play with them.
The fairy brings a few benefits. If you hang on to the fairy for an entire turn with your meeple, score a point when play returns to you, The fairy protects from both the dragon and from the princess. Plus, if you score a road, city or monastery with a meeple who has a fairy attached, you gain a bonus 3 points on top of the rest of your score. All very useful. You may not be surprised to learn that the fairy is argued over and constantly goes back and forth in any one game.
Magic Portals
You have some of these to also consider. 6 portal tiles in the set. A portal allows a player to place their meeple on absolutely any legal tile already placed on the board that is open and available to score. So not an occupied or already complete feature. This is actually a really disruptive playing piece.
Is this still Carcassonne?
If you have played the base game as well as the earlier expansions to The Princess & the Dragon, you will really be wondering what has happened and you may very well not enjoy this version of the game. It completely changes what Carcassonne is about for me and the game plays out in an incredibly different way. That isn’t a problem though as I really enjoy the change that this set brings. You don’t always have to play Carcassonne and include this expansion and that is what is great.
I would understand though if you didn’t feel this set is for you. Not everyone will appreciate their meeples being taken out and the loss of scoring opportunity, particularly if you have worked hard on creating a significant city or farming field. To lose out on it would be frustrating and I get it, it has happened to me. No one wants to see 2 or 3 of their meeples taken out by a rampaging dragon because they have conglomerated close together. You need to adopt your strategies when playing with this addition because what normally works well in a game will not necessarily play out well here. That is something I do appreciate because it is the same Carcassonne mechanics, but it really isn’t the same game. That is a testament to the creators for seamlessly integrating a new expansion with the existing set up and I can only applaud them for that.
Final Thoughts
The Princess & the Dragon really isn’t for all. If you are feeling the need to freshen up your Carcassonne play and change the dynamics of an already brilliant game then you really ought to include this set and I would recommend picking it up.
