[Board/Tactical Game]: Carcassonne: The River II, reviewed by ShannonA (3/3)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12081.phtml

Shannon Appelcline's Summary:

A small supplement for Carcassonne that offers variety to the game and improves upon the design of the original river.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Eryops]

If you're using the Princess and Dragon expansion (and probably have it if you're going to buy this expansion) then having the dragon on the board right off the bat (due to the final volcano tile) is important. There's nothing like laying out the river and the first tile drawn is a dragon tile and he moves up the river gobbling up meeples. This river aspect changes the dynamic of the game more than anything else where you could wait 30+ tiles before drawing a volcano and getting the dragon on the board.

[ShannonA]

Originally Posted by Eryops

If you're using the Princess and Dragon expansion (and probably have it if you're going to buy this expansion) then having the dragon on the board right off the bat (due to the final volcano tile) is important. There's nothing like laying out the river and the first tile drawn is a dragon tile and he moves up the river gobbling up meeples. This river aspect changes the dynamic of the game more than anything else where you could wait 30+ tiles before drawing a volcano and getting the dragon on the board.

I haven't played P&D because I don't like the in-your-face attacks, but having the volcano on the river did strike me as excellent design, avoiding the very inelegant put-any-dragon-tiles-to-the-side-and-reshuffle-them-after-you-pull-a-volcano rule found in P&D.

Shannon

[jeanb]

I play Carsonne with its many expansions regularly and just bought the River II expansion. I love the color on the new river tiles, so vivid. I have a question about the rule booklet concerning follower placement. It says, "When he places a river tile, the player may place a follower on the tile using the normal follower placing rules. The players may not place followers on river segments."
This seems contradictory to me. Does this stop me from placing followers on the entire river or just on tiles that have only river, meaning no farmers?? It would definitely stop those farm hogs, who place a farmer around the spring or lake thus blocking any other farmer placement. Do you know which was intended by the creators??

[ShannonA]

It's saying that you can't actually place people *in* the river, e.g., no fishermen.

[DougOrleans]

I count 6 vs. 8 farms: the small curved road creates its own farm that doesn't touch the river.