Edition: The Carcassonne base game with current scoring, where a farm scores 3 points per completed city. Last checked October 25, 2026
Carcassonne Rules: How to Play and Score Carcassonne
In Carcassonne you build a landscape of square tiles with cities, roads, monasteries and farms. You place your little meeples on them to score points. Here are the rules in short, and answers to the classic questions that come up at the table.
- Players
- 2 to 5
- Age
- 7 and up
- Playing time
- 35 to 45 minutes
How to win: Have the most points at the end of the game.
Who is right?
The classic arguments at the table when you play Carcassonne.
How many points is a farm worth?
3 points per completed city under current rules.
In the current edition a farm scores 3 points for each completed city it touches. Unfinished cities do not count. The earliest editions scored farms in other ways, so old rulebooks can give different results.
Many families play without farmers at all, because farms are the hardest part to understand.
Can you place a meeple in a city that already has one?
Not directly.
You may not place a meeple on a feature that is already claimed. But you may place one in a new, separate city and later connect it to the claimed city, so you share it.
Some families ban joining other players' cities this way, because it can feel mean when playing with kids.
What is a small two-tile city worth?
4 points under current rules.
Today every completed city scores 2 points per tile, so a two-tile city scores 4 points. In older editions a two-tile city scored only 2 points.
If you play with an old rulebook, agree before you start which rule you follow.
Do you get your meeple back from a monastery or a farm?
Monastery yes, farm no.
A monk comes back when the monastery is fully surrounded and scored. A farmer stays in the field for the whole game and only scores at the end.
Some let players take a farmer back in exchange for scoring nothing for it.
What you need
- 72 land tiles, including the start tile
- Meeples in each player's color
- Score board
Setup
- 1Put the start tile in the middle of the table.
- 2Shuffle the rest of the tiles face down into several stacks.
- 3Each player takes the meeples in their color and puts one on the score board as a score marker. The rest, usually 7, are for playing.
How to play
- 1Draw a tile and place it so it touches at least one tile already on the table.
- 2All edges must match: road to road, city to city and field to field.
- 3If the tile cannot be placed anywhere, set it aside and draw a new one.
- 4You may now place one meeple on the tile you just played: on a road, in a city, on a monastery or in a field.
- 5You may not place a meeple on a road, city or field that already has a meeple on it, even if the connection is far away.
- 6When a road, city or monastery is completed, score it right away, and the meeples go back to their owners.
- 7If several players have meeples on the same completed feature, the player with the most meeples scores it. On a tie, all tied players score full points.
- 8The game ends when the last tile is placed. Then unfinished features and farms are scored.
Scoring during the game
- Completed road: 1 point per tile.
- Completed city: 2 points per tile and 2 points per coat of arms.
- Completed monastery, fully surrounded by 8 tiles: 9 points.
Scoring at the end
- Unfinished road: 1 point per tile.
- Unfinished city: 1 point per tile and 1 point per coat of arms.
- Unfinished monastery: 1 point for the monastery and 1 for each neighboring tile.
- Farm: 3 points for each completed city the farm touches. The player with the most farmers in that field gets the points.
House rules
Pick the rules you want to play with tonight. Everyone at the table has to agree.
Our Carcassonne rules for tonight
Everything else follows the official rules.
Frequently asked questions
How many meeples do you get in Carcassonne?
Each player has 8 meeples, and one is used as a score marker. That leaves 7 to place on tiles.
What if a tile can't be placed anywhere?
Put it back in the box and draw a new tile.
Are the rules different in old and new editions?
Yes, in two ways: farms are scored differently, and small cities scored fewer points in the first editions. Newer boxes also often include The River and The Abbot as small mini expansions.
Source: The publisher's rulebook for the base game and common family tradition. The rules are written in our own words. Ask the referee if you are unsure.