The Dice Game

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General info and comments

This is the official dice game for Carcassonne. A game for 2-5 players released as part of the 10th anniversary of Carcassonne by Hans im Glück in 2011. Designed by Olivier Lamontagne and Klaus-Jürgen Wrede.

Overview

In the Carcassonne dice game, the players cleverly use dice rolls to try to build closed cities as large as they can -the bigger, the better.

Rules

Playing the game

The players roll the dice in turn order. The player choose a start player who begins and takes all 9 dice. On a player's turn, he rolls dice up to 3 times and then scores his result (see scoring section). He then passes the dice to his left neighbor, who continues the game.

Catapult

A player rolls all the dice before him on his first roll. If he rolls 1 or more catapults the player passes those dice immediately to the player to his left (he may not re-roll the catapults nor score points for this roll).

When a player rolls knights and city segments, he may set them aside or re-roll them as he chooses. When a player sets city segment aside, he must immediately build a city with them. The player may not rebuild already built city segments. Knights, once set aside, may not be re-rolled.

A knight

If a player collects 3 or more knights, he may choose not to score this turn and then double his score for the next turn. He keeps 1 knight and passes all other dice to his left neighbor. In his next turn, the player adds the knight die to the dice passed to him and rolls them. Thus, each player may have a knight, reducing the dice for others.

Example - End of the turn: The player collected 3 knights. He keeps one and passes all other dice on. He does not score points for the city he built.

City building

The player tries to build as large a city as possible with the dice he rolls. During the scoring, he scores the number of dice in his largest city.

City building rules

The black parts are the city segments.
Black parts are played next to black parts and white parts next to white parts.

Example: Black city parts and white parts

Once a die is used to build, it may not be re-rolled.

Example 1a - First roll: the player immediately passes the catapult to his left neighbor. The player uses 4 of the dice to build a city. He re-rolls the 2 knights and 2 other city segments in the hope to increase the size of his city.

Example 1b - Second roll: the player immediately passes this second catapult to his left neighbor. With 2 city segments dice, he add to his city. The player cannot use the knight and chooses to end his turn and score the largest city he built.

Scoring

After a player has rolled 3 times or chooses not to roll again, he may score his turn. The rules for scoring are:

Only the dice of the largest closed city are scored (if the player did not build a closed city, he scores no points).
If the player had a knight at the beginning of his turn, he scores double the points.
The points are recording on the score pad.
The points are scored as follows:
3 dice = 1 point

4 dice = 3 points

5 dice = 6 points

6 dice = 10 points

7 dice = 15 points

8 dice = 21 points

9 dice = 28 points

Example: The player scores his largest city, which has 6 dice and thus, scores 10 points.

Game end

As soon as a player has scored 42 total points, the game ends and that player is the winner.

Special case: if a player rolls 9 catapults during his turn, he wins immediately, regardless of the points he scored so far in the game.

Additional information

This section extends the basic information provided in the rules.

Detailed turn example

This example provides additional details about the impossibility of moving the dice placed as city or re-rolling knights.

Example 2a - First roll: the player build a city with 4 dice and set aside the knight die. He re-rolls the other 4 dice

Example 2b - Second roll: the player gets 2 catapults, he passes both of them to the next player and re-rolls the other 2 dice trying to close the city. The 4 dice that already are part of the city and the knight cannot be re-rolled.

Example 2c - Third roll: It is not possible to close the city with the city segments rolled. Dice already being part of the city cannot be moved to new locations. There are two cities, a 2 dice complete city and a 6 dice incomplete city. Neither of the two cities score points. The player receives no points in this turn.

Cities examples

2 dice city = 0 points

3 dice city = 1 point

4 dice city = 3 points

5 dice city = 6 points

6 dice city = 10 points

7 dice city = 15 points

8 dice city = 21 points

9 dice city = 28 points

The Dice Game

Contents

General info and comments

Contents

Overview