The Tollkeepers
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The Tollkeepers mini expansion contains 10 tiles featuring traveler groups on some of them. It also contains one tollhouse token per player which can be used to score points when raising tolls on roads.
 Promotional image of The Tollkeepers in C3 |
With this mini expansion tollkeepers join the game. Even in the past, tolls were raised for people or for goods. They used to collect a "small toll" (for means of transport) or "large toll" (for goods).
General info and comments
 Expansion symbol |
The Tollkeepers was released in the 2nd edition (C2 for short) in October 2019 by HiG. A version in the 3rd edition (C3 for short) was released in 2023.
This expansion doesn't exist for the 1st edition (C1 for short), and presents some limitations if played with this edition.
This expansion was developed for the CARCASSONNE - basic game, therefore the rules stay the same! You can play The Tollkeepers alongside expansions as well; however, there will be no official rules for these combinations.
Contents
- 10 land tiles, 8 of them with a group of travellers.
- 6 tiles with tollhouses in the respective player color.
Tollhouse tiles: (A) front, (B) back
Rules
Preparation
Shuffle the 10 land tiles with the rest of the land tiles. Then, each player gets the tollhouse with the right color.
Gameplay
1. Placing a tile
You draw a land tile and place it according to the usual rules.
2. Placing a meeple
Having placed your land tile, you place your meeple according to the basic rules.
If you don't place a meeple, you are allowed to place your tollhouse showing 1 (small toll). If your tollhouse is already in the game, you are allowed to relocate it. The rules for this procedure are as follows:
- You may only place your tollhouse on top of crossroads. A crossroad is a village with 2-4 roads. A city or monastery with two or more roads doesn't count as a crossroad.
- It makes no difference where the crossroad is. You don't have to place/relocate your tollhouse on the land tiles you've just placed.
- The crossroad has to be free, that is, there can't be another tollhouse. [1] It doesn't matter, however, if there is a meeple placed on the respective crossroad land tile.
- When relocating the tollhouse, the value (1 or 2) stays the same.
- Having placed your tollhouse, it stays in the game until the end. You'll never take it back to your supply.
3. Scoring a feature
If you or another player complete a road beginning or ending where your tollhouse is, you raise a toll, that is, you get points for this road.
- For the small toll (showing the 1), you get 1 point for each farmhouse [4], shed [5], garden or highwaymen, and 3 points for each group of travellers on the road.
- For the large toll (showing the 2), you get 2 points for each farmhouse, shed, garden or highwaymen, and 6 points for each group of travellers on the road.
If there isn't anything like that on the road, you don't get any points for your tollhouse. [6]
Additionally, the owner of the completed road will score their points as usual.
Question: What are farmhouses, sheds, gardens and highwaymen?
Answer: They are small illustration you can find in Carcassonne II fields:
Note: The small illustrations of a cowshed, a pigsty and a donkey stable are collectively referred to as sheds or stables.
Toll changes with travellers
If you have scored at least one group of travellers with your tollhouse, you change its value. The small toll (1) becomes the large toll (2) or vice versa.
You change your toll only at the end of your turn. If you score more than one road with one toll within the same turn, its value is the same for all the roads.
Green gets 4 points for their road as usual.
Final Scoring
At the end of the game, you get points for all incomplete roads connected to your tollhouse. You get 1 point for each farmhouse, shed, garden, highwaymen as well as for each group of travellers no matter which number your tollhouse shows.
Other expansions
This section contains additional information about the interactions with other Carcassonne expansions.
Tollhouses only consider those features on a tile next to each printed road segment.
Question: Inns only affect those road segments they are on, that is, directly adjacent to. As per the wording of the rules, the same principle should be applied to farmhouses, sheds, gardens and highwaymen symbols when scoring a tollhouse bonus. Is this correct?
Answer: Yes, it is correct. See the example below, where road segments considering features for tollhouse bonuses are marked in green, otherwise in red. (1/2021)
Exp. 8 - Bridges, Castles & Bazaars
When scoring a tollhouse for a road with bridges, the bridges do not consider the features on their tiles.
Question: Bridges placed on tiles featuring farmhouses / sheds / highwaymen / gardens would not consider those features when scoring a tollhouse bonus. Is this correct? See tile examples from Exp. 5 and Exp. 8 below.
Answer: Yes, that is right. (1/2021)
Tile distribution
Third edition C3
Note: The tile distribution has changed in C3. The tile with four roads (the RRRR tile) marked with * had only 3 roads in C2 (an FRRR tile).
×1
×1
×1
×1
×1
×1Second edition C2
×1
×1
×1
×1
×1
×1Footnotes
For Icons explanation and licensing please visit Icons page.
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The rules don't take into consideration any tollhouses placed on other crossoads ending the road. This means a road ending at several crossroads allows players to place their tollhouses on any of available free crossroads even if any of the other crossroads was already occupied by other players' tollhouses.
- ↑
This scoring for tollhouses is especially designed for Carcassonne II. There is no official clarification about how tollhouses are scored for tiles with Carcassonne I artwork.
- ↑
Tollhouses may be scored taking into consideration the little farmhouses present on road tiles.
Example: Little farmhouses in Carcassonne I fields. - ↑
The term "farmhouse" is used instead of "farm", as in the original rules, in order to be consistent with the naming used in the base game and
The Markets of Leipzig.
- ↑
The term "shed" is used instead of "stable", as in the original rules, in order to be consistent with the naming used in The Markets of Leipzig.
- ↑
As this sentence stresses, the features have to be on the road in order to be considered. This is straightforward to determine for tiles with one road segment only or two running side by side. However, on tiles with several road segments meeting at a crossroads, you should only consider the features next to the road segment participating in the road being scored. This would be a similar case to that of roads with inns, where the inn only affects the road segment or segments next to it (see
Exp. 1 - Inns & Cathedrals).
Likewise, tollhouses will not consider any features on tiles under a wooden bridge. These features are not directly reachable from the bridge (see Exp. 8 - Bridges, Castles & Bazaars).
