Winter Edition The River
General info and comments
The River for the Winter Edition was originally released by Hans im Glück in 2020 as a mini expansion bundled with the re-release of the Winter Edition Base Game. This edition is called WE2 for short.
This expansion was re-released in 2022 to incorporate some features included in the third edition of Carcassonne (C3): a source with a road, a lake with a monastery as well as a garden and other features not included in the Winter Edition until now. This newest edition is called WE3 for short.
The river embellishes your playing area and makes the starting landscape always varied.
Contents
- 12 river tiles (The River WE2) - each with with a dark back and no symbol.
- 12 river tiles (The River WE3) - each with with a dark back and no symbol.
Rules
Preparation
The River replaces the start tile. When playing with it, return the start tile to the box. Use the river tiles corresponding to your edition of choice.
Set aside the source and lake tiles. Shuffle the remaining river tiles and stack them facedown. Add the lake tile to the bottom of the stack, and place the source tile faceup as the starting tile.
 Source WE2 |
 Lake WE2 |
 Source WE3 |
 Lake WE3 |
Gameplay
Starting with the first player and continuing clockwise one after the other, players place tiles as usual (including the possibility of placing a meeple), with the exception that they must draw tiles from the River tile stack. You must continue drawing from the River stack until it runs out of tiles.
As usual, you must continue the illustration. Furthermore, you must continue the river illustration, and the river cannot turn twice in the same direction because this would create a U-turn.
Question: With the U-turn rule when making rivers, does that mean no U-turn ever, or just no immediate U-turns because it will complicate the placement of subsequent river tiles?
Answer: Only immediate U-turns are explicitly forbidden. Naturally, there can also be problems if a straight river tile lies between. Turning river the same way three times should also be considered prohibited.
You may place meeples along the river following the normal rules. So you may place meeples on roads, cities, monasteries and fields (but not on the river itself).
Once all of the river tiles are placed, you continue playing with the normal tiles.
 Example 1: Possible layout of The River WE2 with its source at the top end and the lake at the bottom end. |
 Example 2: Possible layout of The River WE3 with its source at the top end and the lake at the bottom end. |
Clarifications for new landscape tiles
The following tiles do not split fields - there is one field on each tile
River WE2
River WE2
River WE3
The following tile splits fields - there are three fields on this tile
River WE3
Fields do not go under small bridges - there are 4 separate fields here
River WE2
River WE3
River WE2
River WE3
and three fields here, one north and two south.
River WE2
River WE3
