The Gifts

Image of The Gifts

General info and comments

Expansion symbol

The Gifts was released by Hans im Glück in 2021.

With this mini-expansion released for the 20th anniversary of Carcassonne, you can receive gifts if you help your fellow players.

Contents

• 25 cards featuring Gifts (5 x Synod, Road Sweeper, Change Position, Cash Out, Take 2)

Back (left) and front of the 5 types of cards in the deck (right)

Note: The expansion does not include printed rules. They can be downloaded from the product here in German and in English:

https://cundco.de/en/mini-expansions/carcassonne/390/carcassonne-the-gifts?c=35

This expansion has been developed for the Carcassonne basic game. All the basic game rules still apply in addition to the expansion rules below. You can combine it with other expansions - but at your own risk – that is, there will be no official rules for these combinations.

Rules

Preparation

Shuffle the 25 gift cards into one facedown deck.

Gameplay

This expansion only changes the course of action in step 1. Placing a tile. The following actions 2. Placing a meeple and 3. Scoring a feature are carried out as usual.

1. Placing a tile

Receiving a gift

If you place a tile in a way that it adds to a road or city of a fellow player, you receive a gift.

This means that:

• Roads or cities that have been expanded must belong to someone else (after the tile has been placed) according to the majority rule.
• When your tile extends several roads and/or cities, you still only receive 1 gift.

Now draw the top card of the deck, take a look at it (without showing it to any other player) and place it face down in front of you.

Note: In case all gift cards have already been given out at this point, shuffle the discard pile into a new gift deck. If the rare case occurs that all gifts are lying "unopened" before the players, you do not receive a gift.

Example 1: You place your tile, adding to Blue’s road and take a gift for doing so. Without the blue meeple on the road, you would not receive a gift, because you share the majority in the city.

Opening a gift

After having drawn a tile, but before placing it, you may open exactly 1 gift.

To do so, turn over one of your gifts, resolve the action, then put it onto an open discard pile.

There are 5 types of gifts:

	Synod Place a meeple from your supply onto any unfinished monastery (if possible). The monastery can already be occupied by one or more meeple – yours or someone else’s. The monastery may also be unoccupied. Example 2: You use the card “Synod” and place a meeple onto the monastery 1, which is already occupied by a blue, a green and one of your own meeples. Now you place a tile and complete the monastery 2. You score 9 points, Blue and Green do not score any points.
	Road Sweeper Score any unfinished road right away. It is not necessary for you to have a meeple on the road. After the road has been scored, the player's meeple is put back into their supply. Example 3: You score the road and receive 4 points and take your meeple back into your supply 1. Next you continue the road by placing your tile 2 and place the meeple back onto the road 3.
	Cash Out Take your own meeple from a feature (city, road, monastery, or field), put it back to your supply and score points for doing so. You score 2 points for each meeple, placed on that feature – also for the one you are taking back. Example 4: You take your meeple back from the city and score 6 points.
	Change Position Change the position of one of your meeple on a tile. If your meeple is standing on a road, a monastery or a city, place it lying down in a field on the same tile. If your meeple is lying down in a field, place it standing up on a road, city or monastery on the same tile. You may place your meeple standing up or lying down onto features that are already occupied. You may only change the position of the meeple from lying down to standing or standing to lying down. Moving the meeple between features such as a road, a city, or a monastery is not allowed. Example 5: You change the position of your meeple, placing it, lying down, onto the already occupied field next to the city.
	Take 2 In addition to the tile you've just drawn, draw another one. Now pick one of them and place it according to the usual rules. The other tile is shuffled back into the facedown stack of tiles.

2. Placing a meeple

When you place a tile, you may place a meeple on it according to the usual rules.

Note: This expansion does not affect this action.

3. Scoring a feature

When you complete one or more features (e.g. a monastery, a road etc.), you score them according to the usual rules.

Note: This expansion does not affect this action.

Final scoring

At the end of the game, you score 2 points for each unopened gift in front of you.

Tile distribution

Total cards: 25

  x5

  x5

  x5

  x5

  x5

Footnotes

For Icons explanation and licensing please visit Icons page.