Wednesday XBLA update adds Carcassonne 'King & Baron'

by Jason Dobson { Oct 3rd 2007 at 6:26PM }

Sierra and Microsoft have revisited the grid-based fortified town of Carcassonne, as the XBLA rendition of the popular European board game has gotten a new downloadable expansion titled "The King and Baron" as part of today's regular XBLA update, which also includes block dropper Tetris Splash.

With an asking price of 300 Microsoft Points ($3.75), the download is the second such expansion following the already available "River I & II," and adds a set of five additional tiles described as 'interesting configurations of Town pieces,' as well as pair of new rules. We're not exactly sure what they mean by "interesting" ... perhaps they glow.

The new rules are designed to award those players with either the largest city or the longest road at the end of the game with a pair of icons placed next to their avatars and Gamertags. But it's not just for looks or bragging rights, no sir! With this expansion, the player with the biggest city, identified by a newly added 'portly' King icon, will receive one point for each completed city in the game, while the player with the mightiest of roads, denoted by a 'crafty' Robber Baron, will take home one point for each completed road in the game -- and you know how much we love to pile up them points.

Tags: baron, boardgame, Carcassonne, expansion, king, XBLA

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

blooh (CDF - Ass Ring) @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:31PM

i played the demo of this game, it's decent. hard to learn the intricacies though

Viridium @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:43PM

Sweet! Finally something worthwhile I can spend some MS points on.

kinshadow @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:45PM

Sweet. I love the Carcasonne expansions. Now, when are we going to see Settlers expansions?

German board games FTW!

Dirk Dorkelson @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:52PM

Too bad this game doesn't have the large core of devoted players like Catan does. It's fun, but I rarely find a game with more than one other person.

Word of the street(IDF-Digital Ruler). @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:33PM

Usual problem with Arcade games,unless is crazy popular like Bomberman you will hardly find anyone to play with since most of the XLive users play Gears of War,Halo 2 or 3 or X game that can be The darkness,Call of Duty or G.R:A.W.

carg0 @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:25PM

i'm sure the five people who bought this game will be delighted.

maylon @ Oct 3rd 2007 8:00PM

I bought it.

Word of the street(IDF-Digital Ruler). @ Oct 3rd 2007 8:43PM

Great now we got 1 out of 5.

I kid,I kid

Michael @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:40PM

This game is a classic. Funny enough, it's beating out time on my 360 over Forza2 and other newer games ...

Im in love, and can't get enough. Now with the expansion I'm so game.

Just spend a few sessions with it - it's really not that complex or difficult.

Later - gotta go game man.

epthegeek @ Oct 4th 2007 12:00AM

What a pity that you can't use the view shown in the screenshot in this article in the actual game.

Also a big dissapointment that you can't do local & live multiplayer mixed. By that I mean 2+ local players AND someone over live. Bomberman can do it; the carcassonne guys just got lazy I guess.

Jonah Falcon @ Oct 4th 2007 2:13AM

Because that would lead to obvious cheating. Think for a second. One person as two players, as he has one "dummy" player use all its tiles to help his main player.

Sheesh, think for a second in your life. LOL

epthegeek @ Oct 4th 2007 3:06PM

"Because that would lead to obvious cheating."

Meh. In unranked games it should be allowed. My wife and I would play via live with people we know and nobody would be crying cheater.

Now I need to get back to double handing some bomberman for ultimate cheating action!

Jonah Falcon @ Oct 4th 2007 2:11AM

The "unusual" tiles include one in which two towns overlap each other (cross over)... there's also a town/monastery tile, too.

James @ Oct 4th 2007 9:36AM

That's a paltry sum compared to how much the actual board game expansions cost. They need to put more games from Mafair, Rio Grande, and other crazy board games. Put Arkham Horror up plz!

aggrazel @ Oct 4th 2007 10:11AM

I just hope the tiles don't break some of the strategy, its possible right now to break a city so it can't be finished, I use the tactic all the time. I prefer defensive play.

Rodney @ Oct 5th 2007 9:19AM

It doesn't break any of the strategy, just introduces a few more options. Having played the boardgame with these expansion tiles quite a bit, it is simply a matter of learning the new tiles just like the old ones. If the right tiles aren't available, a city is still impossible to complete.