What are Archaic Hunters and Gatherers?

Carcassonne- Should I buy the standard game or Hunters & Gatherers?

• I'm thinking of buying my first Carcassonne game and I want to know if you guys would recommend getting the original version or Hunters & Gatherers. My friends have never played Carcassonne but I've tried it a few times as a computer game and I think we would be fine starting off with an expansion, or whatever hunters and gatherers is. What is Hunters and Gatherers by the way?

• Answer:

  The basic gameplay of Hunters and Gatherers is very similar. You still draw a tile each turn and choose whether to place your meeple on it. Hunters and Gatherers adds a few more options. For example, in H&G you have forests instead of cities. Some forest tiles also show gold nuggests. If you complete a forest tile with a gold nugget, you get to draw from a set of special bonus tiles and place the bonus tile; these are slightly better than normal tiles. Instead of roads, it has rivers which show different amounts of fish, which are broken by lakes. Fishers score points for number of fish as well as the length of the river. In addition, you can place a fishing hut on a lake, which will score for all the fish in connected rivers. H&G does not have an equivalent to cloisters, which is probably good since they tended to give a lot of really easy points. Fields in H&G have animals in them, and hunters (the equivalent of farmers) score based on the animals. Some fields have tigers, which drive animals away - a good way to reduce an opponent's field! Fields tend to be more manageable in size and not as high scoring as they do in regular Carcassonne. In my opinion, this is a good thing, as they dominate the original game too much. While we have both, my girlfriend and I never play original Carcassonne anymore; we far prefer H&G. Hope that helps!