Carcassonne
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50 free Carcassonne trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Carcassonne is the tile-laying game that quietly rewired modern board gaming. Klaus-Jürgen Wrede dreamed it up on holiday, Hans im Glück published it in 2000, and a year later it took both the Spiel des Jahres and the Deutscher Spiele Preis. Its little wooden followers even gave the hobby a word: meeple. These 50 questions cover the base game first: the 72 tiles, the eight followers, thieves on roads and monks in cloisters, how fields score, and the older scoring editions that still confuse mixed tables. Then the expansions: Inns and Cathedrals, Traders and Builders, the dragon and the fairy, the Tower, the Catapult, Hills and Sheep, the Phantom and the Minis. There are spin-offs from Hunters and Gatherers to Star Wars and Mists over Carcassonne, the Xbox 360 port, the World Championship at SPIEL in Essen, and a few questions about the real fortified town in southern France that lent its name. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a game-night tiebreaker.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who designed Carcassonne?
Klaus-Jürgen Wrede
Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, then a Cologne music and religion teacher, rated another of his prototypes more highly and was surprised that this one was accepted for publication.
Q 02Which German publisher first released Carcassonne?
Hans im Glück
Hans im Glück's co-founder Bernd Brunnhofer designed the game's little wooden follower himself, the figure that players soon nicknamed the meeple.
Q 03Who first published Carcassonne in English?
Rio Grande Games
Rio Grande Games kept the original farmer scoring in its English rulebooks for years after the German rules had changed, before the licence passed to Z-Man Games.
Q 04Which two major awards did Carcassonne win in 2001?
Spiel des Jahres and Deutscher Spiele Preis
Spiel des Jahres and Deutscher Spiele Preis are decided differently, the first by a critics' jury and the second by a wide poll of players, shops and clubs, so the double meant winning over both.
Q 05Carcassonne takes its name from a fortified town in which country?
France
France nearly lost the real Carcassonne: its abandoned walls were being quarried for stone and were due to come down before a 19th-century campaign won their restoration instead.
Q 06When does a game of Carcassonne end?
After the last tile
After the last tile is placed, that turn is completed and a final scoring follows, so the player ahead on the scoreboard at that moment is not always the winner.
Q 07What do shields on Carcassonne city tiles do?
Score extra points
Score extra points: each shield, also called a pennant or coat of arms, adds two points to a completed city, so a shielded tile is worth as much as two plain ones.
Q 08Each Carcassonne player's eighth follower does what?
Keeps score
Keeps score: the spare follower walks the scoring track, leaving seven to place, a shortage the publisher calls intentional because players are meant to learn to be economical.
Q 09In Carcassonne, a follower placed on a road takes what role?
Thief
Thief is the classic term, though newer rulebooks call the same figure a highwayman; either way it returns to its owner's supply as soon as the road is completed and scored.
Q 10Why is a follower laid flat instead of standing when placed on a Carcassonne field?
Fields score only at game end
Fields score only at game end, so a farmer never returns to its owner's supply mid-game; lying flat is the reminder to leave it where it is.
Q 11Who scores a Carcassonne city when two players tie?
Both, in full
Both, in full, which is why slipping a follower into a rival's big city, by joining a separate piece to it, is one of the game's standard tactics.
Q 12A Carcassonne field's score depends on what?
Completed cities it touches
Completed cities it touches are worth three points each, so a field fenced in by roads with no finished city beside it earns its farmer nothing at all.
Q 13How does an unfinished Carcassonne city score when the game ends?
Half as much
Half as much: one point per tile instead of two, so a knight stranded in a city that can never be closed still brings something home.
Q 21Which was Carcassonne's first full expansion, originally sold simply as "The Expansion"?
Inns and Cathedrals
Inns and Cathedrals raises the stakes: an inn or a cathedral makes a finished road or city worth more, but wipes out its score entirely if the feature is still incomplete when play stops.
Q 22Which Carcassonne expansion introduced a special follower that earns its owner extra turns?
Traders and Builders
Traders and Builders gave each player a builder: extend the road or city he stands in and you immediately draw and place a second tile.
Q 23In Carcassonne's Princess and the Dragon expansion, which figure protects followers from the dragon?
A fairy
Q 14Where may a Carcassonne follower be placed?
The tile just laid
The tile just laid, and only on a feature nobody has claimed, which is why players build beside a rival's road or city and join up with it later.
Q 15Carcassonne tiles connect across which part of their border?
Adjacent edges only
Adjacent edges only: corners never connect, so two city pieces that merely touch diagonally stay separate cities, each to be finished and scored on its own.
Q 16Carcassonne's River expansion starts at the source and ends with which tile?
The lake
The lake closes the river: players lay every river tile in turn, placing followers and scoring as usual, before anyone draws from the main stack.
Q 17The 2014 Halflings mini-expansions gave Carcassonne tiles of what unusual shape?
Triangular
Triangular: the 24 tiles first came out as two small sets, one bundled with a games magazine, and the publisher later reissued them together under the Halflings name.
Q 18How was Carcassonne's River expansion originally distributed?
Free at trade fairs
Free at trade fairs: the 2001 giveaway later went on sale, and its tiles were eventually packed into the standard box.
Q 19The bazaar tiles in a 2010 Carcassonne expansion add which mechanic to the game?
An auction
An auction: when a bazaar appears, one tile per player is turned face up and players bid points from their own scores to decide who gets which.
Q 20Board gamers often describe Carcassonne as which kind of game?
A gateway game
A gateway game is one that draws newcomers into the hobby, and this one fits because its rules are short and a game lasts little more than half an hour.
A fairy: the dragon may not enter the tile she stands on, while the princess of the title does the opposite of rescuing, since her tiles let a player throw a knight out of a city.
Q 24Carcassonne's Tower expansion lets players build towers to do what?
Capture nearby followers
Capture nearby followers: the taller the tower, the further it reaches, and a prisoner comes home only by being swapped for another or bought back with points.
Q 25Which Carcassonne expansion includes tiles that can fill holes in the board and complete features?
Abbey and Mayor
Abbey and Mayor hands each player one abbey to drop into any gap closed in on all four sides, finishing whatever roads and cities run up against it.
Q 26Which siege weapon comes as a working wooden model in a Carcassonne expansion?
Catapult
Catapult: each fairground tile stops play for a round of flinging tokens across the table, a dexterity contest that players' reviews criticised as out of place in a tactical game.
Q 27Carcassonne's Hills and Sheep expansion added which animal tokens alongside the sheep?
Wolves
Wolves are the gamble: a shepherd keeps drawing tokens from a bag to grow his flock, but pulling a wolf sends every sheep back before it can be scored.
Q 28Carcassonne's circus expansion Under the Big Top gives each player which special figure?
A ringmaster
A ringmaster in each player's colour comes in the box, alongside a wooden tent that moves from one circus tile to the next, paying out points to the meeples around it.
Q 29What does Carcassonne's Phantom piece let its owner do?
Place two followers
Place two followers in one turn: each player gets one translucent phantom to go down as the second, and unusually the set contained no tiles at all, only the six plastic figures.
Q 30Carcassonne's Festival mini-expansion came bundled with which release?
The 10th anniversary edition
The 10th anniversary edition of 2011 brought ten festival tiles, one per year, each letting a player either place a follower as usual or take one back from anywhere on the board.