Slow Burning Games with Evolving Limitations - Carcassonne

What is a Slow Burn?

I enjoy the slow burn of some board games, and what I mean by that is I love it when about two-thirds of the way into my first playthrough of a board game, the eureka moment hits me. I think this is why this game is fun; this is why my decisions are important and matter. And that statement at the end right there is the crux of what makes an enjoyable slow-burning gaming experience for me. 

Having meaningful decisions in a game can be tricky to design regardless. Having them from the get-go can create intense analysis paralysis for the newer player. That's why I think having these decisions be more meaningful towards the end of the game can allow people to canter into the experience without much drag and hesitation. This experience is essentially my entire design philosophy, so I appreciate it when identifying other games' strategies to making slow-burning "gateway" games. 

Creating a Slow Burn

Regarding Carcassonne and how it creates its slow burn, I think it does this in a few ways:

• The only major limitation on your turn is the ever draining tile pool which doesn't massively affect your decision-making process until the mid-to-late game. This evolving limitation leaves the early game open for easy decisions and light-hearted moments. 
• In addition to the last point, due to the limited amount of specific tiles, as these tiles get fewer and fewer as the game progresses, that's when decisions get tougher and tensions rise.                    
• There is instant scoring, allowing you to focus on the instant gain when you first start playing, and end game scoring can be a secondary goal. 
• Due to the nature of contesting mid game and end game scoring, competition regarding land such as castles and roads in the game is slow but ever-building and increasingly intense. ​

​There are lots of ways Carcassone avoids analysis paralysis as well but doesn't lead to mechanisms that create a slow burn, such as the tile pool being hidden, unlike in games such as Azul and Calico. Still, I've already covered that in a previous post which I will link at the end of the post. 

Credit: https://deerfieldlibrary.org/2016/01/carcassonne-a-modern-board-game-for-adults-teens/

Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne _(board_game)#/media/File:Carcassonne_tiles.svg

Player Observations

One of the other great things about a slow-burning game is that it often leads to quite a moreish reaction from players who initially played it. Before writing this post, I thought it would be best to see how relatively new members receive a slow-burning game to the hobby who only play light to middle-weight games. I played with five different people; Oliver, Lauren, Meg, Lewis and Alex (I won't go through all their experiences as that will take too long). On top of that, I played with Oliver (my brother) and Meg (my partner) multiple times, which turned out to be interesting. 

Player Experiences

Firstly, Oliver and Lauren had very different reactions to the game the first time around. Oliver is more inclined to play games like Disney Villainous and The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls, where there are many options, lots of strategy, and lots of take-that elements right from the get-go. However, Lauren loves games like Sagrada, Calico and Azul, so Carcassone is very much made for her. Meg went on the journey of discovering the quality of Carcassone as I had initially anticipated.

Oliver

Oliver didn't have the best time with Carcassone on his first playthrough. He fixated on the end game goals and ignored many ways to gain points during the game. From a psychological standpoint, this leads to the player feeling unaccomplished and stuck waiting for the end of the game, which you never want to see when playing a game like Carcassonne. 

However, on his second playthrough, he placed meeples down in small kingdoms and on roads he knew he could complete. Unlike him, he avoided conflict with other players. This left him having a much better time. He got invested heavily in other player's games and what they were doing, leading to collective excitement whenever a player drew a new tile. 

Having this slow-burning experience designed into the game can work both ways. Oliver's example is one in which it might not always be favourable. The first time Oliver played Carcassone could have been his last if I didn't force him to play it again. It was because Carcassone doesn't force you to see what is so great about it straight away and instead relies on replays of the game. Thankfully it worked out for the best.
​

Credit: https://www.boardgamehalv.com/how-to-play-sagrada/

Credit: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flatoutgames/calico-0

Lauren 

The mechanisms worked well for catering to Lauren's mechanical likes and dislikes of most tabletop games she plays. She loves games where you pick up a tile and place it down. 

However, she is very much used to games with a lot more analysis in the early game. When playing a game of Sagrada with her, you cannot talk to her as she is that focused on her next move. Well, she does win every single game, so you can't fault her strategy. 

Still, for a more inclusive, fun experience at a game night, Carcassone allowed her to get invested in other people's turns, as she couldn't think about her go until she drew that tile on her turn, leading to a much more fun experience. Again, she focused on gaining immediate points during her first session until the middle game. As the game progressed, she started looking at capitalising on the kingdom and cathedral placements to jump out ahead in the end game. When we play our next round of Carcassone, I can bet there will be a lot more early on meeple placement from her.
​

Meg

Meg did just about exactly what I expected her to do regarding understanding the game and realising its quality as it progressed. This suspicion makes sense as I spend pretty much every day with her; she sits behind me right now as I type this.

In her first game, she placed tiles without much thought or clue about what she was attempting to do with the late game. So she just asked me how to get immediate points, did what she thought would get her the most points right there and then, and in doing so, she thrashed me despite me playing the game many times before. 

What is astonishing is that we have somehow constantly been battling for the same kingdom in future games. Because we want to keep adding more and more meeples to the kingdom, we never finish the kingdom. As a consequence of this, we say, "let's never do that again," and then proceed to do the same thing again. ​

Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne_(board_game )#/media/File:Carcassonne-game.jpg

Evolving Limitations

This phrase is something I mentioned earlier in the post. It continues to be on my mind even into the second day of writing this. It's fascinating to think about such a core restriction of play, literally how the game gets resolved, is ever-evolving and changing and ticking down along with the imaginary clock that is those three precarious piles of tiles. It excites me and inspires me to develop similar mechanisms that capture that magic, but with my unique twist. 

Credit: https://medium.com/board-game-brother/how-to-play-ticket-to-ride-7f809e3f9a91

Any game with a limited pool of tiles, cards, or whatever has a similar sort of idea behind it. 

• Ticket to Ride ties the end of the game to the number of trains any one player has; this coinciding with the area control elements of gameplay can create evolving limitations. 
• Any worker placement game has the fundamental evolving limit of worker spaces. Still, they all handle the progression of the number of workers a player has differently. 
• Sagrada's shared dice pool less so evolves. Still, more so, it is a fantastic take-that device that becomes more cutthroat the more you play and progress through the game. ​

The difference between these games and Carcassone is that with Carcassone, you can always pick up a tile and place it down somewhere that can be positive for the player. Many of these other games focus on the limitation mechanisms on punishing the player for not acting correctly or quickly, whilst Carcassone focuses on the positive feedback loop that we all love it for. 

Conclusion
As I write blog posts, I often discover aspects of games I didn't think about until I get to the post's conclusion section. This time, it's come from reading back through this post and seeing that I take a lot of value in the game evolving cognitively from the players perspective the more they play it. Games like Calico and Azul do not have this quality for me or the people I play with. Still, with Carcassone, it just keeps changing, and I think that's great, and it's also why I love slow-burning gaming experiences. ​

What to read/watch/listen to next.
/podcast/ Board Games - A Walk in the Park #6 - Carcassonne & Slow Burning Game Design 
/blog/ Food Time Battle in Space - January 2021 (A blog post about how Calico controls player's through limitations).