Board Game Arena

Hi, I'm new to the game and I encountered a weird situation after completing a city.

In the first image, we can see blue has 1 big meeple with 1 builder and red has 2 normal meeples and 1 builder in the city.



In image 2, red completed the city and blue scored 66 points, while a red meeple remained in the city and the other red meeple and builder returned to the player's hand.



Table: https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=816266008
Move 150

Shouldn't this have been a tie? Can someone please explain how scoring works in this case and why?

This looks like a bug to me. One of the red meeples wasn't even returned to the hand after the city completion. Meaning it wasn't counted as the second connected meeple to the blue's city.

Please report this to https://boardgamearena.com/#!bugs

No bug, the meeple is in the Cathedral, not in the city itself.

More precisely, the meeple is on a cloister (not a cathedral). It will be returned for 9 points whenever it is completely surrounded by tiles - like any other ordinary cloister.

The 2nd meeple indeed was never in the city. At the time of placement, the tile was not connected to the big city and red could choose if they wanted to place the meeple in the city or on the cloister. At least that is how I believe this special tile works...

Thes e mechanics are unfamiliar to me but they seem interesting. Which expansion is this? I usually play Inns and cathedrals. I've heard of builders, but not cloisters.

FrankJones wrote: ↑06 March 2026, 01:47 Thes e mechanics are unfamiliar to me but they seem interesting. Which expansion is this? I usually play Inns and cathedrals. I've heard of builders, but not cloisters.

Cloisters are part of the base game. 4 tiles "cloister surrounded by field", 2 tiles "cloister with 1 road". The new aspect is "cloister surrounded by city" - I do not know which expansion it is part of (Princess and Dragon?).

Apparently it's from Princess and Dragon (2nd ed): https://wikicarpedia.com/car/Carcassonne_Tile_List/en

euklid314 wrote: ↑06 March 2026, 09:14

FrankJones wrote: ↑06 March 2026, 01:47 Thes e mechanics are unfamiliar to me but they seem interesting. Which expansion is this? I usually play Inns and cathedrals. I've heard of builders, but not cloisters.

Cloisters are part of the base game. 4 tiles "cloister surrounded by field", 2 tiles "cloister with 1 road". The new aspect is "cloister surrounded by city" - I do not know which expansion it is part of (Princess and Dragon?).

I assume it's confusing that there are different translations in the long history of Carcassonne. The official term for cloisters seems currently to be monasteries.
But cloister is more similar to the German Kloster, and the phrase "cloister cluster" is more fun

Yes, I thought those were called monasteries.

So, in one of the expansions that I have not played, a monastery might be on a city tile, and the player chooses where it is most valuable to place the meeple?

I can see a lot of mis-clicks occurring there.

If you are not familiar with the tile a misclick is very likely. But the ordinary monastery tile with the field (from the base game) is exactly the same. You either choose to place your meeple on the monastery or on the field. There also might be misclicks but everybody knows the two options.

The tile from the expansion works with exactly the same philosophy. If you place it in a city that already has meeples in it you only can choose to man the monastery or leave the tile unmanned. If you place it on a new city you have two options to place your meeple.