Carcassonne is a staple of the hobby, an entry point, a way in for many gamers. It’s got the frisson of conflict, being a bit sneaky by working your way into a larger castle having done almost none of the work, and the gentle points-bedamned creation of a weird map. Kids love it, drunk people love it, and most people between. It has a ton of expansions – too many to use all at once we’d say, as we’ve tried it. When you get into the third hour of the expansion-based bloat of your own making (no one said you needed to use towers and dragons, that’s on you) you might ask – what if there was something simpler? A refined Carcassonne that doesn’t feel like it’s missing something, now that we’ve become accustomed to the tweaks of the expansions?