Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers — Side-by-Slide Comparison 👥

In this video, I compare side-by-slide, with commentary, the 2002 and 2020 editions of Hans im Glück's Carcassonne spinoff Hunters & Gatherers.

Board Gems highlights older board and card games that are still great games today, and deserve to not be forgotten!

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[JRTG]

Great video, love this Carcassone version a lot, its my favorite, im glad i managed to acquire both editions, cheers!

[bardfm]

That old art style is so much better! I wish they kept it in the new release

[zallyforth]

Thank you for the comparison. I always thought the different animals should be worth different amounts

[matejathos]

Board game we have played the most, old art. Gonna buy new style, nice saturation! but
- coniferous trees were realistic unlike deciduous trees in mammoth times, now it looks like there are 25 degrees Celsius
- tygers should have been kept red for clarity
- great that hunter monument of ultimate power is gone, yes it was OP, made animals not interesting until it was placed
- compared to classic Carcassonne roads, rivers here give you animals and fish, so game is more balanced, new version of hunters looks even more sensitive this way... but it's still not enough! I wish there was more animal power on weaker piles, so lakes wouldn't be better 80% of the time! Two mammoths instead of one on that pile of sadness where there is nothing else, for example

*Some rules I made as a strategy enthusiast*

1. Everytime you get a piece you can't immediately score points with, you can send it to 'exposed public inventory' (exventory) and take another. Everyone can take pieces from there instead of standard move. At the end you must take from there. When someone points out there is way for you to score immediately you must play that card and you're not allowed to physically attack them.

Player who has to build bigger alone is losing too much. Especially in games of many players it's about taking equal power in every small forest and river where fight for dominance is not worth it. This way players score the most per turn - and it's usually not your strategic fault when it's your turn and you can't do it. Therefore...

2. Player who owns the largest closed forest or river of the game and had no pawn intruders can keep their pawn laying down there and they have points one more time at the end - all river systems with no intruders also give owner doubled points at the end. When someone closes greater or equal forest or river, doesn't matter if with intruders, you don't get any second points. Your sad pawn goes back to your inventory.

3. You can't place river hut in the forest... but... this idea is too good: Forest hut: you can place one on forest card and immediately connect it to forest where you have at least one pawn. You take hut back when forest is closed, but you can't place forest hut when you're closing this forest. Each hut gives you half the power of pawn! This ruins overpowered forest cooperation and brings whole new decision on the table: river system dominance at the expense of forest power.

4. Great option is also to give some of these 3:33 to each player and use them as tokens of tribal demand: when other player is placing piece you want, you use up one token and piece is yours for next turn and they take another. Before that, player sooner on turn, if there is any, can decide to demand card instead. If they don't wanna claim it for themselves, you ask everyone (in order you choose) if they wanna disagree and use up their token to burn your demand. It's great mechanic because you want to use tokens in your critical moments but sometimes it's better to keep them to stop others, you want the most out of it but not waste it in conflict with someone else while 3rd side(s) manage to use it... makes game more exciting for plenty of reasons:
- winning players will be stopped more likely than losing
- makes it easier to get rare piece you need to don't get stuck, or to block/connect in conflict with less caring opponent
- luck of taking better cards and bonus pieces becomes less important cos it can be stolen or drain you of tokens
- makes more favorable to avoid major conflict due to which others use up their tokens and get nothing from them... That's usually still the best way to victory for how overpowered dominance over main pasture is. However, if you play tournament of many games counted together, demand tokens & lone builder bonuses add new winning strategies and importance of changing them according to situation. Uninvolved player can help the strong one on plain or river system to estabilish dominance and take away points from others involved, while building their own stuff. Strategy to steal wealth won't be that thoughtless decision, and it's a little safer to do what you want and achieve ice age success that way. Oh, did you just read this all? I doubt it! :)