Carcassonne: Catapult
2-5
8+
30+
Its fair time in Carcassonne. A traveling salesman arrives and brings his newest invention: a wondrous catapult!
His demonstrations amaze the crowds and inspire the creative to find many uses for this new contraption. Of course, not every planned use is well thought out or successful...
Catapult is not a complete game, but must be played with Carcassonne.
User Reviews (5)
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Once upon a time the Carcassonne game design team was discussing a new expansion:
“I bet our fans will buy everything we put into the ‘Carcassonne’ labeled box!”
“No, you must be kidding!”
“Nope, I’m serious.”
“Well then! Let’s make the new expansion a dexterity-based one. We will put a small wooden catapult in and we let the players shoot cardboard projectiles towards the board.”
“You mean – a siege-themed add-on?”
“Gosh, no! It would be a fun-catapult used on fairs to amuse the audience. Do you still think people will buy that?”
“I do.”
Well, that’s how I imagine the origins of “The Catapult” expansion. 😉
It is big boxed (the wooden catapult would not fit into a small box), but it adds only 12 terrain tiles to the base game. All of them contain a new feature: the Fair. when one of these tile is placed a shooting round begins. Depending on the chosen projectile different effects are generated:
* Target projectiles earn points for shooting the right tile.
* Knockout projectiles remove followers from the board.
* Seduction projectiles remove an opposing follower and replaces them with the active player’s one.
* Catch projectiles gives points for… yest catching them.
Funny? Maybe…
Suiting the rest of the game of Carcassonne? Maybe not…
Making the game much longer? Certainly.
Oh, maybe the designers had in mind those poor players sitting around the table with almost no movement besides occasional placing the tiles and followers – and they just wanted to give the players an opportunity of doing a few healthy physical exercises? OK, I’m joking again now.
If you like Carcassonne and you like dexterity games and you feel that such a mix is OK for you then get this add-on. If you are an expansion collector then cry but get it. If you are a hardcore Carcassone player then get it and find or make a variant to use the fair tiles in a more fair way. Otherwise – stay away.
The Catapult expansion adds a dexterity element to the otherwise dexterity-free game of Carcassonne.
Like almost all other expansions for the game, the Catapult adds several new tiles that are added to the base game (along with any other expansions in use). Whenever one of those tiles is drawn and placed on the board it triggers a catapult round. The player that placed the tile chooses one of four options, and then each player in turn performs that action, by launching a specific token: one allows players to knock meeples off the board, one allows the player to swap the nearest opposing meeple with one of their own, one awards extra points to the player that landed a shot closest to the tile that triggered the round, and one is a game of catch with the player next to you.
Contrary to popular belief, at no point during the game do the wooden meeples ever get launched.
The addition of the dexterity element is a somewhat jarring change that goes directly against expectations that have been built up through the countless other expansions to the game, and is a big part of why so many players despise the Catapult. Sadly, most of those seem to be basing it on principle alone and have never actually tried playing it.
So, before piling on yet another tired complaint about this expansion, set aside your preconceived notions and give it a fair chance by playing it. You may find out for sure that it’s not for you, but you might also find that it can be a surprisingly fun diversion from the standard game.
Even if you do enjoy it the Catapult isn’t likely to be an expansion you’ll want to use every time you play, but it’s nice to have available when you want to shake things up a bit from the usual serious nature of the game.
This expansion of Carcassonne is a great addition to the base game.
Like every expansion to Carcassonne, you get extra tiles to place. This time, the new tiles are circus tiles. When a player picks up a circus tile and places it, he/she then gets to choose a discipline to use with the Catapult which then compiles into a catapult round for all players.
There are four disciplines, these being:
*Catch – each player gets a turn catapulting the catch token to the player on their left, and different rules for how the points are awarded whether the catch was made or not.
*Target Practice – each player gets a turn catapulting the target token at the tile that has just been placed. Closest wins!
*Knock Out – each player gets a turn catapulting the knock out token onto the board. Any followers it hits, whether it be their followers or another players followers, must be removed from the board and given back to their respective players.
*Seduction – each player gets a turn catapulting the seduction token onto the board. The token must land on the board to count. If so, the player is allowed to switch the closest follower to the token with one of their followers.
You are awarded additional points for the disciplines after all catapulting has finished for that turn and the game continues as normal.
Whilst this expansion has a different approach to the base game and the other expansions, I feel it adds an additional fun factor to the game.
It takes away from the flow of the game and there is an essence of luck which wasn’t the case with the base game. Setting up the catapult to fire every time for all the players takes a little bit of time, slowing the game play but none of the other people I’ve played with have been discouraged by it. It’s been the opposite and they’ve wanted to continue to play this expansion.
I personally thinks it’s great fun and a great expansion. It adds a little bit of randomness to a strategy game.
Every single time we try using the Catapult expansion, we end up scrapping it after one turn. It only adds a silly tiddly-winks aspect to the game. The included spring board / catapult performs poorly, but worse, it slows game play incredibly.
It is interesting that the game description says, “…not every planned use is well thought out or successful…” that how I feel about this expansion. It was a waste of time and money. Catapult adds too much randomness to an otherwise very good game. I enjoy Carc because it makes you think. Catapult ruins the whole Carc experience. Avoid this one.