When comparing Carcassonne vs Hanabi, the Slant community recommends Carcassonne for most people. In the question“What are the best board games for beginners?” Carcassonne is ranked 2nd while Hanabi is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Carcassonne is:
The rules are pretty basic for Carcassonne, with first time players being able to grasp its concepts quite quickly, making Carcassonne a great gateway game. Every turn the player draws one tile from the pile. They then must place the tile adjacent to a tile that has already been placed in a way that the edges match. There are four types of terrain on the tiles – roads, cities, monasteries, and grassland. After the tile is placed the player can choose to put a player figure, a.k.a. a meeple, on the tile to potentially score points. If a meeple is placed on a road, then the player will score one point for every road tile until the road ends in an intersection or a city. If the meeple is placed on a city, the player will receive two points for every city tile until the city is fully walled off. If the player chooses to place the meeple in a monastery, then they will receive one point per tile until the monastery is fully surrounded by tiles. Lastly, if the meeple is placed on grassland, then it’ll only score points at the very end of the game, giving three points for every city in the field. The player with the most points wins.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to learn for beginners
The rules are pretty basic for Carcassonne, with first time players being able to grasp its concepts quite quickly, making Carcassonne a great gateway game.
Every turn the player draws one tile from the pile. They then must place the tile adjacent to a tile that has already been placed in a way that the edges match. There are four types of terrain on the tiles – roads, cities, monasteries, and grassland. After the tile is placed the player can choose to put a player figure, a.k.a. a meeple, on the tile to potentially score points.
If a meeple is placed on a road, then the player will score one point for every road tile until the road ends in an intersection or a city. If the meeple is placed on a city, the player will receive two points for every city tile until the city is fully walled off. If the player chooses to place the meeple in a monastery, then they will receive one point per tile until the monastery is fully surrounded by tiles. Lastly, if the meeple is placed on grassland, then it’ll only score points at the very end of the game, giving three points for every city in the field. The player with the most points wins.
Pro Near-endless replayability
Carcassonne will pretty much never feel dull, there are so many possibilities and variables in the game not only because of the randomness, but also because of the simplicity and the variation count.
Carcassonne is going to be a different game every time because of the tiles you and your opponents draw and where you choose to place them. There are over 70 tiles in the base set, which amounts to a lot of possible combinations.
Carcassonne has been around for a while, and this has led to the release of many expansions throughout the years. Each of these provides more tiles, rules, and other variables to the game.
Lastly, you can even introduce many variations that’ll change up the game without owning any expansions, for example, instead of drawing one tile and placing it every turn, have the players manage a hand of four tiles.
Pro Detailed with polish
The board game pieces are highly detailed and colorful, be it lush grassland, a fortified medieval castle, or a monastery in the middle of nowhere. The game is themed after southern France in the medieval ages and the actual fortified city of Carcassonne and the landscape around it. There is definitely some forethought put into the polish of this game that makes much of it intuitive and a pleasure to look at.
On a more practical note, the back of the tile with which the game starts is in a separate color, so it is easier to find when starting the game.
Pro Simple, but allows for lots of thinking if you want
The game is very accessible to beginners, but it allows for quite a bit of strategic play when you get more familiar with the concept. You can either go for long-term strategies with farms, or for quick point-grabs; you can build your own cities in peace or try to mess with your opponent whenever possible. A lot of tactics come in the form of cutthroat play – trapping other players’ meeples, stealing cities, and getting to share points.
Moreover, the last turns of the game can also influence the outcome a lot – players receive some points for unfinished creations as well.
Pro Quick to play
In a regular expansion-less game of Carcassonne it can take 30 – 45 minutes to blast through the approximately 70 tiles.
Pro Accessible
Because of the simple rules Carcassonne is very easy to get back into even after big breaks and it’s great to teach to other people. This means that the people you play with can change without any problems and you can play the game with anyone – children, your parents, your friends, or your partner.
Pro Engaging
The gameplay is dynamic, and everyone’s constantly engaged, managing their meeples and calculating which part of the board is worth fighting over. Even the kids stay engaged since the winner is usually not obvious untile the very end.
Pro A wonderful exercise in teamwork as you have to rely entirely on clues from other players
Why did the other player give that specific clue? Should you play, discard, or give a clue in return? If you give them a clue, how will they interpret it? It is these meaningful and occasionally tense decisions that make Hanabi an absolutely excellent game for couples who like to work together to solve problems.
Pro Easy to learn
Hanabi is a truly simple and very accessible game to people of all ages. Players stack cards of one color to finish five firework displays consisting of five cards each. Players are dealt five cards that they hold outwards to other players. On your turn you can perform one of three actions – give a clue, discard a card, or play a card.
By flipping one of the eight clue tokens you can point out something about another player’s hand, for example, “these cards are yellow”, “these are twos”, etc.
Discarding a card restores a clue token, but you must be careful with what you discard because there is a limited number of cards of each type, you might discard a card that doesn’t let you complete the firework.
If you play a card that doesn’t fit any of the current piles, then that is an illegal play, the card is discarded and one of the lightning tokens is turned over. As soon as all three lightning tokens are turned, the game is over. The game can also end when the draw pile is empty or if you successfully stack all the fireworks.
Pro Hanabi's small size makes it easy to transport and/or play anywhere
Consisting of just 60 cards, 8 clue tokens, and 4 fuse tokens, the entire game can fit in a box about the size of a deck of cards, making it easy to throw in a pocket or purse and have on hand anytime.
Pro No quarterbacking issues
The game successfully evades the popular issue of many cooperative games where a player ends up taking over the game and telling others what to do. In Hanabi this is pretty much impossible because there is no way to see your own cards, so everyone is forced to work together.
Pro Replayable
The game encourages replayability because it’s one of those games that you get better at the more you play. Players will always be trying to beat their high-scores. To make the game harder or easier you can easily remove or add clue tokens or lightning tokens (extra lives).
The game also has an included “expansion” – the rainbow-colored cards. These add two more possible variations to the gameplay. You can play them as the sixth color and just add 5 more points to the maximum, or you can make the game a bit more difficult by having players give clues about the rainbow card as if it was one of the five default colors.
Cons
Con Risk of accidental tile moving
If the game is not played on a flat surface or if you accidentally apply more force to the tile when you're placing it adjacent to another, then everything can shift, which can be annoying to fix.
Con May be a little light for hardcore boardgame players
The game itself is not very deep in design or play, which may be a turn off for the more hardcore of boardgame players though can be good for newcomers.
Con Small official scoreboard
The official scoreboard that comes with the base game only stacks up to 50 points, but proper games of Carcassonne go way past that mark – a game without any expansions can easily reach over 100 points. If you add expansions to the equation, then the points can stack up even past 400, but some expansions feature scoring tokens that help resolve this issue.
Con Highly random
As is typical for a game with a drawing mechanic, almost every action in the game is influenced by whatever tile is drawn and where a player has chosen to place it, so it’ll benefit him the most. The randomness is enhanced by the fact that the players only draw one tile at a time, so you must take what you get.
Con Similar looking colors on cards
The game has five possible colors, but since they aren't very bright and the background is the same, it might be difficult to tell them apart in poor lighting. There are only a few cards of each type and a limited number of clues you can receive, so misinterpreting what other players tell you can lead to huge misplays.
Con Requires commitment
Hanabi could be considered an exercise in memory, teamwork, and communication, so this isn’t the game to play if you’re in a distraction full environment or if you want to casually socialize with your buddies.
Furthermore, it’s important to limit your table talk because someone might accidentally say too much in a clue or pass off some important information in a remark here or there. Showing frustration or excitement about a play that someone’s about to do is also bad because it might impact the player’s action.