Carcassonne Tile Counting: Which Tiles Can Still Fit?

Every open feature in Carcassonne is waiting on a tile. Sometimes many tiles in the stack would do. Sometimes only a handful exist in the whole game, and some of those are already on the table. Players who know the tile mix stop pouring meeples into features that cannot close.

You do not need to memorize every tile. You need a feel for the common shapes, a short list of rare ones, and a way to count what fits a space.

What is in the box?

The base game has 72 land tiles: the start tile and 71 that you draw. Grouped by shape, the 71 look like this.

Coats of arms appear on 10 of these tiles, spread across the city shapes. The counts come from the base game tile table on Wikipedia, which lists the same 72 tiles.

A few totals are worth knowing:

• 43 of the 71 show some city. Cities are common.
• 44 show some road. So are roads.
• Only 6 are monasteries, and only 1 is a crossroads.

Count what fits, not what you want

The question is never “what tile do I want?” It is “how many tiles fit this space?” That depends on every side of the space that already touches a tile.

Take a city with one open side.

• If the space beyond it is empty on its other sides, any tile with a single city edge that closes on its own can finish the city. There are 22 of them: the 5 plain city edges, the 3 with a straight road, the 6 with a curved road, the 3 with a road junction, and the 5 with two separate city edges. That is almost a third of the tiles you draw.
• If that space also has fields on its other three sides, only the plain city-edge tile fits. That is 5 tiles in the whole game.
• If it has a road on the two sides next to the city and a field opposite, only the tiles shaped like the start tile fit. That is 3.

Same city, same open side. The neighbors decide whether 22 tiles can close it or 3 can.

Some spaces are even tighter:

How to count during a game

1. Look at the space. Name what each touching side needs: city, road, or field.
2. Name the shapes that fit. Use the table. Remember that tiles can be turned.
3. Subtract what is already on the table. Scan the map for those shapes.

What you have left is the number of tiles in the stack that can fill the space. If it is zero, the space is dead, and the feature next to it will never close.

What to do with the count

• Many fits left: the feature will probably close. Investing more is reasonable.
• A handful left: the feature might close. Do not add meeples to it.
• None left: it will not close. Value it at its end-of-game worth: half for a city, and the current count for a road or monastery.

The count also works the other way. When you want to block a rival, place a tile so their open space needs a shape that is rare or already used up. The midgame lesson covers blocking; this is the arithmetic behind it.

The short list to remember

If you only learn a few counts, learn these:

• 1 crossroads
• 1 city on all four sides
• 6 monasteries, only 2 with a road
• 7 cities on three sides
• 5 plain city edges, the only tiles for a city space boxed in by fields

The Carcassonne strategy guide puts it well: players who count tiles win because they stop waiting for tiles that are not coming.