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Carcassonne: Inns & Cathedrals
Learn how inns, cathedrals and additional meeples change scoring and tactics.
Learn how inns, cathedrals and additional meeples change scoring and tactics.
Carcassonne: Inns & Cathedrals is the classic first major expansion for Carcassonne. It increases the value—and risk—of roads and cities, adds large meeples, and supplies components for a sixth player.
What Inns & Cathedrals adds
- 18 Land tiles
- Inns beside roads
- Cathedrals inside cities
- 6 large meeples
- Sixth-player meeple components
- 50/100-point scoring tiles
Roads with inns
A completed road containing an inn scores more than an ordinary road. The trade-off is severe: if that road is unfinished at the end of the game, it scores nothing.
This turns some long roads into high-value commitments rather than safe incremental points.
Cities with cathedrals
Cathedrals do the same thing for cities: they increase the value of a completed city but make an unfinished cathedral city worth zero at final scoring.
Large meeples
A large meeple counts as two normal followers when determining control of a feature. It does not simply double the points that feature scores.
This makes feature-merging fights more tactical because a single large meeple can swing majority without requiring two separate placements.
Six-player support
The expansion includes the additional pieces needed for a sixth player.
50/100 scoring tiles
The scoring tiles make it easier to track scores beyond one lap of the normal scoreboard.
Who should add Inns & Cathedrals?
This is the cleanest first Carcassonne expansion because it deepens familiar systems rather than adding a separate mini-game. Roads, cities and follower majority still work normally; the stakes are simply higher.
Related Carcassonne guides
Publisher source
Expansion rules checked September 2026.