Carcassonne - The First Step to Assimilation?

I mentioned last week that I was picking up some Euro-Family games to replace the weekly Friday Nite Uno / Other Card Games my girlfriend and I play with my mother.  The ladies love the bonding and knitting talk, I get to cement the future family relationships.

The game plan, so to speak, was to break out one of the newly acquired games this past Friday nite, but Thursday's 21" of snow put a damper on that.  So, yesterday afternoon we pulled out Carcassone.  My girlfriend was excited about trying the new game ( and was only moderately disappointed it didn't use any "funky" dice ) and my mother was willing to humor us.

By the end of the first game all 3 of us were hooked.  It's a simple game with unexpected depth.  The pieces are high quality.  It plays fast.  You're never quite sure who is going to win until the end.

We played three games before we pulled ourselves away to watch a DVD.  My girlfriend is already talking about breaking the game out this afternoon, although Catan and Ticket to Ride are also tempting here.

Before you know it I'll have them playing Decent, then a game of White Box Swords & Wizardry ;)