the farmers you put on the board.
     Scoring is a simple matter, too. A thief garners one point for every tile comprising part of "his" road. A monk will score one point for every adjacent tile (plus the abbey tile), and thus will always score 9 points during the game. If his tile isn't completely surrounded by the end of the game, then this means he'll be worth something less than 9 points. A knight scores 2 points for every tile that is part of a closed city, plus 2 more points for every city tile containing a "shield" symbol. If the city is not completed by the end of the game, each tile is worth only 1 point (plus 1 for each shield symbol).
     Farmers score rather differently than the other pieces. A field is contiguous through all adjacent tiles, its limits being defined only by roads and cities. Therefore, a farmer "supports" any and all closed cities that are adjacent to his field. This can mean that a farmer's reach can extend all the way across the board, in supporting several cities. For each city a farmer is found to support, the player collects 4 points. This can be a real kicker, at the end of the game, and cause a substantial reversal of fortunes. I've seen farmers collect for 8 cities, and 32 points are enough to complete reverse one's fortune.
     Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), players often have an opportunity to contest for the point collection. Now here's the twitchy part - you can have more than one thief on a road, but you cannot place a thief on a road which already has a thief. How can this be, you ask? It's like this:
     If Bruce places his thief (Thief A) on the bottom right tile, and then Arnold places the upper left tile, and his thief (Thief B) on that tile, this is a legal play, as the two road sections do not connect. However, Harrison plays next, and plays a tile as shown:
     Now, the two road sections are one road section, and Bruce and Arnold share control of that road.
     Whenever two or more players have equal control of something in Carcassonne (that is, the same number of thieves on a road, same number of knights in a city, etc.), then they each collect the full amount of points for scoring. If, instead, any players sharing control of something have more followers than anyone else, then only those players score, and the rest collect nothing. Referring back to the above example, if Bruce had another thief somewhere else on the same road, he would collect the points for the road (once it was completed, or - failing that - once the game ended), and Arnold would collect nothing.
     And so, a lot of the game strategy revolves around trying to place a tile in a position that doesn't connect its road segment, city portion or field with that of another tile controlled by another player, but does offer the potential for eventually connecting, thereby giving you a stab at the points for it. This element works well for roads and fields, but reduces considerably the chances for a city ever being completed. As a rule of thumb, the more tiles involved in an uncompleted city structure, the less chance there is of the city getting completed before the tiles run out. This is because a city generally grows outward, requiring an increasing number of tiles to eventually close it off. Too, whoever isn't at least tied for the most knights in that city is disinclined to help in its completion. That person will choose, instead, to place another "potential" piece of the city in which he can place a knight. As a consequence, the potential, physical scope of that city increases, and this in turn increases the number of tiles required to close the thing off. Generally speaking, there is a much better chance of sharing a road or field.
     Abbey placement, too, can be a bit of a puzzle. Your best chance of getting a abbey enclosed by 8 adjacent tiles is, ironically, next to another person's abbey, as the overlap in adjacent tiles needed increases the chance that more than one player will contribute. You then end up