There seem to be several different scoring systems for fields/cities in Carcassonne -- which is correct?
The third edition scoring is now what is shipped by both Rio Grande Games(US distributor) and Hans im Glück(Original, German publishers)

Rio Grande Games made the changes for the english version of the game (1st and 2nd edition scoring).

Here are a summary of the scoring rule changes by edition


1st Edition

Small City scoring (Completed 2 tile cities only score 2)
Farmer scoring:

Select a city
Count the farmers in fields touching that city
The player with the majority of farmers on all farms touching that city scores 4
Repeat for each city.


2nd Edition

Small City scoring (Completed 2 tile cities only score 2)
Farmer scoring:

Pick a farm
Count the farmers on that farm
The player with the most farmers scores 3 for each city touching that farm
Repeat for each city.  However, each city can only be scored once


3rd Edition

All city scoring is 2 points per tile, no small city exception
Farmer Scoring:

Pick a farm
Count the farmers on that farm
The player with the most farmers scores 3 for each city touching that farm
Repeat for each farm.  Each city can be scored multiple times.




Rio Grande Games only recently (2009) starting shipping the 3rd edition rules, while Hans im  Glück issued them in 2004.  The reason given is that RGG prefers not to issue rule changes when reprinting a game. This meant that they had to rewrite the rules of most expansions issued to ensure they were compatible.

I do not believe that Jay Tummelson (Head of Rio Grande Games) has stated why the switch was made in 2009.  I think there are two possible explanations.


The Abbey and Mayor expansion introduced the barn piece.  The barn piece is scored essentially like a farm (it scores and eliminates all farmers in the farm).  This is easily understood for those familiar with the 3rd edition rules, but confusing for those using 1st.
All electronic editions of the game use 3rd edition scoring.  This could have forced RGG's hand.  When everyone in the US was playing just the RGG version it was easy to maintain a consistent rule set.  Now, a lot of us play on our Xbox or Ipad as well as using the board game.  This makes the differences more noticeable.