In Carcassonne: The Gold Mines, a small expansion for Carcassonne, eight landscape tiles showing a gold bar are mixed with the other tiles being used in the game.

Whenever a player draws one of these tiles during play, she places the tile according to the normal rules, then places one gold bar on this tile and one gold bar on any adjacent tile, whether orthogonally or diagonally adjacent. She may then place a follower as normal on the tile placed this turn.

Whenever any feature is completed – whether on the same turn or a later turn – and one or more tiles of the completed feature have gold bars on them, these bars are distributed among the players involved in the scoring. If one player has a majority of followers on the completed feature, she collects all of the gold bars available; if two or more players are tied in the number of followers present, then gold bars are distributed among those tied players, going clockwise from the active player.

At the end of the game, any unclaimed gold bars are removed from the board before final scoring. Each gold bar is worth 1-4 points depending on how many bars a player has collected.