How does the Carcassonne river expansion work?

Question

I just bought Carcassonne with the free river expansion, but it mentions nothing about the river in the instruction manual. I know the river is supposed to be placed first, but how? Does everyone draw a tile at random, or are all of the tiles laid out for people to choose? If it's at random, how can you guarantee that the river connects and the head and tail are in the correct places?

Answer 1

To use the river expansion, do the following:

Remove the headwaters (river start) and the lake (river end).  Shuffle the remaining tiles.  Place the river end on top of the rest of the Carcassonne tiles, followed by the rest of the shuffled river tiles.  The headwaters is the start piece for the game.

Note that the river is never allowed to turn immediately back upon itself (i.e., do a 180).

Happy meepling!