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Topics - danisthirty

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241
World Cup of Carcassonne Central / Carcassonne World Cup FAQ
« on: July 28, 2014, 05:41:10 AM »
World Cup of Carcassonne Central - FAQ


How will the World Cup be organised?
This World Cup-style competition will be split into two distinct stages. The first stage will be the "group stage", the second stage will be the "knock-out stage". Only eight players will advance from the group stage to the knock-out stage.

In the group stage, all players will be organised into one of four groups. Within each group, each player will play a single game against every other player in the same group and will have a score calculated based on the number of wins, draws or losses they achieve. In calculating this score, a win will be worth 3 points, a draw will be worth 1 point and a loss will be worth 0 points.

At the end of the group stage, the top 2 players from each group will go through to the knock-out stage based on their score. If a clear top 2 cannot be identified based on score alone, total points differential (total number of points scored minus total number of points scored against) will be used as a tie-breaker. If the tied players remain tied even on total points differential, total number of points scored will be used as a second tie-breaker. An example group is shown below:




In the knock-out stage, the eight remaining players will be drawn against each other according to the diagram below, and four quarter-final matches will be held. The four winners will take part in two semi-finals and the winners of these games will play each other in the final.




What happens if a game ends in a draw?
In the group stage, a draw isn't a problem and will be recorded as such. In the knock-out stage however, draws present more of a problem as a clear winner needs to be determined to go forward and play in the next round. So in the event of a draw at this stage of the competition, a rematch will be required since we can't go to extra time or have a penalty shootout! In the extremely unlikely event that the rematch also ends in a draw, the winner will be determined based on the tie-breakers outlined in the third paragraph of the "How will the World Cup be organised?" section.


Who starts each game?
At the group stage, the starting player of every game will be decided upon randomly by selecting the "Randomize seating order" option on the pre-game setup screen. At the knock-out stage however, the player with the highest total points differential will start (followed by second tie-breaker if necessary). The exception to this is where a game has ended in a draw at the knock-out stage. In this case, the player who didn't start the tied game should start the rematch.


What expansions will be used, and when?
(see table below)




How will the games actually be played?
At the group stage, each group will have an administrator who will help to liaise between you and your opponents to arrange suitable times for you to play each other. The majority of these arrangements will be made by email so please be prepared to pass on an email address which is current and checked regularly, as the competition will be significantly delayed if games aren't arranged promptly. Please also be aware that you will more than likely be playing against other players in different countries which won't be in the same time zone as you. Even if it isn't ideal, please be prepared to take part in early/ late games if a more suitable time is otherwise impossible to arrange.

At the knock-out stage, a similar administrator will be available for you to liaise with and arrange matches through.

Games will be played online using an excellent Java-based implementation of Carcassonne called JCloisterZone (this is freely available from http://jcloisterzone.com/en/). The current version of JCloisterZone is 2.7 so please ensure you have downloaded this version and have checked that it works on your PC well in advance of your first game. I recommend playing a dozen or so games against the AI opponent too as this will really help you get to grips with how the game plays.

At risk of sounding overly technical, each game requires a host machine owned by a player who may or may not be taking part in the game itself. If neither you nor your opponent can host, the group administrator will determine an available host for your next game and you will be supplied with an IP address and port number which you will need to use to connect to the game. This process is generally very simple, and is covered in further detail in the JCloisterZone FAQ (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=778).

In the event of any potential technical issues it may be worth considering an instant messaging program such as Skype so that you're able to communicate any problems to your administrator/ opponent as soon as possible. If you fail to connect to your game within 15 minutes of the mutually agreed start time and can't be contacted by email or instant message, the game will be a "technical win" (50 – 0) for your opponent. Please don't let this happen as it will seriously hinder your chances of reaching the knock-out stage or even knock you out of the competition altogether if it happens at the knock-out stage!


Prizes?
Everyone who takes part will receive a specially-designed Carcassonne Central World Cup souvenir tile. Everyone who reaches the knock-out stage will receive an additional prize (yet to be decided) and the overall winner will receive a copy of the original and hard to get "Cathars" expansion for Carcassonne.


Should I write a match report afterwards?
Many people enjoy reading about games of Carcassonne even if they haven't taken part in them. If you feel inclined to write a post-match report then please feel very free to; it should be posted in the "CarcCentral Carcassonne League" forum. Such reports often include screenshots of the end-scores breakdown as well as the final landscape that emerges from your game, but ultimately it's up to you what you include. If it helps though, you may like to use a simple screen recording program such as "Screen Recorder" by Sketchman Studio (www.sketchman-studio.com) to make a video of your game. Being able to watch the game being replayed is often very helpful when you're trying to remember what happened!


Final notes?
At the end of the day, this World Cup is a competition and you should be keen to do whatever it takes (within the rules) to win. Whilst it isn't nice to have features stolen or meeples trapped, we're all adults and this is just a game so give as good as you get and try not to take it too personally if and when things go wrong!

Good luck, have fun and don't forget to let me know how you felt it went afterwards!




242
Leagues (including expansion leagues) / Carcking vs Rosco
« on: July 17, 2014, 03:43:49 AM »
Unfortunately I don't have time to write a post-match report for them, but here are the screen grabs I took whilst hosting the Carcking vs Rosco match last night/ this morning:


Game 1: Scores


Game 1: Landscape


Game 2: Scores


Game 2: Landscape (Rosco's 20-point city in the south-east corner was completed with the final tile of the game!)

Well done guys!

243
Leagues (including expansion leagues) / danisthirty vs Rosco
« on: July 09, 2014, 03:56:30 AM »
My match with Rosco got off to a bit of a rocky start. We used the new version of JCloisterZone (2.7) for our first game and Rosco lulled me into a false sense of security by allowing me to trap 5 of his meeples with 28 tiles left to play! However, he then used his strange and mysterious voodoo powers to crash the game which was rather annoying for me as we'd played more than half of it and it would almost certainly have been a good win for me (I had a 19-point lead and Rosco had very little scoring potential with just 2 meeples to play with).


(the circled cloister was the last tile I placed but Rosco never saw this and whilst it was Rosco's turn as far as I was concerned, JCZ at his end thought it was still my turn so we ended up in a bit of a deadlock)

In any case, we reverted back to JCZ 2.6 to replay our first game but this also crashed after about a dozen tiles. I don't know what happened, but when I went to place a tile JCZ got confused about whose turn it was and suddenly seemed to think that I was red rather than blue, refusing to let me place a follower or even just place the tile leaving it unclaimed. We decided to give it one final try and went back to JCZ 2.7 again for our third attempt at our first game and didn't encounter any further problems...

Fortunately, the two games we did play were worth waiting for and extremely close! I started the first game which got off to a good start for me with a couple of small cities and short roads, but Ross never seemed to be far behind. I'm rarely the first player to farm in a head-to-head game but I bucked that trend in this game and was the first to lay claim to what looked like it could turn into a fairly worthwhile farm. Ross wasn't going to let me take it without a fight though and a few tiles later he also had a farmer on the same farm and we left it at that for a little while.

There weren't any particularly huge cities but there was one in particular that we both struggled for. I can't remember who claimed it first but we both had one knight each in it soon afterwards. Ross made a move to get a second knight into it and I responded by putting a second knight of my own adjacent to it such that both or neither of our second knights would be joined in with a cccx tile. As the focus of the game then shifted towards the main farm, I made an attempt to secure it with a second farmer but inadvertently gave Ross an opportunity to steal the city in doing so. It was a risk but he took it, and then followed this up by closing any open sides to prevent me from matching his third knight soon afterwards. Then we both sat back to see who would be lucky enough to draw the cccc tile which he desperately needed to join his third knight into the city and complete it in the process. I spent most of the rest of the game making sure that there was at least one other place to put the tile if I drew it but it didn't come to this as Rosco drew it and completed the city for 30 points. This was the worst thing that could happen as far as I was concerned but there was still a chance of me winning as long as I could hold on to the main farm.

Ross became increasingly desperate to get a third farmer onto the farm as the number of tiles left dropped into single-digits, and I grew equally desperate to make sure that he didn't! I breathed a big sigh of relief every time I saw what tile he'd drawn, realising that he couldn't use it to get onto the farm, and used my tiles purely to make this as difficult as possible for him to do so!

Although my nerves were shattered by the end of the game, I did manage to maintain majority control of the farm which ended up being worth 24 points. I took a further 6 points for an adjacent farm, 16 points from two incomplete cloisters and 7 points from a road bringing my total score to 116. Rosco finished 13 points behind me with 4 farmers being worth nothing (2 on the main farm against my 3, and 2 others that were never joined on), 3 points from a small farm and 4 points from an incomplete city. His final score was 103:


(the 30-point city helped Rosco to his 45-point lead in this area, but I was able to make up for most of this on cloisters and farms and also won on roads by 15 points which made up most of my winning margin)




If our first game had felt close (which it most certainly had), our second game was even closer and took such concentration and focus that I'd almost forgotten how to talk by the end of it when my wife asked how it had gone!

Ross got off to a very strong start by completing several small cities and drawing 4 cloisters (all of which he claimed). I did my best to keep up with him but couldn't compete with how quickly he was completing his cloisters and soon dropped behind even after completing a cloister of my own. I made the best of a bad situation by embarking on a somewhat lengthy (but ultimately successful) operation to trap two of his meeples in adjacent cloisters, reducing his supply to 5 meeples. Although this felt like a small victory at the time, I was only too well aware that these would be worth a fair amount of points in the final scoring and that I already had a sizeable mountain to climb if I wanted to win the match...

This time Ross was the first to place an early farmer but I quickly hit back with two of my own. This probably wasn't the best tactic as I spent the rest of the game struggling through lack of meeples whereas Ross added two more farmers of his own much later in the game. This put me under an enormous amount of pressure to respond, even though I wasn't really able to by then!

I mostly tried to share points wherever I could but this didn't work well as I was already behind and needed to generate some points of my own if I wanted to win. I was simply unable to do this though as Ross either matched me or cut me off with every opportunity and I rarely had the meeples (or the guts) to fight back. As such, Ross was the first to claim a long road which we ended up sharing (my attempt to steal this from him ended up with my second thief being cut-off by a t-junction) and a city of mine became a shared dumping ground which neither of us were interested in stealing.

A win seemed very unlikely for me when Ross took control of the main farm with 3 farmers but I was lucky in the final quarter of the game and seemed to get meeples back just as I needed them. I got a third farmer of my own onto the farm, but my unlikely attempt to get a cheeky fourth farmer was quickly suppressed. Having spent most of the game behind on points, the turning point for me was completing a 14-point city which gave me almost enough of a lead to counter the points he would gain from his incomplete cloisters (as long as the farm remained shared).

Although I'd never have thought it possible, the final few tiles were even more agonising than the final few tiles of our previous game! I ended up with 2 meeples in my supply which I used to claim a medium-sized city that had kind of emerged without either of us taking much of an interest in, and a final 2-point city that I claimed more because the points were available as a result of my trying to block Ross' last-ditched attempt to win the farm. I don't think I've ever been quite so tense as I was waiting for the final scores window to pop up as Ross placed the final tile, and I felt a huge rush of relief and then surprise when I saw that it was a tie: 125 each! This was a good result for me, and about as much as I could have hoped for under the circumstances!

I ended up being 3 points behind on farms as Ross had a secondary farm serving just one city, and I was 24 points behind on cloisters. However, I won on roads by 5 points and 22 points for my cities which brought the final scores level.






So the final match scores were either 2 - 1 or 1 - 0 depending on whether you count a tie as a win or a loss. Either way, my victory in the first game meant that the match was a win for me. This said, my matches seem to have gotten closer and closer as the league has progressed and I must thank Ross for two of the most engrossing games of Carcassonne I've ever played!


244
Leagues (including expansion leagues) / Round 5: danisthirty vs quevy
« on: June 25, 2014, 01:12:48 AM »
Our first game quickly turned into a battle for a growing city started by Quevy although I made sure to keep a close eye on everything else as well. I managed to build up an early lead thanks to numerous short roads and small cities, and responded quickly with a farmer of my own when Quevy claimed the northern farm.

My lead grew further when I completed two cloisters which I'd placed next to each other. I could tell that Quevy was trying to make this impossible for me, thus trapping two of my meeples in the process, so I pointed a road of his into the gap he needed to fill to block me and this gave me enough time to finish them both off with a straight road.

I laid first claim to a second farm which only had 1 or 2 cities on it at the time, but I completed several more small cities and Quevy completed a good 10-point city on the same farm also. Quevy didn't start trying to get onto this farm until relatively late in the game but did well to join two road endings together to keep the possibility of doing so alive.

As the game began to draw to a close I was able to add second farmers onto both farms which won both of them for me since Quevy wasn't able to match this. The only other feature of note was the mega-city which we shared with 2 knights each. I was lucky to get my second knight into this city as Quevy missed a couple of good opportunities to block me out and it seemed to take forever for me to draw the correct tile to join it! I had also limited Quevy's possibility of getting his 2nd knight into the city, although he did eventually draw the last remaining cccf tile required to do so.

The final scores were 110 - 76 in my favour even though Quevy scored more points from roads (18 - 19) and cities (47 - 51) than I did. My 18 - 0 lead on cloisters and 27 - 6 lead on farms were more than enough to make up for this though, and I'd had a good feeling about the final outcome for much of the game owing largely to the usefulness of the majority of the tiles I drew.






The second game felt much more competitive. Quevy got off to a strong start claiming two cloisters and starting work on another growing city which we eventually tied with 2 knights each. I didn't feel that I had a lot going for me at first but managed to prevent Quevy's attempt to share a road with me such that he spent much of the game waiting for an frrr tile (t-junction) to get 2 meeples back (one from his road and one from an adjacent cloister). This turned out to be quite a key move for me simply because it trapped 2 of his meeples for such a long time!

Another key move of mine was to block Quevy's attempt to join a medium-sized city of mine. I placed a road ending such that a non-existent cfcr tile would be required to join the cities and because the unfillable hole was adjacent to a cloister of his it also trapped his monk for the rest of the game which gave me a further advantage.

Although I'd managed to build up a reasonable lead, it was difficult to hang on to when Quevy started scoring his cloisters. When he did eventually draw the t-junction he needed the scores became much closer and the fact that he also won 2 meeples back made things even more difficult for me. From this point on I genuinely didn't know which way things were going to go and had a certain suspicion that it may even end in a draw!

The real guts of this game though was down to the farmer battle (which was strange as it wasn't even a particularly valuable farm considering its size). I would have been happy to tie it with 1 farmer each but Quevy seemed determined to win it and skillfully placed 2nd and 3rd farmers in quick succession, then soon joined them on. I managed to match him in this but had a 4th farmer camped just outside it needing a rffx tile to join it on (which I never got). This farmer ended up being worth 6 points by himself though so even though the main farm remained tied with 3 farmers each I still had the advantage in terms of final scoring for farmers because of this.

With my 4 farmers and 1 trapped knight, I had 2 meeples left to place which I placed in a cloister (my only one of the game) and a long road that had developed kind of by accident without either Quevy or I previously being able to claim it until it was already worth 7 or 8 points. Quevy also had 4 farmers (his fourth being a blocked attempt to join the main farm which ended up being worth 3 points), a monk, and two knights (the monk and one of the knights had been trapped for half of the game).

I was delighted to see that the final scores ended up in my favour again, this game being much closer than the last though: 98 - 81. Generally I'd say it felt like we were quite evenly matched in most areas although I tended to have the edge in all areas except for cloisters.






Thanks for two great games Quevy! :)

245
I struggled to start the game as JCloisterZone wouldn't let me rotate the tile I'd been given at first. Even after I'd managed to place it the game got off to a bit of a slow start with both of us carefully considering our options with every move. I was the first to score with a 4-point city but "MrNum" quickly overtook me with a 5-point road.

It was always going to be a very hard-fought game so we were both looking to gain the advantage by trapping each other's meeples at every opportunity. This made some tile placements more obvious than others and a lot of the early stages of the game came down to the luck of the draw as much as anything else. This said, I got the impression that MrNumbers was thinking further ahead than I was and as such he had the foresight to place an early farmer which turned out to be a key placement.

My next feature to score was a 4-point road but MrNumbers followed this up with two 4-point cities to take the lead back again and then build it up to 5 points. There then followed a 6-point city to me and then a 4-point city to MrNumbers; both of us were working hard to keep our scores ticking over although MrNumbers always seemed to have the advantage until I took another 4-point road to settle the scores on 18 - 17 to me with 34 tiles left to place.

A few tiles later I scored yet another 4-point road to increase my lead to 5 points. I couldn't really tell who was winning at this point as two of my meeples had been successfully trapped whereas I'd only managed to trap one of MrNumbers'. Elsewhere I had two cloisters next to each other and a small but completeable city against two very strategically placed farmers of MrNumbers' and two potentially valuable cities.

As the game continued I completed an 8-point city, placing a farmer outside it in the process, and then shifted my attention towards my cloisters as it was clear to me that I would struggle to keep myself in the game with just a single meeple in my supply. MrNumbers meanwhile was continuing to spot good places to farm whilst working towards completing a medium-sized city in the south-east corner of the map. I attempted to either "glom into" his city or make it incompleteable but failed on both counts and felt very demoralised when he completed it with his next tile for 12 points. A lucky draw perhaps, but I was still ahead (albeit by only 1 point) until a 6-point city extended my very narrow lead back out to 7 points bringing the scores to 36 - 29 with 16 tiles left in the bag.

I'd realised by this point that if I wanted to stand a chance of winning the game I needed to get a farmer onto the main farm. I had spotted a couple of good opportunities to do this but was also trying to block MrNumbers from merging this farm with his other farm to establish an overall majority. After resisting the temptation to use my final meeple elsewhere I dropped him on an adjacent farm but my attempts to join the two farms were made considerably more difficult when MrNumbers placed a tile which caused my chances of success here to hang on my drawing one specific tile (cfrr). I knew there was at least one of these left (there were actually two) but it was starting to seem increasingly unlikely that the game was going to end well for me.

A 4-point road for MrNumbers in the final stages of the game meant there were just 3 points between us as I did my very best to claw a meeple back from one of my cloisters whilst simultaneously attempting to prevent MrNumbers from completing his ever-growing city. I eventually succeeded in completing my cloister with 4 tiles left to be placed which stretched my lead out to 12 points (45 - 33) and won me back a meeple. I used this to win 2 points for a short road with my penultimate tile, and with the final tile of the game took a 4-point city at the same time as joining a farmer onto MrNumbers' main farm to tie it for 12-points each!

I finished the game with 2 incomplete cities worth 4 points each, 2 farmers worth 3 points each, a cloister worth 8 points and a farmer on the tied farm worth 12 points. On top of the 51 points I scored during the game, this took my total score up to 85. MrNumbers had 2 farmers sharing 12-points between them, a third farmer worth 6 points, a fourth farmer worth 12 points (tied with me) and 3 incomplete cities worth 16 points between them. This brought his final score up to 79 points meaning I won by 6 points!





I felt like I'd won the game with a lucky last tile, but even if it hadn't been the one I needed to join my farmer onto MrNumbers farm (and complete a 4-point city in the process) there was also an unclaimed farm serving two cities which, if I'd claimed this instead, would have meant the final scores were lower (78 - 76) but still weighted in my favour.

The second game was very different but MrNumbers is going to write that one up. Without wishing to undermine the excellent (and ultimately far superior) game that MrNumbers played, I think I possibly deserved to do better as I somehow managed to lose the main farm (worth 27 points) despite having placed 3 farmers on it very early on. Not only did MrNumbers take this farm with one farmer more than me but he successfully blocked every one of my increasingly desperate attempts to tie it, leaving me with no meeples with 14 tiles to go! He also tied a 44-point city of mine with 2 knights each as I seemed powerless to stop him! I can't complain though as he did what he had to do, and I'm sure I would have done the same!

246
World Cup of Carcassonne Central / Carcassonne World Cup!
« on: June 10, 2014, 05:50:06 AM »
I am not a big fan of football, but in recognition of the fact that the World Cup will soon be here I thought it may be interesting to run some sort of Carcassonne World Cup here on the forums.

The exact format would depend on how many people were interested in taking part but if we could get 16 people together we could follow the model shown below with every competitor needing just four wins in order to take the title (the flip-side of this being of course that the number of active players is halved with each round):



Since JCloisterZone is currently proving to be a consistent and reliable method for playing over the internet in our league, I'd suggest that our World Cup matches were played using this. And since it can facilitate a good range of expansions, there's nothing to stop us from including these too; perhaps one or two expansions per round to really mix things up a bit!

I should stress that at the moment this is literally just a random idea so feel free to post any thoughts/ suggestions here (as well as if you'd like to take part) and if there's enough interest I'll be happy to get the ball rolling once we've nailed down all the details.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

247
My match against jungleboy was a surprise 2 - 0 victory for me. I say it was a surprise as we've had a couple of trial games previously when the league was still finding its feet and JB won both games fairly convincingly. This evening was a different story though...

The first game was slightly lower-scoring than the second. I drew first blood with a small city but apart from a cloister I had, the main feature of interest was a long and winding road which JB successfully stole from me with two meeples against my one.

Unusually (for me) I was the first to lay claim to the main farm while JB began building a large city. I took this as an opportunity to steer his as yet incomplete road towards his city such that it trapped his 2 meeples on the road whilst simultaneously making it more difficult for him to get his recently-placed farmer onto the farm I'd already claimed. Maybe he felt differently, but this put him at a major disadvantage as far as I was concerned, and as long as he didn't complete the road I was fairly sure that I could out-compete him for the farm.

By halfway I was leading by 27 points after completing a cloister and 4 small cities. A few tiles later I increased this lead to 40 points after completing another cloister and a small city with the same tile.

The game changed a lot over the next dozen or so tiles as JB successfully got his farmer onto the field so I responded by getting a second farmer of my own onto it to regain control. I then completed another cloister and a couple of short roads while JB shifted his emphasis to winning back his increasingly large city, and scored a separate 14-point city as a welcome bonus too.

With 7 or 8 tiles left "in the bag" (so to speak) JB hadn't been able to do anything to chip away at the sizeable lead I'd built up and I also had control of the main farm by three farmers to one. JB had a further two knights stuck in an uncompletable city, two on an uncompletable road and 1 in an uncompleteable cloister. I wasn't going to win any significant points from any of the other three non-farmer meeples I had down but I was able to use the one I had left in hand to take a couple of roads before farming on a separate farm serving two cities.

In the final scoring, JB took 12 points for his road plus 14 points for his city (plus 5 points for another city) and 8 points for his cloister. My two farms won me 24 points between them plus 4 points for an incomplete city. Unfortunately for JB though, his impressive finish wasn't enough to overcome the lead I already had and the final scores settled on 107 - 72.

All credit to JB for an excellent game; it felt a lot more competitive than I've (unintentionally) made it sound here and was very tight at times. The second felt even closer but that's been left for JB to write-up so I won't say any more for now other to drop in a couple of screenshots:








Over to you Nick!

248
News and Events / New Carcassonne App for Android
« on: May 21, 2014, 03:46:04 AM »
As some of you may already have seen, a new version of the Carcassonne app for Android was released recently by Exozet games. It's a fairly major update (50mb or so) but in my opinion they've taken away more than they've added and there's still no support for playing online.

Here is a quick summary of the changes:

Plus points:
- Improved graphics. It does now look pretty good.
- Improved music (which I never have on).
- Inns & Cathedrals, Traders & Builders, Corn Circles & The Festival are all available.

Neutral points:
- "Improved UI" is still equally playable but offers little over the old UI in terms of gameplay. I can't decide which I prefer but the fact that I never used to struggle to deploy meeples onto the correct part of the tile (but now do) suggests that this is actually a negative point.
- No change to AI opponents as far as I could tell. They may have been tweaked slightly but this hasn't ramped up the difficulty at all.

Negative points:
- You have to pay extra to play with any of the new expansions listed above (River 2 is still free). I might expect this from a free game but not from one which I've already had to pay for.
- No achievements to aim for. This really bugs me, but not nearly so much as it would have done if I'd still been working towards any of the achievements in the old version before this one replaced it.
- No way to randomise which player starts or to change the background/ "table" colour behind the tiles on the main game screen (that I've found so far).
- Always seems to default to a certain opponent rather than leaving it on "random" so I have to reset this every time I want to play a game.
- Takes way longer to open and start games than the old version used to.
- There is still no way of playing against an online opponent. Since this is one of the main things that most people have been asking for since the previous version was released it seems crazy that they haven't been able to implement this yet.

Overall I'm really disappointed with this update. I was expecting the new expansions based on an email I had from someone at Exozet back in January but the same email also told of ongoing work on an online multiplayer mode which apparently doesn't exist. Maybe it will come in a later update, who knows? But for the time being it just feels like they've taken a really good app, beautified it for the sake of it and then just chucked it out there without really testing it or thinking about what it really had to offer over the old version.

249
JCloisterZone FAQ, Suggestions & Bug Reports / JCloiserZone FAQ
« on: May 13, 2014, 08:51:07 AM »
JCloisterZone FAQ


How do I start an Internet game with JCloisterZone?
Simply put, one player needs to be the host and the other player is the client (see "How do I host an Internet game with JCloisterZone?" for more information regarding how you can configure your computer to become a host). In addition to this, both players must be using the same version of JCloisterZone (currently 2.7).

When the pre-arranged time is near, the host opens up JCloisterZone and selects "New Game" then waits for the other player to join him. Meanwhile, the player on the client side must also open up JCloisterZone but should select "Connect". This will prompt him for an IP address ("Host") and port number ("Port") which should already have been provided to him by the other player/ host. Once he enters these and clicks OK, the two computers will connect and the game can begin (almost).

On the pre-game screen players must select what colour they want to be and enter their forum nickname as their player name. The first person to select a colour and enter their name will get to lay the first tile, so if you’re sitting at the pre-game screen but won’t be going first then you will need to wait for your opponent to connect and select their colour before you do so.

JCloisterZone offers an impressive selection of expansions, many (but not all) of which can be played against the computer. Expansions may or may not be used depending on the type of tournament you’re taking part in, so please make sure you know in advance which you’ll be using (if any) and make sure that those expansions are selected on the pre-game screen. In addition to this, ensure that the "Randomize Seating Order" checkbox in the bottom-left corner is not checked otherwise it will be impossible to determine which player will start (unless this is the intended behaviour). Either player can click the "Start game" button to begin (see "JCloisterZone Features and Gameplay Tips" for further tips/ assistance/ advice regarding the game itself).

Once the last tile has been placed, the game will calculate the final scores and give you a breakdown of these scores in a pop-up window. If you wish, take a screenshot of this window and/or the final landscape behind it (once you've closed the scores window) as proof of the final scores, or for prosperity. If you intend to play another game, be sure to then select “New Game” from the Game menu rather than “Quit”. If you do this you will go back to the pre-game screen with both players connected and can get ready for your second game rather than having to open JCloisterZone and connect all over again if you select Quit.


How do I host an Internet game with JCloisterZone?
If you're capable of configuring your internet router such that you can set a static IP address for your computer (i.e. lease it an internal IP address that will not expire through your DHCP settings) and setup port forwarding to that (internal) IP then your computer can be used as a host.

Unfortunately I can't be any more specific with regards to the above as it really depends from router to router. Don't worry if you can't do this or don't even know what I'm talking about, but please let me know if you can!

Assuming you've done the above and are willing to host games, please take note of your external IP address (you can find this out by visiting a website such as http://www.whatismyip.com) and the port number you are forwarding to your internal IP as configured on your router. By default, the port used for JCloisterZone traffic is 37447 but if you configured it to use a different port then this might be fine provided it doesn't clash with some other type of traffic using the same port (I'd stick to the default if I were you but this isn't strictly necessary). You will then need to provide your opponent with this IP and port number in order for them to be able to connect to your computer (as described in "How do I start an Internet game with JCloisterZone?" above). Neither the host nor the client should need to make any changes to any firewalls.

If you're arranging a game and neither you nor your opponent can host it then let me or your group administrator know when you intend your game to take place and we will either ensure that a laptop is standing by ready to host for you or find someone else who will be able to host on your behalf.


JCloisterZone Features and Gameplay Tips

- First and foremost, the best advice I can give regarding JCloisterZone in general is to make sure you install it in plenty of time and play a few games to get used to it. Even if you don't have anyone to play against, the AI opponents are good enough to keep things interesting while you get a feel for it.

- At the start of each turn you will be allocated a tile and the board/ landscape/ playing area will highlight all available locations in which this tile can be placed (the tile can be rotated using the tab key or right mouse button).

- The number of tiles remaining is shown in the top right next to the picture of the tile currently being placed. This number doesn't include the tile that is currently being placed so can be thought of as the number of unknown tiles left in the bag/ face-down on the table.

- "Farmer hints" are available by pressing f. I've never used these and don't imagine they'd be particularly helpful for most moderately experienced players, but it's still a feature which could be seen as an unfair advantage to anyone using it so please respect your opponents by refraining from doing so.

- You can zoom out and in with the – and + keys respectively (or the scroll wheel on your mouse) and can pan up/ down/ left/ right using the arrow keys in addition to this. If you’re not zoomed-out far enough to see the entire landscape then it might be that you’re not seeing some important development, so make sure you're aware of everything that's going on before you place your tile.

- If you place a tile in the wrong place or spot a better place to put it before you’ve placed a meeple then it can be undone by clicking the “Undo” button. Your turn will end as soon as you place a meeple though (or skip this – see below), so if you don’t have any meeples left in your supply you won’t have the option to undo a tile placement since you wouldn’t be able to place a meeple on it even if you wanted to!

- If after placing a tile you don't want to place a meeple even though you have the option to (and have meeples in your supply) you will need to press Space, Enter or click on the "Skip" button (top right) before your turn is over and your opponent can begin his next turn.

- Keep a close eye on whose turn it is as it can be surprisingly easy to not notice your opponent taking his turn. There will be an arrow next to the name of the active player in the panel on the right and the meeple icon on your taskbar should change colour in relation to this too. The game might be a little slow at times and it isn't always immediately obvious if your opponent has chosen to deploy a meeple on their most recently placed tile, so don’t rush!

- There is no timer. This means you can take as long as you need to think about your turn, but please also think of your opponent and try to avoid being unnecessarily slow if at all possible!

- There is a handy chat facility within JCloiserZone which allows players to chat to each other during the game. Using it can seem a bit strange as you need to keep the mouse over the chat window to keep it from disappearing. This said, it's perfectly usable and is a good way of keeping a running commentary of the game going, or communicating to the other player if something is wrong. Alternatively, a third-party chat program such as Skype, Facebook chat or any other instant messenger may also be very helpful for communicating with your opponent in and out of JCloisterZone.

250
Leagues (including expansion leagues) / My Latest Video Project...
« on: May 12, 2014, 03:20:35 PM »
This is a video of the first of two games of Carcassonne I played last week against Carcking as part of the online league we're both taking part in at the moment:



(I have already checked with Carcking that he is happy for me to share our game via these forums and he is)

The game was played over the internet using JCloisterZone (http://jcloisterzone.com/en/) and recorded (at my end) using Screen Recorder from Rylstim (http://www.sketchman-studio.com/rylstim-screen-recorder). Both are free and very easy to use.

After we'd finished the game I edited the video using Windows Movie Maker to remove some of the long pauses due to thinking-time or general lag and sped the whole thing up too (the game is played back at double-speed). The result of this was that the video of our 20-minute game now lasts around four and a half minutes.

The background music was a random acoustic track I downloaded from last.fm (http://www.last.fm/music/+free-music-downloads). I wasn't fussy about what music I used but didn't want to use anything too distracting and was quite particular about length too. The track I chose is called "Soulful Filling" by General Fuzz.

I used a different version of Movie Maker to add the titles at the start and the still images/ link at the end of the finished video, and to tie the whole thing together before finalising it and uploading the end product onto YouTube.

Overall it was very easy to do using entirely free tools so I thought I'd link to it here in case anyone else has a passing interest in video editing/ Movie Maker and would like to do something similar of their own.

I hope you enjoy watching it almost as much as Carcking and I enjoyed playing it!

Dan

251
Game 1 - danisthirty (120) vs Carcking (98):
I placed the first tile and the game got off to a good start for me. A couple of short roads and a 20-point city enabled me to build an 18-point lead within the first dozen or so tiles. CK refused to be left behind though, and kept his score ticking over nicely with several small cities of his own.

I was first to place a farmer but CK soon had a farmer of his own on the same field. I was quick to place another on an adjacent field but CK did an excellent job of making it as difficult as possible for me to join the two farms, trapping another of my meeples in a nearby cloister at the same time.

By halfway our scores were close and the lead I'd built up early on had been reduced to 10 points. We spent much of the second half of the game fighting for control of two features in particular. One of these was a city at the top of the map. This had been tied from early on with one meeple each but when CK added a second I reluctantly followed suit to maintain the tie.

The other feature was the main farm. As my original attempt to get a second farmer onto the main farm wasn't looking too good I tried elsewhere and succeeded in winning it back. But CK quickly matched my two farmers with a second farmer of his own, and then a third!

With only a few tiles left to play I made a somewhat desperate attempt to get a third farmer onto the main farm but CK blocked this with his very next tile! I had a 17-point lead at this point but didn't fancy my chances of winning without the 24-point farm.

Everything changed with the final tile of the game as it was exactly what I'd been waiting for in order to join my second farmer from much earlier in the game onto the main farm. This tied it with three farmers each, winning us both 24 points. I think CK felt somewhat robbed by this, but I think the game would still have gone my way if I'd drawn a different tile (by just three points!)






Game 2 - danisthirty (120) vs Carcking (113):
Our second game seemed rather scrappy at first. CK placed the first tile and was much more conservative/ intelligent than I was with regard to his meeple placement since I was too keen to claim whatever was available. He capitalised on this with some deviously-placed tiles which soon left me with almost no meeples left to deploy and 40 or 50 tiles left to place!

By the halfway stage I had two meeples trapped in uncompletable cloisters, a further two meeples locked in a battle for a medium-sized city and another in a city in an awkward position at the top of the map. CK however seemed to have at least four meeples in hand throughout the majority of the game and was coolly expanding his features with every tile he placed.

I was happy/ relieved to tie the city that I'd invested two meeples in when I had the chance to close it, as this gave me a fighting chance to get back into the game with the two meeples I got back. I managed to a get a farmer onto the main farm a few tiles later but felt sure that I would be out-farmed here, and it looked like this was going to be the case when CK placed another farmer on an adjacent farm. I tried to join him on this farm too but never seemed to draw the right tile to do so.

As the game began to draw to a close there were a couple of late developments. CK claimed a cloister which he placed in the top-right corner of the map and I managed to get a meeple into his (incomplete) mega-city which tied it. With no meeples left to do anything useful with after this, I placed my final few tiles such that I could prevent CK from completing one final city and then sat back and admired the view (since this was pretty much all I could do!)

I had no idea who was going to win but I suspected it wouldn't be me. I knew I had 15 points to come from my two cloisters but I didn't think this would be enough to overcome CK's second farm despite the small lead I'd built-up. My heart sank when I saw the final tile of the game, but fortunately for me CK missed the opportunity to merge his farms and the final scores revealed that I'd won by seven points!






Summary:
In summary I'd say that although I really enjoyed both games, the five-hour time difference between us meant that neither CK or I felt like we were on top form at the time of our match. CK had literally just got in from work when we started and it was midnight where I was after a 5:45am start that morning! But I'm glad that we made it happen, even though I felt bad for CK as there's no doubt in my mind that he completely outplayed me in our second game and certainly deserved to win it.

252
At 9pm GMT today, jungleboy and I had a trial game of Carcassone with no expansions using JCloisterZone over the internet. I'm happy to report that it worked like a dream (although it was a little slow at times) and I was lucky enough to be given the honour of writing the account of our game! So here goes...

I went first, but apart from an early 2-tile city which I completed on my second or third turn, most of my early tiles were roads which meant I was slow to start building any reasonably-sized cities but did have a good road for my efforts. JB started a couple of smaller cities which he merged into one, and completed two smaller cities too in the first quarter of the game. He also placed a farmer but I was slow to respond and didn't attempt to join the farm until he was already in the process of securing it with a second farmer.

Once the game had settled down a bit it felt fairly friendly, and as much as anything else it was great just to be playing online through JCloisterZone! Mostly it felt like we kept ourselves to ourselves and apart from a couple of attempts to steal into each other's features (one of which trapped two of my meeples as I then spent most of the game waiting for a t-junction) we generally developed and completed our own cities without a lot of interference.

Farming became more of a focus as we entered the second half of the game since we were both more prepared to start risking our meeples. JB thwarted an early attempt of mine to get a second farmer onto the main farm but I was fortunate enough to draw one of the two cloisters with roads leading into them which saved the day and gave me a further nine points when I completed it a couple of turns later. This levelled our scores (for a short while at least) and at that point I couldn't have predicted how things were likely to turn out.

As we started to run out of tiles, JB completed a 16-point city which he had been adding to but which I didn't think would ever get finished. This was when we both started doing everything we could to win the main farm, or at least secure a draw as it was obviously going to be impossible to win without it. Much of this battle was fought towards the north of the map and with just a couple of turns left each, luck was on my side once again when I drew a tile that enabled me to match JB's four farmers with a fourth farmer of my own. I'd tried to keep my options open and had another two meeples camped on the outskirts of the farm but I didn't manage to join either of these in...

Overall it felt like a very close game and the fact that the main farm was a draw made it feel like the final scores could have gone either way. However, it turned out to be a bit of landslide in JB's favour as the final scores were 115 vs 100 to him! An excellent and hard-fought game though, JB was just too skillful for me this time so I won't even try to blame it on the tiles!


Breakdown of our scores - looks like I could have done with a few more cloisters!


The end result

253
General / Carcassonne is missing a tile?
« on: April 17, 2014, 05:14:43 AM »
72 is a lovely number as it has a lot of factors (mathematical factors). This means it's great for Carcassonne as it can be divided equally by 2, 3, 4 and 6 such that all players in a 2, 3, 4 or 6 player game get an equal number of turns. This doesn't quite work for 5-player games but you can't have everything I suppose!

But because 1 of the 72 tiles is the starting tile, there are only actually 71 playable tiles. 71 is a prime number which means that all players will never have the same number of turns each regardless of how many players there are (unless there are just 1 or 71 players). The result of this in 2, 3, 4 and 6 player games is that whoever goes last has one less turn than everyone else, or in a 5-player game the starting player gets an extra turn.

If the basic game consisted of 73 tiles there would be one starting tile and then 72 playable tiles which would make everything much fairer to all players (although it would probably also increase printing costs as it wouldn't fit onto 12 6-tile sheets making the game more expensive). Does anybody actually include any extra tiles in an attempt to address this or is it generally seen as such a minor disadvantage that it's usually ignored?

254
News and Events / UK Carcassonne Championship 2014
« on: April 16, 2014, 04:01:27 AM »
Is anybody else planning on going to the UK Games Expo in Birmingham at the end of next month? The UK Carcassonne Championships are being held on Sunday 1st June from 10am to 2pm. I've booked my place but there are still plenty of places available!

It sounds like the tournament will be based on 4-player games using just the basic 72 tiles, and the overall winner will be crowned UK Carcassonne champion and be given 150 pounds towards the cost of representing the UK at the world championships (this seems a little cheap but I guess it's representative of its fan base in the UK).

Realistically I don't expect to win or even do particularly well but it'll be a great experience I'm sure and I'm looking forward to seeing what else is there too.

UK Games Expo: http://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/
UK Carcassonne Championship 2014: http://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/game.php?id=BOR697

255
Leagues (including expansion leagues) / A Carcassonne League?
« on: April 15, 2014, 06:07:20 AM »
Has anybody here ever taken part in a Carcassonne league? A friend suggested something similar recently but it doesn't look like this is going to happen so I wondered about trying to set something up online using JCloisterZone or some other method of online play.

Some initial thoughts:

- Each match is a head-to-head between two players
- Each match is made up of two games
- Games consist of just the initial 72 tiles i.e. no expansions
- Players earn 3 points for a win (if they win both games of their match) or 1 point for a draw (if they win one/ lose one)
- Scores could be kept via a thread on the forums here and screenshots could be posted for proof (or purely out of interest)
- The player with the highest score once everyone has played everyone else would be the champion

The idea of being able to take part in a league is something I find very exciting. I don't imagine there would be prizes, but the opportunity to play against other highly-skilled Carcassonne enthusiasts would be prize enough for me. After all, playing against new opponents is the best way (in my opinion) to learn from your mistakes and improve your tactics.

I'm keen to hear any thoughts and/or suggestions!

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