Author Topic: More Friday Carcassonne  (Read 3003 times)

Offline jungleboy

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More Friday Carcassonne
« on: January 15, 2016, 08:48:07 AM »
Friday afternoon Carcassonne is fast becoming a tradition in these parts for those who work part-time or not at all. Today I played three two-player games, two with regular Carcassonne and one with the winter edition in honour of the snow that fell yesterday.

Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune, Hills and Sheep and the Phantom
jungleboy (green) 204, Aimé (yellow) 198

Inspired by the Element Match-Up of the Week, we gave this combination a go. We house-ruled Wheel of Fortune a bit (giving only the player who placed the tile that caused the pig movement the benefit from where the pig lands, and if the pig lands on the plague, that player can choose one of their opponent’s followers to remove from the board - this last rule was massively important in this game).

It was the first time we’d played with Hills and Sheep for ages, so we had fun with the vineyards and the shepherd. I scored 7 points (spread out over three sheep tiles) with one of my shepherd forays and 15 with a completed cloister with two vineyards. Hills were also important on a couple of occasions as they deterred the other player from trying to join a city.

I stupidly decided to place my phantom on the Wheel of Fortune at one point, thinking I’d get it back quickly enough, but instead I lost it for about half the game. Eventually a battle developed over the large farm and Aimé looked to have secured it when she added a second follower on a hill to it. With a huge stroke of luck with just a handful of tiles to go, I made the pig land on the plague part of the wheel and used this to remove her hill farmer, tying up the main farm and handing me the game.



Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune, Abbey and Mayor, Goldmines
jungleboy 232, Aimé 220

We decided to play with the Wheel again since it was already out, and we decided to play the proper rules this time. We played with two abbeys each but both of us were only able to use one of them.

I placed my barn early in what wasn’t an ideal position (exactly as I did in the last weekly game), while Aimé eventually got hers into a larger farm. Aimé is usually good with things like goldmines (the last time we played she destroyed me in this area), but this time I got lucky and drew a lot of the goldmine tiles. At one stage I had about six of them very close together on tiles surrounded by features I controlled. This ended up being the key to the game as on my last tile I was able to finish a road that gave me four gold bars. This left me with nine, one short of the 10 that would have given me four points per bar. Still, Aimé only had two gold bars, so in final scoring I overtook her with the gold bar scoring to win another very close game.



The Winter Edition: Gingerbread Man and Crop Circles
Aimé 111, jungleboy 108

Our third very close game of the day! Unfortunately this was the least enjoyable game as we both committed four meeples to a huge and ultimately unfinishable city and for a decent part of the game neither of us had any meeples and seemed to draw road after road. I must say that although I didn’t agree with the Crop Circles as the choice of mini-expansion for the Winter Edition from an artwork perspective, the gameplay of it goes quite well with the Gingerbread Man if you can draw a Crop Circle tile with a shield at a crucial moment. Animal house rules were also important at a few key points in the game. And just as I typed this, I realised that we forgot to give me an extra one point per city bonus for my farm for having deer in it, so actually I should have won the game by two points! Should I tell Aimé that or not?



All in all, it was another great Carcassonne day with three very tight games. Unfortunately we won’t be able to play next week, but hopefully soon after that!
 

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2349.0

Offline danisthirty

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Re: More Friday Carcassonne
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2016, 05:08:24 AM »
Thanks jungleboy. Reading these reports has given me some relief from a very boring Saturday in the office while I wait seemingly forever for various databases to restore.

Your friend sounds like a very good player and those were certainly some close scores! Great photos too. A merit for your efforts :) :(y)


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