Author Topic: "Mega Carcassonne" at the 2016 UK Games Expo (maybe) (Read 47855 times)

danisthirty · « **Reply #30 on:** March 08, 2016, 03:32:20 PM »

Hey Curt!

I don't think there are any plans to hold any kind of official event as we've very much missed the boat for that and never really made our minds up about exactly what we wanted our offering to be. However, I'm sure we will be able to hold our own little CarcC meetup and get a few friendly games in on the Sunday (depending on what time the Expo actually closes).

I think that the UK Carcassonne championships are going to be the main event for many of us and that's going to run until 2:30pm (83 tickets remaining!) Do you intend to take part in this? I would definitely recommend it if you have the chance...

Looking forward to seeing you there. Perhaps we'll give the triple-box basic game a miss this time though, purely for how long the last one took to complete!

Curt194 · « **Reply #31 on:** March 11, 2016, 06:21:55 AM »

I didn't really consider taking part in the championships but I will have a look into it. Could be fun to take part, even if it only ends up being for one game!

I'll be about all weekend so a CarC meet up would certainly be fun, perhaps with a few smaller games!

Thanks for the heads up about the championships, I will definitely think about it!

danisthirty · « **Reply #32 on:** March 11, 2016, 08:33:10 AM »

Quote from: Curt194 on March 11, 2016, 06:21:55 AM

I didn't really consider taking part in the championships but I will have a look into it. Could be fun to take part, even if it only ends up being for one game!

You'll get at least 3 x 4-player games out of it before they produce a ranking based on finishing positions per game (and total score from all 3 games as tie-breaker). Then, if you're in the top 4 you get 2 x 2-player games or 1 x 4-player game (if you finish outside of the top 4) to establish final finishing position. So, most people get 4 games and a lucky few get 5. Tickets are £6 so it's pretty good value.

Not sure what other people's plans are yet, but I think I'm probably going to drive up on the Sunday morning. I think Decar was there from Saturday last year and may well be doing the same thing again this year. Perhaps you could play a 10,001 tile game between you in advance of the championship?

ScottMoore · « **Reply #33 on:** March 13, 2016, 04:57:04 PM »

Dan,

I've decided to slightly change the format of the UK Carcassonne Championship. With, potentially, as many as 100 competitors I just wasn't comfortable with only the top 4 getting through to the knock-out rounds. So, I'm adding a third knock-out round (i.e. quarter finals, followed by semis and then the final), which means the top 8 can go through to them. Most people will finish around 1.30 pm (as they'll only have 1 game in the 4th round). The semi-finalists will have another two games - the semis and the finals/3rd place play-offs, while will take them to around 3pm.

Scott

danisthirty · « **Reply #34 on:** March 13, 2016, 11:21:43 PM »

Quote from: ScottMoore on March 13, 2016, 04:57:04 PM

Dan,

I've decided to slightly change the format of the UK Carcassonne Championship. With, potentially, as many as 100 competitors I just wasn't comfortable with only the top 4 getting through to the knock-out rounds. So, I'm adding a third knock-out round (i.e. quarter finals, followed by semis and then the final), which means the top 8 can go through to them. Most people will finish around 1.30 pm (as they'll only have 1 game in the 4th round). The semi-finalists will have another two games - the semis and the finals/3rd place play-offs, while will take them to around 3pm.

Scott

Hey Scott,

I think that's a very wise decision for a variety of reasons that I'm sure you're already aware of. Thanks for letting us know!

One thing I was going to mention so that you'd be aware of it (if you're not already) is to do with the fact that the new artwork edition of Carcassonne includes an exclusive mini-expansion called "The Abbot" which comes in the form of an extra meeple per player colour. Since the competition is base-game only, these extra meeples will be redundant BUT some players will use them as their score track meeple meaning they have an extra meeple in hand (8 rather than 7). If each player in a 4-player game does that it might not affect the overall winner of that game, but it will affect the kind of score they might achieve which would give them an advantage of terms of tournament score/ tie-breaker. My advice would be to remove all of the Abbots beforehand to ensure there's no confusion over their purpose, or failing this to keep a close eye on each game being played (at least at the start of each round anyway).

Best regards,
Dan

JT Atomico · « **Reply #35 on:** March 20, 2016, 04:43:56 AM »

I just bought tickets for the Sunday at the Expo including the Carcassonne championships - looking forward to it!

danisthirty · « **Reply #36 on:** March 20, 2016, 06:16:14 AM »

Quote from: JT Atomico on March 20, 2016, 04:43:56 AM

I just bought tickets for the Sunday at the Expo including the Carcassonne championships - looking forward to it!

There goes my chances of doing well!

Decar · « **Reply #37 on:** March 20, 2016, 07:24:24 AM »

It's ok Dan, I'm your normalizer!

ScottMoore · « **Reply #38 on:** April 04, 2016, 02:54:09 PM »

Hi Dan, one of the few perks of running the tournaments, has been that I got a copy of Ticket to Ride a couple of years go, and a copy of the new edition of Carcassonne last year - so, I've already played with the Abbot mini-expansion. I suppose the question is, what now constitutes the "base game"? I would tend to think, that we should stick with what used to be in the original Carcassonne box ie. excluding the River and Abbot expansions. That would mean taking out the Abbot meeple and the river tiles (I assume that there are no new tiles with the Abbot mini-expansion, merely the adding of flowerbeds to existing tiles). We may have time to do that ourselves before the tournament begins - if not then we'll have to ask players to do this and then check that they are playing with the correct number of meeples.

danisthirty · « **Reply #39 on:** April 04, 2016, 03:30:11 PM »

That does sound like a nice perk!

I think many players will be unfamiliar with the Abbot piece as the new box is aimed mostly at newer players, and it does still count as an expansion (and one that's pretty much exclusive to the new artwork version of Carcassonne at that), so I can't see that there's any place for it really. Especially since the entry on the competition list states that it's base game only.

The cosmetic changes to the tile art aren't going to put anyone off. Well, it didn't last year anyway so I'm sure it will be fine again this year!

Looking forward to the day already. Do please post here if you think of anything that we here might be able to help out with! (including arriving early to punch out tiles and remove abbots if it helps?)

Best regards,
Dan

ScottMoore · « **Reply #40 on:** April 04, 2016, 03:33:37 PM »

And did we also exclude the River expansion last year? I'm sure I knew at the time, but a lot has happened since then...

danisthirty · « **Reply #41 on:** April 04, 2016, 03:36:04 PM »

I don't recall seeing it anywhere to be honest, but a lot of the sets I used were brand new so I guess most players knew just to set it aside. If there is time though, unwrapping, punching tiles and removing rivers and abbots beforehand may be worthwhile...

ScottMoore · « **Reply #42 on:** April 04, 2016, 03:45:10 PM »

Quote from: danisthirty on April 04, 2016, 03:30:11 PM

That does sound like a nice perk!

Well, not my first choice of games. I've only played TtR twice since then and Carcassonne not much more, though I did introduce it to a Hungarian friend a couple of weeks ago - it is a very easy game for non-boardgamers to learn to play and also not too taxing for me to explain in Hungarian. My current "hot game" is Voyages of Marco Polo, which I've played about 15-20 times in the last few months. I'd love to play in the tournament at the Expo, but I'll be running it so I suppose that is out of the question

Thanks for the offer to help out with unpacking the Carcassonne games. I'll let you know closer to the time if we want to take you up on that.

danisthirty · « **Reply #43 on:** April 04, 2016, 03:50:28 PM »

It's great that you can share your passion for gaming with so many people at the Expo. Shame you won't be able to take part in your Voyages of Marco Polo contest but probably more trouble than it's worth if you did end up winning it!

ScottMoore · « **Reply #44 on:** April 05, 2016, 03:42:02 AM »

Dan, I have a question for you. It may happen that the number of players for the Carcassonne tournament is not a multiple of 4, in which case we will have 1-3 tables with only 3 players. It may also happen that one or two players drop out during the tournament, leaving gaps and thus 3-player tables. But it just occurred to me that 3-player games of Carcassonne are going to generate higher scores per player than 4-player games. As this is our tie-breaker, it would not seem to be fair to players who do not benefit from any 3-player table during the three qualification rounds of the competition. What do you think about this? Is there an easy way to correct for it?