Carcassonne Central

Carc Central Community => Online Games and Competitions => Leagues (including expansion leagues) => Topic started by: MrNumbers on June 15, 2017, 10:49:01 AM

Title: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on June 15, 2017, 10:49:01 AM
Goldminers:

If you are new to the competitions, please, carefully read the following tournament notes/guidance/rules before continuing.
If you already participated in some Carcassonne Central competitions before, the following rules are pretty much the same as always, except final stage (points 9-10). Let's try this format this time and see how it goes.

1. Players have already been divided into three different groups (Fliers, Goldminers, Wizards). Each player will play one game of Carcassonne against every other player in their group individually via a series of 2-player/ head-to-head games. The winner of each game will be awarded two league points whereas the loser gets nothing. If the game is tied, both players receive one league point each.

2. Players in each group will be ranked according to the number of league points they have scored. PD (Points Differential) will be used as an initial tie-breaker if there is no clear winner based on league points alone, and total combined score (from all games) will be used as a second tie-breaker if necessary. Your PD is calculated by taking the total number of points scored by you and subtracting the total number of points scored against you (combined across all games).

3. Games will be played online through the latest stable version of JCloisterZone (currently 3.4.3). Please ensure you have downloaded this and are familiar with its controls and features before the competition begins. It is also recommended that you have played at least one practice game against a live opponent in order to identify and resolve any technical problems before your first game.

4. JCloisterZone includes a number of artificial aids such as farm hints, projected scores and even tile-counting assistance. We all are busy people, and time is valuable for all of us. Many players spend decent amount of time anyway to count points for farms and uncompleted features, so with the purpose of speeding up our games, I allow to use "projected scores" feature. Other aids are still prohibited. I can't stop you from using them anyway, and won't know if you do, but I do urge you to play as fair as possible. I know it's a competition and we all want to win, but let's keep it fair, fun and friendly as far as possible...

5. Each game will include the basic tiles plus four expansions: Flier, Goldmines, Mage & Witch and Crop Circles. This is 102 tiles including the start tile, so 101 tile will be shuffled and randomly drawn for you and your opponent in turn. The starting player should be chosen at random through JCZ by selecting the "Randomize seating order" checkbox on the pre-game screen.

6. If any unexpected behaviour occurs during your game (for example if you think you have discovered a bug within JCloisterZone which may have altered the course of the game for you), please consult with your opponent and the CAR/ anyone else who happens to be in the chat room at the time to determine whether it appears to be a genuine bug. If it is, please save your game and post details of the bug along with anything else relating to how it came about on the forums. If however, you and your opponent are both happy to continue with your game despite the bug then feel free to do so, but don’t forget to mention the bug afterwards no matter how minor it may have seemed!

7. Please post a screenshot of your game, including final scores and score breakdown, back to your group thread as soon as your game is complete. It's always interesting to hear what happened during the game too, so please feel free to post any thoughts/ comments at the same time if you wish. If you're not sure how to capture/ post screenshots, please ask on the forums and either myself or someone else will explain how to do this (we're a friendly bunch!)

8. It is the players responsibility to liaise with their fellow group-members in order to find a mutually convenient time to play their game. This is expected to be done predominantly through Private Messages but feel free to use your group thread (here) too if this is easier. Please do keep any appointments you make, or at least give your opponent as much notice as possible if something occurs which prevents you from playing at the agreed time (more on the "Unwritten Rules" is available here (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2700)).

9. Each of the 3 initial groups contains 6 players so the first stage of the competition will end when every player (all 18 of us) has played 5 games. At this point, the pool will split again into 3 groups of 6 depending on finishing position in the initial groups. So, the 2 top-ranked players from groups will form group F1, those who came 3rd and 4th in each group will form group F2, and 5th and 6th - group F3.

10. Play in groups F1 to F3 will constitute the second stage of the competition which will run in the same way as the first. League points, PD and total score will be reset at this point (but remembered for overall stats) so that no single player in any group has any kind of advantage. Finishing positions in groups at the second stage will determine overall rank: 1st=F1-1, 2nd=F1-2, 3rd=F1-3, 4th=F1-4, 5th=F1-5, ..., 15th=F3-3, 16th=F3-4, 17th=F3-5, 18th=F3-6.

Finally, you may find the following links helpful:
Carcassonne Central IRC Chat (http://sydby.com/carcassonne/irc/index.html) and JCloisterZone (http://jcloisterzone.com/en/).

Good luck everyone! ;) :(y)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: ny1050220 on June 15, 2017, 11:37:17 AM
All right fellow Goldminers, let's get it started. I happen to be a geologist, so who is gonna win ;)?

I'm in EDT and it's now 14:35 here.
I'm usually free 18:00 to 23:59 on weekdays and all day on weekends. I can do 06:00 to 09:00 if needed. Occasionally I might be able to make it during normal work time (0900 to 1800) but my schedule varies daily and may have to change on a short notice.
Whenever I'm online here or in the chat room, I should be available.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: JoeSesquipedalian on June 21, 2017, 09:16:39 AM
Hello Goldminers!

I am currently living in the US in CDT, which is UCT-5.  I am generally available during the week from 08:00 to 16:00.  I am occasionally available to play on the weekends, but the times will vary from weekend to weekend. 

I am looking forward to getting some games going.  I will be spending a lot more time in the chatroom during the league.  I hope to play soon.  Feel free to message me on the forum or privately.

Joe  :green-meeple:
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: khalidqasrawi on July 07, 2017, 02:09:55 AM
Dear Goldminers,

Looks like we are behind.  I am away next week without Internet (at all!).  I'll be back, 18-Jul and ready to play that evening.  And any daytime after that.

kq
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: Merlin_89 on July 11, 2017, 02:48:13 PM
Yes, it looks that we're seriously behind with this League. But I'm done with stalling on my part...

I've sent PMs to all of you. I hope to play some of our group's games soon!
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: Jéré on July 14, 2017, 02:19:37 AM
Hi Merlin_89 & ny1050220, did you manage to finish your game late last night?
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: ny1050220 on July 14, 2017, 06:21:26 AM
All I can recall at the moment is that I lost very badly, so I assume Merlin's responsibility to upload the screenshot.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: Merlin_89 on July 14, 2017, 03:54:34 PM
Yep, first game of the group actually happened! We had to find right time for it, transcontinental arrangement requires to scramble a bit.

221 :yellow-meeple: Merlin_89 - ny1050220  :blue-meeple: 133

I was afraid of all the minis, I haven't played them in some time, and I had no chance to try them. I read rules, and I started playing. As far as I know, ny1050220 was in the same situation.

Beginning was disappointing for me, I was down, I started with string of tiles with only roads, while ny1050220 chose easy cities tiles. But I played like it was base Carcassonne with more tiles, which creates more occasions and opportunity to score, I had time.

Strangely game focused on roads, it was deciding element of the game! We kept putting all the gold there, and player who scored roads, grabbed yellow bars. I got lucky when one crossroad tile allowed me to score gold advantage (more than 6 pieces).

Fliers were redundant, as it was clear, that sneaking into cities wasn't that important. ny1050220 missed one chance to score big city, he could join it with another meeple, and then finish it (he got THE tile), but I guess he didn't want to risk meeple, it could gave him lots of points...

It was hard to start this League... Thanks to ny1050220, it was quite a challenge.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: DeatzoSeol on July 21, 2017, 02:33:46 PM
Alright Goldminers!

Second!

Merlin_89 145 vs. DeatzoSeol 101

As you can see from the screenshot, the game was quite... chaotic. Lost of unclaimed gold and even more lots of unclaimed cities. Merlin_89's superiority (or DeatzoSeol's suckery :-D ) was quickly established with them blocking nearly all my meeples: in the cities, on cloisters, on farms, you know, pretty much everywhere.

I had no meeples left and we were only halfway there... The board kept growing and we kinda started randomly placing tiles everywhere, since there's no point in trying to build up cities and roads if there are no meeples to claim them!

Anyway, long story short: the score doesn't do justice about what should have happened. I feel that in these kinds of games, with two equal opponents, points can be ramped up to the 200-ish range, for both players.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: khalidqasrawi on July 28, 2017, 10:50:00 AM
Hello Goldminers.  I'm now around for a week or so.  Ready to play my games.  I'm free most days, most times, by arrangement.

kq
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: ny1050220 on July 30, 2017, 11:17:59 AM
Is anyone free now?
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: khalidqasrawi on July 30, 2017, 12:02:25 PM
I can play in 10 mins.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: khalidqasrawi on July 30, 2017, 02:53:01 PM
ny1050220  :blue-meeple: 147 : 189  :red-meeple: khalidqasrawi

I went for as much gold as I could and it seemed to pay off.  I had an early meeple trapped.  That was okay mostly.  I waited for ages to join a meeple into the bigger city in the middle with CCFF but ny1050220 got the CCFF splitter and lept me off it.  It was interesting because there was a witch on one part of the city and a witch on my little bit.  I wasn't sure what JCZ would do when they were joined and completed.  Does anyone know?  We had an early silly fight over a road (7 tiles) with both of us having two meeples each on it!  ny1050220 did well by winning the big farm.  I made a late bid for it, throwing all my resources at it with 12 tiles to go, drew equal but ny1050220 won it back on the last move for 24 points.  It wasn't a match for my 40 point lead in gold pieces.

Interesting play.  Thanks for the game.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on July 30, 2017, 11:57:15 PM
I wasn't sure what JCZ would do when they were joined and completed.  Does anyone know?
Just had a test run of JCZ. It reacts correctly, according to CAR:
Quote from: CAR 7.4
If the placement of a tile joins the feature (city or road) with the Witch and the feature with the Mage, the active player must move one of the two figures. If placement of this tile completes a feature, the figure is moved before scoring.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: khalidqasrawi on August 01, 2017, 10:57:18 AM
Thanks for the update MrNumbers.  It's good to know.  It's what I was banking on to win the feature and double the points, but in the end ny1050220 got the splitter CCFF to keep the cities and hence the mage and the witch separate.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: khalidqasrawi on August 01, 2017, 10:57:53 AM
I am in the chat room on and off if any of you folks want a league game with me this evening.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on August 01, 2017, 11:10:45 PM
3 games played, 12 left.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: Jéré on August 02, 2017, 01:13:53 AM
After 7 weeks, we still have 2 participants with no games played.  I'm speechless....
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: ny1050220 on August 02, 2017, 06:13:19 AM
I can't believe I'm tied with Merlin, ranking number one in games played in the group...
Joe and I have a difficult timing issue. I honestly cannot play games during normal work time. I can browse the forum occasionally, but that's it. And Joe usually only has time in the day. Joe tried to find a time in the evening last week, but that's unsuccessful.
I never got any response from DeatzoSeol. Neither do I know anything about his/her time zone or availability. But s/he has played a game with Merlin, so hopefully s/he will get back to me soon.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: JoeSesquipedalian on August 02, 2017, 10:53:29 AM
I'm in the chatroom and on slack channel if anyone can play.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: JoeSesquipedalian on August 03, 2017, 10:12:18 AM
Had my game with khalidqasrawi today.  The gold bars gave me the edge I needed for the victory, most of which I didn't even need to work for.  khalidqasrawi played very well and had a few of my meeples trapped early on, some of which never escaped.  The game started out very strange with 4 crop circles coming out in the first 10 tiles.  Final score:
khalidqasrawi:  166  :red-meeple:
JoeSesquipedalian: 189  :green-meeple:
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: DeatzoSeol on August 06, 2017, 04:46:55 PM
Next up:

:red-meeple: Khalidqasrawi 173 vs. :blue-meeple: DeatzoSeol 138

As always, gold is the winner here. If it wasn't for the gold, the score would have been much more even. I made the fatal mistake of not focusing on the gold enough and it cost me 40 points. Lesson learned people: this game is about the gold!
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on August 08, 2017, 12:41:15 PM
Lesson learned people: this game is about the gold!
This could be actual true :D
From 18 games (till now) 12 were won by most gold owners, in 4 games there was gold tie, and only in 2 games player could win without gold majority, and both these games were won by Jéré!
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on August 16, 2017, 12:52:58 PM
5 games played, 10 left.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: ny1050220 on August 23, 2017, 01:00:18 PM
Here's the game between Piet_Agoras and me.
PA's first two tiles got him 8 points with two small cities. My first two tiles got me a road with I abandoned after PA sent the witch.
I managed to block three of his meeples early in the game, but he retrieved two of them using crop circles.
Later in the game, he managed again to trap four of my meeples, but I could only retrieve one. In the meantime there is fierce fight for the field. I managed to share the big field with my last tile, the flier tile north of my farmer with 36 points in the west. We also have other candidate farmers for the big field, but I didn't get the correct tile for my farmer in far north scoring 0 points. Meanwhile, I managed to stop PA's farmer on the NE corner from connecting to our big farm. Had one of these farmers had a different story, the game would be totally different.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: Merlin_89 on August 26, 2017, 01:58:18 PM
205 :yellow-meeple: Merlin_89 - Piet_Agoras :red-meeple: 81

I can say I owned that game! We've thrown ourselves into game from the beginning! We quickly used our supply of meeples... farms, cities, CLOISTERS, we started to run on fumes. But we were in different situations, I blocked few of Piet_Agoras's meeples, and completed few of my features. I could play, and he was stuck. And game looked like that for a long time, I could complete, grab gold, ADD POINTS.

Carcassonne's scenario you dream about. Piet_Agoras, it had to be tough game for you... Thanks!
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on August 27, 2017, 03:25:01 AM
7 games played, 8 left.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: Piet_Agoras on August 28, 2017, 02:26:02 PM

Next up:

:blue-meeple: Piet_Agoras 153 vs. :red-meeple: Khalidqasrawi 135

I won despite not having the gold majority :). I've learned my lesson of my previous match and started a little more slowly using my meeples. But still, we both locked 4 meeples in 2 citys. I was able to free one of them, and that enabled me to claim some smaller cities and roads. In the end, I made a mistake where I forgot that I was out of meeples, which gave Khalid 2 extra gold and finished a road for him. Luckely for me my advantage was big enough to secure the win. Thanks Khalidqasrawi for the close game.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: Merlin_89 on September 04, 2017, 11:32:59 AM
165 :yellow-meeple: Merlin_89 - Khalidqasrawi  :red-meeple: 144

After the game Khalidq said that he'd never doubted, I'd win... but our match was much more complicated.

I had better start, I could complete some features, and Khalidq got mostly useless tiles - I saw that. It wasn't long until we took all our guns out. We fought for city, we had meeeples in cloisters, I pushed Khalid into building the big city, I rushed into claiming farm... Our free stack of meeples was limited, but Khalidq's became empty for some time. I felt comfortable, but he came back with points and gold that buried points gap between us. We were even, but I was in possession of big farm with 2 meeples and it gave me control of the game. I was afraid, he'd go after it, but he was down on meeples and he didn't make this move.

I won, but final result surprised me! Khalidq scored 65 road points, more than I was able to score with cities! I clearly won that game with farms, but result could be different because of crazy big impact of gold - 2 more gold bars for Khalidq and he'd be dead even with me.

Competitive match. Thanks for the game.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on September 05, 2017, 12:37:12 PM
9 games played, 6 left.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: DeatzoSeol on September 09, 2017, 08:39:15 AM
Well, seems like I kinda had difficulties planning games. That's a lie. I probably lost interest in the minis and playing through JCZ just doesn't have the swing of playing 'live' - or maybe I am more of a social player, who knows?

Anyway, I'm gonna have to pass on the tournament for now.

Sorry for the troubles and best of luck to the remaining players!
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on September 09, 2017, 11:41:14 AM
Sorry to see you go, DeatzoSeol. I hope we'll see you someday in some competition.

As for the group standings, I decided to eliminate all DeatzoSeol's results from the table and Goldminers group will consist of 5 players instead of 6. So, 3 games left, all involve JoeSesquipedalian.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: Merlin_89 on September 14, 2017, 03:21:15 PM
I can only laugh and be happy about game that happened between me and JoeSesquipedalian.

144 :yellow-meeple: Merlin_89 - JoeSesquipedalian :green-meeple: 144

This game was horrible for me! I was getting no tiles to work with, JoeSesquipedalian played offensive and I had no response. One knight, one monk, two knights, 4 meeples blocked, and I could only look when it happened.

But playing offensive had its downsides... I saw, he kept missing good scoring opportunities to keep hindering my game. On the other hand I used all of my bits and pieces to further my game and score. Game looked strange, I was in awful situation on map but I was continuously keeping my advantage on score-track.

But I simply knew I couldn't win this game. FARM!! It got HUGE!!!!! And when being 4-meeples down, you can't win farm that important. I contested it! I tied 1-1. I stalled JoeSesquipedalian's game, and made him a little bit frightened. But he's got it (42 points)!

Ending was exciting, all things considered, it was strangely close... One of my blocked cities got considerably big, and I tried to push wizard there (but in the end Joe moved him elsewhere, still 13 points), I had blocked monk (8 points), I had lead (around 15 points), farmer for 6 points... AND GOLD! It was 5-3 (10-3 when counted in points). Gold tiles were fairly distributed, but at the end JoeSesquipedalian got 2 tiles, and grabbed 2 bars out of it, and I got one tile, and managed to complete that golden city, we ended with 7-5 for me, small difference but it transferred into huge score difference 21-10. And it saved me...

Small things could ended that game differently, especially gold, mage and wizard's tiles (JoeSesquipedalian had small chance to grab anothe 2 gold bars). But I can't complain about final result. We played exciting game, we even used fliers! Crop Circles made quite a difference! I couldn't expect better opponent than JoeSesquipedalian, thanks for your level of play!

I've returned from hell, it was JoeSesquipedalian's game to win... And important ONE! We can repeat Flier's Group! If JoeSesquipedalian wins rest of his games, we'll be tied in big points, and Total Score Difference will decide group's winner. This League turned to be awfully exciting! I'm +233, is it enough?
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: JoeSesquipedalian on September 14, 2017, 08:23:23 PM
I also got my game in with ny1050220 today and it was pretty intense.  A great battle on both sides but I ended up with the advantage on the gold bars which gave me the slight victory.  Very well-played close game by ny1050220.

Final score:
 :green-meeple: 143 JoeSesquipedalian
 :blue-meeple: 140 ny1050220

Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on September 14, 2017, 10:49:25 PM
Great games, guys! :(y)
Only one game left! JoeSesquipedalian needs to win with at least 208 PD to win the group :D For now highest PD was 139. Let's see if Joe could beat the record ;)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: danisthirty on September 15, 2017, 01:46:06 AM
This is all starting to look awfully familiar! Good luck with your remaining games Joe and congrats on getting two more played.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on September 19, 2017, 11:20:10 AM
Piet_Agoras was in contact with me, he is not at home, but will be on this weekend. So I allowed him to play his outstanding game till 24.09, but this is final deadline.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on September 25, 2017, 12:48:27 PM
OK, all deadlines are passed, so I make current results official (without one game).
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: Leven on September 25, 2017, 10:31:38 PM
OK, all deadlines are passed, so I make current results official (without one game).
I would suggest to let ny1050220 finish 4th in the group. He has played all his games and he even won his game vs Piet_Agoras who hasn't played his game with Joe. By losing that game Piet_Agoras could have dropped to the last place. What do you think?
Title: Re: Carcassonne Minis League: Goldminers
Post by: MrNumbers on September 25, 2017, 11:10:27 PM
OK, all deadlines are passed, so I make current results official (without one game).
I would suggest to let ny1050220 finish 4th in the group. He has played all his games and he even won his game vs Piet_Agoras who hasn't played his game with Joe. By losing that game Piet_Agoras could have dropped to the last place. What do you think?
Sounds fair, but this last game didn't happen on this weekend because exactly JoeSesquipedalian was busy, Piet_Agoras was ready to play. So, I think I'll leave it as it is.