Author Topic: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons  (Read 39655 times)

Offline Valheru

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #45 on: January 25, 2016, 03:18:31 PM »
Merlin, you really had all 7 meeples on the farmgame. That's insane haha. Had to be a nice game, surely!
"In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming..."

Offline ny1050220

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #46 on: January 25, 2016, 04:55:51 PM »
Here my game with jma03
It was hard! And I'm taking it hard.
Well I enjoyed it.
All in all, Jacobo is a very skillful player.

Offline danisthirty

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #47 on: January 26, 2016, 03:49:48 AM »
:yellow-meeple: Merlin_89 151 - 101 Danisthirty  :blue-meeple:

It’s fairly often that someone (usually the winner) will comment after a game that the final scores weren’t necessarily representative of how close the game was. However, in this case they certainly were and losing by a full lap of the scoretrack was about the best I could have hoped for!

I started off OK and put a few farmers down early to give myself a good chance of keeping the main farm even after the dragon had inevitably removed a few of them. Merlin didn’t fight back especially ferociously at this point, but certainly stayed in touch with the farm despite winning a few cities elsewhere and building a good lead over me in the process. I knew I needed to level the scores a bit whilst maintaining overall control of the farm, and so took a few risks to generate some quick points. Merlin took advantage of this well and trapped one of my knights in a city that I hadn’t been able to close. In most cases, the tiles I needed weren’t especially rare ones at that stage of the game, but they just didn’t come whereas Merlin seemed to be grabbing points left, right and centre... :(

But despite being behind (quite considerably by this point), the main farm was still pretty valuable and I’d managed to hold onto that for most of the game so there was still hope. I was very much outgunned in terms of spare meeples though, and as I struggled to hold on until the tiles had run out Merlin attacked the farm from all angles and seemed to join his farmers on with ease. Before long I was two farmers behind (4 against 6!) but with my trapped knight and a monk that I shouldn’t have placed, I only had one meeple left to play with and couldn’t draw what I needed to get him onto the farm too. >:(

I didn’t feel like very much from the Princess & Dragon expansion had a huge effect on the game. Despite Merlin taking his time to think through a number of dragon movement phases, the dragon mostly went hungry (especially when I was trying to free my own trapped meeples) and the princess must have been wearing the wrong type of perfume as she didn’t do a lot of luring either. The fairy was used quite well by both of us I felt; I’d guess the discrepancy between our fairy point scores was mostly down to the fact that Merlin completed more features than I did and was usually able to move the fairy at the same time for the 3 bonus points.

Anyway, petty complaining aside, I can’t take anything away from Merlin for the great game he played. It was a lot like our last game in that it felt like he was in control from start to finish and made everything he did seem easy. Well done to you, and good luck with the rest of the competition! :) :(y)

Offline Hounk

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #48 on: January 26, 2016, 10:18:31 AM »
I'd probably be up to one late game tonight around 11pm CET, in case somebody else from the group is interested.

Offline Valheru

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #49 on: January 26, 2016, 10:34:15 AM »
I'll be online for a few hours from now on as well.

Offline Valheru

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #50 on: January 26, 2016, 01:05:01 PM »
So, next game!

Merlin: 192
Valheru: 148

Not sure how Merlin feels about this, but a difference of 44 points seems a bit harsh to me. I took the lead at 25 tiles to the end of the game, and lost it a few tiles afterwards. Meepleshortage hit me hard because I was focussing on the farms and 2 cloisters were pretty much blocked by Merlin. Dragon was brutal, especially for Merlin during the game, besides a meeple or two on my part.

Tough game to lose, but nonetheless deserved it in the end. Good luck with the rest of the tournament Merlin, you're on a roll ;)

Offline Merlin_89

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #51 on: January 26, 2016, 01:18:22 PM »
Yes, Valheruu is right... and it's not empty words. I couldn't play my game this time, he constantly ate my meeples...!

I made mistake and he scored left city with 4 pennants, I missed my chance to join there. Valheruu led when he completed that one. And if you look closer, he could won big farm on the bottom with simple RRFF and then score could be much different (I could equal there for 3-3, but still). Thankfully his meepleshortage allowed me to score everythere during last 20 tiles - it rescued me.

Offline danisthirty

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #52 on: January 27, 2016, 05:54:01 AM »
I'm hoping to be available for a game from about 8 o'clock this evening (UK time). Please drop me a PM or simply meet me in the chat room if you're free! :)

Offline jma03

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #53 on: January 28, 2016, 02:54:43 AM »
Here my game with jma03
It was hard! And I'm taking it hard.
Well I enjoyed it.
All in all, Jacobo is a very skillful player.
beatiful game,
ny was ahead on the scoreboard 20 puntos to close the castle.

I could not develop my game, because every step I did was blocked by ny.

it was becoming more difficult to acquire the main property , so opt to close small things .
tiles last decided the game.
very tight result could fall on either side.

thank you very much for the game and good luck for the rest of the competition.
When you lose, do not look at what you lost, but what's left to win ..

Offline Valheru

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #54 on: January 28, 2016, 11:47:51 AM »
Anyone up for a game tonight? I'll be in the chatroom for an hour or two.

Offline Valheru

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #55 on: January 28, 2016, 01:09:44 PM »
Valheru: 135
Danisthirty: 123

I can't really believe it but I WON, I actually won! But what a close game it was, with me being the very very very lucky winner. I was in desperate meepleshortage when the battle for the farm exploded in all out war. Dan was so good in blocking my meeples (even sacrificing one of his in the process!) so it was really difficult to get out these situations. My luck first turned when I managed to complete a city which gave me one feeble meeple back.

After that it was kind of an avalanche of luck for me with the gamechanger being Dan who drew a dragontile but didn't notice it and choose to complete a city with it, ignoring the fairy. If I'm not mistaken that happened with around 15 tiles remaining! The following dragonhunt was brutal beyond measure with 2 farmers (all Dan's) being eaten. An attempt to clutch some points in the end with big unfinished cities proved very close but just not enough to turn the tables.  The result stood, and I'm writing down my first victory in the history of my membership at Carcassonne Central.

I can only say that Dan is a fantastic player and it took most of all luck to beat him. Hope to see you soon on the battlefield again and good luck with the rest of the tournament!


Offline danisthirty

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #56 on: January 28, 2016, 01:39:05 PM »
I can't really complain about this game as I got more than my fair share of luck for the first two thirds of it and then kind of threw it away with just 15 tiles to go. I was blinded by the fact that I could complete a city for a whopping 6 points ::) and as such deployed a meeple rather than doing the sensible thing and moving the fairy to defend my farmers (more through stupidity than cockyness). My failure to do so cost me one farmer, and before I'd even had the chance to dry my eyes Valheru had drawn another dragon tile and finished off another farmer. So with 12 tile to go, the farm had gone from 4 - 4 to 4 - 2 and I had some catching up to do. With the meeples that Valheru had so kindly returned to me, I took some chances trying to connect back to the main farm and got one on with ease. The other remained seperate though, so Valheru won the main farm outright for... 42 points! >:(

Despite this, I don't feel like Valheru did himself justice in his write-up. It's always tough to keep on playing when you're behind on meeples as well as points but he hung on in there and made the most of what he had when he could. Drawing the cfrr when he did completed his city and gave him a meeple back which really put him back in the game ("Absence makes the meeple grow stronger"?) and kept the fight for the farm alive. He also played exceptionally well with the dragon and certainly made sure I was punished for my earlier mistake so late in the game. So, all in all, don't put it all down to luck Valheru, you played an excellent game and deserved the win! :) :(y)

* Be sure to look out for a used copy of The Princess & Dragon expansion in this years Spare Bits Giveaway * :@

Offline Merlin_89

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #57 on: January 29, 2016, 12:46:18 AM »
Dan, I totally understand your pain... These sort of thing happens to all Carcassonne players (when it happens to me I call it utter mindblinding greediness for quick points).

Congrats to Valheru for your first win! You kept being close to Dan, and you used his mistake - this is also the way to play this game.

Ok, after your game, Jacobo came and we had our game...

 :yellow-meeple: Merlin_89 151 - 137 Jacobo  :red-meeple:

I swear, those games keep getting harder! Jacobo was ahead of me by around 20-sth points whole first half. He just kept scoring, I tried to block, but he was getting the right tiles. There was glimmer of hope for me, I had little investment from the get go, unfinished city in middle, I needed simple CRFR, and it was frustrating because those tiles weren't coming! In the meantime I closed the score gap, I remember that at some point Jacobo completely stopped scoring, and I was adding points. I managed to block his bottom city, and made his few meeples hard to retrieve. Dragon was helpful and he managed to avoid my precious farmers. When I got CRFR, I finally went to lead! From that point we fought for farms, they are small, but they decided the winner. It was long game, we played for an 1 hour and a half...

Offline Merlin_89

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #58 on: January 29, 2016, 01:12:31 AM »
Problematic thing was that I had made prior arrangment to play with ny1050220 after midnight... Jacobo exhausted me, but it's hard to schedule a game across the Atlantic so... more Carcassonne for me!

 :yellow-meeple: Merlin_89 159 - 87 ny1050220  :blue-meeple:

I was so lucky in that game, everything came my way from the get go! But game started with sth I prefer to avoid when playing this expansion, battle for big city. As usual at those cases princess shook things up... I threw ny from the city, I just needed CCCF or CCCR to complete it, I got it very quickly and it awarded to me 24 points. In the process I manged to block his 2 meeples next to my city (he planned to use them to sneak into the city). I knew that I just need to keep the leverage, but it was so early in the game. He was low on meeples, but he started to get scoring 4citypointers like crazy (those on the bottom)! Suddenly that farm started to become game defining thing, I knew that I couldn't allow that to fall into ny's hand. But it was a gamble, there was like 6 farmers on very small area and the DRAGON, it was crazy, ny kept getting volcano tiles, I got most of dragon tiles, it helped me, in the end I scored the farm!

We played fairly quickly, it took us half an hour to finish... I have one game to play.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2016, 01:21:34 AM by Merlin_89 »

Offline jma03

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Re: Princess & Dragon League: Dragons
« Reply #59 on: January 29, 2016, 04:55:20 AM »
Dan, I totally understand your pain... These sort of thing happens to all Carcassonne players (when it happens to me I call it utter mindblinding greediness for quick points).

Congrats to Valheru for your first win! You kept being close to Dan, and you used his mistake - this is also the way to play this game.

Ok, after your game, Jacobo came and we had our game...

 :yellow-meeple: Merlin_89 151 - 137 Jacobo  :red-meeple:

I swear, those games keep getting harder! Jacobo was ahead of me by around 20-sth points whole first half. He just kept scoring, I tried to block, but he was getting the right tiles. There was glimmer of hope for me, I had little investment from the get go, unfinished city in middle, I needed simple CRFR, and it was frustrating because those tiles weren't coming! In the meantime I closed the score gap, I remember that at some point Jacobo completely stopped scoring, and I was adding points. I managed to block his bottom city, and made his few meeples hard to retrieve. Dragon was helpful and he managed to avoid my precious farmers. When I got CRFR, I finally went to lead! From that point we fought for farms, they are small, but they decided the winner. It was long game, we played for an 1 hour and a half...

I have little to add to the description that has made merli89 game .
I knew I had a big challenge against the "player of fashion",  warrior and invincible merlin89 .
It was very even to save a house from which I was expelled by the princess ( he needed CRFR ).We are fighting for the farm , but they were small
and the dragon had little to do.
Happy with the game and deserved victory of merlin.

 P.D:I would like to add that I have learned one thing i did not know of this expansion:
there are 6 tiles "magical site"
that allows you to place a follower on that piece of territory or any other that has been placed before.
as long as the rules are respected.
from now on I will take advantage of these tiles
if I'm not the only one who did not know, note that is interesting 8)

next time I am clear that besides practicing in friendly games,i
read the rules up and down ;D ;D


« Last Edit: January 29, 2016, 05:00:15 AM by jma03 »


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