Carcassonne Central
Carc Central Community => Reviews & Session Reports => Topic started by: Paul on November 09, 2014, 11:57:21 AM
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After football which we play every Sunday at noon, five of us decided to play a game of Carcassonne.
My cousin and I already knew the rules for we've played on and off. My brother and one of the other friends haven't played it for over 6 years so they were a bit rusty.
And we have a new player, the 5th. :(y)
It was a hectic game and as all seemed doomed for me, I managed to talk one of the friends, whom played before but unsure about tactics, into do certain moves. Aiding him if you will.
He placed a cloister tile where my brother and cousin were forced to build their city around the cloister in order to complete it. Gaining his trust, I managed to set up a small area where he and I could join the huge field and as the plan was to conquer it. Alas we failed so the huge field of 19 cities was shared by four of us!
As me and the the new guy had such a lead, it was vital that I scored more points than him but everytime I scored, he did the same and our meeples on the score track kept surpassing one another. My sprint away from him came at the end of the game because he did not get into the huge field as the others and me did, which gave me the huge jump and ended up with me as the winner!
My cousin drew the Cathedral tile and placed it on a huge city rendering us four others trying to complete it with zero points from it!
Biggest moment was when I had two farmers with no cities and I drew the cloister rrrr tile to place upper left corner (2 yellow farmers) and my friend drew the straight road to place it there. I showed him my tile in secret because his move was before mine, so he would realise it was beneficial for both of us. :@
The timing was so perfect because any of the others could have placed an Abbey tile where my cloister ended up and ruin my chance to get the farmers into the huge field!
Final scoring:
Green, the new guy: 111
Black, my cousin: 157
Red, my brother: 147
Blue, a friend: 147
Yellow, yours truly: 172
Pardon the quality of the images. The highres camera is not at home atm.
(http://sydby.com/carcassonne/screenshots/games/20141109/board__20141109_181336__800rCCW.jpg)
It was nice winning for a change as I seem to be losing left and right lately!
The game setup was mixed:
Base game
Abbey tile
Some other tiles from other expansions that had those unique combinations
7 regular followers, nothing else
Inn's and 1x Cathedral
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All abbey tiles used! in a 5 player game. thats pretty good!:P
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All abbey tiles used! in a 5 player game. thats pretty good!:P
Yep!
We kinda nudged the new guy to use his near the end. Gave him and me 9 points each as it finished my cloister as well. :@
That big cathedral city btw, had it been completed, it would give the new guy sole control of it, earning 57 points and would then have won the game! (green meeple)
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That seems like a relatively small game for you isn't it Yellow? :)
In any case, I was surprised to see that there is a single farm serving 19 cities in this game! I guess the Abbeys helped to split the cities up a bit...
Congratulations on your win! :meeple: :(y)
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That seems like a relatively small game for you isn't it Yellow? :)
In any case, I was surprised to see that there is a single farm serving 19 cities in this game! I guess the Abbeys helped to split the cities up a bit...
Congratulations on your win! :meeple: :(y)
Yes, it sort of became the only feature we were focusing on, the big farm. I was planning to have the river as well but didn't have time to sort it.
Next megaCarc I hope to have all the rivers in one game. 5x River I, 4x River II and 1x River III using them in four directions or something.
There's nothing wrong going small on occations. Besides, we did not have a lot of time and this game sesson took almost 4 and a half hours! ::)
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Next megaCarc I hope to have all the rivers in one game. 5x River I, 4x River II and 1x River III using them in four directions or something.
10 sets of river tiles = 120 tiles, but how many of those you’d actually place because of discarded springs/ lakes etc I don’t know. I guess you’d still end up with about 100 – 110 tiles which would probably take about an hour to place before the game had even begun with the people I play against!
There's nothing wrong going small on occations. Besides, we did not have a lot of time and this game sesson took almost 4 and a half hours! ::)
Totally agree! Although expansions can often be used to add a twist, I usually prefer to play two or three small games rather than one big game (depending on number of players too of course). Sometimes it can be difficult getting the balance right between such factors as number of players, number of tiles, number of rules and duration of game.
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Next megaCarc I hope to have all the rivers in one game. 5x River I, 4x River II and 1x River III using them in four directions or something.
10 sets of river tiles = 120 tiles, but how many of those you’d actually place because of discarded springs/ lakes etc I don’t know. I guess you’d still end up with about 100 – 110 tiles which would probably take about an hour to place before the game had even begun with the people I play against!
There's nothing wrong going small on occations. Besides, we did not have a lot of time and this game sesson took almost 4 and a half hours! ::)
Totally agree! Although expansions can often be used to add a twist, I usually prefer to play two or three small games rather than one big game (depending on number of players too of course). Sometimes it can be difficult getting the balance right between such factors as number of players, number of tiles, number of rules and duration of game.
I use all the river tiles and the way we set it up, all tiles will always be playable except two start / end tiles which are removed from the game.
When I last played I used 4x rivers (2x River I and 2x River II) placing each starter left and right of Count castle. The rule is, they have to be placed outwards left and right, no U-turn allowed, not even with a straight tile in between.
The junction river is also in the random draw, placed in a way that the river part with the opposite grass is connected and the other two river parts are den faced up and down. Hope it makes sense explained!
As for the expansion used and not used, because of two returning players for years back and a new player, I thought it was best to keep it simple. Even the basic of Carcassonne rules was a bit to take in for them! O:-)
Next game, although I hope for the Dragon some day it is still too soon, we will instead use Traders and Builders, unless they vote to keep it simple again!
:meeple:
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Yeah, the dragon might scare them off. Lure them in with I&C and T&B, then once they're hooked and think they're good players, then it will be time to bust out the dragon and the tower and show them who's boss :)
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All abbey tiles used! in a 5 player game. thats pretty good!:P
Yep!
We kinda nudged the new guy to use his near the end. Gave him and me 9 points each as it finished my cloister as well. :@
That big cathedral city btw, had it been completed, it would give the new guy sole control of it, earning 57 points and would then have won the game! (green meeple)
Why didn't you nudge him to use it on the city? ;)
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All abbey tiles used! in a 5 player game. thats pretty good!:P
Yep!
We kinda nudged the new guy to use his near the end. Gave him and me 9 points each as it finished my cloister as well. :@
That big cathedral city btw, had it been completed, it would give the new guy sole control of it, earning 57 points and would then have won the game! (green meeple)
Why didn't you nudge him to use it on the city? ;)
The big city? No, because he would have then completed the city and get it all to himself as he had two followers on it and the rest of us only one! 8)