Round 4: jungleboy vs rfielder

[rfielder]

This game is scheduled for today (June 17, 2014) at 1700hrs EST.

My esteemed opponent has agreed to an experiment - allowing spectators to the game!

Anyone who wishes to watch the game progress live may link in between 4:45PM EST and 5:00PM EST.  The game will start at 5:00PM EST.

The rules are simple - once you link in and see the selections screen, you need do nothing.  No selecting meeples, no changing game options, etc.  Once the game begins, your screen will update automatically, so you see everything except the boxes that show available tile placement.

As spectators, you will also not be able to use the chat.  A word of warning - when I was experimenting with JCloisterZone to see how it would work, I tried using the chat.  I could type in some text, but the text was never sent to those playing the game.  The catch is that I could not clear the chat off my screen, so it obscured part of the game.

The IP for tonight's game is:
99.227.169.186
Standard port: 37447

I am located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, which is to the north-west of Toronto (home of the world's most famous mayor!) and just north of Mississauga (home of the world's older mayor!).  Games with players in Europe have been great, no lag or communications issues whatsoever.

Once the game is over, jungleboy and I will post the results to this discussion, as well as update the main League discussion.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=836.0

[jungleboy]

For all our fans in different time zones around the world (!), the game will start at 11pm Central European Time tonight, 10pm UK time, and 7am on Wednesday morning in Australia.

[rfielder]

It is now 4:49PM EST. 

If anyone wishes to participate in this experiment, now is the time to link in.  Game starts in about 10 minutes.

[MrNumbers]

I am in

[MrNumbers]

Game stuck after some moves. I didn't see more than this

Just FYI: pressing "Enter" closes the chat window.

[rfielder]

Sorry - don't know what happened.  We had to restart Game 1, which would have kicked everyone out.

Final - jungleboy 2 games, rfielder 0 games.

[rfielder]

Winner - jungleboy

I am getting tired of typing that...   

Images are too large, I have to shrink them.  Will post the scores and final boards shortly.

[rfielder]

Final score - 113 - 94.

[rfielder]

Final score: 108 - 98

[kettlefish]

nice games.

the first game:
I see that jungleboy claimed in into the big city from rfielder almost at the end of the game and shared the points.

[jungleboy]

Thanks to rfielder for the games! These were both very close and could have gone either way.

Game 1

Robert started strongly in this game, completing a 16-point city and a cloister quite early. Meanwhile, I struggled to complete any of my features and also started to run out of meeples far too early. At one point I believe the score was 33-0 in his favour, or at least 33-4. I drew four cloisters in fairly quick succession around this time (much to Robert's annoyance!) but I only placed a monk on one of them, because for the other three I was down to one meeple and didn't want to use my last one.

Around the middle of the game, things started to pick up for me. I completed a 13-point road that I had invested two meeples in (after Robert had joined it), completed my sole cloister and picked up some other points here and there, eventually taking a 36-33 lead as the game entered the business end. By this time Robert had run out of meeples and for this reason (I think) he was forced into an interesting move. He had tried to glom on to one of my cities, needing a ccff tile to join it. When he drew the two-city ccff tile instead, he chose to use it and divide the city into two, giving himself only four points but getting a meeple back, while giving me 14 points.

Meanwhile, I had placed the first farmer on the main farm (eventually worth 24 points). Robert joined it and was the first to get two farmers onto it. Eventually we both had three farmers in it with Robert trying to add a fourth. I managed to block this move, but his new farm was also worth 9 points in and of itself, so I tried to join it, and in the end we tied both farms. With my last two tiles I had incredible luck. I drew the corner road (rrff) that I needed to tie up the second farm, and I also claimed the road which was worth 6 points, and then I drew the ccff tile that I needed to gain the majority in a large, incomplete city in the south (worth 14 points), as kettlefish noted above. These extra 29 points that I gained from these moves proved the difference as the final margin was 19 points (113-94).

Looking over the scores by feature, I outscored Robert 29-4 on roads which was a major factor, since farms were tied, cities virtually tied and cloisters were in his favour 18-9.

Game 2

Game 2 was just as close with a final score of 108-98. Robert led the game by four points once the last tile was played but again it was gaining a majority in a large incomplete city that helped me out.

Robert started well again in the second game, though the difference was not as great as in the first game. He completed two cloisters on adjacent tiles to jump out to an early lead.

A lot of the action centred around expanding cities in the north of the countryside. I drew the CCCC tile and claimed that city, but Robert eventually tried to glom on. He also had two other meeples in two separate nearby cities and I imagine that his plan was to join everything together into a mega-city where he would have three meeples to my one, and it would score a lot of points even if incomplete. I managed to prevent his other two meeples from joining, however, and I essentially blocked those meeples which was very important in the end. Later in the game, realising that Robert had no meeples, I chose to join his smaller part of the city with my larger part, even though this created a tie, because I thought that I would have the best chance to add a second meeple to it. This eventually did take place and though the city was never completed, it was worth 17 points, which proved the difference in the end as the final margin was 10 points.

The start tile did a good job of splitting the board into two main fields and at one stage I controlled them both. But Robert joined the northern field, even using a corner road to complete a 6-point road of mine to ensure that the T-road wasn't used, which would have blocked him out of the farm. In the southern farm, I put myself in a good position with two meeples to Robert's one. But in trying to make this a higher-scoring farm by completing a four-point city within it, I inadvertently gave Robert the chance to put a second meeple in it, which he did. At that point, with both farms tied and before I had gained the majority in the large northern city, it looked like Robert was in the box seat. However, his lack of meeples hurt him again, and even though he completed another cloister with a couple of tiles left to take the lead it was too late for him to gain a majority in either of the farms or to tie up the large city.

[danisthirty]

Well done guys, and thanks for the great report. I hope you enjoy those 3 points jungleboy! It looks like those were two more very close games for rfielder to add to his list (although not quite so close as the game with quevy: 1 point!)

@rfielder - do you know if anyone other than MrNumbers tried to connect to watch the game? I was sorry I couldn't, but it was a great idea of yours to open it up in this way. I have a video of MrNumbers utterly destroying me in our second game which I may post at some point as a lesson in how to waste your meeples...

[rfielder]

@rfielder - do you know if anyone other than MrNumbers tried to connect to watch the game? I was sorry I couldn't, but it was a great idea of yours to open it up in this way. I have a video of MrNumbers utterly destroying me in our second game which I may post at some point as a lesson in how to waste your meeples...

danisthirty - no idea if anyone else linked in.  Since those linking in never enter a player name, I don't think we could ever know who is watching the game.

I had other stuff going though my internet connection which may have caused the issues.  JCZ hung completely, and I had to restart it after just a few tiles.  It was the restart that killed mrnumbers link.  I stopped the other internet tasks before restarting, and things played out normally.

On Saturday, I will try watching the game by linking in, as well as being active on the host machine in case there are any issues.  It would be good to make this work.

I hear the author of JCZ is now on this forum.  Perhaps we can suggest that he provide a way of showing the count of people linked in to a game, including those who have not selected a player.

[danisthirty]

Yes, he has posted on the JCloiserZone FAQ thread in response to some of your ideas about showing who has connected to a game but hasn't selected a player colour/ entered their name. It looks as though this will be added in a future release: https://github.com/farin/JCloisterZone/issues/43

It looks as though the chat feature will be improved/ extended too although not necessarily in the near future.

[rfielder]

Yes, he has posted on the JCloiserZone FAQ thread in response to some of your ideas about showing who has connected to a game but hasn't selected a player colour/ entered their name. It looks as though this will be added in a future release: https://github.com/farin/JCloisterZone/issues/43

It looks as though the chat feature will be improved/ extended too although not necessarily in the near future.

The chat during game setup, and the count of linked users, would be Nice To Have.

Personally, I would prefer that he fix the issues with the dragon's movement first.  This is a bug in the application, and bugs that are repeatable should always take priority, IMHO.

I hope that someone more familiar with the Dragon issue will take the time to provide a clear description, and indicate which other expansion is in use when this happens.