World Cup - Knock-out Stage!

[MrNumbers]

Even for uncompleted games you have perfect report, jungleboy!
I agree in all points, it was a very close game, jungleboy wonderfully used his big meeple and managed to steal a big road and medium city from me. Only one thing is not exactly right:

needing just a CCCX tile to join both my meeples and finish the city at the same

there was opened end left from the big meeple side, so the battle for that city wouldn't be over even after CCCX tile.
Just for fun I finished playing this game with myself, making jungleboy's moves as it would be my moves. That CCCR tile came to me Some dragon tiles came to me also and my farmer left uneaten. But if we would continue the same game, randomizing mechanism could behave otherwise, so this experiment doesn't mean anything.
We will try to play our game with JCZ 3.0, where this bug is fixed, if only it doesn't have another major bug.

[jungleboy]

Only one thing is not exactly right:

needing just a CCCX tile to join both my meeples and finish the city at the same

there was opened end left from the big meeple side, so the battle for that city wouldn't be over even after CCCX tile.

Yes, you are right. I should have looked at the board again before writing that sentence!

[MrNumbers]

Today was the second try to play our semifinal with jungleboy. One minor bug was detected, but it didn't interfere our game.
Final score - 210:177 in my favor.
It was VERY close game! All last part of the game was one big fight for a 42-point farm. If jungleboy would manage even to equalize it, I would lost by 9 points. I will let jungleboy to write a wonderful review about this game, only will publish final board.

[kettlefish]

Hi MrNumbers,
congratulations to you - you are one of the finalists.

Now it is interesting who will your final opponent...

Hi jungleboy,
I am sorry for you, but to win against MrNumbers is not easy...

[danisthirty]

Congratulations MrNumbers. Jungleboy, I feel your pain but at least you got one step further than I did and it sounds like it was an exciting match. Looking forward to the report!

How did it go with JCZ 3.0? Presumably the mega meeple is now able to use magic portals? And is the issue with the builder and the dragon now resolved too?

[MrNumbers]

Hi MrNumbers,
congratulations to you - you are one of the finalists.

Now it is interesting who will your final opponent...

Thank you, kettlefish and danisthirty!
I am curious about the second finalist too. Hope Carcking and quevy will play their semifinal soon.

How did it go with JCZ 3.0? Presumably the mega meeple is now able to use magic portals? And is the issue with the builder and the dragon now resolved too?

It was one minor bug in 3.0, but it didn't influence the game. Big meeple now IS able to travel through magic portal, but we didn't use that possibility in this game. Semifinal was played without Traders and Builders so I don't know if the issue with Dragon and Builder is resolved.

[quevy]

Congratulations to the first finalist.
Jungleboy I'm sorry, I'll try to keep the name of the group c.

I just contacted Carcking for our game. I hope we can reach an agreement on when to play.

[jungleboy]

This was a tough game to lose but I'm at least happy that I played well. Sometimes things don't go your way, especially against a tough opponent, so I don't have any regrets about this game.

As usual, we played a fairly cautious game at the beginning with no one going for too much out of fear of being blocked. MrNumbers had control of a decent-sized city around the river but I managed to take it from him with one of my new favourite moves: using the princess to remove his follower and then adding my phantom to the city in the same move. To complete the city I now needed only a FCRR tile, but it took almost the whole game for me to pull it, finally drawing it when there were about 10 tiles left. This left me without my phantom for virtually the whole game but still I think it was the right move to make. Despite being without my phantom, I was doing quite well through the early-middle part of the game and held a lead of about 20-25 points.

The other city to develop around this time was in the north-west area of the board as MrNumbers drew several CCCX tiles and began building himself a nice city. He added a second meeple and I countered with my big meeple. He was able to get a third meeple in, however, leaving a nice CCCC gap for him. His cathedral tile came very quickly and he was able to complete his city to score nearly 40 points and take the lead, which he never relinquished for the rest of the game.

By this time, the main farm was increasing in size and potential points, so we both started to try to manoeuvre to get meeples in it. I had one eaten by the dragon but quickly got another one in, and eventually I managed to join it to my other farm to take a 3-2 advantage. MrNumbers made a big move soon after, sacrificing his double meeple for the rest of the game by getting it into the farm with (I think) about 30 tiles left, taking a 4-3 lead.

Though two other cities were developing in the east that we both had interest in, the main farm now shaped up as the decisive battleground of the game. There weren't many opportunities to get another meeple in and eventually with about 12 tiles left I finally got my double meeple within one tile of the farm in the north-east part of the board, needing something like a CFFF or a RRFF tile to join it up. MrNumbers got busy around this tile to try to block it up and this proved successful. By this time he had also added another meeple to the farm so I could only tie it by getting my double meeple in. As it turns out, this might have been just enough to win me the game. By the time I drew the final tile of the game, MrNumbers had put me in a position where I needed a CFFF tile to join the farm. Instead I drew a two-city CCFF tile, which gave MrNumbers the farm and the game.

Congratulations to MrNumbers! He will be very hard to beat in the final. And good luck to Carcking and quevy in the other semifinal.

[danisthirty]

A fantastic report! Sounds like you did as much as you could!

Merit for making it feel like I was actually playing! 

[danisthirty]

How did it go with JCZ 3.0? Presumably the mega meeple is now able to use magic portals? And is the issue with the builder and the dragon now resolved too?

It was one minor bug in 3.0, but it didn't influence the game. Big meeple now IS able to travel through magic portal, but we didn't use that possibility in this game. Semifinal was played without Traders and Builders so I don't know if the issue with Dragon and Builder is resolved.

Traders & Builders would have been included if not for the bug, so I thought I'd ask so that we know for next time. I'll download the new version this evening and have a play with it to find out...

Any news on the other semi-final @Carcking / @quevy?

[quevy]

Unfortunately, this weekend we could not have a moment to be able to play, I hope soon to be able to organize, unfortunately, given the diversity of time not believe that arrive before the weekend.

[quevy]

Carcking passes in the final.
Game fun.
Tomorrow screenshot and a small summary.

[MrNumbers]

Congratulations, Carcking! See you in final!

[Carcking]

Congratulations, Carcking! See you in final!

Hi Mr. Numbers. Thanks for that! We have to schedule our match. What window of time do you have this weekend? Perhaps we can play on Sunday?

Carcking

[Carcking]

Carcking passes in the final.
Game fun.

Good game quevy! Thanks for making it fun and exciting. Your Farm play was very good but it came down to some lucky draws for me toward the end!