Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London

[JT Atomico]

HiG is reading this topic too - because of my email to them.

Awesome, nice work kettlefish! Hello HiG!

- In the video - there are many different bags for the tiles. From which games are they? Or are there bags which you have created yourself- or what else?

We also used a custom bag that my girlfriend made for me during our Travel Carcassonne game. See this post.

- What did you eat at that day on the wooden plates?

I had a tuna melt for lunch and an avocado smash for dinner.

- How many drinks / tea /coffees did you drink all day?

About 4 teas and 4 colas.

- Did other visitors of the "Draughts" look at your table and ask you questions?

No. I suppose to the outside viewer we were just playing normal games, they didn't realise we had been there all day!

- What does the "Draughts" servants say?

One of them was very interested in the Adults Of Carcassonne drinking variant! Other than that they just commented on our stamina when we were leaving - impressed at the length of time we had spent playing.

- And what game was the highlight for you in total?

I think my best game was The Castle against jungleboy. I was very pleased with my placement and strategy throughout and ended up with a strong win and a high score. It also included my best individual play of the day, where I managed to use one tile to score three separate features with the correct balance of points to sweep up three bonus tiles from the castle wall.

[Halfling]

Hello to HiG - thanks for some great variations of Carcassonne

- What did you eat at that day on the wooden plates?
I had Bread, Italian and Spanish sausage, Parma Ham, olives, cheese and baby Cucumbers

- How many drinks / tea /coffees did you drink all day?
4 x Tea, 2 x Cola, 1/2 bottle of Cider(I am Halfling after all!)

- Did other visitors of the "Draughts" look at your table and ask you questions?
No, because they were all totally engrossed in playing their own games.  If it had been a bar or a pub then people eating and drinking would have come over but in a games café it is expected to play.

- What does the "Draughts" servants say?
There was interest in Adults of Carcassonne, perhaps because drinking games are unusual.

- And what game was the highlight for you in total?
1. Cardcassonne was new to me and it surprised me because I was not expecting to enjoy it, the element of risk/reward means I have just bought this game online!
2. The 2 variants that have an extra dimension are The Wheel of Fortune and The City.  Both combine the tile laying dynamic with a new element of the Wheel and the City walls.  The Wheel and Walls offer alternative ways to use the meeples throughout the game.  The Wheel still wins for me because I don't get the reason why the market and city areas can be mismatched in the City and seems wrong somehow?  Is there a rationale for this rule HiG/Kettle?
3. The best battle on the day was the Winter Edition  (Can we have more expansions please?.....Besiegers, German Castles, Ferries, River I, Wind Roses. )

If you need four extra play testers for new Carcassonne games can we all volunteer? 

[MrNumbers]

Thank for the photos and great write-ups, guys! It was very intersting to read them!

I think there should be a 3rd surveyor because the 2 provided 'Go West' far too quickly but that's just my opinion.

After these words and watching time-lapse video I understood that I always played New World in a wrong way. I thought that at the start of the game you choose a row for each surveyour, on which they will move, and if this particular row is not extended, surveyour is stuck. It was even possible to trap them till the end of the game! But now I see it was bad translation issues. Need to play again using right rules!

[kettlefish]

HiG has finished their short report from this great event.

Here is the link to the HiG homepage:

Carcassonne - Im Wandel der Zeiten

[JT Atomico]

Excellent, thanks kettlefish!

[JT Atomico]

Game 1 - Carcassonne (1st Edition)

Curt194 69 Halfling 69 JT Atomico 61 jungleboy 37



We were the first people in to Draughts when they opened at 10am and went straight to our table to set up the webcam, laptop and other fixtures for the day!

Our first game was base Carcassonne, but for a slight twist we played it under 1st Edition rules. We were using my first edition version of the game that I found earlier this year, including the much sought after 70-point scoreboard. The only rule differences are that 2-tile cities are only worth two points and the majority for farmer is calculated differently (per city rather than per field). In the end, the change in the farmer rule did not actually make a difference, the farmer scores would have been the same under the current rules. Perhaps that was because none of us knew how to make the most of the difference(?).

The game was played at a quick pace, with none of us quite sure at this stage how tight our timings would be for the rest of the games during the day. There was nothing too remarkable in the gameplay. The biggest city was shared by three of us, but jungleboy missed out which left him a little behind in the final scoring.

Curt194 and Halfling shared the victory on 69 points each - just perfect to fit on to the 70-point scoreboard!


Overall standings

=1st		Curt194	1	0	0	0	(69)
=1st		Halfling	1	0	0	0	(69)
3rd		JT Atomico	0	0	1	0	(61)
4th		jungleboy	0	0	0	1	(37)

[jungleboy]

I'm not too keen on reliving quite a few of these games!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JT Atomico]

Game 2 - Hunters & Gatherers

Halfling 104 JT Atomico 91 jungleboy 85 Curt194 84



I haven't played Hunters & Gatherers much before, but I do find some of the elements very intriguing. I really like the bonus tiles mechanic when you complete a forest. Unfortunately, I absolutely wasted my ancient shrine bonus tile, which wins you whichever meadow you place it in if you have a hunter on it. It ended up in a meadow with two tigers and no deer, mammoths or aurochs.

On the other hand, Curt194 made great use of his fire bonus tile. He managed to place it in one of his meadows to scare away three tigers and protect the deer from being eaten!

In the final scoring, Halfling held a couple of really good meadows and had positioned his fishing huts well to net lots of fish points. This earned him his second victory of the day after only two games.

Overall standings

1st		Halfling	2	0	0	0	(173)
2nd		Curt194	1	0	0	1	(153)
3rd		JT Atomico	0	1	1	0	(152)
4th		jungleboy	0	0	1	1	(122)

[Halfling]

  you can stop now.

[JT Atomico]

Game 3 - The Ark of the Covenant

JT Atomico 120 jungleboy 109 Halfling 97 Curt194 46



This was my first time playing The Ark of the Covenant after acquiring it earlier this year. We used the cool wooden ark from the English second edition of the game. The strong religious theming of the game is a bit odd (for example, the official rules state that "The player who last read a portion of the Bible will be the starting player"!) but it does make for quite a cool looking desert landscape!

The game has a lot of interesting, unique mechanics that I really enjoyed:

• The "move the ark" mechanic is good. A simple little way to score a few points when you are not placing a follower.
• I really like the prophet, which is a single-use follower that can double the value of a city. It gives you even more of a risk / reward balance to consider when trying to grow and complete a city.
• The "cross" scoring for the temple is quite distinct from any other feature across the Carcassonne games and provides interesting incentives to claim roads and cities in specific locales.

Curt194 was unlucky to be the only one not to complete the city containing his prophet, which left him way back in the scoring. I managed to bag a couple of heavily sheep-filled fields which was enough to secure my first victory of the day.

Overall standings

1st		Halfling	2	0	1	0	(270)
2nd		JT Atomico	1	1	1	0	(272)
3rd		Curt194	1	0	0	2	(199)
4th		jungleboy	0	1	1	1	(231)

[JT Atomico]

Game 4 - The Castle

JT Atomico 113 jungleboy 60



Curt194 100 Halfling 79



This was our first two-player game of the day, so we split in to two pairs to play. Luckily the table we were playing on at Draughts was the perfect size to hold two side-by-side Castle wall outlines! Thanks to a last minute purchase from spielmaterial, we were all still able to play in our assigned colours for the day.

I think The Castle is a great game, it is perhaps my favourite of the spin-offs. The new strategic element of having to manage your scoring to try and land on the corners of the score track and pick up bonus wall tiles is a great addition. Then the fact that the bonuses from wall tiles can cause you to realign your goals midgame makes for some really interesting new tactical choices.

My personal play-of-the-day came in my game here against jungleboy. With one tile I managed to complete three features and score them in such a way that I swept up three bonus wall tiles. This launched me onward to quite a strong victory which included a score of 12 points for a big empty area with the largest keep.

I am not really sure of what went on in the other game, except that Curt194 managed to take the win over Halfling.

Overall standings

1st		JT Atomico	2	1	1	0	(385)
2nd		Halfling	2	1	1	0	(349)
3rd		Curt194	2	0	0	2	(299)
4th		jungleboy	0	2	1	1	(291)

[JT Atomico]

Game 5 - The City

JT Atomico 125 jungleboy 117 Curt194 93 Halfling 90



I really like The City. I think the landscape looks fantastic when it is finished with the wooden city walls and towers surrounding the tiles. I have only played it a few times but this was the first time that it ended when the walls met rather than when the tiles ran out. Only a few of the Carcassonne games can end before the last tile and I think it is a nice quirk.

There was a big fight for one particular residential area that was worth a large chunk of points. Curt194 was unlucky not to draw a corner tile to join him in to it… at least we thought he was unlucky until we realised at the end of the game that his other steward had never actually been joined in either, so he was better off with the two small areas!

My strategy with the tower pieces on the wall was just to get them down at the first reasonable opportunity and sweep up some points. It is surprisingly difficult to make sure all your towers get placed! Some of the guards on the wall ended up being worth a lot of points in the end as well. Like farmers (or stewards here) they are full-game commitment but they can pay off well.

I managed a close win to claim my third victory in a row.

Overall standings

1st		JT Atomico	3	1	1	0	(510)
2nd		Halfling	2	1	1	1	(439)
3rd		Curt194	2	0	1	2	(392)
4th		jungleboy	0	3	1	1	(408)

[JT Atomico]

Game 6 - The Discovery

Curt194 57 Halfling 52 jungleboy 49 JT Atomico 48



This game is unique among the tile laying games in the series for not having any road-like features which makes the landscape quite cool and different. I am also a fan of the requirement to take a "move wood" action to remove followers and score full points. Little gameplay tweaks like this manage to make every game feel different.

The game was very tight (only nine points between all players), but Curt194 managed to take take the win after claiming both the largest grassland and the biggest mountain.

This was our sixth game of the day which was about a third of the way through and it took us up to about 1pm. We ordered some lunch before preparing for the next game!

Overall standings

1st		JT Atomico	3	1	1	1	(558)
2nd		Curt194	3	0	1	2	(449)
3rd		Halfling	2	2	1	1	(491)
4th		jungleboy	0	3	2	1	(457)

[JT Atomico]

Game 7 - Travel Carcassonne

Halfling 98 JT Atomico 98 Curt194 84 jungleboy 73



I like the travel edition of the game, it's very cute! If you have an opporunity to pick it up I would definitely recommend it. I have brought it with me the last couple of times that I have travelled in a group and it is easy to transport and compact enough to play in an airport or on a train, etc.

This was our second game that was just a base game equivalent. This one was much higher scoring than the first game of the day, with a total of 353 points compared to 236 points. Part of the reason for that was that we all shared one big 26-point city quite early on, as well as some other big shared features.

There were a few large-ish unfinished cities at the end of the game, which meant that the fields were not particularly high scoring. This was a bit of a shame for jungleboy who had committed three farmers to winning one of the fields.

Just like our first game of the day (the base game), this one ended up with joint winners. This time it was Halfling and I who shared the spoils.

Overall standings

1st		JT Atomico	4	1	1	1	(656)
2nd		Halfling	3	2	1	1	(589)
3rd		Curt194	3	0	2	2	(533)
4th		jungleboy	0	3	2	2	(530)

[JT Atomico]

That's my last game report for tonight! I am away tomorrow but will hopefully continue on Sunday evening.