Game 2: jungleboy 125, MrNumbers 119
For the second game I decided to continue my strategy of saving as many meeples as possible, trying not to allow MrNumbers to trap any of my meeples, and trying to trap his whereever possible (though I was unsuccessful in this last part). I was prepared for another low-scoring slog, but somehow I managed to get 125 points past the league's top defence despite earning only 6 points on farms (he had not allowed more than 85 points in any game before this one).
I drew two cloisters early on and finished both of them relatively quickly for 18 points. This gave me a lead that I managed to hold on to for the entire game despite relentless pressure from the league leader
MrNumbers glommed on to an early city of mine and finished it for 12 points each. He also placed the first farmer in what ended up being the dominant farm.
I soon claimed another city near my cloisters and MrNumbers tried to do one of his trademark trapping manoeuvres. I already needed to pull a CFR? tile, and I knew that with one more tile he could turn this into an impossible CFRF or CFRC. So I decided to pre-empt his trap by putting a tile in the next space myself, 'trapping' myself into needing a CFRR tile to complete the city. I couldn't believe my luck a few moves later when I drew this tile, which completed my 22-point city and a 6-point road at the same time. I think this was the most important tile of the game as it gave me a 49-point lead midway through the game. [See the red circle in the screenshot for the placement of this tile.]
In the meantime a second farm had emerged and MrNumbers took control of it with two meeples, while putting a second meeple into the main farm to counter the one I had put into it. I was now faced with an important decision: to try to tie up or even win control of one or both of the farms or to just abandon them and keep trying to add to my score with roads and cities. I first chose the latter option but then (unwisely) changed my mind a bit and tried to put in two extra farmers after all. I never connected these two farmers to either of the big farms, but they both scored 3 points each, so together they actually formed the final margin of 6 points.
Towards the end MrNumbers closed a 14-point city and another 6-point city to narrow the gap, with his big farm points still to come. Having not overcommitted to the farms, I used my excess of meeples to claim two late cloisters which returned 8 points each, and a 6-point unfinished city. With a few tiles left I was confident that I had done enough to win and in the end I held on for a nail-biting 6-point victory.
Some interesting statistics out of the game were that I outscored MrNumbers 43-0 on cloisters (9-9-9-8-8), while he outscored me 42-6 on farms (with one 24-point farm and another 15-point one).