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Carc Central Community => News and Events => Topic started by: jungleboy on June 09, 2016, 01:16:46 PM

Title: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on June 09, 2016, 01:16:46 PM
A month ago, an idea was hatched by Halfling to play all Carcassonne versions and spin-offs in one sitting (Alternative World Record Attempt 2016? (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2691.0)).

After some discussion in that thread and plenty of personal messages in the past few weeks, today we are pleased to officially announce that this event will take place on Saturday, July 2nd, a mere 1230km from Carcassonne in London, England. The four participants are Halfling, JT Atomico, Curt194 and jungleboy and the location will be
Draughts Board Game Café (http://www.draughtslondon.com).

 :black1-meeple: :blue-meeple: :green-meeple: :red-meeple: :gray-meeple: :violet-meeple: :pink-meeple: :orange-meeple: :white-meeple: :brown-meeple: :neutral-meeple: :yellow-meeple:

Thanks to JT's incredible Carcassonne collection, the 19 games we will attempt to play in 14 hours are, in this order:

Carcassonne (2000)
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers (2002)
The Ark of the Covenant (2003)
Carcassonne: The Castle (2003)
Carcassonne: The City (2004)
Carcassonne: The Discovery (2005)
Travel Carcassonne (2007)
New World (2008)
My First Carcassonne (2009)
Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune (2009)
Cardcassonne (2009)
Carcassonne: The Dice Game (2011)
Carcassonne: Winter Edition (2012)
Carcassonne: South Seas (2013)
Carcassonne: Gold Rush (2014)
Carcassonne II (2014)
Carcassonne: Demo version (2015)
Carcassonne: Over Hill and Dale (2015)
Carcassonne: Star Wars (2015)

 :black1-meeple: :blue-meeple: :green-meeple: :red-meeple: :gray-meeple: :violet-meeple: :pink-meeple: :orange-meeple: :white-meeple: :brown-meeple: :neutral-meeple: :yellow-meeple:

Of these 19 games, Carcassonne: The Castle and Carcassonne: Demo Version are two-player games, so for both these two games we will separate into pairs and play two games so that all four players can play all 19 games.

We are hoping to document the event with photos and video, and of course we will record the results from each game to see who wins the day. Please follow this thread in the lead-up to the event for more details and feel free to post comments and questions. And of course, we'll try to provide as much documentation as possible on the day of the event, with more detailed reports in the days following.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on June 13, 2016, 04:15:39 AM
Edit: I've edited this post to make it consistent with those below.

Here is my experience with the 19 games we're going to play:

 :green-meeple: Played multiple times

Carcassonne (2000)
The Ark of the Covenant (2003)
Carcassonne: The Castle (2003)
Carcassonne: The City (2004)
Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune (2009)
Carcassonne: Winter Edition (2012)
Carcassonne: South Seas (2013)

 :yellow-meeple: Played once

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers (2002)
New World (2008)
My First Carcassonne (2009)

 :red-meeple: Never played

Carcassonne: The Discovery (2005)
Travel Carcassonne (2007)
Cardcassonne (2009)
Carcassonne: The Dice Game (2011)
Carcassonne: Gold Rush (2014)
Carcassonne II (2014)
Carcassonne: Demo version (2015)
Carcassonne: Over Hill and Dale (2015)
Carcassonne: Star Wars (2015)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on June 13, 2016, 04:33:50 AM
Here are my play stats:

:green-meeple: Played multiple times

Carcassonne (2000)
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers (2002)
Travel Carcassonne (2007)
Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune (2009)
Carcassonne: Winter Edition (2012)
Carcassonne: South Seas (2013)
Carcassonne II (2014)
Carcassonne: Star Wars (2015)

:yellow-meeple: Played once

Carcassonne: The Castle (2003)
Carcassonne: The City (2004)
Carcassonne: The Discovery (2005)
New World (2008)
My First Carcassonne (2009)
Carcassonne: Gold Rush (2014)
Carcassonne: Demo version (2015)

:red-meeple: Never played

The Ark of the Covenant (2003)
Cardcassonne (2009)
Carcassonne: The Dice Game (2011)
Carcassonne: Over Hill and Dale (2015)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Halfling on June 13, 2016, 01:26:29 PM
Here are my play stats:

:green-meeple: Played multiple times

Carcassonne (2000)
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers (2002)
The Ark of the Covenant (2003)
Carcassonne: The Discovery (2005)
Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune (2009)
Carcassonne: Winter Edition (2012)
Carcassonne: South Seas (2013)
Carcassonne II (2014)
Carcassonne: Gold Rush (2014)
Carcassonne: Over Hill and Dale (2015)

:yellow-meeple: Played once

Carcassonne: The City (2004)
New World (2008)
My First Carcassonne (2009)

:red-meeple: Never played

Carcassonne: The Castle (2003)
Travel Carcassonne (2007)
Cardcassonne (2009)
Carcassonne: The Dice Game (2011)
Carcassonne: Demo version (2015)
Carcassonne: Star Wars (2015)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on June 16, 2016, 06:08:41 AM
One point of interest for others. Since several of the variants are ultimately going to be exactly the same mechanics as the base game (e.g. Travel Carcassonne, Winter Edition, Carcassonne II), we have decided to add a little more variety by playing the first game (base Carcassonne) under the original / 1st Edition rules. I have never actually played these before, so I am quite looking forwarded to ticking that off my Carcassonne bucket list. :P

For those of you who don't know, this amounts to two main differences:
  • Cities of only two tiles are only worth 2 points (instead of 4)
  • Farming is different - each city is worth 4 points (instead of 3) but is only scored once, with the majority determined per city accounting for farmers in all of the fields touching it

As well as being a little more varied, I think it is also an appropriate option for the lineage of Carcassonne that we are celebrating as part of thisday. After all, these were the rules of the game when it won the Spiel des Jahres in 2001.

We could even use the original 70-point scoreboard for added authenticity, but I know that jungleboy isn't a particular fan of it! :green-meeple:
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on June 16, 2016, 08:05:32 AM
We could even use the original 70-point scoreboard for added authenticity, but I know that jungleboy isn't a particular fan of it! :green-meeple:

Ha! I'm all for the 70-point scoreboard if it helps transport us back to 2000. It just isn't as practical as the regular scoreboards.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on June 19, 2016, 10:20:42 AM
How are we going to determine the overall winner of the day?

A few options are:

- most individual game wins
- highest total score added up for all games
- some kind of ranking system (e.g. 5-3-1 for 1st-2nd-3rd) to reward consistency

I could be happy with any of these. What do the rest of you think?
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on June 19, 2016, 10:50:25 AM
I think most individual wins would be the best, then most second places if wins are tied, etc. like the medals table at an Olympics. :)

We should also keep track of total points scored for fun, but I think we should use the other method to actually determine the "winner". :green-meeple:
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Halfling on June 19, 2016, 12:49:46 PM
Happy with any method for determining the winner.

I haven't read the Star Wars rules yet, but if we play as 2 vs 2 does this exclude this version from the overall winner?  I like this idea though, shame more are not team playable.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Curt194 on June 20, 2016, 06:19:07 AM
My play stats with the games that will be included:

:green-meeple: Played multiple times

Carcassonne (2000)
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers (2002)
Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune (2009)
Carcassonne: Winter Edition (2012)
Carcassonne: South Seas (2013)
Carcassonne II (2014)
Carcassonne: Gold Rush (2014)


:yellow-meeple: Played once

Carcassonne: The Castle (2003)
Carcassonne: The City (2004)
Carcassonne: The Discovery (2005)
New World (2008)
Cardcassonne (2009)
My First Carcassonne (2009)
Carcassonne: Demo version (2015)
Carcassonne: Star Wars (2015)


:red-meeple: Never played

The Ark of the Covenant (2003)
Travel Carcassonne (2007)
Carcassonne: The Dice Game (2011)
Carcassonne: Over Hill and Dale (2015)

Most individual wins makes sense to me, but I don't know how Star Wars will work, unless we try and keep track of inidividual scores as well (but that could get complicated).
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on June 21, 2016, 07:36:42 AM
For Star Wars, I think that we should just say that both players of the winning team get a "win" recorded for them. Maybe to make it most interesting, we could say that the teams should be 1st & 4th vs. 2nd & 3rd, just to maximise the chance of a close finish for the overall win!

We might want to pick something similar for how we decide the pairings in the two player games (The Castle and the demo version).
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on June 23, 2016, 08:51:50 AM
I have had a go at compressing all of the rules for the game variants in to the attached six-page document. It aims to briefly summarise the ways that points are scored and any differences from the base game rules for that variant.

Note that in some cases (to do with number of game components) the document assumes that there will be four players, so it is not totally suited as a more general reference.

Some homework reading for everyone to prepare for the marathon next weekend! :green-meeple:

(If you find any inaccuracies please let me know.)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on June 24, 2016, 03:31:09 AM
I have had a go at compressing all of the rules for the game variants in to the attached six-page document. It aims to briefly summarise the ways that points are scored and any differences from the base game rules for that variant.

Note that in some cases (to do with number of game components) the document assumes that there will be four players, so it is not totally suited as a more general reference.

Some homework reading for everyone to prepare for the marathon next weekend! :green-meeple:

(If you find any inaccuracies please let me know.)

Brilliant stuff Jamie! It'll be a great cheat sheet for us on the day. I'll have a read at it this weekend and make sure everything makes sense :)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Halfling on June 24, 2016, 01:17:20 PM
I am struggling to understand cardcassonne. I will try to find a video of game play tomorrow.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on June 27, 2016, 04:21:45 AM
I am struggling to understand cardcassonne. I will try to find a video of game play tomorrow.

Something I saw on BGG (https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/48663/cardcassonne-rules-english-translation) as I was searching for rules:

I have read and played the game by these rules, and ended up playing with some wrong rules - this is not a very good translation in my opinion, the english is not clear and it's missing some important aspects (or at least in a understandable way to me).

If you are going to learn the game using these rules, then take note:

- Each round ends when ALL players have played ALL their cards in their hands AND played the large meeple. So you cannot accumulate cards between rounds, you had to play them all in the previous round, even if you placed the large meeple between playing the cards.

- The person cards that you pick up from the table are scored and then REMOVED FROM THE GAME. You don't accumulate these cards like the animal cards.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Halfling on June 27, 2016, 11:53:18 AM
Aha. Ok. I watched the dice tower video too so I have an idea what I will be doing.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Curt194 on June 27, 2016, 01:37:27 PM
Thanks for the cheat sheet Jamie. Merit to you, it's absolutely fantatsic!

As for cardcassonne it's an odd one but makes a bit more sense when playing I think. Have been brushing up on all the different rules and think I'm getting there!
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on June 28, 2016, 04:44:45 AM
I managed to play both Cardcassonne and The Dice Game yesterday, so I feel comfortable enough with them now. Cardcassonne is definitely an odd one, but I enjoyed the different strategy!

I have also updated the
rules summary (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2776.msg41319#msg41319) to add the Carc II demo version which I had forgotten because the rulebook is the box! The only difference from the base game is that there are no farmers.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on June 29, 2016, 04:01:10 AM
(If you find any inaccuracies please let me know.)

It's a great document and I'm going through it as I learn the new games. One small inaccuracy I noticed is that you pasted a rule from Gold Rush into Over Hill and Dale and left in the mountain reference, when it should be farm instead.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on June 30, 2016, 12:58:46 AM
We have decided that during the day we are going to use the same colour throughout, to make it more consistent for photos, etc.

:red-meeple: jungleboy :green-meeple: JT Atomico :blue-meeple: Curt194 :yellow-meeple: Halfling

I have made some purchases to make sure that we can represent our colours across all of the games.

The Castle New followers and replacement keeps

(https://s32.postimg.cc/kqz920tf9/DSCN0328.jpg)

The Dice Game Coloured dice cups (from Perudo)

(https://s32.postimg.cc/xv59y5fad/DSCN0329.jpg)

Carcassonne II: demo version New mini followers

(https://s31.postimg.cc/ox3k41857/DSCN0330.jpg)

Star Wars New stickers to make yellow and blue Empire team

(https://s32.postimg.cc/46riuyd1h/DSCN0327.jpg)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: kettlefish on June 30, 2016, 01:43:20 AM
Hi JT Atomico
That is great with the consistent colours for all the games.

I wish you all a nice day and much fun to play all these Carcassonne spin-off games.

And I am interested to see afterwards some photos and the report of your meeting.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on June 30, 2016, 03:51:07 AM
Absolutely amazing stuff Jamie, merit for you!
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on June 30, 2016, 08:56:23 AM
The final version of the rules document for the day is attached to this post.

It includes a few minor corrections (including the one above from jungleboy - thanks!), and also has a cover page and a play schedule on the back page.

I have printed out four copies of this for the day, in our various meeple colours. :)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 01, 2016, 09:07:38 AM
I have been calling this Carcassonne Marathon for weeks and totally missed the obvious portmanteau of naming it Carcathon!

I suggest that we use this name when we do the write ups here and on BGG. :D
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on July 01, 2016, 11:16:22 PM
The Carcathon is today!! We'll try to provide short updates as the day goes on with much more to come afterwards.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Rich_The_Fish on July 02, 2016, 12:00:48 AM
Good luck guys, hope you have a great day. Looking forward to seeing the photos and write up.

Merit to JT for the rules and colour coding.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on July 02, 2016, 02:37:20 PM
There'll be a lot more to come tomorrow but the day was a big success and we managed to play all 19 games in about 9 hours!! I enjoyed it a lot even though I played terribly all day. We finished early enough that we managed a game of Adults of Carcassonne afterwards and then two non-Carcassonne games after that!

Thanks to all players and especially JT Atomico for his super organisation work.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Halfling on July 03, 2016, 02:17:54 AM
So, what did I envisage when I floated the idea of an Alternative World Record attempt back in early May on a post-Oxford high from the Thirsty Meeples event?  No idea - I'm just an ideas man or 'plant' if you are up on your Belbin team roles / tendencies to behave, contribute and interrelate with others.  I need others in a team to be motivators and completer finishers, so thankfully Jungleboy, JT Atomico and Curt194 were all aboard and the event was planned, booked at Draughts and happened yesterday.

The reality was an awesome Carcathon with 3 like minded friends using all 19 official versions of Carcassonne and then finished off with a shot or two whilst completing features on the Adults of Carcassonne (how had I never heard of Carcassonne on beer mats?)

The event started at 10:01 as the door to Draughts was opened and we chose our table.  Being the first in we picked the best spot that allowed JT Atomico's suitcase of fun to be accommodated as well as the webcam and laptop with the spreadsheet ready and waiting to record the scores.  Tea was ordered (Games, electrical equipment and drinks - is this really a good idea?) and we started on our chronological quest with Carcassonne circa 2000 including the 70 point score board and the original Spiel de Jahres winning rules.  Ground breaking for me personally because I'd not seen let alone played with the 70 pointer and I don't think any of us had used the original rules.  The score board might be 'broken' in some ways but it was perfect for 4 players as the joint winners both notched 69 points once all the 4 point farms had been scored.  Less than 30 minutes elapsed and photos were taken for posterity.

Time lapse checked.  Webcam all good.  Tea consumed.  On to 2002 Hunters and Gatherers.  2003 The Ark of the Covenant and The Castle.  I think these were new to Jungleboy, Curt194 and myself respectively.  All were polished off in the first couple of hours with the highlight being the playing of simultaneously Castles on the table that was obviously designed with this task in mind.  The fit was perfect.  I played Curt194 who helped me with the rules and scored exactly 100 points from memory whilst I trailed but gained valuable ideas for the next time I give it a go.

2004 Introduced The City.  This version I am desperate to get having enjoyed a debut win at Thirsty Meeples against other debutant players.  This time I was a poor 4th but the dynamic with the walls is genius even if the mismatched tile feature rule seems wrong (to me).  The loss hasn't diminished my want for The City.

2005 The Discovery.  Carcassonne without roads, but at least we are back to the matching of features.  I've played it a few times, this may have been new to maybe Curt194 or Jungleboy?  I forget it's becoming a blur already.  The overall scores for the day will come later from JT Atomico.  In some ways Discovery is a favourite and in others its frustrating.  The more I play it - the more I am warming to it.

2006 A bad year.

2007 Travel Carcassonne.  Oh those cute ickle tiny tiles.  Classic Carcassonne using the usual rules but in miniature.  I'd not seen or played this variant before.  No need to explain the rules though obviously.  I had convinced myself I didn't need this.  Sigh.  I like it. I want it.  I'm addicted.  I played 20 odd variants yesterday and I'm looking for opponents for a game today.  OMG - Book me into The Priory now.

2008 New World.  So it was the score board that took 3 years to perfect?  It was worth the wait.  Another game I debuted at Thirsty Meeples and returned to today.  Another 2nd place but a good few points adrift from whoever won this time.  I think there should be a 3rd surveyor because the 2 provided 'Go West' far too quickly but that's just my opinion.  I believe we all played in Oxford with 'Dan- (Happy Birthday for yesterday)-is-nearer-forty.  Yet another great idea and executed with the usual quality by the makers and distributors.  Another on my want list and maybe coming via Rosco if it is still available.

2009 was a bumper year giving us My First Carcassonne - over in a flash as there are only 36 tiles.  If I buy this I'm making a 6x6 'board' and creating house rules!  I finished a road with 3 or 4 yellows with a single tile and still came nowhere.
Also in 2009 was Wheel of Fortune.  My favourite.  I've extoled the virtues elsewhere so no need to bore again. 
Finally Cardcassonne saw a dramatic shift away from tiles.  This was new to most of us, certainly with more than 2 players.  I'd not paid it any attention before.  We all loved it!  No idea who won - I just wanted to play it again - immediately.  But that's not the rules.  The waiting game for playing the big meeple or playing just 1 more card had the real feel of jeopardy.  Outstanding and may well get my vote for game of the day.  We shall see - loads more games to play.

2010 saw a deserved rest but 2011 gave us the dice game.  I'm sure that it had to happen.  Catan has a dice game so why not Carcassonne?  It didn't grab me I'm afraid and I won't be hunting ebay for it, but it exists and it's been played.  Interesting strategies but with a winning score of 42 it seemed like a rush just to get points quickly and not enough time to really go for a definite game plan.  It's only 1 play and I could well be wrong.  Maybe I need to try a few more times and it'll grow on me like Discovery.  Maybe.

2012 The Winter Edition. "Halfling does not make Jungleboy's day"  First meeple played was a Farmer by JT Atomico.  A red green rag to a bull.  Halfling retaliates with a farmer.  A few points scored.  JT Atomico has a 2nd farmer.  Halfling has a 2nd farmer.  Jungleboy places 2 farmers.  Curt194 also started to farm.  Points were scored elsewhere on the artwork that all of us like very much.  The tile variations are pleasing too with the bear on the CFRF and the ravens on one of the monasteries personal favourites.  But back to the game.  Halfling and Curt couldn't compete with JT Atomico and Jungleboys farming prowess.  It was 5 farmers each in 'The Field'.  With a couple of tiles to go JT Atomico plays a sixth farmer. Jungleboy places a blocker.  A start tile configuration is required to Glom in the 6th farmer.  I misread the scoreboard, forgetting the 30-something point city shared by Curt194, Jungleboy and Halfling.  Thinking that I needed to consolidate 2nd place and having pulled out a start tile as the second to last to be played in the game I glom in JT Atomico and score 4 points for the small city.  Jungleboy is not impressed.  I'm then shown the error of my board reading skills and JT Atomico gains 30 points for the farm which only brings him back up to the rest of us on the board.  Scoring the other end game features actually gives me the win, so I think Jungleboy forgave me as I stopped him from overtaking me by 20+ points had he shared 'The Field'.

2013 South Seas which we all know and liked, followed by 2014 Gold Rush in which JT Atomico made possibly his only miscalculation of the day of not Gloming into 'The Field' (And 2016 will see Amazonas - I believe)  The around the world series is very enjoyable and allow for features/themes that definitely do not belong in mediaeval France.  Perhaps a Japanese version is due so I can include and play the Japanese Monasteries without hearing you all tut in my mind every time I draw one from the bag!

2014 also saw the introduction of the updated and audience splitting Carcassonne II.  Like it, love it, loathe it.  I'm somewhere between like and love and awaiting a Big Box.  No farming and no abbots as these are expansion options.  Very strange not to be able to farm but it did give a breather after the Winter Edition farm-fight-to-the-last-tile.

2015 Gave up the 20 tile demo version.  Again simultaneous games of a version that I didn't know exist until I started this thread.  I gained revenge on Curt194 by pulling out both monasteries and winning by a single point.  Again no farming allowed but as there were only 4 completed cities the agricultural chaps are not needed.

Still in 2015 we have the last two games Over Hill and Dale and Star Wars.  I enjoy the former and had never played the latter.  I saved my worst performance for Over Hill and Dale by being a point away from being lapped on the score board by Curt194.  I did no walking and gained only 4 tokens and paid the price.  I still really like the ideas and can't wait for an expansion or two to enhance the idea even further.  I then teamed up with Curt194 knowing I'd been pipped for 2nd place overall thanks to not enough wins and 10 2nd place finishes.  Tiles and dice.  Wow this was a strange one to end on.  I need to play Star Wars again a few times - it will grow on me.  Curt194 and I won initial conflicts but eventually the dice turned away from the Dark Side and JT Atomico and Jungleboy ran out easy winners.  Being colour blind I didn't realise there were red and green dice until I mentioned as we packed up that two dice colours would be a good idea.  Well, hey don't laugh too hard.  I saw the funny side as 3 people looked at me as though I was from Tatooine until I explained my disability.

Game over and final score time I thought - but no.  The Adults of Carcassonne was brought out.  Beers and ciders ordered and shot glasses filled.  The staff at Draughts were intrigued as they'd not come across this version before either.  Thank god - not just me!  and I thought I had a fair to good knowledge of the versions available.  I say it's in and should be included because I won but it's unofficial and that's that......in so many ways.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: kettlefish on July 03, 2016, 03:08:45 AM
Hi Halfling,
your report is great. I liked to read it.
But I am surprised - you are colour blind as you have explained here in your review and you can't see the different colours of the dice in CC - Star Wars. But how can you see the different colours of red and green meeple played by JT Atomico  (green :green-meeple:) and jungleboy  (red :red-meeple:)?
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 03, 2016, 03:43:48 AM
The Carcathon was a great success yesterday! Thanks to Halfling for coming up with the idea, and to Curt194 and jungleboy for all they did to make it all run smoothly.

I really enjoyed all of the games that we played and was particularly glad to try the couple of ones that were new to me (The Ark of the Covenant and Over Hill and Dale).

Later today I will hopefully do a full write-up with photos from the day, but for now I have the time lapse video and the scoreboard. :green-meeple:

Time lapse:

https://youtu.be/DzLH9v1y5Pw

Scoreboard:

(https://i.imgsafe.org/0126086e37.png)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: kettlefish on July 03, 2016, 05:46:50 AM
JT Atomico,
please explain the word "Carcathon" - I know it is a word with combination with Carcassonne - but what is the other word?

May HiG will be allowed to use the great time lapse video from you at their homepage, to promote the CarcC community?
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 03, 2016, 06:21:09 AM
please explain the word "Carcathon" - I know it is a word with combination with Carcassonne - but what is the other word?

It's "Carcassonne" and "Marathon" (as in an endurance event).

May HiG will be allowed to use the great time lapse video from you at their homepage, to promote the CarcC community?

Yes, of course. That would be great. :green-meeple:
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Halfling on July 03, 2016, 12:04:35 PM
Hi Kettlefish,

It is not an easy answer.  The shade of each colour and the ambient lighting both affect my perception of colours thanks to the inability of my retinas to correct process colours.  I can't for instance tell the difference between JT Atomico  (green :green-meeple:) and jungleboy  (red :red-meeple:)?  But in daylight I can easily tell the difference between the real wooden red and green meeples.  On JCZ I cannot tell the difference between the blue and the purple or pink or whatever colours they are.

I always play yellow or white or very occasionally black.  If I face opponents with red and green and the indoor lights affect me then I don't tell the opponents that I have the problem and it does not really matter.  I am trying to score yellow and block/trap/not score red/green/blue etc.

So it's our secret.  (Don't tell anyone!)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on July 03, 2016, 12:44:06 PM
Some photos of a few of the games from my viewpoint. Comments and replies coming tomorrow.

Getting underway in our first game of the day - why, Carcassonne of course!

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/3f085d72ca47ee64237bb88b9759ca5c.jpg)

Halfling and JT Atomico sharing a city:

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/cd7f336fd03662031dbab6e65960ce2e.jpg)

The first game ends in a tie for first with both Halfling and Curt on 69 points. Lucky we had the 70-point scoreboard!

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/a89d1c1d583a4abeb72bc4a305708267.jpg)

Curt's hut in Hunters and Gatherers:

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/1873f6fa9db312cd7ed959a73d023240.jpg)

The desert landscape of Ark of the Covenant, which was (I think) enjoyed by all:

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/ecb0389552df1065e3af5149b22b7e35.jpg)

The end-game board from Carcassonne: the City completely surrounded by city walls. This was one of my favourite games of the day.

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/38d9548ad4df1c32e45dc1e216c5f13f.jpg)

Halfling, Curt and I battle for a farm (trap?) in New World / Mayflower:

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/c4a11c369ef59c9bccaaa502755f3d04.jpg)

I never managed to complete this island in South Seas:

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/33ebb997475103675c5d3f8887b74020.jpg)

My first game of Gold Rush:

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/9450e7add46a01cf6601a18a4a967b08.jpg)

And my first game of Carcassonne II. In the end it wasn't too bad :)

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/72de3244dca07889fa895742d812282d.jpg)

An incomplete farm of mine in Over Hill and Dale:

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/082edcf24a9682797d61917ebacf58e6.jpg)

The unofficial 20th game: Adults of Carcassonne!

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160703/e2bd942b11b115078d1e50cb7b72a9e0.jpg)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 03, 2016, 02:31:08 PM
These photos are fantastic jungleboy and the write-up is excellent Halfling, merit to both of you! :D

I have run out of time in the day to do a proper summary post, but over the next week I will add photos of the end board of each game along with a brief write-up and the individual scores.

For now I will leave you with photos of our four intrepid (and colour-coded) players!

(https://i.imgsafe.org/982e5d7062.jpg)
:red-meeple: jungleboy :blue-meeple: Curt194 :yellow-meeple: Halfling :green-meeple: JT Atomico

(https://i.imgsafe.org/982e374713.jpg)
:red-meeple: jungleboy

(https://i.imgsafe.org/982e6076d8.jpg)
:blue-meeple: Curt194

(https://i.imgsafe.org/982dea7b58.jpg)
:yellow-meeple: Halfling

(https://i.imgsafe.org/982e8127c2.jpg)
:green-meeple: JT Atomico
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Curt194 on July 03, 2016, 03:14:44 PM
I will do a full write up also over the next week but for now a quick summary of the day.

Specific thanks to JT for all the perpetration done for the day, and to halfling for the original suggestion. The time lapse has come out really well and we got some great photos of the day as well. Thank you to all involved for the wonderful day! It really was fantastic.

I enjoyed playing the games I'd not had a chance to yet, such as Ark of the Covenant, as well as favourites such as South Seas. Playing cardcassonne was great fun and has encouraged me to get my copy out again to give it a try. It was also very interesting playing the various rule variations such as first edition rules and the no darling for Carc 2.

Overall a great day that absolutely flew by. I'm certainly not yet sick of playing Carcassonne in its many forms and look forward to the possibility of another event next year with around the world 3 added in for good measure  :(y)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Rich_The_Fish on July 03, 2016, 10:52:50 PM
Thanks for the write ups and photos, I enjoyed seeing what you got up to - looks like you had a great time. Well done for completing all the variants. Merits all round.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

Title: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on July 04, 2016, 02:13:34 AM
2012 The Winter Edition. "Halfling does not make Jungleboy's day"  ... Jungleboy is not impressed ...  Scoring the other end game features actually gives me the win, so I think Jungleboy forgave me as I stopped him from overtaking me by 20+ points had he shared 'The Field'.

Yes I did :) In the end it won you the game so it was certainly a valid and good move to make. But if you hadn't placed it, I would have won the game, and I needed all the wins I could get by that stage!!

Some random thoughts from me:

- We played much quicker than expected, but in hindsight maybe it would have been nice to have spent 5 minutes after each game discussing the game and the strategy and digesting it all before moving on to the next game.

- I basically always play 2-player games, so maybe that was one reason why I did so badly throughout the day (as well as having excellent opponents, of course!). Along the same lines, the competition was brutal. Twice (winter edition and travel edition), I was extremely close to winning, only to come last.

- The timelapse is great, I love the ending! For some reason I also really like how the boxing and unboxing of each game turned out.

- The City is great with four, I think that was my most enjoyable game of the day. Plus I love how the walls completely surrounded the city, that that hadn't happened in any of my previous plays.

- It was my second play of New World, and that's the spin-off I'm most interested in of the ones I don't have. What I like about the surveyors is that it's a new mechanic that is felt throughout every turn and the whole game - unlike, say, walking in Over Hill and Dale, which is nice and all, but is just a small addition. So that makes New World feel like a very different game rather than just the same game with one or two changes.

- It was my second play of H&G, and while this is a very popular spin-off, I don't think that much of it for some reason. I much prefer Ark of the Covenant for a quick vanilla-type game. Maybe it's because I like history a lot more than pre-history!

JT Atomico and Curt setting up for New World:
(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160704/4604d47435c3ac90298b194566004241.jpg)

And some quick thoughts on the new games I played:

- Discovery: I like not having roads and I like the simplicity of three scoring features in three different ways (a bit like Limes, although it's four in that case). The art is a bit too pastel-like for me but it was a pretty interesting game nevertheless. I could be tempted to buy it if I come across it in a store.

- Cardcassonne: As Halfling noted upthread, we all liked this. I really liked it, so I might get it. The decision about when to play your meeple can be agonising and always seems difficult. Four players seemed like a really great number, because you know that if you don't place your meeple on the row you want, it will probably be gone by the time its your turn again. The fact that buildings encourage taking different rows each turn and animals encourage taking the same row each turn is also a smart mechanic.

- Dice Game: This is a pretty weak game. It was nice to have a break from tile-laying during the Carcathon, but there's barely a game in it.

- Gold Rush: Even though I won this one, I wasn't too taken with it. There were some interesting new mechanics but for some reason these just didn't stand out for me. Colt Express and Saloon Tycoon will have to scratch my old west itch instead!

- Over Hill and Dale: This is a pleasant game with a couple of nice little additions, but at this stage of my Carcassonne 'career', it doesn't feel different enough to warrant buying.

- Star Wars: Not a fan. The Risk-like challenge for features just didn't do it for me.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 04, 2016, 03:14:56 AM
Another great write-up jungleboy :)

in hindsight maybe it would have been nice to have spent 5 minutes after each game discussing the game and the strategy and digesting it all before moving on to the next game.

I agree with this. I think we were all originally concerned that we might not finish all of the games, but then we actually had time to spare!

When the new Around The World spin off (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2809.msg41569;topicseen#new) comes out and we do this all over again we can take not of lessons like that from this day! :green-meeple:
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: kettlefish on July 04, 2016, 07:14:56 AM
How many hours did you play in total ?
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 04, 2016, 07:21:08 AM
How many hours did you play in total ?

We played for 10 hours, including the bonus game of Adults of Carcassonne.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on July 04, 2016, 07:22:26 AM
How many hours did you play in total ?

We played for 10 hours, including the bonus game of Adults of Carcassonne.

Then we played some more :)

One game of Colt Express between the four of us, then once Halfling left, JT, Curt and I played Lanterns.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: danisthirty on July 04, 2016, 07:25:27 AM
How many hours did you play in total ?

...and how many tables did you use?
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: kettlefish on July 04, 2016, 07:33:23 AM
HiG is reading this topic too - because of my email to them.

I will ask here some more questions - I think I know some answers, but HiG doesn't know the answers.

- 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?
- What did you eat at that day on the wooden plates?
- How many drinks / tea /coffees did you drink all day?
- Did other visitors of the "Draughts" look at your table and ask you questions?
- What does the "Draughts" servants say?
- And what game was the highlight for you in total?

Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on July 04, 2016, 07:43:22 AM
- In the video - there are many different bag for the tiles. From which games are they? Or are there bag which you have created yourself- or what else?

The bags for H&G, Ark of the Covenant, the Castle, the City and the Winter Edition are mine: they came from Arts Cow, based on designs by quevy. Here is the thread where we talked about it (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1707.0).

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

I ate tomato bruschetta and mashed avacado on toast for lunch, and the same bruschetta with hummus and pita bread for dinner. The others can speak for themselves. :)

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

I had two orange juices and 1.5 ciders (including half of Halfling's!). The English boys might have had a tea or 6 each and some unusual Coke. :)

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

Not that I remember.

- What does the "Draughts" servants say?

Nothing in particular that I remember. They are probably used to having crazy gamers there! :)

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

If I had to choose one game as my highlight for the day it was probably Carcassonne: the City.

I liked playing the City because I have never played it with four, Cardcassonne because I just thought it was an interesting game (and also well suited to four players), New World because I think the surveyor mechanic is interesting, and the Winter Edition because of the epic farm battle between JT Atomico and myself.

...and how many tables did you use?

One. We managed to fit two games of the Castle on one table which was pretty cool, check out the timelapse to see how it fit.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 04, 2016, 08:41:51 AM
HiG is reading this topic too - because of my email to them.
Awesome, nice work kettlefish! Hello HiG! :D

- 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 (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1707.msg23592#msg23592).

- 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.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Halfling on July 04, 2016, 12:42:35 PM
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?  :D



Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: MrNumbers on July 06, 2016, 03:55:02 AM
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!
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: kettlefish on July 08, 2016, 06:15:52 AM
HiG has finished their short report from this great event.

Here is the link to the HiG homepage:

Carcassonne - Im Wandel der Zeiten (http://www.hans-im-glueck.de/news/newsdetails/news/carcassonne_im_wandel_der_zeiten/)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 06:36:49 AM
Excellent, thanks kettlefish! :D
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 11:06:09 AM
Game 1 - Carcassonne (1st Edition)

:blue-meeple::yellow-meeple: Curt194 69 Halfling 69 :green-meeple: JT Atomico 61 :red-meeple: jungleboy 37

(https://i.imgsafe.org/fe4649f5c3.jpg)

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 (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1205.msg35331;topicseen#msg35331). 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:blue-meeple:Curt1941000(69)
=1st:yellow-meeple:Halfling1000(69)
3rd:green-meeple:JT Atomico0010(61)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0001(37)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on July 08, 2016, 11:17:58 AM
I'm not too keen on reliving quite a few of these games! :P


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 11:31:38 AM
Game 2 - Hunters & Gatherers

:yellow-meeple: Halfling 104 :green-meeple: JT Atomico 91 :red-meeple: jungleboy 85 :blue-meeple: Curt194 84

(https://i.imgsafe.org/fe4698b6a0.jpg)

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:yellow-meeple:Halfling2000(173)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1941001(153)
3rd:green-meeple:JT Atomico0110(152)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0011(122)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Halfling on July 08, 2016, 11:45:43 AM
  :yellow-meeple: you can stop now.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 12:11:00 PM
Game 3 - The Ark of the Covenant

:green-meeple: JT Atomico 120 :red-meeple: jungleboy 109 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 97 :blue-meeple: Curt194 46

(https://i.imgsafe.org/fe46bd2d2f.jpg)

This was my first time playing The Ark of the Covenant after acquiring it earlier this year. We used the cool
wooden ark (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1205.msg37596#msg37596) 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:yellow-meeple:Halfling2010(270)
2nd:green-meeple:JT Atomico1110(272)
3rd:blue-meeple:Curt1941002(199)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0111(231)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 12:40:09 PM
Game 4 - The Castle

:green-meeple: JT Atomico 113 :red-meeple: jungleboy 60

(https://i.imgsafe.org/ffce98b87a.jpg)

:blue-meeple: Curt194 100 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 79

(https://i.imgsafe.org/ffce83b45c.jpg)

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 (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2776.msg41440#msg41440) from spielmaterial (http://www.spielematerial.de/en/man-with-cap-knight-squire.html), 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:green-meeple:JT Atomico2110(385)
2nd:yellow-meeple:Halfling2110(349)
3rd:blue-meeple:Curt1942002(299)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0211(291)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 01:03:50 PM
Game 5 - The City

:green-meeple: JT Atomico 125 :red-meeple: jungleboy 117 :blue-meeple: Curt194 93 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 90

(https://i.imgsafe.org/00338f1bac.jpg)

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:green-meeple:JT Atomico3110(510)
2nd:yellow-meeple:Halfling2111(439)
3rd:blue-meeple:Curt1942012(392)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0311(408)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 01:28:03 PM
Game 6 - The Discovery

:blue-meeple: Curt194 57 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 52 :red-meeple: jungleboy 49 :green-meeple: JT Atomico 48

(https://i.imgsafe.org/00808de21c.jpg)

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:green-meeple:JT Atomico3111(558)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1943012(449)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling2211(491)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0321(457)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 02:18:40 PM
Game 7 - Travel Carcassonne

:yellow-meeple::green-meeple: Halfling 98 JT Atomico 98 :blue-meeple: Curt194 84 :red-meeple: jungleboy 73

(https://i.imgsafe.org/00fa5d130c.jpg)

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 (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2510.msg36046#msg36046), 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:green-meeple:JT Atomico4111(656)
2nd:yellow-meeple:Halfling3211(589)
3rd:blue-meeple:Curt1943022(533)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0322(530)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 02:36:07 PM
That's my last game report for tonight! I am away tomorrow but will hopefully continue on Sunday evening. :green-meeple:
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: kettlefish on July 08, 2016, 02:46:16 PM
Hi JT Atomico,
thanks for your detailed reports for the games.

Please explain the four numbers for example "JT Atomico 4 1 1 1" - I don't understand that.

Is it possible to put also the score for each game and not only the total score for all games.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Andrew the Ambo on July 08, 2016, 03:22:14 PM
I would guess 4 wins, 1 second, 1 third and 1 fourth placing.

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 10:37:13 PM
Please explain the four numbers for example "JT Atomico 4 1 1 1" - I don't understand that.

Andrew the Ambo is correct. That means 4 wins, 1 second place, 1 third place and 1 fourth place.

Is it possible to put also the score for each game and not only the total score for all games.

The score for the game is at the top of each post. :)

Game 7 - Travel Carcassonne

:yellow-meeple::green-meeple: Halfling 98 JT Atomico 98 :blue-meeple: Curt194 84 :red-meeple: jungleboy 73
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 08, 2016, 11:41:18 PM
Game 8 - New World

:green-meeple: JT Atomico 90 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 62 :blue-meeple: Curt194 61 :red-meeple: jungleboy 48

(http://i.imgsafe.org/08ecd8778a.jpg)

I seem to be saying this a lot, but again I think that the New World landscape looks very nice. The awesome big start tile that doubles as the scoreboard is great and the more photo-realistic tiles are an interesting change. But then you have those pesky surveyors!

The most impactful feature of the New World is without a doubt the two surveyor meeples (the white ones on the far left row of the photo above). Without going into too much detail, the surveyors progress westward as features are completed. You get a bonus for being on the same column as them when scoring, but if you fall behind them your standing settlers are removed from the board. Trying to keep ahead of their relentless march forward is what caused this board to spindle out to the left and nearly spill off the edge of the table!

However the bonus points that they offer can be very significant and we were able to take advantage of this several times to boost a small score for a trail or a town in to a much larger one. I managed to run out to a bit of a lead by capitalising on this a bit more while the others were busy fighting for a big plains area.

In the end, despite the intense fight for majority, the plains did not provide all that many points in the grand scheme of things and the points that I had racked up during the game saw me over the line to victory.

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico5111(746)
2nd:yellow-meeple:Halfling3311(651)
3rd:blue-meeple:Curt1943032(594)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0323(578)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 09, 2016, 12:33:18 AM
Game 9 - My First Carcassonne

:blue-meeple: :green-meeple: Curt194 8 JT Atomico 8 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 7 :red-meeple: jungleboy 5

(https://i.imgsafe.org/0a54e2dbcf.jpg)

OK, I know it is meant for kids, but I think that My First Carcassonne is great! The illustrations on the tiles are vibrant and fun, and the idea of zooming in to build an indvidual town rather than creating a whole landscape is a really clever way of giving the tiles their own unique aesthetic.

The gameplay is nice as well. Everytime you complete a road you place a pawn on each child of your colour on that road. The first player to place all of their pawns wins. Simple rules with just enough strategy to give you tactical choices when placing a tile, but enough of a luck element that nobody should worry too much about losing. I could definitely imagine enjoying this one as a young child!

The best individual tile placement was by Halfling, who managed to complete a road with three of his pawns in one move (also giving two to Curt194 and one to jungleboy).

Curt194 had the last play of the game which completed a road that let him place his last pawn and, luckily for me, also allowed me to place my two remaining pawns. This made us the joint winners.

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico6111(754)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1944032(602)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling3321(658)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0324(583)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 09, 2016, 01:19:27 AM
Game 10 - Wheel of Fortune

:green-meeple: JT Atomico 141 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 125 :blue-meeple: Curt194 123 :red-meeple: jungleboy 91

(https://i.imgsafe.org/0ab9e80bfe.jpg)

Wheel of Fortune brought us back to more familiar rules territory. Once again, it was surprising how high scoring this was compared with the base game, reaching over double the combined score of our first game of the day! Obviously the Wheel and its actions can count for some of this, but I think it is still a bit surprising.

The crown spaces on the Wheel provided some good points if you managed to get lucky with where the pig would go next. Most of the time the Wheel action didn't have much impact, except towards the end when Curt194 was forced to take away a valuable follower because of the "Plague".

Also, the "Tax" space came up a few times and bagged some nice points for jungleboy, who had two knights in the big city on the left of the photo with two pennants. Unfortunately he just missed out on completing this city which would have been a big score.

On the opposite side of the board, Halfling and I fought over the other large city. Each of us had one knight in the city already and one ready to glom on. Halfling was the first to join in his second follower, but I was just fortunate enough to draw the right tile to join mine in as well. It turned out to be not a moment too soon, as the very next turn Halfling had a splitter tile that would have capped the city and won it entirely for him!

I also managed a last minute glom into one of the big fields worth 21 points, which was enough to push me ahead of the others in the final scoring to win the game.

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico7111(895)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1944042(725)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling3421(783)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0325(674)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on July 09, 2016, 05:36:34 AM
Game 8 - New World

In the end, despite the intense fight for majority, the plains did not provide all that many points in the grand scheme of things and the points that I had racked up during the game saw me over the line to victory.

Yes, I seem to remember fighting hard for the biggest plain only for it to be not at all worth it!!
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 09:43:13 AM
Game 11 - Cardcassonne

:green-meeple: JT Atomico 192 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 186 :red-meeple: jungleboy 174 :blue-meeple: Curt194 154

(https://i.imgsafe.org/27998533ed.jpg)

Cardcassonne was next up, the first of two games that step outside the tile laying genre. I think we were all pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was - an impressively well done departure from the core series gameplay. I believe Halfling, in particular, was convinced enough to make it his next Carcassonne purchase.

The basic gameplay is about playing cards down in to rows and judging when the right moment is to claim the cards in that row for yourself. Wait too long and someone else can take the cards that you want, but it is equally frustrating seeing all of the cards that you could have won if you held your nerve a little longer!

In the early game, we were all still feeling out the best way to play and collecting a bit of an assortment of cards. The 10 point bonus for facedown cards played in to the wrong coloured row scored a lot of points early on but became less common later as we tuned in to the strategy a bit more.

The animals cards grew in value as the game went on. I managed to collect quite a nice flock of sheep. If memory serves, the best play on people cards came from Halfling who netted 28 points in one round.

In the end, I had collected up enough building cards to make two full sets, giving me a full 60 points which was enough to edge a narrow win over Halfling.

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico8111(1087)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1944043(879)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling3521(969)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0335(848)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 09:58:26 AM
Game 12 - The Dice Game

:green-meeple: JT Atomico 47 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 31 :red-meeple: jungleboy 15 :blue-meeple: Curt194 3

(https://i.imgsafe.org/27bc988d13.jpg)

While Cardcassonne proved that the series can produce a good game not based on laying tiles, I think it is fair to say that The Dice Game does not live up to the same standard. It is a basically enjoyable little risk vs reward game, but lacks any real tactical depth.

The option to collect three knight dice to double your score in the next round and keep a dice (to reduce the number of dice for others) sounds good in principle, but it backfired a couple of times for Curt194 and jungleboy who ended up doubling a zero after collecting knights which meant they scored nothing over two rounds.

The target score is also quite low (42 points, perhaps a Hitchhiker's Guide reference?) which means you have very little chance to recover if you get behind. Curt194 was particularly unlucky in this respect, over the four turns that he had during the game the dice only granted him 3 points.

I managed to keep the scoreboard ticking over and got the win. A six tile city doubled by the knights was my last roll.

(The coloured dice cups are from Perudo (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perudo-in-a-Tin-Game/dp/B0000A120X).)

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico9111(1134)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1944044(882)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling3621(1000)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0345(863)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Halfling on July 10, 2016, 10:22:02 AM
Spot on Jamie, Cardcassonne has been ordered from Cundco.de. 

Also The City is on it's way via the Geek market - thanks Curt for this tipoff.

I'm still not feeling it for The Castle and decided not to bid for the copy on Ebay today.

Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on July 10, 2016, 10:27:18 AM
I'm still not feeling it for The Castle and decided not to bid for the copy on Ebay today.

Once you start feeling it, Paul might be able to get you a copy to save you from having to bid. That's how I got my copy. In fact, my playing partner calls the Castle, to this day, 'the Swedish game'.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 10:35:41 AM
Game 13 - Winter Edition

:yellow-meeple: Halfling 90 :green-meeple: JT Atomico 80 :blue-meeple: Curt194 77 :red-meeple: jungleboy 75

(https://i.imgsafe.org/281766096a.jpg)

Along with Travel Carcassonne, this was one of only two games of the day that was played entirely under the full modern base game rules (we didn't play the "supplementary" farmer rules in Carcassonne II).

The first tile played completed the city on the start tile and was then followed by the road ending monastery, immediately opening up the potential size of the snowfield. When on my turn I drew a CRFR (like the start tile), the farm was already too tempting and I placed my first follower of the game as a farmer.

This set the tone for the game with the main field growing to take over most of the board. Indeed, all ten of the completed cities in the game were a part of the main farm. By the end of play I had six farmers in the field, jungleboy had five, and both Curt194 and Halfling had three. My sixth farmer was joined in by Halfling's final tile, much to the annoyance of jungleboy!

However, despite grabbing all 30 points for the field, it was not enough to win me the game. Over emphasis on farmind had cost me points in play, crucially missing out on a 26 point city that was shared by all of the others.

It was Halfling who ultimately took the honours, vindicating his last play to take away jungleboy's share of the field. This was Halfling's fourth win of the day and broke a seven game winning streak for me.

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico9211(1214)
2nd:yellow-meeple:Halfling4621(1090)
3rd:blue-meeple:Curt1944054(959)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0346(938)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 10:46:32 AM
Game 14 - South Seas

:blue-meeple: Curt194 29 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 26 :red-meeple: jungleboy 23 :green-meeple: JT Atomico 22

(https://i.imgsafe.org/2886a4fed1.jpg)

​South Seas is one of my favourites among the spin-off games. I think winning resources to trade with the ships is a really neat way of removing the need for the scoreboard. I like the tropical theming as well, it makes me feel summery! It is also the only spin-off that I have played at all of the Carcassonne Central UK meet-ups.

The biggest individual feature of the game was an 8 banana island which jungleboy managed to win on his own with two islanders against one each from me and Halfling. It's strange, but I think this was actually the first time that I have played South Seas and seen a feature competed for by more than one follower per player. The game has a tendency to be less directly competitive in my past experience. This is not a criticism of jungleboy, who used his banana bounty to good effect, just an observation that I found interesting!

I have also found that the game usually ends because all of the trading ships have been purchased, rather than when the last tile is played, but on this occasion it was the tiles that ran out first.

Curt194 took his fourth win of the day in this one, thanks in part to a great effort to complete a market just in time to grab a newly revealed 6-point ship.

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico9212(1236)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1945054(988)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling4721(1116)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy0356(961)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 11:02:05 AM
Game 15 - Gold Rush

:red-meeple: jungleboy 114 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 98 :blue-meeple: Curt194 89 :green-meeple: JT Atomico 72

(https://i.imgsafe.org/28b12d9bfc.jpg)

Gold Rush is the second game in Carcassonne's "Around the World" series. Perhaps I am just not used to it yet, but I am not nearly as keen on it as I am with its series predecessor, South Seas.

My biggest gripe is with the mining tokens, which can end up being quite overpowered and undermine (pun very much intended) the value of a big mountain. For a completed mountain you get one point per gold nugget but for each of those nuggets there is also one mining token placed on the mountain which is worth just under two points on average. So if you have your mountain heavily mined (which you can't really prevent) you give away a lot of points. This disincentivizes the building of large mountains, which is contrary to almost all other Carcassonne features.

But then perhaps I am only complaining about it because it cost me a lot of points in this game! The big mountain at the bottom of the photo belonged to me and was heavily mined by others, while on the other hand all of my own attempts to mine mountains were quickly shut down in the next round of tiles.

I also managed to miss that there was a huge prairie that everyone else had a share in and I acted too late to try and glom in. It ended up being worth 38 points so missing out was a total game breaker! Overall, this was my personal worst performance of the day. I think fatigue was starting to set in as we approached the final stretch of games.

On a more positive note, jungleboy played a very good game including a share in a big un-mined mountain, which won him a lot of points and mining tokens, and also a good number of points from his cities. This put jungleboy quite far ahead of the chasing pack and earned him his (long overdue) first win of the day!

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico9213(1308)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1945064(1077)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling4821(1214)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy1356(1075)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 11:13:13 AM
Game 16 - Carcassonne II

:green-meeple: JT Atomico 71 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 60 :blue-meeple::red-meeple: Curt194 45 jungleboy 45

(https://i.imgsafe.org/28b1e938b7.jpg)

​Next we moved on to Carcassonne II (as it is called on the forum), otherwise known as just "Carcassonne" to the publishers! The new art style has been the subject of much controversy and discussion on the forum, but actually it seemed that all of us in attendance quite liked it… I hope that doesn't mean we lose credibility as true blood Carcassonne diehards!

Since the new edition of the rules puts farming under the "Supplementary Rules" section, we decided to play without fields since the spirit of the day was to play all of the games as they were originally intended and without any expansions or variations. I found that this changed the feel of the game quite dramatically and made tile placement options much more straightforward than normal. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, especially at this stage in the marathon when we were all ready for a slight mental break.

Without fields, the monasteries arguably became the pivotal point scoring feature of the game. I was very fortunate to draw three of them. Two of them completed alongside each other after finding just the right tiles in a classic cloister zone play. Halfling and jungleboy nearly completed a very big shared city, but I just managed to block it off with my other monastery tile, which cost them some points and trapped two meeples each.

These two things were enough to win me the game, which took me in to double digits for victories over the course of the day.

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico10213(1379)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1945074(1122)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling4921(1274)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy1366(1120)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 11:23:35 AM
Game 17 - Carcassonne II (demo version)

:yellow-meeple: Halfling 31 :blue-meeple: Curt194 30

:green-meeple: JT Atomico 30 :red-meeple: jungleboy 27

(https://i.imgsafe.org/28b212852c.jpg)

​This is a special promotional edition of the game given out at Spiel to advertise the new art version of the game. It features only 20 small tiles and four miniature meeples in red and blue, which I replaced with some different ones (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2776.msg41440#msg41440) from spielmaterial (http://www.spielematerial.de/en/maennchen-klein.html) so that we could all play in our colours.

Since the game was only designed for two players, we played in pairs again. Each game being a rematch of The Castle from earlier in the day.

To amuse ourselves, for the scoreboard counters we used the novelty large meeples (seen in the
individual player photos (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2776.msg41562#msg41562) earlier in this thread) to contrast against the tiny game! In my game with jungleboy, we also used his big wooden tile tower to draw the very few, very small tiles from. I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but then again we had been playing about eight hours of Carcassonne by that stage so maybe you had to be there!

There is not much to say about the games themselves, they were both exceptionally quick as you would expect. As you can see from the scores, both games were very close. I won against jungleboy by just 3 points and Halfling beat Curt194 by a single point.

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico11213(1409)
2nd:yellow-meeple:Halfling5921(1305)
3rd:blue-meeple:Curt1945174(1152)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy1466(1147)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 11:32:55 AM
Game 18 - Over Hill and Dale

:blue-meeple: Curt194 105 :red-meeple: jungleboy 91 :green-meeple: JT Atomico 89 :yellow-meeple: Halfling 56

(https://i.imgsafe.org/28b2381beb.jpg)

T​his was one of two games (the other being The Ark of the Covenant) which I had not played before the day. Having now played it, I am very keen to do so again! I thought it had some really interesting new elements and I think that more in depth strategies would emerge with repeated plays.

My favourite of the new features was the stables, which you can place on any meadow to give you points for all of the animals on surrounding tiles (but it cannot be played in to the surrounding area of any existing stable). They are a bit like a DIY cloister which you can increase in value by adding more animals.

The option to hike a wanderer along a path is also a nice addition. Lots of the game variants try to find ways to make building long roads more valuable and this one does it very successfully. It totally removes that slightly disappointed feeling you get when you draw a normal straight bit of road!

Both of these are quite open to sabotage by your opponents, either by playing animal-free tiles near your stable or by closing your road early to stop you from hiking. There actually wasn't much (if any) of that in our game, but I expect it would be more important if you start to play the game more often.

Curt194 mastered both of these new scoring methods! He built a path of eight tiles which he hiked up and down several times as he extended it. This path also ran past both of his stables which he managed to squeeze a huge 21 out of by placing tiles around them with plenty of animals. This earned Curt194 a strong win in what was the last individual game of the Carcathon, with only the team based Star Wars remaining.

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico11223(1498)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1946174(1257)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling5922(1361)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy1566(1238)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 11:46:10 AM
Game 19 - Star Wars

:red-meeple::green-meeple: jungleboy & JT Atomico 163 :blue-meeple::yellow-meeple: Curt194 & Halfling 139

(https://i.imgsafe.org/28b24475ea.jpg)

​This was it! The final game of the Carcathon. The last official game released under the Carcassonne brand at the time of writing, taking us all the way up to 2015.

Since the rules for Star Wars have an official team play variant for four players, we decided to pair up to give us a different experience for our final game. The Rebel Alliance was represented by jungleboy as Luke Skywalker and myself as Yoda, while Curt194 took the role of Darth Vader and Halfling was a Storm Trooper for the dastardly Empire team. I had purchased some
extra meeple stickers (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2776.msg41440#msg41440) to ensure that we could all continue to play in our designated colours.

The most notable rule difference in the Star Wars variant is that when two opposing meeples share a feature, ownership is immediately resolved with dice combat. You can boost the number of dice you get by using your large meeple or if there is a friendly faction symbol on the disputed feature (only the largest dice counts rather than the sum).

Rather amusingly, the run of the dice very much followed the narrative arc of the Star Wars original trilogy! At first, jungleboy and I enjoyed A New Hope by winning a few of the planets and asteroid fields early on, but it was not long before The Empire Strikes Back giving Halfling and Curt194 a bit of a lead in the middle of the game. In the end though, the Return Of The Jedi handed jungleboy and I more than our fair share of the luck towards the end of the game, grabbing us quite a few planets and one particularly large asteroid field.

In the end, the powers of the Dark Side were defeated as jungleboy and I took the victory for the Jedi. This final game brought the Carcathon to a finish!

Overall standings

1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico12223(1661)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt1946274(1396)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling51022(1500)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy2566(1401)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: jungleboy on July 10, 2016, 12:14:58 PM
Great recaps Jamie! Next time I will play better :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 12:21:10 PM
Bonus Game - The Adults Of Carcassonne

:yellow-meeple: Halfling 60 :blue-meeple::green-meeple: Curt194 48 JT Atomico 48 :red-meeple: jungleboy 46

(https://i.imgsafe.org/28b23d7649.jpg)

​We did it! In a little over nine hours, we had completed our marathon. So how did we celebrate the achievement of playing through all 19 official games in the Carcassonne franchise? By playing more Carcassonne, of course!

To round off the day we played a game of
The Adults Of Carcassonne (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/carcassonneshoppe/the-adults-of-carcassonne) which is an unofficial drinking game variant of the base game that was created by Carcatronn (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=88.msg4838#msg4838), a forum member who once ran CarcassonneShoppe.com which was an excellent resource for quirky Carcassonne extras, as well as normal games and parts. (The name of the game makes more sense if you know that My First Carcassonne was originally released under the name The Kids Of Carcassonne.)

If you have managed to read this far in the thread then you will have heard lots already about how the individual games played out and my thoughts on strategy, etc. For this one, I will simply say that the game was enjoyed by all and the shots of beer or cider were very welcome celebratory drinks! The staff at Draughts seemed to be very amused by the game too!

We had agreed that this game did not count towards the official results of the day (since it is not an official game), but the final honours were taken by Halfling who scored a nice round 60 points with his cider-filled meeple glasses.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 01:51:04 PM
Results & Statistics

So, that's it! All 19 games as they happened. A reminder again that you can watch a time-lapse of the whole day here:
Carcathon (http://bit.ly/29HUhun)

Below is the final results table from the day (does not include The Adults Of Carcassonne). We agreed beforehand that the ranking would work like a medals table, so simply sorted by number of wins, then by second places, third places, fourth places and finally tie-break on total points scored if necessary.

RANKPLAYERWINS |2NDS |3RDS |4THS |POINTS
1st:green-meeple:JT Atomico
12
2
2
3
(1661)
2nd:blue-meeple:Curt194
6
2
7
4
(1396)
3rd:yellow-meeple:Halfling
5
10
2
2
(1500)
4th:red-meeple:jungleboy
2
5
6
6
(1401)

My 7 game winning streak in the middle of the day went a long way to securing top ranking for me. I expect it helped a lot that I was the one who owned all of the games, had spent the previous week studying and compiling the rules, and had played almost all of the games at least once before!

It is interesting that Curt194 managed to take second place on the rankings despite scoring the fewest points over the course of the day. Winning games is what counts though and he did that, in particular bookending the day by sharing a win in the first game and winning the last individual game (Over Hill and Dale).

Halfling's amazing haul of 10 second place finishes shows just how consistent he was across the day - a few points here or there could have made the difference. It is also notable that he only came 4th twice, less than any other player. His total points score of exactly 1500 points is also quite satisfying!

Unfortunately for jungleboy, it wasn't the best day of his Carcassonne career. The results table is certainly not a fair reflection of his play and contributon during the day. Still, he managed a couple of wins during the day and ended up with more total points than Curt194 in second place.

Some final statistics from the day:
  • Tiles played: 1272 (+130 cards, +9 dice)
  • Points scored: 5656
  • Points per game: 297.7
  • Points per tile: 3.82 (excludes non-tile games)
  • Meeples and other figures: 500
  • Cups of tea: 8
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 02:01:29 PM
Final Thoughts

I had an absolutely fantastic day playing through all of these many Carcassonne variants and spin-offs! Combined with my game of
Mega Carcassonne (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2466.msg35180#msg35180) ealier in the year, I have now played with almost every official Carcassonne tile, barring a handful of mini expansions that are particularly new or for a spin-off that I haven't played much.

I thought that Draughts was a really good venue for it. They were very accomodating to us during the day, especially making exceptions to their normal weekend rules of not taking bookings and having a four hour session limit. The food was pretty good too!

I was quite pleased with how the timelapse video came out, but the picture quality was a little underwhelming by the time it was processed. I think if (when?) we do this again I will try and write my only little timelapse program that can also be used to track the score to show the points and overall result table live on the stream. (No promises!)

So, the obvious question is what do we next?

Personally I would be very keen to do this again at some stage, perhaps after
the next installment of the "Around The World" series (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2809.msg41414#msg41414) comes out later in the year.

Or perhaps we could turn it in to a weekend with the goal of playing every tile, including all of the expansions to all of the games. We would need most of a day to play Mega Carcassonne and another to do the spin-offs!

One other option might be a campaign style game that a friend of mine has been planning which he is calling Carcassonne Galactica. Without going in to too much detail, it is a play-through of the Star Wars edition but with every planet being decided by playing a full game of an appropriate spin-off (e.g. the Winter Edition for the ice planet of Hoth). It might also be a good way of getting all the spin-offs out of their boxes again.

That is for another time though. I will wrap up this very long series of posts by just saying thank you again to Halfling for coming up with the idea, and to him, jungleboy and Curt194 for making it such a great day. I loved it! :green-meeple:

I hope we will have another day like this before too long. But for now the games, having all been played, are back on the shelf:

(http://i.imgsafe.org/2b5caa1bad.jpg)
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: Halfling on July 10, 2016, 03:00:49 PM
These games are not filed/stacked in order - shoddy!

A great write up. I am still talking about the day to anyone who will listen.

I would like to add the 10 year anniversary edition to the next car carcathon because it exists and I have not played it and it is full of phantom teachers (ish).  Has anyone played all 20 versions, and is there a 'Carcassonne 20' club? Maybe that's a new thread.
Title: Re: Carcassonne Games Marathon: July 2nd in London
Post by: JT Atomico on July 10, 2016, 03:22:48 PM
These games are not filed/stacked in order - shoddy!

Well they mostly are actually! Except for the ones on the top that don't come in a normal rectangular box so could not be put in the middle of the stack.

I would like to add the 10 year anniversary edition to the next car carcathon because it exists and I have not played it and it is full of phantom teachers (ish).

I have this too if needs be. :)