Author Topic: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log  (Read 13939 times)

Offline Whaleyland

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Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« on: October 27, 2014, 02:53:46 AM »
Tonight we played our first game of the nine scenario series called The Dark Ages. I created the campaign mode last year but have yet to fully test it. Now I mean to change that. We just moved to New Zealand and only have about two dozen games with us, most of which are smaller games. Fortunately, I brought all of my Carcassonne expansions.

The first game plays with the Flying Machines and the Corn Circles. We played with both Corn Circles bringing em total expansion tiles to 20. I stupidly pulled out 55 vanilla tiles to include, not reading my own guide telling me there should only be 50 total tiles. My mistake.

The game went well enough. Both the Flying Machines and Corn Circles give players a chance to steal opponents' features, which is fun. We didn't use many of he Flying Machines, though, just because there weren't any decent places to play them and profit. My opponent did score an early steal that neutralised the largest city on the board. The Corn Circles were also mostly avoided. We simple didn't have the spare Followers to double them and the other features detrimentally affected both sides evenly, making it a poor action to choose. Again, the opponent did bop me off a city once, but I got it back the next turn.

Overall, a good first game. She won, so she gets an extra Follower next game. That can only be bad for me.  :-X

Dark Ages Running Tally:
Whaleyland 6 pts. / Opponent 10 pts.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1187.0
« Last Edit: October 28, 2014, 03:06:14 AM by whaleyland »

Offline Whaleyland

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2014, 03:05:49 AM »
Game #2 of the Dark Ages campaign and I am losing terribly. Second game in the row where I was one point away form being lapped on the scoreboard. Not going well. This game, though, I suffered from having one fewer Follower than my opponent. Next game, fortunately, I get it back, but she gets a Phantom instead of one of her normal Followers, so that could be bad for me.

Game #2 includes the Ferries and the Bazaars. We usually play without the auction with Bazaars unless we're playing with more people. Interestingly, I drew all but two of the Bazaars while she drew all but one of the Ferries. I profited fairly well from the one Ferry I got and I also used two of hers against her, though the two point loss to her didn't really mean much overall. I placed my Farmer early, anticipating a large field, but only large cities rose there and all three of my Farmers by the end only scored 9 points each. In contrast, her one main Farmer scored 18 alone. But she killed both of my large cities, tying for point on both. She drew an exorbitant amount of cloisters, too, while I drew only four, two of which I couldn't claim due to a lack of Followers. Definitely not my best game.

Yay! I get seven Followers next scenario! Phantom, you're going down!

Dark Ages Running Tally:
Whaleyland 12 pts. / Opponent 20 pts.

Offline aenima

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2014, 07:19:29 AM »
In this days I have read the campaign.... It is well done! I'd like to see and play a new campaign with all the new Carcassonne stuffs!

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2014, 08:18:29 AM »
Is it called the Dark Ages because living in New Zealand is like living in the Dark Ages?   >:D

P.S. I am from the west island of New Zealand.
P.P.S. I really like all your campaigns and scenarios. I hope I get to play some of them one day.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2014, 08:27:04 AM by jungleboy »

Offline kettlefish

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #4 on: October 29, 2014, 03:03:26 AM »
I have to say:
Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and Udo Schmitz (Carcassonne-on-Tour) played the Dark Ages (Campaign1) at their North Sea tour last year.

Both like this campain and the special use of Carcassonne.


Offline Whaleyland

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2014, 03:25:49 AM »
I have to say:
Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and Udo Schmitz (Carcassonne-on-Tour) played the Dark Ages (Campaign1) at their North Sea tour last year.

Both like this campain and the special use of Carcassonne.
I remember you said that. I'm enjoying the campaign quite a bit so far. With all the new expansions that just released, I want to expand the whole series to five campaigns...and end it there. The old ones will get reformatted a hit and I am going to drop the concept of "optional" expansions. If you don't own it, just play with what you do own, you know?

My proposed revised series is:
– The Legacy of Rome
– The Invasion of the Moors
– The Resettlement of Gaul
– The Hundred Years War
– The Wars of Religion

There will be a new master guidebook that precedes the individual campaigns, while I hope to improve the readability of the scenarios throughout. The entire grand campaign booklet will be called "The History of Carcassonne", though I'd like to emphasize somewhere in the title that I am only dealing with its medieval history. Haven't found a creative way to do that yet.

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2014, 04:12:35 AM »
My proposed revised series is:
– The Legacy of Rome
– The Invasion of the Moors
– The Resettlement of Gaul
– The Hundred Years War
– The Wars of Religion

Sounds brilliant, I'm looking forward to seeing the new ones.

There will be a new master guidebook that precedes the individual campaigns, while I hope to improve the readability of the scenarios throughout. The entire grand campaign booklet will be called "The History of Carcassonne", though I'd like to emphasize somewhere in the title that I am only dealing with its medieval history. Haven't found a creative way to do that yet.

I guess you've thought of (and dismissed?) some of these already, but how about:
- The Medieval History of Carcassonne
- The History of Carcassonne in the Middle Ages
- Carcassonne in the Middle Ages
- Medieval Carcassonne

As a side note, it's interesting that in English we don't have a one-word noun for the period. In Italian you can say 'medioevo' and be done with it but in English we have to say something like the 'medieval period' or 'medieval times' or the 'middle ages'.

Offline Whaleyland

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #7 on: October 29, 2014, 04:23:07 AM »
French is the same way as English. It's Le Moyen Âge. German probably just has a single word for it. That language is good that way. Not sure how I'll cram in the Darmstadt expansion thematically in any of these. All those buildings are modern.

Just confirmed the German: Der Mittelalter
« Last Edit: October 29, 2014, 04:26:41 AM by whaleyland »

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #8 on: October 29, 2014, 04:29:12 AM »
Not sure how I'll cram in the Darmstadt expansion thematically in any of these. All those buildings are modern.

Which is exactly why I didn't buy a copy.

Meanwhile, Spanish uses medioevo too.

Offline Whaleyland

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2014, 04:32:59 AM »
I wonder what Occitan uses? That is the language actually spoken in Carcassonne during this time. Well, Provençal technically.

Offline Fritz_Spinne

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #10 on: October 29, 2014, 05:14:27 AM »
Just confirmed the German: Der Mittelalter

Better: Das Mittelalter - but this is just the one word translation for "Middle Ages". In German there are many words which are build of two, three or four words, in English they are not written as one word. One word often used to illustrate this is "Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" - captain of Donau steam boat company. (I didn't use "steamship" for an obvious reason ...)

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #11 on: October 29, 2014, 05:45:27 AM »
I wonder what Occitan uses? That is the language actually spoken in Carcassonne during this time. Well, Provençal technically.

edat-mejana, according to panoccitan.org ('edat' = the Spanish 'edad' = the English 'age').

Offline Whaleyland

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #12 on: November 06, 2014, 01:38:37 AM »
Okay, today we played the third scenario in the Dark Ages Campaign. It was my first winning game, which was nice, though the final scores were less than 10 points apart. The game included Wheel of Fortune and Mage & Witch, as well as Darmstadt since...well, why not. The game reminded me that Wheel of Fortune isn't just a large start tile, but also 19 individual tiles. I may have to rework its pairings in my new campaign series.

So the game presented a number interesting situations that favored me and did not favor my opponent. First, out of the seven M&W tiles, I drew seven of them, some quite early. I was able to use them strategically to both block the completion of some of her features and enhance two of my cities. This gave me a huge point burst and forced her to finally cut her losses on two occasions. When the M&W expansion gets distributed this way, I've got to admit that it seems rather unfair and she was citing how unbalanced it was at the end of the game.

My opponent had a Phantom from her previous victory, but she didn't really know how to use it well. Instead of using it to grab some quick points from roads and whatnot, she rather boldly stuck it on the Wheel of Fortune. She then failed to have the pig land on those crowns even once for the remainder of the game. Granted, she set the Phantom down rather late in the game, as well, and most of the "1" tiles had already been placed, but things did not go well regarding the Wheel. We both scored some easy points early on, but they were marginal and mostly just canceled eachother out.

The Darmstadt tiles unfortunately came too late to really contribute anything. All three of them came within 10 draws despite using a well shuffled draw bag. It was just bad luck. The second special cloister was placed in a strategic spot but it required a lucky draw to complete, which never came. The other first special cloister was placed beside the Wheel but the final two sides were never completed due to a lack of tiles that would fit there. The Convention Center tile only had one place it could go, and it was on the fringe of the board. It was also the last tile to be placed of the three. None of the features were completed, but we decided to award the three bonus points for them anyway just to boost our scores. It got her closer to victory, but I still stayed ahead.

To be honest, it wasn't the most fun game of Carcassonne we've played. Things were going unfairly well for me, which was making her feel ganged up on, which is one of the reasons why I don't like Ameritrash games to begin with. The next game also has an aggressive element, the Robber, but it is more fairly done and less of a direct attack mechanic like the Mage & Witch. We probably won't ever voluntarily play with M&W or Wheel again except in campaigns.

Dark Ages Running Tally:
Whaleyland 22 pts. / Opponent 26 pts.

Offline Whaleyland

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #13 on: November 09, 2014, 01:17:04 AM »
Scenario #4 went from great to terrible in the blink of an eye. Almost literally. I was going along, minding my own business when BAM! My opponent connected the single largest field on the board. At the end of the game, it included eleven freaking cities. 33 POINTS! Yeah, I was rather ticked. I thought I had an instant win in my pocket and I blew it. To make matters worse, I had a Big Follower while she didn’t (I won it the previous scenario) so I could have claimed that big time and I didn’t take the opportunity.

Anyway, the scenario included The Robber, The Robber Baron, and The Magic Portals. We also both had Phantoms replacing one of our usual Followers and I had the Big Follower replacing another one of mine. The Magic Portals were almost worthless. Four of them came out in quick succession while there was very little on the board that could be taken. In fact, we were rarely short on Followers for the whole game. I think we both only gave up one opportunity each to claim something. The Robber Baron went to her first, but then passed to me about mid-game, and I kept it until the end. It didn’t help me win, though. The final road total was only 11 points, so it just wasn’t really worth it. The Robber got me some quick points at the beginning, but she figured out what I was doing and started scoring minor things just to get rid of my Robber. I also messed up once and scored one of her minor things, giving me barely any points from the Robber, and then she finished a huge feature the next turn. Oops!

Let’s just say that I’m ready for the Dragon next game. It will be a nice change of pace. She’s going to have 3 Castles to help her along, which could be bad for me since Castles protect you from the Dragon, but I can still try and complete small features around her Castles to deprive her of points. Who knows where this is going to go. Currently, I’m at a point where even if I win next game, she still is winning the campaign. That is not a good place to be.

Dark Ages Running Tally:
Whaleyland 28 pts. / Opponent 36 pts.

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Dark Ages Campaign – Continuing Game Log
« Reply #14 on: November 09, 2014, 02:12:09 AM »
We probably won't ever voluntarily play with M&W or Wheel again except in campaigns.

That's a shame, I like M&W. Obviously if one player draws all the tiles it makes it unfair but that was just random luck. I hope you try it again sometime and have a better game with it. I think a simple game with M&W, the Ferries and Inns and Cathedrals is really nice as all the expansions compliment each other.


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