Game 1

I don't quite know how this game went so badly wrong for me, but everything I tried seemed to fail whereas Steve was generating points for himself all over the place which all added up. I tried to kill a big city he was building but he escaped me. Then I tried to join it, but he drew the first splitter and cut me out.
It didn't help that Steve's expert trapping skillz left 2 of my meeples needing specific tiles to recover them. I was lucky enough to draw what I needed in both cases (eventually), but meanwhile Steve had used this meeple advantage well and could afford to get 3 meeples onto the main farm whereas I couldn't stretch beyond 2.
My last hope was to complete a large city I'd accidentally been building in the north (I was forced to place the cccc tile in this city as there was nowhere else to put it). I managed to get this to one tile away from completion before Steve successfully got one of his own meeples onto it and the game was lost. Well played Steve...
Game 2

Just as I didn't know why the first game went so badly, I'm not sure how I managed to win the second game either. Steve got a good break early on with a 22-point city which catapulted him into an early lead while I was messing about waiting for straight roads!
I didn't suffer too much from having too few meeples for most of the game which meant I could fight back for the farm, even though it was quite small at first. I also took a risk trapping two of my own meeples in the hope that I drew one of the two remaining cccf tiles to complete a small city of my own. Steve drew the next one, but thankfully I drew the final one and managed to keep myself in the game as the farm-war raged on.
I took a couple of risks with some cloisters in this game, which mostly paid off, but it wasn't until I'd blocked Steve's attempt to get a fourth farmer of his own onto our shared farm and finally completed the 14-point city in the north-west corner that I felt I may have done enough to have won the game.
So the final result was a draw with one game each. However, Steve was the points winner with +33 PD.
Thanks for the games Steve!
