Carcassonne Central

Carc Central Community => Online Games and Competitions => World Cup of Carcassonne Central => Topic started by: jungleboy on August 06, 2014, 10:15:10 AM

Title: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: jungleboy on August 06, 2014, 10:15:10 AM
I played my first match in Group C against mas9dj on Tuesday. I won 161-116 :)

See the attachment for the scoring breakdown and the final layout.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 06, 2014, 11:41:23 PM
Well done jungleboy!  :(y) Better luck with your next game mas9dj...  :(
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: farin on August 07, 2014, 01:10:23 PM
jungleboy 135 - 119 Farin

congrats, tough game to the last turn
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: jungleboy on August 07, 2014, 01:40:51 PM
This was very close. With 11 tiles left the scores were level but farin had one more meeple on the main farm and was therefore 'virtually winning' the match. I managed to get my big meeple onto the farm and although farin got one more meeple in himself to tie it, I had enough points elsewhere to just sneak home.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Paul on August 09, 2014, 02:39:48 AM
I am online in cc-league irc chat ready for any game atm, Saturday Aug 9 until 2pm or later (CET / Stockholm timezone).

Need a host for the games, though.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: mas9dj on August 10, 2014, 11:40:18 AM
I think I am able to broadcast the game live with twitch, would anyone be interested in that? We could arrange an hour that is convenient for CC forum users around the world
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 11, 2014, 09:41:57 AM
That sounds like a better alternative than having players connect via JCZ but not claim a meeple on the pre-game screen. Although I don't know what future developments farin has planned to change this...

What is twitch? I went to the website but it wasn't very informative. There was a lot of stuff about how great it is, but nothing to do with how it actually works or what it does. I love websites like that  ???
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Paul on August 12, 2014, 01:05:59 AM
Tuesday, Aug 12, 10am.

I am in cc-league chat if anyone finds the time for my games in the league. (Still can't host myself, I'm afraid.)

 :meeple:
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: jungleboy on August 12, 2014, 01:21:56 AM
Yellow and I are trying to arrange our match in Group C but neither of us can host. We have scheduled the match for 8pm Central European Time (GMT + 2) tonight (Tuesday). Can anyone host our game at this time? We can also delay it by an hour or two if that is more convenient for any potential hosters.

Alternatively, we are both available right now (10:20am CET) if someone is very keen to host us straight away!

Thanks!

(I will also cross-post this in the main WC thread for maximum exposure.)
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Paul on August 12, 2014, 02:21:54 AM
UPDATE!

I can now host games.

  Not sure how it all of a sudden started working. For all I know it was the presence of MrNumbers in chat helping me going thru possible solutions.  :(y)

If my computer is on, I will leave the game in host mode. All you need to do is come to irc chat requesting my ip.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Paul on August 12, 2014, 02:22:43 AM
Yellow vs jungleboy

(http://sydby.com/carcassonne/screenshots/ccleague/ccwc_groupC/Yellow_vs_jungleboy_board.jpg)

(http://sydby.com/carcassonne/screenshots/ccleague/ccwc_groupC/Yellow_vs_jungleboy_score.jpg)
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: MrNumbers on August 12, 2014, 03:11:55 AM
Not sure how it all of a sudden started working. For all I know it was the presence of MrNumbers in chat helping me going thru possible solutions.  :(y)

Allowing JRE go through firewall sealed the deal ;)
Cherchez la firewall :D

Congratulations, jungleboy! Third straight win! :(y)
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Paul on August 12, 2014, 04:13:31 AM
Not boding well for me. Two losses in two games. Ouch!

This match was a consensus replay when the game stopped working with SIX tiles left. We were both standing equally in general so a rematch was the best choice.

The yellow 33 is a farm score not a city score case it's not that obvious. mas9dj had two devastating luck tile draw which literally shattered any chance I had. My only consolation was the huge farm I acquired. Not that he bothered with it because he knew it was futile. Lol!

(http://sydby.com/carcassonne/screenshots/ccleague/ccwc_groupC/Yellow_vs_mas9dj_board.jpg)

(http://sydby.com/carcassonne/screenshots/ccleague/ccwc_groupC/Yellow_vs_mas9dj_score.jpg)
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: mas9dj on August 12, 2014, 04:43:24 AM
Yellow did a very nice game, I just came out lucky at some points which finally decided the game. I've made videos of both games and streamed them on twitch, in case anyone want to see them, here they are, with my silly comments.

Game 1 (Unfinished): http://www.twitch.tv/mas9dj/c/4889271
Game 2 (Official Game): http://www.twitch.tv/mas9dj/c/4889342

Since we had to restart and all, my broadcasting software went nuts and the second game doesn't show off the right side of the game where you can see scores and the tiles we are drawing, sorry about that. You can see final scoring on Yellow's screenshots.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: jungleboy on August 12, 2014, 04:47:59 AM
This is an obvious thing to say of course, but having Inns and Cathedrals as part of the game has really added something to this tournament compared with the base game only format that we used during the League.

In the League, most games came down to a huge, winner-takes-all farm battle at the end. But as mas9dj showed in the game above, if you can win yourself a reasonably large cathedral city and do well enough elsewhere, you can lose a big farm and still win the game. By my count his cathedral city was worth 54 points which is always going to be more than even the largest farm in this format.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 12, 2014, 05:43:53 AM
@jungleboy – I definitely agree with you to some extent. I still appreciate the elegant simplicity of the basic game, but the fact that games tend to descend into farmer wars is not always to its credit.

I don’t think there’s anything special about Inns & Cathedrals though, I think it’s more to do with the size of the game and the changes that various expansions bring with them. I imagine battles for single farms will be even less of a feature in the quarter-finals where Traders & Builders will be included too. It’s a judgement call, but I’d say that placing too many farmers early on simply isn’t worth the investment as it reduces your scoring potential elsewhere too much.

This said, the game I played with my wife ended up in a farming war and as such we both ran out of meeples with about 10 tiles left in the bag. For this reason I think the mindset and experience of the players is pretty important too, as Becky and I tend to spur each other on a bit too much!

Ultimately it depends on the number of tiles used more than anything else, and I think it becomes increasingly unlikely that a single farm will cover the majority of the landscape as the number of tiles in play goes up. Whether or not this makes for a more interesting game is another story, but it can certainly make it more varied!
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: jungleboy on August 12, 2014, 06:26:41 AM
Interesting Dan, we are looking at this in two different ways. I tend to think about what the single highest scoring feature in a game is or could be, and I figure that if I win that feature (without sacrificing everything else in the process), then I am more likely to win the game than not. With the base game + T&B, that highest scoring feature is still likely to be the biggest farm unless someone uses their builder wisely to win a large city with a few pennants. Also, the more tiles you add, the bigger the biggest farm could potentially be.

So that's what I think is special about Inns and Cathedrals - the fact that you can conceivably score 60+ points on one feature, and not have to permanently sacrifice meeples for end-game scoring to do it.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Paul on August 12, 2014, 06:48:49 AM
Inns also has a nice advantage.

mas9dj scored a road by himself which gave him 30 points in our tournament game!

The set of Inns and Cathedrals also has some nice tiles which allows more tile placement than the base game to conquer cities and fields.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 12, 2014, 07:08:34 AM
If you’re prepared to take the risk that your opponent won’t render your huge cathedral city incompletable then it’s definitely worth the effort. I will normally dump cathedrals on my opponents cities in such a way that it makes them as difficult as possible to complete thus trapping any meeples they have in the city for a grand total of zero points (hopefully). If I fail to block them and they complete it then that pretty much gives the game away but I think it’s usually easier to block than to complete, depending on who you’re playing against.

There are at least three or four interesting tiles included with Inns & Cathedrals which are the cfrf (“rat tail” as Jere called it), ccfr and ccrf. I also like the frfr tile with the cloister in the middle of it as you can block off someone trying to steal onto your road where it wasn’t previously possible. No crff or cffr tile though...

Inns make a huge difference. Perhaps even more so than the cathedrals. If possible I like to start a long road which usually stays under the radar of my opponent and then close it as quickly as possible after adding an inn to it. Roads like that can make all the difference; my wife scored 52 points from roads alone in our game last night where as I managed just 14!
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: quevy on August 13, 2014, 12:47:28 AM
I'm back from vacation, I hope to soon organize a game with everyone, I will still trips but in the evening I should be getting home.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: jungleboy on August 13, 2014, 05:14:42 AM
I have already played three games, more than anyone else in the group I think, so I will let quevy play against some other players first to catch up, and maybe quevy and I can play our match next week.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: farin on August 14, 2014, 11:37:04 AM
back from vacation too. Open to games during Friday / weekend
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Paul on August 15, 2014, 02:06:03 AM
It seems I'm destined to loose. Lol. Last two games my luck with the tiles has been riciculous.
  Even if I did score some big segments I lost epic and this game proves it.

I had 4-5 cloisters most of them 8-9 points and a city with 40 points alone scored, yet my loss was huge.

One cool thing, though, game crashed yet again but luckily I was challenging the developer and he managed to fix the savegame for us to continue!

(http://sydby.com/carcassonne/screenshots/ccleague/ccwc_groupC/Yellow_vs_farin_board.jpg)

(http://sydby.com/carcassonne/screenshots/ccleague/ccwc_groupC/Yellow_vs_farin_score.jpg)

Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: farin on August 15, 2014, 02:06:50 AM
Farin 199
Yellow 156

Winning big city it looks like easy rest of game. But underestimate cathedral city (which i don't expect to be closed) needs fight farms more seriously (yellow helps me with wrongly placed double follower)
With one freeze we make it more complicated, but it reveal    process how to fix saved game to be able continue with loaded game.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 15, 2014, 01:13:55 PM
Ouch! a 43-point loss! Try not to worry about it too much Yellow, that's just a few points over half the biggest winning margin we've seen so far!  :-[

Well played guys, I'm kind of glad your game crashed as we now have a fix for broken games!  :)
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: jungleboy on August 18, 2014, 01:24:01 PM
It's becoming a habit for me in this World Cup to play close games and just manage to win them. So it happened again against quevy. I scored a 6-point farm on the last tile of the game and won by ... 6 points. It was a very close game with lots of interesting strategy, and I got quite lucky with tiles as quevy pointed out!

Final score: jungleboy 138, quevy 132.

Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Jéré on August 18, 2014, 01:31:55 PM
Good job guys!

Jungleboy, you will be my opponent for the QF!
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: quevy on August 18, 2014, 01:36:56 PM
Really good game, after a shaky start where I was at a distinct disadvantage are able to recover, but not enough.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: farin on August 18, 2014, 02:42:56 PM
mas9dj vs farin.
We suffer with 4 crashed & loads (good news is once fixed save can be loaded without any other effort) - maybe it depends on current connection parameters.
Back back to game. I enjoyed it much, it looks long time I lost farm and wasn't be sure with anything. But finally I balanced farm, won one city and have better luck for cities with pennants.

Final score (farin 162 - 132 mas9dj) looks like smooth win but the truth of the matter is otherwise.


Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: mas9dj on August 18, 2014, 02:53:26 PM
It all depended on this big farm, on which farin got to join the big meeple with 7 tiles left when he atacked and finally joined with 3 left. So it was really really close in reality.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Rosco on August 18, 2014, 03:17:03 PM
So what are the standings after today's games?
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: mas9dj on August 18, 2014, 04:24:19 PM
Don't know exact numbers but I think it's:

Jungleboy 4 games 4 wins
Farin 3 games 2 wins
mas9dj 3 games 1 win
quevy 1 game 0 wins
yellow 3 games 0 wins

So yellow would be out, jungleboy already classified and the rest still have options, though quevy HAS TO win Farin for me and him to stand any chance to pass. Only 3 games left to play, all with quevy involved: mas9dj vs quevy, quevy vs farin, quevy vs yellow. Correct me if wrong.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 19, 2014, 02:13:32 AM
Correct! Jungleboy is definitely through in 1st place with 12 points (4 wins), and Yellow can no longer qualify as the most points he can win now is 3 (if he beats quevy) which is lower then Farin's current score of 6 (2 wins).

Farin, mas9dj or quevy could still qualify in 2nd place though based on the following scenarios:

Farin: a win against quevy will put his final total to 9 points which will guarantee him 2nd place. quevy's maximum would be 6 (having lost to Farin and jungleboy) and mas9dj's maximum would also be 6 (having lost to Farin and jungleboy).

mas9dj: a win against quevy will put his final total to 6 points. If quevy then beats Farin, Farin's final total will also be 6 points. This would lead to a 2 or potentially 3-way tie between Farin, quevy and mas9dj (depending on whether quevy beats Yellow) for 6 points each. In this case it would come down to total score differential - it's too early to suggest who would qualify in 2nd in this case.

quevy: a win against Farin will prevent Farin from taking 2nd place on points alone. This combined with a win against either Yellow or mas9dj will win him enough points to qualify based on total score differential in the 2 or 3-way tie described above. If he beats Yellow and mas9dj (as well as Farin) he can still qualify on points (9).

So in summary, there's still everything to play for but the Farin vs quevy match is probably the most critical!
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: farin on August 21, 2014, 01:19:37 PM
Bad position and risky game in early stage -> 3 followers captured (2 of then on inn and cathedral -> 0 points). Not good.
But this is real challenge and different games from others. I give up battle for central farm (and i probably should try to avoit cities here completely ... )

Final scoring not so catastrophic

quevy 143 - 125 farin

Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: quevy on August 21, 2014, 01:30:42 PM
Great game Farin, was able to get up from a bad situation. Even though the score says otherwise is he who won. With 3 followers in less put me in trouble several times. I won only because of the fields, of which I had dominance.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 21, 2014, 01:36:46 PM
Well played both! It looks like this group is going to come down to the wire!

@quevy - who are you playing next?
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: quevy on August 21, 2014, 01:48:47 PM
If I find the time tomorrow touch yellow for the game.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Paul on August 21, 2014, 08:59:16 PM
If I find the time tomorrow touch yellow for the game.

I will be available in the afternoon after 1pm (Stockholm) and as usual in irc league chat if you get the time. Looking forward to it!

 :meeple:
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Paul on August 22, 2014, 07:28:22 AM
Well, here we go... Final game was all messed up.  :-[

Not only did I not get tiles to conquer any large farm areas, but quevy got a lot of cities done and even won the huge city where I had meeples on. I was building that city up and he just lay one tile and won.

I don't mind losing, but this is unfair.

(http://sydby.com/carcassonne/screenshots/ccleague/ccwc_groupC/Yellow_vs_quevy_board.jpg)

(http://sydby.com/carcassonne/screenshots/ccleague/ccwc_groupC/Yellow_vs_quevy_score.jpg)
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: quevy on August 22, 2014, 07:37:43 AM
Sorry, I've played well, I won for the luck, I got the only tile that I
allowed to win the big city with the cathedral.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Jéré on August 22, 2014, 07:56:19 AM
Ouch... I feel your pain Yellow. Congrats quevy!
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Rosco on August 22, 2014, 08:41:15 AM
That is harsh. Exactly double the score!
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: mas9dj on August 22, 2014, 09:05:38 AM
Yellow's game vs quevy also leaves Farin and me with almost no posibilities to qualify for next round, specially me.

(http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y525/Manel_Masnou/Capturadepantalla134_zps6e4c2ff6.png)

If I haven't messed up, this are current standings in the group. As you can see quevy has eveything to pass with one game left vs me, though it's extremely difficult for me or farin to pass it's not imposible:

- If i loose, quevy will be 2nd, farin 3rd and me 4th.
- If I win by 90 points farin would take 2nd place, quevy 3rd and me 4th.
- If I win by 93 points, farin would still be 2nd, me 3rd and quevy 4th
- If I want to be 2nd, I have to win by 97 points, then farin would be 3rd and quevy 4th.

As you see, that has only happened once this world cup and it's almost imposible, but who knows, the game is still to be played. See you soo quevy :)
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: Gerry on August 22, 2014, 09:13:42 AM
You can alter the config.yaml setting that controls the length of the score display to

score_display_duration: 60000 # seconds

or more so that all of the individual scores for each structure stay visible - so you caan see exactly who score what on each item
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: rfielder on August 22, 2014, 09:56:02 AM
Sorry, I've played well, I won for the luck, I got the only tile that I allowed to win the big city with the cathedral.
Skill can be defined as having good luck plus the ability to take advantage of that luck to turn it into a win.

Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 22, 2014, 02:08:17 PM
Ouch - that is a huge margin! Well done both, let's see what happens against mas9dj...
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 27, 2014, 05:30:46 AM
The final match of this group excites me so much that I've done a bit of number-crunching! Hopefully somebody will correct me if I'm wrong, but by my calculations...

- If quevy wins against mas9dj OR loses by 88 points or less he will qualify for the knock-out stage.

- If he loses by exactly 89 points then farin could still qualify if quevy scores less than 99 points in his game with mas9dj (otherwise quevy will qualify ahead of him based on the second tie-breaker).

- If quevy loses by 90 – 95 points, farin will qualify.

- If quevy loses by 96 points, mas9dj could qualify ahead of farin if he scores 191 points or more (otherwise farin will qualify ahead of him)

- If quevy loses by 97 points or more, mas9dj will qualify.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: mas9dj on August 27, 2014, 12:48:37 PM
Final game of the group ended up as my win:

mas9dj 157 - quevy 131

Finally I couldn't achieve to win by 97 but I leave this World Cup happy to have won at least 2 games and draw at 6 points with the rest. Such a hard group with fierce competition. Congratulations go to quevy for qualifying for next round. Best of luck in the tounament phase for jungleboy and quevy as our representatives from group C!!

(http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y525/Manel_Masnou/Capturadepantalla137_zps1a35f2e2.png)
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: quevy on August 27, 2014, 01:32:11 PM
Has been a good game, the luck in the draw tiles was similar.
I have had the advantage of playing in defense.
It was enough that I did not lose too score difference, I was not even motivated to reach the first position, as it was impossible.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 28, 2014, 04:05:54 AM
Final standings:

(http://www.dan.tehill.net/GroupC_Final.jpg)
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: mas9dj on August 28, 2014, 08:49:45 AM
It was a very tight group. I was wondering how would the standings be if we only considered direct matches between quevy, farin and me. Since we all lost to jungleboy and all won to yellow, you might say the difference came from our matches, but it actually didn't. As you can see here, if you were to consider only our direct matches, farin would have passed. I know the criteria for draws is not this one (in some competitions it is), but I just thought it was curious how games played against other players not involved in the fight for 2nd place affected the result.

(http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y525/Manel_Masnou/Capturadepantalla139_zps344ba06e.png)
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: danisthirty on August 28, 2014, 09:10:06 AM
Hey mas9dj! Although that’s certainly an interesting perspective, I don’t think you can view this simply as a fight for 2nd between three people.

From the start it was a 5-way fight for 1st or 2nd and every point won or lost should be as significant as any other regardless of who it was against. Excluding points scored against or lost to someone simply because it later transpires that they definitely would or wouldn’t qualify doesn’t seem fair or sensible to me.

It’s not like you can say “he’s the best and he’s the worst so what about the rest of us?” Part of what defines who the better player is is determined by how close they were to beating the “best” player and by how much they beat the “worst” player.

Quevy earnt his advantage by beating Yellow by such a huge margin and deserved his points – I don’t think they should be discounted.
Title: Re: CarcassonneCentral World Cup - Group C
Post by: mas9dj on August 28, 2014, 10:01:09 AM
Of course not, performance in ALL matches is important. My point was just that when it came to the ones that finally drew at 6 points, there wasn't as big a difference, just that.