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Order of the Meeple: Challenge Matches

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danisthirty:
Challenge Matches (Red and Black levels): in order to qualify for membership of the order at either of the top two levels (Red and Black), you must win two "challenge" matches against players at the same or higher membership level as yourself. So once you reach the Blue level you may publically challenge any other Blue, Red or Black member to a match and that member must respond to your challenge within a week to arrange a suitable date/ time for your match (there will be a special thread for issuing challenges, arranging matches and posting results). Challenge matches are base-game only and decided on a best of 3 games basis, and you can't challenge the same opponent more than once per calendar month.


This is the special thread to issue challenges, arrange matches and post results.  :blue-meeple: :red-meeple: :black-meeple:

Happy challenging!

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1766.0

danisthirty:
Challenge match: danisthirty vs. Rosco (May)

Game 1
I started this game feeling much too confident and duly set about trapping as many of Rosco’s meeples as possible without much consideration for anything else. I paid the price for this though, as it distracted my attention from a smallish but rapidly growing city which started out as mine but which was quickly tied, then taken over, then completed by Rosco for around 20 points! I could try to blame this on the tiles I drew, but in truth he did an excellent job of building the city so defensively that I simply couldn’t get back into it. It wasn’t the start I was hoping for in any case...

Being very much on the back foot, I suppressed my immediate urge to do something drastic and continued calmly by taking a few small cities and short roads wherever I could, thus reducing my points deficit to something a little less painful thanks to my earlier trapping efforts hindering Rosco from building his lead too much. He was the first to claim the main farm though, and subsequently foiled two of my attempts to connect my own farmers to it which resulted in both of them ending up on a secondary farm serving three cities.

My break came with a fffr (cloister with road) tile which connected my first farmer onto Rosco’s farm. I placed a second farmer on the outside of an adjacent city so that it could be joined from either side but Rosco chose not to block this and used his next tile to develop one of his cities instead. My next tile allowed me to join my second farmer with just a few tiles left to place and this combined with my secondary farm enabled me to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (even if it was by just 4 points).






Game 2
As the game was opening out I was doing my best to make Rosco’s life as difficult as possible (as usual). I tried to block a city he was building but he scuppered my attempts to do so and ended up needing a ccrr tile to complete it. Only one of these tiles had been placed at that point so we both knew that there were four more to come, and over the course of the game I drew three of them and placed them elsewhere (obviously).

As the game drew to a close there was very little between us. We were sharing a city and a farm with two meeples each on both features, and our remaining meeples deployed such that I had a lead of just 2 or 3 points with two tiles to go. Unfortunately for me, my last tile was a crfr which meant Rosco got the final ccrr tile he needed to complete his city and win the game. I felt like I’d been unlucky in this respect, but in reality the fact that I required all four of the four remaining ccrr tiles suggests it would have been incredibly unlucky for Rosco if he hadn’t drawn at least one.






Game 3
I got off to an awful start in this game. I trapped wherever I could, but whatever I did Rosco always seemed to draw the tiles he needed to escape from my evil clutches. After he completed two fairly valuable cities I had slipped behind by around 20 – 30 points and was struggling to get back into the game, especially once he extended a city of mine such that it became impossible to complete and trapped my knight in the process. I think even Rosco felt sorry for me at this point!

However, I was the first to claim the main farm and so focussed primarily on growing this as it was my best chance of winning some decent points for myself. It didn’t take Rosco long to get a farmer of his own on though, and when I attempted to win it back he negated this by placing another farmer of his such that both would be joined on by the same tile. With a meeple in hand, I bided my time to win the farm back and eventually made a great opportunity to do so, connecting my farmer with my next tile and winning back my majority. This combined with a couple of last-minute cities, Rosco’s inability to draw a ccxx tile to complete a city of his own, and a nice little road built mostly by Rosco but which was open to be claimed with my final meeple all added up to a surprisingly good win for me which didn’t reflect how close the majority of the game had been, or how surprised I was when I realised I could still win!






Overall, all three games involved Rosco building up what always seemed at the time like an insurmountable lead (20+ points) but which I was usually able to chip away at. I won the main farm outright in both of the games I won so this obviously helped, but my first victory was by a much narrower margin than my second even though I generally felt much more in control throughout the first game (mostly due to blind, unjustified confidence).

Easy to say as the overall winner, but these were three of the most enjoyable yet challenging games I’ve played for a fair while. Thanks to Rosco for putting up such a good fight and for making me work so hard for those wins (and the loss)!

MrNumbers:
Challenge match: MrNumbers vs. Rosco (May)

Tonight I had 2 thrilling challenge games with Rosco. It's too late here now to write a full review, so I will do a short comment.

Game 1
Till the very end of the game I was thinking I will loose the game. Only the luck of the draw ("unluck" for Rosco) saved the game for me. We both were out of meeples in the end, and if Rosco drew some tile to complete his cloister, he would free a meeple and earn some points, for example, from upper farm.





Game 2
This game was all about farm. Rosco blocked 2 meeples of mine just after 7 tiles. But later he made the critical mistake, when he didn't connect his lower left farmer, when he had a chance to do so. After that I blocked this connect attempt, Rosco left out of meeples, but I continued to earn with my only meeple.





With that challenge match and my earlier win over Dan I fulfilled the requirements for the Red Order :red-meeple:

danisthirty:
Congratulations MrNumbers! Bad luck Rosco, but it looks like it was another very hard-fought match...

(and well done both of you for giving up the Red meeples!)

danisthirty:
I've been meaning to upload details of these challenge matches for far too long, but tonight I finally got round to it. ;D

A loss against MrNumbers combined with his win against Rosco (posted earlier) gave him the two wins he needed to reach Red. My win against jungleboy combined with my win against Rosco (also posted earlier) gave me two wins too. My loss against MrNumbers and my win against jungleboy are posted below:

Challenge match: danisthirty vs. MrNumbers (April)

Game 1






Game 2






Challenge match: danisthirty vs. jungleboy (April)

Game 1






Game 2

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