Author Topic: JCloisterZone Trial Game against Jungleboy  (Read 8666 times)

Offline danisthirty

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JCloisterZone Trial Game against Jungleboy
« on: May 01, 2014, 03:17:17 PM »
At 9pm GMT today, jungleboy and I had a trial game of Carcassone with no expansions using JCloisterZone over the internet. I'm happy to report that it worked like a dream (although it was a little slow at times) and I was lucky enough to be given the honour of writing the account of our game! So here goes...

I went first, but apart from an early 2-tile city which I completed on my second or third turn, most of my early tiles were roads which meant I was slow to start building any reasonably-sized cities but did have a good road for my efforts. JB started a couple of smaller cities which he merged into one, and completed two smaller cities too in the first quarter of the game. He also placed a farmer but I was slow to respond and didn't attempt to join the farm until he was already in the process of securing it with a second farmer.

Once the game had settled down a bit it felt fairly friendly, and as much as anything else it was great just to be playing online through JCloisterZone! Mostly it felt like we kept ourselves to ourselves and apart from a couple of attempts to steal into each other's features (one of which trapped two of my meeples as I then spent most of the game waiting for a t-junction) we generally developed and completed our own cities without a lot of interference.

Farming became more of a focus as we entered the second half of the game since we were both more prepared to start risking our meeples. JB thwarted an early attempt of mine to get a second farmer onto the main farm but I was fortunate enough to draw one of the two cloisters with roads leading into them which saved the day and gave me a further nine points when I completed it a couple of turns later. This levelled our scores (for a short while at least) and at that point I couldn't have predicted how things were likely to turn out.

As we started to run out of tiles, JB completed a 16-point city which he had been adding to but which I didn't think would ever get finished. This was when we both started doing everything we could to win the main farm, or at least secure a draw as it was obviously going to be impossible to win without it. Much of this battle was fought towards the north of the map and with just a couple of turns left each, luck was on my side once again when I drew a tile that enabled me to match JB's four farmers with a fourth farmer of my own. I'd tried to keep my options open and had another two meeples camped on the outskirts of the farm but I didn't manage to join either of these in...

Overall it felt like a very close game and the fact that the main farm was a draw made it feel like the final scores could have gone either way. However, it turned out to be a bit of landslide in JB's favour as the final scores were 115 vs 100 to him! An excellent and hard-fought game though, JB was just too skillful for me this time so I won't even try to blame it on the tiles!


Breakdown of our scores - looks like I could have done with a few more cloisters!


The end result

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=743.0
« Last Edit: October 24, 2017, 03:42:22 PM by danisthirty »

Offline Carcking

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Re: JCloisterZone Trial Game against Jungleboy
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2014, 06:57:18 PM »
Very cool!! That is awesome that you got a couple of games done. The league could become real!

Nice work  :(y)
I just drew the perfect tile for my MonKnighThieFarmer!

Offline kettlefish

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Re: JCloisterZone Trial Game against Jungleboy
« Reply #2 on: May 01, 2014, 11:39:12 PM »
danisthirty,
thanks for this great review.

Offline jungleboy

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Re: JCloisterZone Trial Game against Jungleboy
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2014, 12:10:50 AM »
Great review indeed and a great game too! Thanks again D30. The scoring was very close throughout, we were often tied at various stages during the game. We were virtually tied when the last tile was played as well but I had more end-game scoring through an unfinished cloister (7 points) and road (6 points).

In terms of my strategy, I drew a cloister with my first tile and used it to start a farm. D30's road curved around nicely to make my farm bigger, and I made a couple of loop roads to extend the farm even further, adding some small cities as well. I am used to playing with computer players or real players who I can usually outsmart with farms, so my aim was to create a large farm and hold onto it. I might have to rethink that strategy with CarcC opponents because I very nearly lost the farm and the game.

I think I drew 4 or 5 of the 6 cloisters so that definitely helped as I was able to complete two of them fairly easily early on in the game and get seven points for another one that I drew late in the game. That final cloister with a road (at the top of the board) also allowed me to get an extra farmer in the field to preserve the tie so it was probably the most important tile I drew. Funny that the other cloister with a road that D30 drew was also crucial to his game as he mentioned.

Anyway, it was great fun to play and bring on the league!

Offline danisthirty

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Re: JCloisterZone Trial Game against Jungleboy
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2014, 12:46:59 AM »
I couldn't get to sleep very easily last night as I had Carcassonne tiles going round and round in my head (does this ever happen to anyone else?). So I had a bit of a late one anyway, and decided to make the most of it by writing up the second game that Jungleboy and I played. This time we included Inns & Cathedrals and Traders & Builders...

JB started this game and immediately drew a cathedral which he placed on the city segment of the starting tile and claimed with his double/ mega meeple. Stealing this city from him, or at least sharing his points became my immediate goal but he put his builder to good use here and seemed to be expanding it with every tile he drew! Eventually I managed to reign him in a bit and his builder stopped being quite so useful, but by the time we'd closed off all the outside edges of the city there was still a tile missing in the middle which would guarantee an equal share for both of us. It was just a case of waiting for it to come along...

While this was going on I had been using my builder elsewhere, firstly on a six-tile road (with an inn) and then on what ended up being a rather large city of my own. JB placed a couple of devious tiles which would eventually extend my city northwards with two of his meeples inside it. I tried to stop him from succeeding in this endeavour but was depending on a certain tile which didn't come in time and he ended up outnumbering me by two knights to one. I made one final effort to balance him out and reclaim an equal share in my city but he blocked me with his very next tile and sealed off the city in doing so. It wasn't long before he closed it too, and took 38 points as well as three trade tokens in the process. This hurt, as the successful completion of another two cities of his own (one with the other cathedral) enabled him to build up a lead of more than 50 points by halfway!

Because we'd both been so determined to win the two biggest cities, neither of us really had a lot of meeples left for use elsewhere for much of the first half of the game. I regretted claiming a cloister I'd drawn early on but JB had a nearby road which he was gradually building around it for me so I didn't have to work very hard for my nine points when it was completed. With this meeple shortage in mind, I took the opportunity to close the large city with the cathedral in it mostly because I needed my meeples back although the trade tokens I won sweetened the deal somewhat. Despite winning us equal points this was possibly a mistake as it gave JB his builder back although I'm sure he would have done this himself if I hadn't done it for him.

Generally speaking there hadn't been a lot of farming going on in the early stages of the game as it wasn't obvious where the biggest farm was going to be until later. JB took the initiative though, and placed a farmer in the north-east farm which ended up netting him 18 points in the final scoring. I attempted to do the same but was less successful in doing so and spent most of the rest of the game regretting the fact that I'd sacrificed a meeple for what would eventually amount to just six points.

As we entered the final quarter of the game, it was obvious that both of us were concentrating our efforts intently on the southern farm which ended up serving 11 cities. JB claimed this first and had already got his pig onto the farm before I laid my claim to it with my mega meeple. There then followed a furious farm-war which ended in a draw since neither of us could manage more than four farmers (plus pigs). I did have a fifth farmer camped outside the farm but this was a very desperate attempt to steal onto it as there were only three tiles left to be played when I placed him!

Elsewhere in the game I had an incomplete city with my builder in it which I had been using to generate bonus turns more than anything else as I certainly didn't expect to complete it. However, with the last two tiles of the game (the second of these two tiles being my bonus turn) I was able to complete it for 20 points plus enough trade tokens to give me a 20 point bonus in the final scoring. I knew this wouldn't be enough though, as JB had too many other features to score including two eight-point cloisters.

The final scores came out in JB's favour again, with me trailing behind by 29 points. There was a 52-point difference between the points we'd won for cities which would have been far less if not for me losing my city to JB's excellent tile placement earlier on. And it could also have been very different if I'd won the 44-point farm, but I certainly had my fair share of good luck too and can't deny that the better player won!





« Last Edit: October 24, 2017, 03:42:59 PM by danisthirty »

Offline jungleboy

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Re: JCloisterZone Trial Game against Jungleboy
« Reply #5 on: May 02, 2014, 09:13:29 AM »
Another great report! I don't want to give away too many of my secrets here (ha!), but I have a few things to add.

My big regret in this game was not securing the original cathedral city better by either moving more knights into it or doing a better job of preventing D30 from 'glomming on'. I also didn't really get much advantage out of the builder for the whole game really, as I didn't really build any significant cities after getting the builder back when D30 completed the cathedral city. Very late in the game I added it to my 11-point unfinished road but not with much advantage. This road and my secondary 18-point farm proved to be the difference in the end, along with two unfinished 8-point cloisters as D30 mentioned. Again there was some critical end-of-game scoring that helped me out massively.

Interesting, but perhaps not surprising, was that both of our games descended into epic battles for control of the biggest farm towards the end of the game. In the end we played each other to a draw for the big farm in both games and in both cases if either one of us had won the farm outright, that player would have won the game. 

Offline rfielder

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Re: JCloisterZone Trial Game against Jungleboy
« Reply #6 on: May 05, 2014, 09:25:37 AM »
Can someone add the technical details of how you linked your PCs across the internet?

Thanks!
Robert Fielder
Brampton, Ontario, Canada  EST

Offline danisthirty

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Re: JCloisterZone Trial Game against Jungleboy
« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2014, 12:50:13 PM »
@rfielder - did you see the PDF attachment in the email I sent you on Friday? There are a couple of sections in there relating to hosting/ connecting to network games which should hopefully be enough to help you out. If there are any specific questions please drop me an email (or post them here) and I will try to help out...


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