Author Topic: Carcassonne League Round 1: jungleboy v jvnoledawg (Read 10722 times)

jungleboy · « **on:** May 05, 2014, 12:47:22 PM »

We played a two-game series to open the Carcassonne League on Monday night using JCloisterZone, splitting the two games one apiece. I'll do the write-up for the first game and jvnoledawg will do it for the second game (which means we each get to write up the game we won). Thanks to danisthirty for his emergency hosting and for cheering us on via Skype during the games!

I went first in the first game and quickly grabbed a farm within the first couple of tiles. I ended up winning this farm 2-1 and it proved to be the highest scoring feature of the game at 27 points. Dawg played a lot of his meeples early, and this ended up costing him as two of his meeples (one on a road and one on a cloister) became virtually trapped, leaving only the cloister with road as a way for him to get them back. He played a lot of the middle section of the game with no meeples, eventually getting one back by finishing a cloister.

Elsewhere, dawg started building a city on the right side of the board and I took my chance to 'glom on', getting one meeple in and then getting a second one in to steal the city which was worth 26 points, the biggest city of the game. This gave me a large lead, and while dawg was able to finish the aforementioned cloister and complete an 18-point city to catch up a bit later in the game, it wasn't enough.

The final score was 137-66 - see the attached screenshots for the score breakdown and the board at the end of the game.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=752.0

danisthirty · « **Reply #1 on:** May 05, 2014, 12:52:21 PM »

An excellent write-up. I loved being able to watch the game being played too, even though it was a bit weird not being part of it...

Merit for you!

jvnoledawg · « **Reply #2 on:** May 05, 2014, 05:25:59 PM »

Thanks to jungleboy for an excellent report on the first game. I started game two and, having learned my lesson in the first leg (soccer language is appropriate here, yes?), I approached the farms in a much more conservative fashion. Both of us waited patiently to expand beyond one farmer, and this lent some excitement to the end game as you will soon see.

As the images show, the cities were not overwhelming, and in fact they were effectively drawn, 42-41. Jungleboy won the battle for cloisters, 15-9, and roads, 28-18, giving him an 85-68 lead. However, as mentioned above this became a battle for farms, as we each held back our meeples in anticipation. With about 15 tiles to go, the big farm was tied 2-2. I then dropped in a potential go-ahead

, hoping for the corner field to make the connection (Image 1). I drew the required corner piece, giving me a 3-2 lead. Jungleboy then made an immediate counterplay, adding a

directly below the one I just played, this time hoping for a standard f-f-f-x to tie these two farmers together and bring the count back to 3-3. (Image 2). Meanwhile, on the secondary farm, at 1-1, jungleboy had placed a potential winner, but this one, too, required a basic f-f-r-r tile. (Image 3). In neither of these cases did the required connector ever show. As he stated afterward, "I hate it when you rely on a common tile that never comes." I think we've all been there!

The final score on farms was 33-12, a 21 point swing, bringing the final score to 101-97! This was a fun 2-game match, and for me personally it was very challenging, as this was my very first competition-level game.

jungleboy · « **Reply #3 on:** May 05, 2014, 11:32:32 PM »

The in-game screenshots, complete with arrows, are brilliant! Nice work dawg.

Even though the score was pretty close for most of the game, I was usually slightly ahead and thought I had the game mostly under control. It was only as the farm battle began towards the end and dawg put his third meeple nearby that I realised I was in some trouble.

jvnoledawg · « **Reply #4 on:** May 06, 2014, 05:49:50 AM »

Thanks!

You are correct, of course. You outplayed me on the cloisters and roads - I truly got lucky on the tile draws, which gave me the farm win.

Carcking · « **Reply #5 on:** May 08, 2014, 07:05:45 PM »

Excellent write-ups guys! Nicely done!

It's amazing really how much like Chess competitive Carc play is. Some tit for tat and move and counter move, along with sacrifices and all. The one thing this game has over basic Chess though is the lucky draw - you just never know when it's coming. That builds the suspense and tension...