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European Team Championships

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danisthirty:
Hello!

In case anyone is unaware, I thought I'd take some time to share details of the European Team Championships that are taking place on BGA (http://www.boardgamearena.com) at the moment. I'm serving as the captain of the UK team, so obviously this is where my interest lies and is what I've written about below.

Firstly though, the European Team Championships is an online Carcassonne event being organised by Carcassonne.cat (http://www.carcassonne.cat). Each team consists of between 5 and 10 players (although you can only play 5 of them at once). Teams have been split into two groups and each group is playing a round robin so that every team plays a single match against every other team in their group, these have been split into rounds so that every team plays one match per week/ round (unless they are having a "sitting out" week in the case of groups with an odd number of teams). Each match consists of 5 duels, and is settled by whichever team wins 3 or more duels. Each duel is played between two players (one from each team) and is a simple "best of 3" games. Games are basegame only, and all 5 duels are scheduled to begin at the same time.



It's very nice to be in second place for now, but Russia and France play each other on Sunday so one of them will be pushing us down into third before the end of the round. There's also the fact that we haven't had our "sitting out" week yet, which will come in round 6 after we've played Spain and have just Russia to come (Ukraine and France also still have their sitting out weeks ahead of them).

Round 1:


The Netherlands are always a tough opponent for us with players like Bekse (former national champion) and humske (former world champion) who always seem to get the better of us, as was the case in this match. Jackface triumphed over Johnnoordwijk with relative ease (2 - 0), whereas my win over hulpspuppie was less clear-cut after I lost our first game by one point. Thankfully I was able to contain my opponent more effectively over the next two games and took the duel 2 - 1 as a result. Elsewhere, our team's newest player statmatt lost to Bekse in straight games while wallaceprime vs. Zwollywood and ted the notty bear vs. humske both went to third games. I was cautiously optimistic and watched both games very closely as a win in either would give us our third duel, and the match. But sadly it wasn't to be. wallaceprime played as well as always, but simply couldn't generate enough points with his last few tiles to outscore Zwollywood's powerful farms and... well, I'm not quite sure what happened in the other game. It all came down to a fight for the main farm in the end, and while it looked (to me) as though ted the notty bear drew the required tiles to win it outright, things didn't quite go according to plan and all was lost :(

Round 2:


The Ukrainian team have been a bit of a surprise to our group of this competition. I have a good record against Samuelsson so was fairly confident that this would be a duel in our favor but the other matches were hard to call. ted the notty bear and I were both successful, winning our duels in straight games. Revelations (@halfling) was unfortunate to have his debut game settled by Carcassonne.cat's unusual "starting player loses in the case of a tie" rule and went on to lose the second game by just 9 points. statmatt struggled to put anything past Lawyer too, losing their duel 2 - 0 and bringing the match score to 2 - 2. The final duel was being played between Han Shot First and Jubjic. I didn't watch it live, but it seems Jubjic won their first game fairly convincingly and was equally unrelenting in their second...

We tried to be optimistic about everything, but to have won just four duels from two matches wasn't where we wanted to be, and it wasn't the start we needed either. :-[ :(n)

Round 3:


This match taught me that while I thought I'd been helping the team by winning literally every duel I'd played in both the World Team Championships and now the European Team Championships up to this point, I'd actually been hindering them. Apparently, my less than impressive loss to Boulym inspired everyone else to win their duels and we took the match 4 - 1 as a result! This included a win for ted the notty bear against one of the highest-ranked (and current #1) player at BGA - "viv-" which was nothing short of incredible! :o I don't remember watching many of the other games as they were being played, which is most likely because I was too busy crying, or had gone canoeing, but there was much celebrating and mutual virtual back-patting as we finally took a long overdue "big point" for our first match win. :(y)

Round 4:


My first game with Antoniospqr1970 was a comfortable win after he allowed me to trap two of his meeples at a cost of one of my own, and then went on to invest three farmers in the main field (against my two - one of which never joined up). Since we each had another meeple locked up in another city, this meant he played most of the game with only one meeple at his disposal whereas I had three. This meant I could take more risks, and as a result I was able to build up a decent lead and take my own farm which was almost as valuable as the main one without ever feeling like I was in too much trouble.

Antoniospqr1970 was much more cautious in our second game and played far more safely. He got off to a great start with lots of short roads and built an early lead, whereas this time I seemed to be the one not managing my meeples very well. I wasn't at all confident that this was going to be another win after the first 20 or so tiles, but gradually I was able to start trapping his meeples while generating some points for myself and as we got towards the final 20 tiles or so it was too close to call. I thought it was over when my opponent drew the remaining ccff splitter and cut me out of his big city which was completed with the same tile, but I completed my half of the city a few turns later to pull things back a little. Towards the end I was able to block a bold attempt by Antoniospqr1970 to take the main farm outright, but he'd grown a 9-point farm elsewhere so I knew I was still in trouble despite this. Thankfully, I drew the final crrf tile towards the very end of the game, which I had been in desperate need of for most of the game! This allowed me to finish a worthwhile city and claim a road. And with my final tile of the game I finished another small city and farmed the other side, which all added to my winning score of just 7 points in a game that could very easily have gone either way at several points. With this, the duel was mine.

Having played both games in just half an hour, it was no surprise to see that the other four duels were still some way away from completion. However, I was slightly discouraged to see that the Italian players had won the first game in all four of them! I was starting to prepare myself for being on the receiving end of another crushing 2 - 3 defeat (or worse!) but thankfully wallaceprime and ted the notty bear both won their second games, whereas Jackface and statmatt lost theirs. The two deciding games were quite similar in nature and were won thanks to a large farm. wallaceprime's opponent had played tremendously but was a little too keen to put all of his eggs in one basket. On this occasion, that basket was a large but uncompleteable city which he controlled with 4 knights of his own against 3 of Chris'. The most valuable feature besides this was the main farm which was tied with two meeples each. However, Chris demonstrated a real masterclass in farming which enabled him to win the main farm outright with a third farmer. This was enough to take the game, and our second duel, which meant the match would be settled by ted the notty bear in his third game against Lorenzo79. Although he was some way behind on points when I started watching, it was clear that this game was all about the farm which ted was able to hang onto until the end of the game. It was an awesome moment, and for a second week in a row we could cheer and celebrate on our Facebook messenger chat group!

Full details of the competition can be found on Carcassonne.cat's website. Games can also be replayed/ watched through BGA and some are being streamed live either through meeplewizard's youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/ChrisInsaneTV) or on occasion through BGA TV (look for "boardgame arena" on Twitch). All in all, it's definitely taking Carcassonne as a spectator sport to a new level! :(y)

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=4824.0

Halfling:
Our next match is against Spain on Friday 16th.
We then have our rest week.
Finally we play Russia who are the seeded team in our 7 team group.

The top 4 teams then progress to the quarter finals.

How are things progressing in the other group, I know some members of Carc.central are participating. It would be good to hear from you.

Meepledrone:

--- Quote from: Halfling on October 09, 2020, 05:59:39 AM ---Our next match is against Spain on Friday 16th.

--- End quote ---

My heart is divided in this matter. Best of luck to everyone. :))

Willem:
I've been watching some of the matches, and will continue to do so!
Good luck all!

DrMeeple:
Well done Dani! Our last games was with Poland and tight matches (3-2) Poland wins... Hope we had more luck next time. Thanks for sharing here.


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