Weekly Online Game

[Hounk]

Yea, great. I read the schedule of 9pm (UK)/ 10pm (most of Europe) after I posted. Thought, I should be in a hurry, because in recent times, the games started always around 9 CET.

[jungleboy]

This game sounds pretty epic! I think I'll join in after all.

[danisthirty]

Excellent. A 6-player!

[Jéré]

Excellent. The more the merrier! Anyone else?

Unless there are any objections I'd quite like to include either The Fliers or Mage & Witch or preferably both.

There's still time if anyone else wants to join us...

No objections but perhaps we should remove at least 1 major expansion otherwise it will last forever...

[danisthirty]

We're ready to go Hounk! Hurry!

[quevy]

Yet another defeat against MrNumbers

[Hounk]

And here a picture of the big game. I only made the screen shot, the score table must do somebody else.

[danisthirty]

Here's the score breakdown:



This was the first time I've played against more than 3 opponents online and possibly the first 6-player game I've ever played.

I won't write a full account of the game as there always seemed to be so much going on, much of which I wasn't even following that closely as I was busy elsewhere. Right from the start though, it was obvious where the main farm was and that it was going to be valuable so we all spent much of the game adding more and more farmers onto this (something that was made all the more interesting for the inclusion of the bridges). Jere seemed to be leading in this respect and was winning it outright with 5 farmers up until the last 2 tiles (the rest of us had between 2 and 4 farmers each). Up until this point most of us felt like he was going to win...

I used my last tile to add my fifth farmer and jungleboy also managed to join a fifth farmer of his on with the last tile of the game. Since it ended up being worth 71 points (with  ), Rosco, jacobo and Hounk were at a huge disadvantage for not getting any of these points, but the fact that Rosco was only 14 points away from winning despite this is very impressive (as is 26 points from cloisters alone in a 6-player game - I don't think I actually drew any)!

My biggest mistake was not getting a share in the big city as this was worth 43 points for jungleboy, Rosco and Hounk who each invested 2 meeples in it for a share of these points. I had one of my own meeples in it, plus my builder which I added more out of excitement upon joining the city than anything else. But because there were about 4 "pieces" on the same tile (meaning JCZ couldn't display them very well), I hadn't realised that Rosco already had 2 knights in the city, and it didn't take jungleboy or Hounk long to join him in this respect. If I'd noticed this earlier I mightn't have tried to get a share of the points and would have had an extra meeple in hand. Still, I held out for a little while hoping that I might be able to match them by flying a second knight into the city but eventually got distracted and used my spare meeple elsewhere.

My other biggest mistake, which was very much something that was realised with the benefit of hindsight, was that I completed a small city with a cfrf tile and then claimed the road too. I never completed or even added to this road and my meeple remained on the 1-tile road for the rest of the game, eventually netting me just 1 point which was a waste in itself. However, if I'd placed him as a farmer he would have been worth an extra 2 points. And since I lost by 1 point overall, these 2 points would have made all the difference to me! Still, I'm mostly happy with the majority of the decisions I made at the time and wouldn't want to take anything away from jungleboy's well-deserved victory, especially since he was the last person to get any points at all and seemed to come out of nowhere to win the game overall!

The only downside to the game was that we discovered a bug in the post-bazaar tile selection screen (we used the no-bidding variant rule) which enabled previously "chosen" tiles to be chosen again by subsequent players, effectively overwriting the original player's selection. We eventually outlawed this between us, recognising that it could be done but that we wouldn't do it, but the first 3 or 4 bazaars were somewhat marred by this and meant that we didn't always get the tiles we should have done.

Anyway, well done to everyone and thanks for joining in! It was a shame quevy couldn't join us too (as we'd run out of places/ "seats") but hopefully we can play another game soon! I won't be around this weekend but next week is looking good... 

[kettlefish]

This was a great game.

I played a real game with 8 people.

[jma03]

a game quite entertaining.
for me is also the first game with 6 players online
 

[danisthirty]

I didn’t mention it in my write-up but Jma was truly a force to be reckoned with and led the game near enough from start to finish. The fact that he didn’t have a share in the farm or the city, and didn’t win any points from trade tokens either meant that he was easily overtaken in the final scoring. Also, I was impressed by how well he used his castles, this was certainly more impressive than the 2 points Rosco managed for his castle anyway!  )

[jungleboy]

I won't write a full account of the game as there always seemed to be so much going on, much of which I wasn't even following that closely as I was busy elsewhere.

[Six paragraphs later]

Man, if that wasn't your full account, your full account would be the length of a Homeric epic! 

Jma and I basically played completely opposite games. He completed small features throughout the game and kept his score moving. He was in the lead for most of the game. I hardly scored anything (I still had 0 points after about 40 tiles I think), but I was the only one who managed to share both the farm and the large unfinished city with mage. So in the end, that was the difference and these two features made up about 80% of my total score.

I was very lucky with the last two tiles of the game. The second-last tile allowed me to add to my builder city that gave me one last chance at the tile I needed. Luckily I still had one bridge left and I used the RFFF (cloister with road) tile to add my fifth meeple to the large farm. This was only possible because Dan had joined that section to the farm on the turn before. So with three tiles left, Jere had sole ownership of the large farm but in the end he had to share it with two other players.

I was surprised as anyone to see that I won! But it was a great game. Everyone played well and it was very close in the end. It was also my first 6-player game and I hope we get to play more in the future!

[Hounk]

I really enjoyed the aspect of a 6 player game, although it meant, that Rosco did "deprived" me of my share in the farm with the cloister in the upright sector of the board. I was on a weak spot there anyway, since I knew, that it would be gone for me if either Dan or Jéré or jungleboy would pick the last cloister without road, which made a 50% chance in a 6 player game, so it was to be to expected anyway.

My biggest mistake in the game was probably the underuse of the builder. I think, I got just one extra tile from finishing the small road in the middle, leading from the bazaar to the small city with grain. I definitely should have placed my builder earlier in the big city.

What I personally did not like that much in this game, was the inclusion of B,C&B to such a big game. I'm not really used to this expansion, just played it twice on JCZ, both times in big weekly games, did not had a single option placing a castle yet, and think, I could have put better use to bridges, too, if I would have been more focused on them. So next time, I play this expansion, I would prefer it with not much else, probably only with I&C, to get more focused on this particular aspects. Also with more players, I think the bazaars would be more interesting with the bidding option. I did not really like this "picking your tile" part of the game, even though, I did neither realize this bug nor understood, what happened, when it was mentioned in chat.

[danisthirty]

I won't write a full account of the game as there always seemed to be so much going on, much of which I wasn't even following that closely as I was busy elsewhere.

[Six paragraphs later]

Man, if that wasn't your full account, your full account would be the length of a Homeric epic! 

You should know what my "brief" or "just a quick" emails are like as well as anyone else jungleboy!  What I meant by this though was that I could only really write about it from my perspective whereas there were plenty of other things going on that I wasn't involved in and hence couldn't really do justice to them in my write-up. I always find it find more interesting reading about games where everyone has had a chance to contribute their post-game thoughts, so I'm still waiting hopefully to see if Jere or Rosco have anything to add...

I really enjoyed the aspect of a 6 player game, although it meant, that Rosco did "deprived" me of my share in the farm with the cloister in the upright sector of the board. I was on a weak spot there anyway, since I knew, that it would be gone for me if either Dan or Jéré or jungleboy would pick the last cloister without road, which made a 50% chance in a 6 player game, so it was to be to expected anyway.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't have placed that cloister there either despite the 9 immediate points and the fact that it added one farmer for Jere, jungleboy and me. The risk for me was the other farmer that jungleboy had sitting directly below the farmer that was joined on. The risk that he might have joined this on too and won the farm outright with it would have been too great for me, but obviously Rosco didn't care about this as he already knew he wouldn't win it, and fortunately for Jere and I the right tile for jungleboy never came along...

My biggest mistake in the game was probably the underuse of the builder. I think, I got just one extra tile from finishing the small road in the middle, leading from the bazaar to the small city with grain. I definitely should have placed my builder earlier in the big city.

Same here. Although I felt I used him quite well at first, putting him in the big city was a huge mistake for me. I don't think I used him at all after that.

What I personally did not like that much in this game, was the inclusion of B,C&B to such a big game. I'm not really used to this expansion, just played it twice on JCZ, both times in big weekly games, did not had a single option placing a castle yet, and think, I could have put better use to bridges, too, if I would have been more focused on them.

I agree that it's difficult to use these wisely, and by wisely I mean getting extra farmers onto a farm in creative/ cunning/ non-obvious ways. If any single component of Carcassonne turns my head inside-out it is definitely Bridges! However, Bridges in particular aren't a lot easier to use even in smaller games, for me anyway, but I guess it depends on what you're trying to do with them. And although I generally don't like Bazaars at all, I also agree that the normal bidding rules could have made the game more interesting on this occasion.

[danisthirty]

Well, after the success of last week’s game it would seem like a shame not to suggest doing the same thing again this Thursday. I’m hoping that there will be the same level of interest again this week although if we end up with more than 6 players we could split up into 2 games so that everyone is included.

I don’t mind what expansions we use but it would be kind of interesting to play Princess & Dragon and The Tower together as I don’t think I’ve ever done this. I don’t have my heart set on this by any means though, and will be happy to go along with whatever’s most popular (so Bridges, Castles & Bazaars almost certainly won’t be involved!)

Who else is available on Thursday and keen to play?