Game 1 - danisthirty (120) vs Carcking (98):I placed the first tile and the game got off to a good start for me. A couple of short roads and a 20-point city enabled me to build an 18-point lead within the first dozen or so tiles. CK refused to be left behind though, and kept his score ticking over nicely with several small cities of his own.
I was first to place a farmer but CK soon had a farmer of his own on the same field. I was quick to place another on an adjacent field but CK did an excellent job of making it as difficult as possible for me to join the two farms, trapping another of my meeples in a nearby cloister at the same time.
By halfway our scores were close and the lead I'd built up early on had been reduced to 10 points. We spent much of the second half of the game fighting for control of two features in particular. One of these was a city at the top of the map. This had been tied from early on with one meeple each but when CK added a second I reluctantly followed suit to maintain the tie.
The other feature was the main farm. As my original attempt to get a second farmer onto the main farm wasn't looking too good I tried elsewhere and succeeded in winning it back. But CK quickly matched my two farmers with a second farmer of his own, and then a third!
With only a few tiles left to play I made a somewhat desperate attempt to get a third farmer onto the main farm but CK blocked this with his very next tile! I had a 17-point lead at this point but didn't fancy my chances of winning without the 24-point farm.
Everything changed with the final tile of the game as it was exactly what I'd been waiting for in order to join my second farmer from much earlier in the game onto the main farm. This tied it with three farmers each, winning us both 24 points. I think CK felt somewhat robbed by this, but I think the game would still have gone my way if I'd drawn a different tile (by just three points!)
Game 2 - danisthirty (120) vs Carcking (113):Our second game seemed rather scrappy at first. CK placed the first tile and was much more conservative/ intelligent than I was with regard to his meeple placement since I was too keen to claim whatever was available. He capitalised on this with some deviously-placed tiles which soon left me with almost no meeples left to deploy and 40 or 50 tiles left to place!
By the halfway stage I had two meeples trapped in uncompletable cloisters, a further two meeples locked in a battle for a medium-sized city and another in a city in an awkward position at the top of the map. CK however seemed to have at least four meeples in hand throughout the majority of the game and was coolly expanding his features with every tile he placed.
I was happy/ relieved to tie the city that I'd invested two meeples in when I had the chance to close it, as this gave me a fighting chance to get back into the game with the two meeples I got back. I managed to a get a farmer onto the main farm a few tiles later but felt sure that I would be out-farmed here, and it looked like this was going to be the case when CK placed another farmer on an adjacent farm. I tried to join him on this farm too but never seemed to draw the right tile to do so.
As the game began to draw to a close there were a couple of late developments. CK claimed a cloister which he placed in the top-right corner of the map and I managed to get a meeple into his (incomplete) mega-city which tied it. With no meeples left to do anything useful with after this, I placed my final few tiles such that I could prevent CK from completing one final city and then sat back and admired the view (since this was pretty much all I could do!)
I had no idea who was going to win but I suspected it wouldn't be me. I knew I had 15 points to come from my two cloisters but I didn't think this would be enough to overcome CK's second farm despite the small lead I'd built-up. My heart sank when I saw the final tile of the game, but fortunately for me CK missed the opportunity to merge his farms and the final scores revealed that I'd won by seven points!
Summary:In summary I'd say that although I really enjoyed both games, the five-hour time difference between us meant that neither CK or I felt like we were on top form at the time of our match. CK had literally just got in from work when we started and it was midnight where I was after a 5:45am start that morning! But I'm glad that we made it happen, even though I felt bad for CK as there's no doubt in my mind that he completely outplayed me in our second game and certainly deserved to win it.
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