After being outplayed in the first game, in the second game I was determined to not run out of meeples and to win the game to draw the match 1-1. I wasn't able to do the first of these but just managed to do the second, winning by three points, 99-96.
The early part of the second game centred around a battle for a road that I had built from the start tile. Carcking tried to glom on to this road, but I blocked this move with another tile (and meeple) placement that required a t-road rather than a curve as the joining tile. Carcking later made this requirement a RRRR tile and these roads were ultimately never completed, depriving me of two meeples and Carcking of one throughout the rest of the game.
Meanwhile, I placed an early farmer and as the game continued, with several small cities completed in this field, it became clear that this would be the dominant farm (and perhaps feature of the game). I got a second farmer in the vicinity before Carcking put his first in the vicinity to set up what would become an epic battle.
Early on I had the best of the scoring and opened up a 32-16 lead. But in the second half of the game I ran out of meeples and Carcking slowly began closing the gap and eventually took the lead.
The main farm continued to grow and while I couldn't add any meeples to the two that I had, Carcking began placing a small army near the farm. At one stage he had three different meeples that were a single tile away from joining and a fourth that was two tiles away. It became clear that the winner of the farm would win the game.
Without any meeples, I tried to block him from joining the farm with tile placement, which worked on a couple of occasions. But finally he was able to add a second meeple to tie up the farm with only a few moves to go. All he needed to win the farm and the game was a t-road or a standard corner road but luck wasn't on his side. I finally got a meeple back by finishing a cloister and I placed this meeple on a 6-tile incomplete road on my second last turn, which proved to be the difference in the end. Carcking couldn't pull the tile he needed to win the farm on his last turn and I scraped home by 3 points in a very nerve-wracking match!