Challenge - Highest score with base game

[totor66]

Hello everyone

Was a bit bored those last few days and I was experimenting solo games on Jcloisterzone and I am a bit hooked

What is the highest score you achieved in a solo game (of course without chosing tiles )? So far I achieved 269 points, most of my game are in between 240 and 260

Couple tips that can help you (I personnaly do not optimize yet 100% since I don't really calculate in the end what tiles are left, but it would be the next step)

- plan in advance to leave holes for Cloisters
- try to have 2 farms with a lot of common cities that split them
- don't rush to put meeple or you will ruin some games after drawing several cloisters
- never use a tile with two different city parts on the same city.

I believe someone said that theoretical max score would be 359 points ?

I start then




Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5712.0

[wolnic]

At one point I was planning on posting a solo variant, literally Solo Carcassonne (or The Closer), where you only have one meeple. Essentially, you use it to score features as you close them, and then hope that a suitable tile comes up at the end to place the farmer. I think the best I managed was around 235, but it relies, as you note, on leaving gaps and hoping that the cloisters come out during the second half of the game.

[jungleboy]

A few years ago we all got hooked on this after Decar started a competition about it.

Eventually my highest score was 310, although Dan managed 312 once.

[totor66]

I guess I missed it completely at this point, damn thought it was an original idea

New best for me, made several 270-ish scores in a row but still can't imagine doing that much again

[DIN0]

I believe someone said that theoretical max score would be 359 points ?

Yes, this has been solved before and explored over at the following topic: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5644.0 in the ninth post.
Picture of the final playing field and transcript of one of the possible matches resulting in the highest score are attached.

The highest score one can physically achieve is 342 points. Though this is unrealistic in real match.

[danisthirty]

I guess I missed it completely at this point, damn thought it was an original idea

Well it might not be an entirely original idea but it's certainly a very good one! +1 merit for inspiring others who may have missed the original competition to give it a go too.

Back when we did this the first time I was absolutely hooked and couldn't stop playing it until I'd finally broken that magical 300-point barrier! JCloisterZone is ideal for this, so I'd recommend anyone who hasn't already tried it giving it a go

This has been solved before and explored over at the following topic: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5644.0 in the ninth post.
Picture of the final playing field and transcript of one of the possible matches resulting in the highest score are attached.

The fact that an answer is available doesn't stop this from being a fun challenge.

[DIN0]

Of course  I was just pointing out a known limit. I too am interested to see where people can realistically take it, because the "perfect game" wouldn't happen in real life. Perfect tile order and cooperation from your opponent would be necessary in order for that to happen 

It is interesting to see how close can someone get to the ultimate 342 point score in real life situation.

[danisthirty]

Of course  I was just pointing out a known limit. I too am interested to see where people can realistically take it, because the "perfect game" wouldn't happen in real life. Perfect tile order and cooperation from your opponent would be necessary in order for that to happen 

[DIN0]

Here is an idea:

Would a viable strategy at achieving very high scores be to trap all of opponents meeples early on? That combined with decent luck and knowledge of the tiles should secure a free reign over the scoring opportunities.
Problem with this is that trapping requires resources which could otherwise be used to score points. That said, sometimes players make poor decisions and set themselves up to have multiple meeples trapped at once. I have personally seen as many as 4 meeples trapped with a single tile placement from the opposing player (two cloisters next to each other with a city and a road leading to toward the cloisters). If something like this happened at least twice at the start of the game, one of the players would loose all meeples at once early on (within 12-15 turns). Did someone experience this and did you get a super high score thanks to it?

[danisthirty]

I think it's probably a question for another post rather than hi-jacking this one. Without going into too much detail though, I'd say that there is always benefit in trapping your opponent's meeples if you want to win. Remember however that those trapped meeples are still going to be occupying points that you won't be able to claim. Think about the cloisters for example; meeples on these are often easiest to trap (especially if they're adjacent to each other), but three incomplete cloisters could still bring in up to 24 points at the end of the game.