Tactical Tuesday -- Week 02

[Bumsakalaka]

@kothmann I have to be blind

?

There is road of two tiles!

[kothmann]

B. It's never too early to throw a farmer in the mix and it looks like it could be a big one!

It looks like this choice is winning at the moment.  Interesting! 

I had originally planned a different scenario for this week--I was going to have Black draw the FFCC tile on turn 9 with one option being to place it at [-1;-1] with a farmer, like this:

I'm wondering how many folks who chose B would also say that this would be the best play for black on turn 9?
Other options for Black would be to put the meeple in the city on the south edge of the tile at [-1;-1], or to put the tile at [ 4;-1] with a meeple in the city cap on the west edge to score a quick 4 points.

I decided not to post this because I thought everyone would think it was too early for the farmer. 

Was I mistaken?   Grateful for any thoughts...

[Bumsakalaka]

Well. It need to check how many players are in game and how many tiles is in deck.

So 4 players means 71/4 of tiles per player which is 18 for first three players and 17 for last one.
So there is also need to calculate this that invasion to farm can be difficult and also impossible in some scenarious.

Odoslané z SM-A202F pomocou Tapatalku

[kothmann]

I voted for A.  Here are my thoughts about the various options.

Option A: This one is the most obvious good one: you score points, get a meeple back, and place a meeple, all of which are good.  The "get a meeple back" value is low, because you have only 1 meeple in play in a 4-player game, so meeples aren't critical.  Downside is that the possible field connection from a tile at [-2;-1] will make a very valuable farm that could be grabbed by an opponent.

Option B: This is a close second for me.  As many others have argued, after placing this tile, the field is getting big.  As @Bumsakalaka points out, the field is also not super easy to invade, because of the road across the bottom.  But an opponent could glom on with a tile at [4;-2] having a road on the west edge, ensuring connection with any tile at [3;-2], or by playing at [-3;0] and then completing the loop at [-2;-1].  Also, at the moment the tile is placed, there are only 2 completed cities and ALL of the CCCx tiles are still out, so the city caps that we hope will be completed are not a sure thing.

Option D: I think this has real merit.  I actually like getting another meeple on the board, in a position that would be allow placement of the CCCC tile reasonably early in the game.  Of course it also opens the possibility of trapping Gray and Red with any FFxx tile.  In a 3-player game, I would probably choose this as my first choice, because the trap has a higher value if there is no untrapped opponent.

Option C: Similar idea to D, but I always feel like going for a glom that requires 2 tiles in an already crowded area of the landscape ends up backfiring with my meeple getting trapped or stuck for a long time.

I found the choices and discussion to be very interesting and really enjoyed the nearly even split between A and B.  The fact that so many chose B and no one chose C nor D reflects concrete realization of two of @danisthirsy's general tips for 4-player games (a great read, by the way):

2) "The early farmer wins the field"
...
5) "The questionable importance of blocking"

Thanks everyone for voting and commenting.

Next week will be a further continuation of this game...

Again, please message me with photos from your own games or just ideas of interesting ideas for problems...

[Bumsakalaka]

For those, who want to check this situation also online. Here is file for new version of JCloisterZone 5.7.101, which finaly support also online game. You can download it from https://www.github.com/farin/JCloisterZone-Client/releases

Save file is ziped, due to restriction on forum, so need, unzip and load game.

File will be updated to include tiles order used in next weeks round. Currently include tiles order until Week 04.

Enjoy.

[CraftyRaf]

Option E: I would play it on [-1;-2] (if I understand the coordinate system correctly) and place my meeple in the field, with the intention to block red's and black's most left meeples in one of the future turns.

[totor66]

I would go for A but putting a farmer in the field rather than in the city.

Option E then

I think option B makes it too easy for other to score easy points.