Tactical Tuesday -- Week 03

[kothmann]

See the series introduction here.

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Players: Black, Gray, Red, Yellow (order of play as listed, alphabetical by color name).

Score: B=11, G=9, R=7, Y=12

Summary of Previous Moves:
1. B[0;-1]  2. G[0;+1]  3. R[1;0]  4. Y[2;0]  5. B[2;1] (B scores 2 points)
6. G[1;-1] 7. R[2;-1] (R scores 3 points)  8. Y[3;-1] (Y scores 4 points)
9. B[-1;-1] 10. G[2;-2] 11. R[4;-1] (R scores 4 points)
12. Y[-2;0] (Y scores 4 points) 13. B[0;-2] 14. G[1;-2] 15. R[-2;0]
16. Y[-1;1] (Y scores 4 points) 17. B[-1;-2] (B scores 9 points)

Current Decision (photo below):
Gray has now drawn the CCRR tile.
Where should they place the tile?
Should they place a meeple and if so, where?
(Feel free to discuss Black's move 17 as well, but the focus is on Gray's move.)


Option A (photo below)
[-1;-3], CRRC, meeple as knight in the city.


Option B (photo below)
[1;1], RRCC, meeple as farmer in field between road and city.  Gray and Red both score 12 points.


Option C (photo below)
[1;1], RRCC, meeple as thief on road.  Gray and Red both score 12 points.


Option D (none of the above)
Please describe a better play in your reply.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5476.0

[Allograft]

D1) +2, +2 with city turned towards northeast city and claiming that city to try to establish control over the northeast city by building downwards. There's a fair amount of CCCR tiles in the standard stack and none have been used yet. - 

[kothmann]

Interesting!  Here is what I think you want to do:

Let me know if I got it wrong.  Eager to hear others' reactions this option and/or what other ideas might come up...

[Allograft]

You got it right, sir. - 

[Bumsakalaka]

Well. I'm thinking about Option E on [-3;-1] to join roads and place meeple to field.
This will join fields with cities into big one field.
Not sure if this option is the  best, but it is missing in possible placements which can affect gray player

[unclewill]

Well. I'm thinking about Option E on [-3;-1] to join roads and place meeple to field.
This will join fields with cities into big one field.
Not sure if this option is the  best, but it is missing in possible placements which can affect gray player

Hi Bumsakalaka, do you mean complete the loop road at (-2,-1)? There is a newly placed Black farmer at (-1,-2) that you might not have spotted. This tile would connect to Black's existing field so Grey's only placement option would be into the new city, and it would also score the road for Red and Black and return their meeples. My apologies if I have misinterpreted anything.

To me it is decision between A and B, and I choose B.

A gives you two nice mid sized cities, but neither of them might close and it ties up two meeples. If neither completes, as it stands that is only 7 points for two meeples which isn't great.

B scores a 12 point city (that Red obviously also shares) and returns your meeple. The farmer claims what is already a reasonable field (6 points, maybe 9) and there is still a decent chance of connecting into Black's field at (-2,-1). Depending on how things develop and where cities get completed, it might be better for Grey to try to keep Black out, or to try to connect and dominate.

It is a big gain for Red (12 points for only 1 tile and 1 meeple) but better for Grey.

C gives Grey and Red the 12 points and claims a road but Grey loses out on the field and with two cities already completed it would be a tempting target for the other players.

This is fun. Thanks again kothmann.

[Bumsakalaka]

Well. I'm thinking about Option E on [-3;-1] to join roads and place meeple to field.
This will join fields with cities into big one field.
Not sure if this option is the  best, but it is missing in possible placements which can affect gray player

Hi Bumsakalaka, do you mean complete the loop road at (-2,-1)? There is a newly placed Black farmer at (-1,-2) that you might not have spotted. This tile would connect to Black's existing field so Grey's only placement option would be into the new city, and it would also score the road for Red and Black and return their meeples. My apologies if I have misinterpreted anything.

To me it is decision between A and B, and I choose B.

A gives you two nice mid sized cities, but neither of them might close and it ties up two meeples. If neither completes, as it stands that is only 7 points for two meeples which isn't great.

B scores a 12 point city (that Red obviously also shares) and returns your meeple. The farmer claims what is already a reasonable field (6 points, maybe 9) and there is still a decent chance of connecting into Black's field at (-2,-1). Depending on how things develop and where cities get completed, it might be better for Grey to try to keep Black out, or to try to connect and dominate.

It is a big gain for Red (12 points for only 1 tile and 1 meeple) but better for Grey.

C gives Grey and Red the 12 points and claims a road but Grey loses out on the field and with two cities already completed it would be a tempting target for the other players.

This is fun. Thanks again kothmann.

As I wrote I has to be blind. I didn't saw black meeple on field.
My bad.

Odoslané z SM-A202F pomocou Tapatalku

[Ker42]

Don't know if it's the best option in the long run, but I choose option A.  You're not sharing the city with anyone, and it's 8 points so far but easily expandable.  B gets you a nice field, but I'd rather not share 12 points with red.  Let them finish the city.   

[Meepledrone]

Option B is my favourite... You (Grey) score points for the city and place a meeple (a minor evil it is shared with Red) and place a farmer on a very promising field.

You would need to close the road [-2;-1] with a FFRR tile to join also the juicy field occupied by Black: A first step towards a Field War about to commence early on in the game! 

[Bumsakalaka]

I think one option is not considered.
Rotated tile by 90° in Option A.
This option will allow to occupy unoccupied city and place city tile to protect from "easy" invasion. And also Black motivation to finish his road.

What do you think? (I'm not saying that it's best option , again). And I hope that I'm not blind to any circumstances which disallow it

[kothmann]

What do you think? ... And I hope that I'm not blind to any circumstances which disallow it

You are not blind this time!  Here is what I think you are suggesting:


I also think your arguments in favor of this orientation are good.  I tend to like my open city edges to have no neighboring tiles, so that any city cap can be used to close them.  But here I agree you are more vulnerable to an attempted invasion at [-2;-2] than at [1;-3].  Also, Black may be willing to close or extend the city, both to manage the farm and the road.

Thanks!

[Bumsakalaka]

Thanks. Finaly not blind
Anyway, can you wrote in list of moves also placed tiles?
Like
1. B[0;-1] FFFFM 2. G[0;+1]  CCFF 3. R[1;0] CRFR 4. Y[2;0]  RRRF 5. B[2;1] RRRR (B scores 2 points)
I want to prepare JcloisterZone for this situation to allow to load into game.

[kothmann]

To me it is decision between A and B, and I choose B.

I agree.  Here are my thoughts, in order of importance to me.

Don't let your meeples get trapped!
Any time I have a feature with an open edge on a space that is surrounded on 3 sides with the possibility of becoming a hole, I make it a very high priority to place a tile in that space.  In this case, a field on the south edge of [1;2] will make [1;1] a hole and trap the Gray and Red meeples.  This can't happen on the next turn, but it is still too close for comfort for me.  This is my primary reason for favoring B.

To illustrate how important this is, here is a counterfactual.  Suppose the problem statement looked like this:

In this case, I would choose A, because [1;1] is open on two sides and there is no urgent risk of a trapped meeple.

I might be wrong in placing so much emphasis on trapped meeples in a base-only game with 4 players.  We often play with 3 players in a 61-tile game using only 5 meeples per person.  So my "trapped meeple" radar may be too sensitive?  But as a general philosophy, I want most of my meeples on the board, with the ideal being completion of a feature and placement of a new meeple on every turn.

Claim unclaimed features whenever possible.
I think Black's play on turn 17, placing the farmer on [-1;-2] was not a good choice, because it left a 2-tile city unclaimed.  This is four free points and a returned meeple for any opponent who draws a city cap, which is very likely.  So, Gray should think very carefully about claiming that open city, either with Option A or the @Bumsakalaka variant.

This is also why I didn't love Option B in Week02: placing the CCFF tile at [0;3] with a farmer created too many unclaimed city caps, which are easy "football city" points for opponents.  (Even though that won last week's poll, I still used option A as the basis for this week's puzzle!)

Don't place the majority of the tiles in a shared feature.
This one is obvious and noted as a drawback by everyone.  Option B is bad because Gray is giving Red 12 points in exchange for a single turn, while Gray has used 3 turns.  In a multi-player game, the player who is able to cooperate with all of their opponents most often will have a huge advantage, and it will be even bigger if the opponents do most of the work!  I would still do it here, because of the stranded meeple risk, but I don't love it.

The first farmer in a field should already be worth 9+ points and be easy to defend.
This is obviously not a hard rule, particularly near the end of the game, and I agree that in this case the field claimed in Option B is likely to be worth at least 9 points.  But it is relatively easy to invade, for example xRFx placed at [0;2] after choosing B creates a very high probability of merging into the field.  And if the Gray field merges with the Black field, there is a lot of room for growth and possible invasions at the east side of the Black field.

In summary, it seems to be likely that the field claimed by Gray here could require a substantial commitment to eventually win, and I might not want to launch that farm war just yet.  So, I would say that the farm is more of an "extra bonus" added to the primary goal of preventing my meeple from being trapped.

Again, to illustrate with a counterfactual.  Suppose the problem statement looked like this:


In this case, I would still place the tile at [1;1], despite the fact that I could not claim the farm.

I think I might also be wrong about how important early farmers are in 4-player games?  Maybe it is because our games don't usually include a lot of defensive play, so invading farms later is easier than it should be?

This is fun. Thanks again kothmann.

Obviously, I'm having lots of fun too....

One more scenario from this landscape next week...

[Allograft]

Waiting for the big reveal from the author is a blast, I must say - 

[kothmann]

...the big reveal from the author...

Ugh.  Not at all my intention to be a self-proclaimed oracle.  And I certainly hope my pedantic style doesn't discourage anyone from voting and replying. 

I haven't played many actual games.  Mostly just head-scratching at the coffee table.   

So, I've enjoyed and learned a lot from the comments and votes so far.   

The comments have also given me interesting ideas to explore in future weeks... 

Let's keep going!