2015 World Cup of Carcassonne Central - Knock-Out Stage

[Merlin_89]

OMG, you can't actually imagine how loud I shouted when final score appeared!

  Merlin_89 154-152 Zone2

I don't even know where to start with summarazing this game...

First of all, I was loosing... whole game... miserably! It was utter catastrophe for me, Zone2 kept getting tower pieces, and he wasn't merciful, it looked like he found a hobby - collecting my meeples (and he wanted to do it Pokemon style "Gotta Catch 'Em All"). At peak point he had 5 (and picked tower tile for 6th, he didn't use it... and maybe he should have!). It had bright sides, he depleted his resource of tower pieces, he had none at middle of the game (I had 9!). At the same time, score wasn't that bad for me - I was behind by less than 20 points (not that bad considering situation), I kept scoring quick things: small cities, 2,3-pointers for roads. But he had meeple advantage, I haven't seen any chance at winning, I thought (and wanted) to forfeit the game but I knew it wouldn't be right... All I could do was showing respect for Zone2 and finish. I started to play a lot faster...

Zone2 wanted to win, he invested in large farm, he pushed into my city with my builder. But things started to change, finally I got few tower tiles! I regained few of my meeples and shot his valuable meeples. But situation was not good, farm was main center of attention, he had advantage 2-0, 2-1, he pushed for 3-1, it was desperate from me, but I put additional 2 of my farmers, and I hoped for a tie 3-3. He invested a meeple into monastery (I had one as well at the beginning, but he took care of it...). He pushed into my builder city further (he led there 2-1), but he stopped caring for towers, I took out one of his knights to bring tie again, at that point whenever I got weak tile I connected it to that city only to get additional tile (his builder was stuck within his nearly blocked city). That's how I connected all my 3 farmers... But I was far behind.

Then Carcassonne Magic/Curse struck, 10 tiles remaining, I remember that thanks to the builder I got most of them. I got last tower piece and struck his farmer, that's how I won 36 points at farm (it was 3-1 in meeples there).  Last 2 tiles, first one was rather useless, I chose to use builder and put faith into last tile (I stopped counting tiles at the middle of the game). I got The Flier, one I could use with 100% accuracy, I flied into my unfinished builder city to regain it (15 points of worth).

And then, the score! Wow... Rather close one. Great job, zone2! You played great, but I couldn't expect less from you, I was cautioned that you're a BEAST... I guess I'll remember this game for a while.

[zone2]

all respect him, and patience merlin

[danisthirty]

OMG, you can't actually imagine how loud I shouted when final score appeared!

Oh believe me, I really can! My loudest cheer to date was against MrNumbers in the 2014 base-game league as he was unbeaten in 6 games up until then. He more than made up for it in the following game though, plus I got told off by Mrs_danisthirty for waking the baby

I was cautioned that you're a BEAST... I guess I'll remember this game for a while.

In the nicest possible way of course!

Anyway, congratulations Merlin_89! You've certainly proved that you deserve to be going through to the semi-finals now, regardless of what you thought about going through to the quarter-finals. This is also means it can't now be a Latvia vs. Latvia final

Commiserations zone2...

[Hounk]

Congrats Merlin_89. Looks like you really had an epic game. It actually is a very good combination of expansions, I think. I like it a lot, although I lost the important WC game in it. And I'm very pleased, that my "dream team mate" picked it up so great, after being a little doubtful about it.

[danisthirty]

Congrats Merlin_89. Looks like you really had an epic game. It actually is a very good combination of expansions, I think. I like it a lot, although I lost the important WC game in it. And I'm very pleased, that my "dream team mate" picked it up so great, after being a little doubtful about it.

[danisthirty]

Leven and I are expecting to play our game tomorrow evening at 10pm CET.

[danisthirty]

Leven and I are expecting to play our game tomorrow evening at 10pm CET.

We played our game this evening as planned. It took over 2 hours to play and was eventually won by just 3 points:





I'm still so surprised that I won that it's difficult being able to summarise the game, but I'll give it a go...

From what I can remember, Leven trapped me mercilessly at every opportunity and did a pretty good job of making his own opportunities to trap me when I wasn't making them for him! Meanwhile, I disregarded my initial game plan almost immediately and focused mostly on kidnapping his meeples rather than trapping them. At one point in the early game I happened to notice that I had just 1 of my own meeples left in my supply, and 4 of Levens! He was very cool, calm and collected about it all though and didn't make much of an effort to kidnap my meeples in return, managing instead with the few he had and undoubtedly enjoying watching me struggling with even fewer.

Our scores were very close for most of the game, with me gradually building a very slight lead thanks to a cloister or two and a few small cities. I edged further ahead as a result of Levens justified willingness to complete my cities in return for the trade tokens which gave him a 20-point lead over me for most of the game (which he eventually turned into a 30-point lead with the majority in all 3 types).

My builder ended up being trapped in a city worth a mere 10 points for most of the game as Leven did such a good job of trapping him. I couldn't remember most of the tile configurations that were available, but even though the city could never be completed, I did enjoy two turns in a row where I drew rare tiles which I could use to extend it, and then won some lucky extra points from the bonus turns. The first bonus turn was a splitter which allowed me to take 10 points for a city, and the next bonus turn won me 9 points from a cloister on a t-junction. These points came at just the right time for me, especially since I was so restricted in terms of what I could do with so few meeples (and couldn't force Leven to buy any of his meeples back from me).

As we entered the final third of the game I had approximately 31 points from three uncompleteable cities and a farmer worth either 9 or 12 points. This is where Leven started to come back at me more ferociously using his large supply of tower blocks to remove some of my more valuable meeples (I only had 1 left). My farmer became vulnerable but I didn't have anything left to protect him with so Leven took the farm outright relatively easily, dropping his pig on it and quickly expanding it to cover 7 or 8 cities. I had another less valuable farm to the west but knew that the final scores would be close enough that I didn't stand a chance of winning without a share in the main farm. So I took a chance with one of my final meeples knowing that only 1 tile could join him on (as it turned out there were 2 but the other tile wouldn't have worked for me as it was a ffff cloister with tower foundation that Leven sh/would have used to remove my farmer). I was lucky enough to draw the last German Monastery which I used to win an equal share in the main farm and claim 17 or 18 points (which I then lost when my Abbot was kidnapped on the next turn).

With the last tile of the game I was able to claim a 6-point farm which neither of us had previously claimed due to it being right next to a tower foundation. This was pretty much the only place I could have generated more than 3 points for myself, so it was lucky that I was able to claim them as the game would have been a draw without them!

It was a great game anyway. Leven really wore me down to the point that I had no idea who had actually won at the end although I knew I had a chance because of the shared farm, even though I was 30 points down in trade tokens. So, all in all, an excellent game, and a shame there could only be one winner. Well played Leven!

[MrNumbers]

Congratulations, danisthirty! Very close game!
I wonder why Leven didn't kidnap your most left farmer? As you stated the last tile was cccf with 6-points farmer on it, so Leven had a great chance to reduce your score by 12 points.

[Merlin_89]

And I thought that my summary was too long...

I believe none of our quarterfinals had exclusive rights for being cutthroating... only Farin won by a bigger margin, rest of QFs had difference of 5, 3, and 2 points! We were so close from deadlocking those meetings. WOW!

Danishthirty, I think what was remarkable in your game (and what saved you), were completed cloisters... 3 of them. I believe quite unique while playing with tower. It nearly tied with Leven's 30 points from trade goods.   

Good job with QFs!

One thing about coming SFs, what's our approach with Bazaars, we'll play with or without auctions? I consider it pointless when playing 2-player game...

[danisthirty]

Congratulations, danisthirty! Very close game!
I wonder why Leven didn't kidnap your most left farmer? As you stated the last tile was cccf with 6-points farmer on it, so Leven had a great chance to reduce your score by 12 points.

Thanks MrNumbers, it looks like I will be me vs. MrsNumbers in the semi-final now!

My second to last tile was the German Monastery below my 27-point farmer. I placed an Abbot on this tile which was worth 16 points (I think) so Leven rightly chose to kidnap this instead of my west farmer. I believe he had other opportunities to take him, but chose instead to take other pieces (mostly knights) or to claim features for himself. This is why I had another farmer (worth 0 points) placed adjacent to the farm but not within reach of any towers, as I wanted to be able to take the farm back in necessary.

With hindsight, it's worth pointing out that if Leven had placed his final tile (rrff) adjacent to where I was able to place my final tile (the cccf with farmer at the top for 6 points) then I couldn't have placed my tile where I did. The next best option would have been the city in the south-west corner which could have got me 4 points, so I would still have won but only by 1 point instead of 3.

[MrNumbers]

With hindsight, it's worth pointing out that if Leven had placed his final tile (rrff) adjacent to where I was able to place my final tile (the cccf with farmer at the top for 6 points) then I couldn't have placed my tile where I did.

Which one of them? How many points Leven scored with it?

[danisthirty]

With hindsight, it's worth pointing out that if Leven had placed his final tile (rrff) adjacent to where I was able to place my final tile (the cccf with farmer at the top for 6 points) then I couldn't have placed my tile where I did.

Which one of them? How many points Leven scored with it?

His final tile was the far left tile on the bottom row. He couldn't generate any points with it as he didn't have a thief anywhere on the board that it could be added to, and couldn't deploy a meeple as this would have deprived him of the ability to take 16 points from me (my Abbot) with his tower block.

My final tile was the cccf on the top row where I was able to place a farmer for 6 points. If Leven had placed his rrff adjacent to this (on the left) then I couldn't have placed this tile here and could only have won 4 points by placing it elsewhere rather than 6.

[jungleboy]

Congratulations Dan! Commiserations Leven.

So of the four quarterfinals, three of them were won by the player with the lower ELO rating. Only MrsNumbers managed to 'hold serve' in this respect. The players ranked 1-2-3 in ELO all lost at the QF stage. It will be interesting to see the ELO changes at the end of the tournament.

[Jéré]

Well played everyone! I feel the pain of the participants who lost their game by a narrow margin!

I can give an Elo update right now. I don't want to flood the thread with stats so lets do it just for the active players. Full ranking will follow after the World Cup, as usual.

[kettlefish]

here are now some x-score lists:

WorldCup15 - Round1 - knock-out-stage - with score - one game was cancelled (no play)
WorldCup15 - Round2 - quater final
WorldCup15 - Round3 - semi final - blanc