2015 World Cup of Carcassonne Central - Knock-Out Stage

[Leven]

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.

This could have been an option if the last two tiles had come in different order, and I get the CCCF tile. This way I can increase my builder city so I get the last tile too, and then I can capture Dan's farmer as well.

In hindsight, I think I made a mistake when I drew the FFFF tile with cloister and tower base. Instead of placing it next to Dan's follower in his smaller farm to the left, I should have placed it to fill the gap between the main farm and Dan's farmer (where Dan placed the GM later in the game), and so I could have captured Dan's farmer which earned him 27 points in the end.

Thanks Dan for this great game (and for writing such a detailed summary), and good luck in the semis for everyone!

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.

I wonder how far the first two ranked players (I assume they are zone2 and jungleboy) are ahead of danisthirty and Merlin_89. Do they have a chance to get to the top after the World Cup?

[danisthirty]

In hindsight, I think I made a mistake when I drew the FFFF tile with cloister and tower base. Instead of placing it next to Dan's follower in his smaller farm to the left, I should have placed it to fill the gap between the main farm and Dan's farmer (where Dan placed the GM later in the game), and so I could have captured Dan's farmer which earned him 27 points in the end.

Exactly, and you could even have claimed the cloister for 8 points (assuming I didn't kidnap your monk with my final tower block). This was the biggest surprise of the game for me. I figured maybe you'd put it where it was so that you could take both farmers but this would have required 4 tower blocks to have got both which I believe you had at the time.

Funny to think that if the final two tiles had come out the other way around you would have won the game. How frequently is this the case though...

[jungleboy]

I wonder how far the first two ranked players (I assume they are zone2 and jungleboy) are ahead of danisthirty and Merlin_89. Do they have a chance to get to the top after the World Cup?

I'm a bit scared that I've already gone down to #5!

[Merlin_89]

With higher ELO ranking I can only feel more threatened... Underdogs rule in 2015 WC!

Once again, how do we rule on bazaar element in SF?

[danisthirty]

Once again, how do we rule on bazaar element in SF?

We've always done our best to stick to the official rules as far as this is possible with JCloisterZone. I don't see why we should opt to use a variant in this case (presumably you're talking about JCZ's non-bidding variant?). Plus, I think it's worth keeping the auctions as it allows one player to force the other player to spend more points on a tile they really need, rather than simply selecting it for themselves and forcing the other player to take the other tile...

[Jéré]

Any semi-final matches in sight?
Just curious

[farin]

requested fix for Bazaar tile definition is here

http://jcloisterzone.com/builds/JCloisterZone-3.4.2.7z
/ .zip / .tgz

full changelog:

Russian Promos "expansion"
dark theme (there is definitely place for many improvements, especially in create game view)
fixed: Impossible to undo Goldmine tile placement
fixed The Corn Circles II tile definitions - cities was linked to farm (this bug can cause less points on farm in some cases)
fixed BB.CFR.b tile definition - another missing city-farm link

[Jéré]

requested fix for Bazaar tile definition is here

http://jcloisterzone.com/builds/JCloisterZone-3.4.2.7z
/ .zip / .tgz

full changelog:

Russian Promos "expansion"
dark theme (there is definitely place for many improvements, especially in create game view)
fixed: Impossible to undo Goldmine tile placement
fixed The Corn Circles II tile definitions - cities was linked to farm (this bug can cause less points on farm in some cases)
fixed BB.CFR.b tile definition - another missing city-farm link

Thanks Farin! I tried the Russian Promo tiles and the Dark theme. Very well done!

[Hounk]

I tried the Russian tiles in a game with Adda, too. Nice! Also changed the setting to "dark", but I'm not sure, if I will let it like that forever. Have to decide after a few games.

[danisthirty]

Any semi-final matches in sight?
Just curious

Today I emailed MrNumbers to find a time for my game with MrsNumbers. I'm hoping that we'll be able to play this week, but obviously this will depend on her availability.

Merlin_89 / farin: How about you guys?

[farin]

We are in touch with Merlin_89, I think we should be able play at end of the week.

Btw I can't find what is game setup for this round. Could you point me?

[danisthirty]

Btw I can't find what is game setup for this round. Could you point me?

The full list of expansions can be found here.

If we both win our games it looks like we'll be having a re-match after our game in the group stage!

[danisthirty]

I played my game with MrsNumbers last night and it was close from start to finish. But I always felt like MrsNumbers had the edge, especially since she slaughtered me on the trade tokens for 20 bonus points. However, for much of the first half of the game we fought fiercely over an ever-growing city which I eventually secured with 4 knights against 3 (plus both builders). So in the end I didn't know who was going to win (I never use the predicted score option) and was very pleased to see the following:





As can be seen from the score summary, cloisters made all the difference for me, but none of them were easily completed and I seemed to spend most of the game with at least two monks waiting for specific tiles to free them up. Obviously this slowed me down in other areas, so I was surprised to see that I finished ahead on roads and cities also (by just 1 point in both areas) even with the big city boosting my score significantly.

Gold was evenly distributed between us, and every single bit of it was claimed which meant neither of us had an advantage here. Neither of us used our castles either. I was tempted to "castle-up" at one point, but with 4 meeples in the big city and 1 or 2 others in nearby cloisters I chose to complete the city purely to get my meeple back. MrsNumbers used just one bridge (on her second to last tile) whereas I played all 3 of mine as they were very useful for getting me out of various scrapes. It didn't seem worth keeping them back for the sake of it...

MrsNumbers received 20 bonus points for her majority in wine and silk trade tokens (no wheat was claimed), but I didn't worry about this too much as I had the city to come and knew this would be worth at least 30 points. What eventually swung the game in my favour was drawing the final crrf tile which I'd been waiting for for most of the game. This completed a cloister, got me a bonus turn and allowed me to claim a previously inaccessible 12-point farm. Nice!

In the final stages of the game I seemed to draw some very helpful tiles which I used either to boost my score a little or to claim a couple of small farms, not really finding a good opportunity to place my pig.

Overall, I was pleased with the result (obviously) but did feel like it could have gone either way right up to the last 10 or so tiles. Thanks for the game MrsNumbers, I hope you enjoyed it too...

[MrNumbers]

Yes, MrsNumbers also enjoyed the game. In fact, it could go either way, if she would have placed crrf tile by herself (she had such possibility), and claimed both farm and road. But she didn't want to free your monk, so you did it by yourself.
Still not bad - to achieve semifinal! Will there be a game for 3rd place?

[quevy]

Will there be a game for 3rd place?

In the last edition I and Jungle Boy we made the game for third and fourth place.
I think it should be done this time.