Gaming Results

March 30, 2004

Called Dan and we hooked up and played a couple games in two-player form, just to kill some time while we ate some free-range steaks. Yum!

Tikal

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Mike	217	1
Dan	181	2	*

Notes: I've played this about 4 times, so I had a distinct advantage, which I exploited. Dan managed to get more treasures, but I had a great wedge of unthreatened temples in one region of the map that was hard to get to, and I expanded my lead immensely in the 3rd scoring round. The round by round scoring went like this:
1st - Mike 21, Dan 16
2nd - Mike 67, Dan 58
3rd - Mike 136, Dan 117
4th (as above)
Dan then started to at least make me move my guys around to get the temples saved. Both of us guarded two temples worth a total of 17 points early on, but mine cost me only 3 men, and Dan's cost him 5. I was able to use my men a bit more widely. It was pretty fun, but I find the game more challenging and exciting with 3 people. Dan's a notorious analysis paralysite, but he made his moves quickly in Tikal. Gotta play again with 3 or 4.

Carcassonne

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Dan	159	1
Mike	158	2

Notes: Very very close game. I had cloisters early, but Dan eventually caught up, and we both had some nice sized cities and roads throughout the game. There were two critical events that gave Dan the victory. One was that I was unable to get the one piece needed to connect my farmers to some more cities (thanks to an early misplay of mine and a nice defensive play by Dan), and Dan, on the second to last turn, turned a size 3 city of mine into 0 points (instead of 3) by plopping the citadel piece right in the middle of it. Argh! To be fair, though, Dan would have blown me out of the water if he had been able to complete a HUGE city in one area that he had been trying to cap off for about 10 turns. Carcassonne rocks with 2 players!