Oof!

There are many reasons why I shouldn’t play a whole game of Carcassonne between 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning. The score is the least of them.

I lost, heavily.

This is the exact moment that I knew I was doomed.

I thought it was because I’d been unlucky with the draw, but my opponent told me that I’d missed several opportunities to take the biggest castle for myself.

I guess, then, that I’m just not very good. (I’m still third on my friends leaderboard, though.)

I think I’m getting better, slowly. I’m looking at the remaining tiles before playing a move now, for example, to see how likely I am to be able to complete any plans I have. I’m trying to think long term from the beginning, but I think it’s at the expense of flexibility. I decide on a course of action and dedicate myself to it, missing other plays I could make that would be more fruitful.

It’s amazing that after all this time and all these games that I still feel very much like a beginner; it’s an incredibly well-designed game.

I wonder if we'll ever get any expansions?

I was feeling fairly confident at the mid-game stage, but near the end of the game my cunning opponent closed off some castles and put his peeps to work in the fields. With one straight road piece left, the game would hinge on who got it. If he got it, he could neutralise my largest field, if I got it I could make sure his peep was wasted.

I got it, right near the end of the game.

I still wasn’t sure who would win. If you’ve played the game, you’ll know that there’s nothing more tense than watching the numbers tick up once all the tiles have been played. I watched, I held my breath, I won by one solitary point.

Phew.

It’s a brilliant game, ported to the iPhone with great care, so why am I not playing it much? There’s a simple answer. It requires a huge amount of concentration and planning. It makes your brain work far more than something like Words With Friends, where it’s hard to plan more than a move or two ahead. In Carcassonne you’re constantly watching what everyone is doing, trying to play the odds, making important decisions almost every turn, thinking through the whole game. It wears me out. There’s only so much I can take.

Yes, I am excellent.

Yes, yes, I’m only posting about Carcassonne today because I won a game against a few people. You got a problem with that? It’s my blog, I can do what I want. Y’all don’t me! I can do what I want! I’m grown!

I like games with lots of players.

As suspected, I’ve been dropping down my friends leaderboard. I managed to lose some very tight, tense games and my ranking took a big hit. I’ve also been playing some really idiotic moves in my current games, so I don’t expect things will get better soon.

I'm number two! I'm number two!

So, yeah, as you can see from that picture up there, Carcassonne has a leaderboard that shows how you rank against all your friends. I’m not doing too badly at all, though I have a feeling I’m going to drop down a lot when a couple of my current games finish.

It can be hard keeping track of games with multiple opponents.

It’s all very well going for castle and road points, but if you let your opponent(s) grab points at the end of the game then you’re stuffed. Obvious stuff, yes, but I’m starting to feel like I’m getting into the game properly now.

Most matches seem to end up about this close.

Yes, I’m even winning some of my matches, but by no means all.

Nearing the end of the game I won.

Just like Words With Friends, I play Carcassonne every day but never seem to blog about it. It’s hard to find anything useful to say. It’s a bloody brilliant game design, it’s perfectly executed on the iPhone and even the teething troubles with Internet play against friends seem to have been ironed out now.

Oh, and I won a game at the weekend. I think it was a fluke, though, because I don’t feel like I’ve really got a handle on the game yet.

Nooooooooooooo!

Sometimes, just sometimes, I hate this game. (And not only when the online mode refuses to work properly.)

Solitaire mode. The tutorial was a bit rubbish - or I skipped some of it without realising - but it eventually makes sense.

Tried the Solitaire mode of Carcassonne last night. Basically, you need to create cities and roads that increase in size. First up, you need to create roads and cities that cover two squares, then three and so on. Laying tiles loses you points – and the points you lose increase as the size of the map increases. So you’ve basically got to complete cities and roads while trying to keep the map as small as possible.

It’s hard work, but in a good way, I think. I need more time with it to be sure.