Well, wouldja just look at what appeared on the App Store today: That’s right – excellent XBLA (and, of course, real life board) game Carcassonne. With online, turn-based, push-enabled gameplay! Flabber has never been so ghasted! After a few hiccups, such as no idea how to start a game – it just “happens”, and no way of swapping to another game (turns out to press the cog then Pause), I now have a game in full flow. And it’s excellent! …
Haven’t played this in quite a while, although not as long ago as this diary would have you believe as I don’t always record playing it (especially if it’s just one or two goes). As usual, I played against my wife, and unusually she won one of the three games. By quite some way, as well. This must not happen again!
Two more games of this with my wife today, both of which I won. Hurrah for me! I didn’t let her win even though it is her birthday today.
Played some games of this with my wife again this evening. The extra features of the recent expansion do make things different, and, in fact, my wife won a game for the first time in ages. I think I’ll be turning that expansion off from now on.
The “Kings and Barons” expansion pack for this appeared during the week, but since I’d spent the last points I had on Tetris Splash and my credit card had been stolen by the postman so I couldn’t buy any more. Today, however, I had my new card and it was put into immediate service, buying some points. Played (in single player) a few games with the new expansion (and all the previous ones active too), and it really does change …
Some of our games on this are now getting a little devious. Not only are we progressing onto nicking castles and roads from under each other’s noses, but we’re also planning ahead with hostile farm takeovers and castle completion sabotage with cunning use of roads. I still won all the games we played this evening though. Tch, eh?
My friend Ian came up for the weekend, mainly to help explode some concrete cluttering up my lounge, but this evening me, him and my wife played Carcassonne for a few games. Of course, he had no idea how to play, so the first few games were somewhat hand-holdy (uh, not in that way), but once he’d grasped it, he then wiped the floor with us. That’s the last time I explain all the rules to anyone. Bah.
Just the one go on this with my wife, as my eyes were starting to fail me (a combination of dust/soil/pollen/spider webs from today’s Big Gardening Adventure and Mario’s Super Picross). That doesn’t mean I didn’t win though, as I did. When is the next expansion pack out? We really need it now, I think.
You know, I do play this a lot more often than I normally report on. It’s a regular “a couple of goes before bed” game. Anyway, played two rounds with my wife, and won both. I always seem to score badly through the game as she picks up huge castles and long roads, and then make a killing with carefully planned farms.
I paid for and downloaded the River II expansion pack today. It adds a load more river tiles to the game, allowing the river to have a bit more of an effect on the game – it splits, and there are city-bridges, etc. Played a couple of games with my wife, both of which ended up with really high scores (due to the extra tiles, I’ll bet), but I won both!
Hurrah! I won my first ranked match this evening. In fact, it was the first ranked match the game has actually let me play, I think – every other time I tried I get disconnected, there’s no-one playing, or my opponent quits before the game starts. But I only won by a single point! I was convinced I was going to win when we were down to about 10 tiles, as even though we had the same number of points, …
Lots of play on this today. So much so, in fact, that I gained the achievement for 5000 points in total! Also played it online, and got the achievement for a 9+ tile city, although I didn’t win the match. Came second though. The rest of play was offline against the CPU, and loads of games against my wife. It seems farms are the keys to maximising your score, so I try to get in early with follower placement. Sometimes …
I seem to be playing this almost solely in two player with my wife these days. Not that that’s a bad thing, just an observation. Anyway, played five games (without the river expansion, I should add) and won four of them.
My wife has been practicing this vs hard computer opponents, and so has upped her game considerably since we last played. Now there is increased deviousness in castle-stealage and farm planning, which makes things a bit harder for me. I did, however, manage to beat her 2-1 this evening.
Yet more play on this with my wife this evening. We played a few games with a third (AI) player, but it just made things confusing. We also played with the river expansion turned on for a few games, but that too made it more confusing. So we went back to playing it normally.