Online Agricola Announcement

January 23, 2017January 9, 2017

Agricola Season 1 Sign-ups Closed

Reserve a Spot in Season 2 Below

The Meeple League recently announced our first online event – a league for Thurn & Taxis players – but we’re not done there. We’re also starting up an online Agricola league for those who like their Eurogames a little heavier.

The format for all our leagues will be identical: players get grouped with 6 other players and put into 4 games (2 with each other player). Games will then be played asynchronously over the course of several weeks and a point system will be used to determine who wins the league (10 points for 1^st, 6 for 2^nd, 3 for 3^rd, and 1 point for finishing last). Winning your league gets you promoted to a higher division for the next season, while finishing in the bottom 2 gets you demoted to an easier one. You can read the full rules for our league format HERE .

For folks who like a complex challenge, Agricola has proven to be one of the best board games ever made. It may not draw the biggest crowds on the tournament circuit, but it is legendary for its consistently shark-infested fields. When it was first published back in 2007 it led the Spiel des Jahres committee to invent a new category (for “complex games”) so it could award a special prize, and as of this writing in early 2017 it is still the #11 overall ranked game of BoardGameGeek.

We’ll be using the online implementation of Agricola on www.boiteajeux.net. Games will be created with the Tournament mode setting (which just means the banned list used in most tournaments is implemented) and “Draft 7” will be used to distribute occupations and minor improvements from all 3 of the implemented decks: E, I, and K, though there are a few cards from the printed version of the game that have not been implemented (see the article about online Agricola). For season 1, we’ll be using BPA laurels in Agricola (see the Agricola Event History Page) to seed people into the initial divisions.

If you want to Sign up for Season 2 Agricola, please fill out this form (this will also put you in as an alternate for season 1 in case someone fails to join their games):

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A Quick Guide to Online Agricola

January 11, 2017December 22, 2016

– Randy Buehler

The most popular place to play Agricola on the web is at boiteajeux.net. Games are typically played asynchronously, which means you check in a couple of times per day and see if it’s your turn yet. Since most people are in more than a couple of games at a time, it’s probably your turn in a couple of them. Overall, games can take anywhere from a few days to a few months to finish, and there’s nothing stopping you from playing games in real-time if you have a group that’s all online at the same time.

The biggest drawback to Boiteajeux is that not all the cards are included. Some cards were left out because they were tricky to implement (especially for asynch play), though almost all the cards from the E, I, and K decks do exist (aka – the decks that come with the game) and you could play for quite a while before even realizing anything was left out. Here’s a complete list of the cards from that are missing:

19 – Gypsy’s Crock
34 – Basket
38 – Madonna Statue
40 – Mini Pasture
58 – Animal Yard
68 – Harrow
70 – Punner
73 – Guest
97 – Slaughterhouse
117 – Greenhouse
125 – Broom
138 – Reed Hut*
339 – Pelts

Occupations
164 (4+) – Master Forester
169 (4+) – Storyteller
178 (4+) – Hut Builder
179 (1+) – Merchant
196 (1+) – Mushroom Collector
198 (3+) – Ratcatcher*
207 (1+) – Stablehand
208 (1+) – Stable Master
215 (4+) – Tenant Farmer
216 (4+) – Animal Keeper
223 (3+) – Harvest Helper
230 (4+) – Clay Digger
234 (3+) – Wood Buyer
237 (4+) – Juggler
239 (4+) – Corn Profiteer
251 (4+) – Reed Buyer
255 (4+) – Stone Buyer
260 (4+) – Taster*
261 (4+) – Outrider
263 (1+) – Fence Builder
269 (4+) – Acrobat
273 (4+) – Basin Maker
284 (1+) – Wood Distributor
289 (4+) – Countryman
299 (3+) – Slaughterman
301 (1+) – Wood Carver
307 (4+) – Animal Breeder
308 (4+) – Foreman
312 (1+) – Fence Overseer

Online Thurn & Taxis Tournament

January 19, 2017December 22, 2016

Sign-ups closed for Meeple League's 1st Online Event!

Reserve a spot for the next Season Below

Here at the Meeple League our primary mission is to improve the quality of board game tournament offerings. We are delighted to announce that one of the ways we will do that is by offering our own online events! Just like “live” events, we will use a standardized format so you’ll know what to expect whenever you sign up, but the details for online events will be different from the typical tournaments you might have experienced at a convention.

This article will walk you through everything you can expect from our League format, plus – most importantly – tell you how you can sign up for our first supported game: Thurn & Taxis!

Our online events will be structured as ongoing leagues, and not as one-shot tournaments. When you sign up you will be placed in a league along with 6 other gamers, and you will be placed into 4 total games (with each other member of your division appearing in 2 of them). All the games will be played “asynchronously” through a specified website, which means players will each check in to see if it’s their turn several times a day at their convenience, and the games will play out over the course of several weeks.

Once all the games are done, we use a point system to see who won each league (10 points for 1^st, 6 for 2^nd, 3 for 3^rd, and 1 point for finishing last). The leagues themselves are divided into divisions and whenever you win a league, you get promoted up to a tougher (but more prestigious) division. Meanwhile, if you finish in the bottom 2 of your league, you get demoted into an easier division for the next season. We’ll keep track of lifetime standings so everyone can see how they measure up, and we’ll also be prominently displaying the names of everyone who wins division one. Click to see detailed rules.

Fans of Terra Mystica may recognize this as the same basic format being used on http://tmtour.org/#/ to govern tournaments run using the online implementation at http://terra.snellman.net.

We think this system will work well for lots of other games, too. Note that in order to seed players for the very first season, we’ll be using the lifetime laurel counts from the Boardgame Players Association – aka, the folks who run the World Boardgaming Championship . You can check your laurels for the game on the T&T Event History Page.

Thurn & Taxis is a nice light Euro-game that has been very popular on the tournament circuit ever since it won the Spiel des Jahres in 2006. It’s actually one of the few games at the World Boardgaming Championships that’s big enough to require a quarter-final round.

Our Thurn & Taxis League will use the online implementation at www.yucata.de. We will use the original version of the game – no expansion content, and no special options. Games are scheduled to start in late January and you’ll receive a schedule in your email once the pairings are ready. If you do sign up, you are committing to checking the website a couple of times on most days (it’s OK if something comes up every once in a while, or if you’re out of town for a weekend (for example), but in general we’re hoping game lengths will be measured in weeks not months.

If you want to play in future Thurn & Taxis tournament, please sign up here:

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Puzzle for January 2017

January 24, 2017December 14, 2016

The Game: Lords of Waterdeep

by Marcy Morelli, Puzzle Editor

About the Game

Lords of Waterdeep is a worker placement game for 2-5 players which was released in 2012. It has become a standard at open gaming events and tournaments.

Players gain points or resources through completing quests, constructing buildings, playing intrigue cards or having other players utilize the buildings you have constructed. At the end of 8 rounds of play, the player who has accrued the most points wins the game.

Your position

You are playing: Red

Your Lord is: Khelben Arlinsun who rewards Arcana and Warfare.

Your buildings: None

On hand you have:

Four Intrigue cards, two of which are mandatory quests
5 money
2 white cubes and 1 orange cube

About the Game

You are playing a 4 player game, currently in the 5^th round

Black has completed four quests, two of which are plot quests

Blue has completed one quest, which is a plot quest

Green has completed three quests, none of which are plot quests

Current score:

Green: 39
Red: 36
Blue: 20
Black: 20

The situation:

With your first agent, you have played on the middle slot of CliffWatch Inn, and collected your Intrigue card. You are deciding which quest to take.

Since your lord card rewards Arcana quests, you are looking at the two available Arcana quests and trying to decide which to choose.

Expose Red Wizard’s Spies requires one white cube, one orange cube, four black cubes, and two money. It pays out 20 VPs and an intrigue card.

Explore Arghairon’s Tower requires one purple cube, two black cubes, and two money. It is a plot quest which gives an immediate reward of 6 VPs, but also lets you draw an intrigue card whenever you play a purple cube.

Do you choose?

Expose Red Wizard’s Spies
Explore Arghairon’s Tower

Discuss your rationale.

For more about the game, view the BGG page at: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/110327/lords-waterdeep