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Acquiring Civilization ...
38 Knizia fans found time in the busy 2006 schedule to play
11 E&T games over two preliminary heats. Eight of ten winners
showed for the semi-finals on Friday making two four-player games.
With an even number of winners and not enough players to fill
to 16, no alternates advanced this year.
 In
the first semi-final game, former champion Jeff Cornett avenged
his defeat in the 2005 Final by besting defending champion Matt
Calkins. Rob Kilroy also advanced from this game by virtue of
his second place finish. Craig Moffitt ended the second semi-final
game quickly by claiming three treasures. However, defending
Laurelist Eric Freeman also had three treasures and scored enough
from conflicts to beat Craig 5-5-5-7 to 5-5-5-5 to return the
Final again.
Turn order for the Final was based on results from the semi-finals.
Winners Eric and Jeff moved first and second; runners-up Craig
and Rob went third and fourth. In the early rounds, Eric setup
in the north by the Tigris, Rob and Craig both started to the
south of the Euphrates, and Jeff built a Blue/Green monument
at the intersection of the rivers. Rob won the first external
conflict between Traders by adding three tiles to the two on
the board to defeat Craig's early attack. With a new hand of
tiles, Craig placed his Farmer and successfully attacked Jeff's
Farmer with a merger. Not discouraged, Jeff continued his monument
building strategy by giving Eric two green points in order to
build a Green/Red monument to score some much needed red points
for himself. Jeff built Green/Black as his third monument after
having his black leader dislodged by a merger Eric caused.
By the midpoint, monument control was split between all the
players except Rob. Rob used an internal conflict to wrest control
of a blue monument from Craig. However, this opened up the board
leaving several monuments and large groups of supporting tiles
unclaimed. Eric had next opportunity to act and used his position
to win several conflicts over the next few turns. Meanwhile,
Craig aggressively fought internal conflicts for control of monuments
and Jeff tried to score some desperately needed black. In the
end, Jeff prevailed with a score of 8-8-10-14 to claim his second
E&T Crown and the second of four championships he would claim
that week. Craig had 8-8-8-12, Eric had 6-7-7-14, and Rob 5-5-8-9.
This year, players moving first or second won four games each
while players moving third or fourth won three games each. More
games ended from an empty tile bag (8) than treasures being taken
(6). In all games, the winner claimed 2 1/7 treasures per game
or about 30% of all taken.
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Craig Moffit [2nd Year]
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