Veni, vidi, vendidi.

Despite a downturn in convention attendance, Concordia enjoyed record numbers—just barely missing triple digits.  Heat 1 alone had 60 entrants which translated to 15 games—or over 25% more than the entire event drew in 2014. Unfortunately, it was scheduled for the Laurel room which proved too small for this onslaught so five games were redirected upstairs to the ballroom. Heat 2 had 38 entrants, 20 of whom had played in Heat 1. Since this heat was scheduled in the much larger Seasons room there wasn't much of a problem finding space other than being scattered around the room a bit. Heat 3 surprisingly had 40 entrants, 28 of whom had played in a previous heat.

Many thanks to my assistants, Rich Atwater and Jason Ley, for helping keep track when there were widely separated groups. None of the games this year needed adjudication; in fact many were concluded in record time.

There were 26 unique winners, seven of whom won twice. Two of the double winners played in all three heats. I was asked many times if one win would be enough to qualify for the semifinal. If all 26 unique winners had been available at the semifinal then a single win would not be sufficient. However, as usually happens, not all of the potential qualifiers appeared for advancement so one win was enough. It also looks like I won't have to expand the semifinal to 25 seats yet. That being said, I wouldn't count on it always being the case.

The Final table was (in seating order): Dave Brown, Robb Effinger, Curt Collins and Randy Buehler. Dave opened with the "traditional" Architect card play and built in the brick city of Syracvsae and the wine city of Leptis Magna. Robb followed with a "traditional" Diplomat card play to duplicate the Architect that Dave had played. He also built in the brick city of Syracvse, plus the food city of Cyrene. He also said that he felt "forced" to continue to raise the tax on the cloth city of Dyrrhachivm so that the next player could not afford to build there either.

Curt also played his Diplomat card to duplicate the Architect with which Dave had started the game. He also built in the brick city of Syracvse, plus the food city of Athenae. There was some more mumbling about denying the cloth city again and plenty of chuckles.

Randy said that he couldn't afford to build the cloth city either so he was
going to just go somewhere else entirely. He also used his Diplomat card and built on the tools city of Carthago and the brick city of Rvsadir.

This was the first time I have seen all players use only their ship colonist to start building. Another oddity of this game was that Roma was depopulated within the next two rounds. No one built a new colonist for eight Tribune cards.

Dave ended the game to receive the seven-point Concordia card; however, Robb was the winner by 14 points over Randy. Dave and Curt were tied, but Dave had the tiebreaker to earn third.

A new Mercator Maximus award was given to the player who achieved the highest score. A Mercator Optimus award is given to the player who had the best first over second score ratio. Both awards require that the score occur in a 4-player (or more) game. Randy Buehler won Mercator Maximus in Heat 1 with a score of 148. Robb Effinger won Mercator Optimus with a ratio of 1.27 also in Heat 1. Since these players went on to finish first and second, their preliminary wins were apparently not fluke occurrences,  but an indication of prowess to come.

ANECDOTES

• "I don't win this game very often. That was kind of exciting."
• "I need a GM ruling: Does everyone get to act on their turn or do we skip Player 1 on Turn 3?" Followed by laughter from the table in question.
• "I hate this game. If I'm not careful, I might win."
• Someone whined, "Why do I have the Magnus now...?"
• "Fighting for third."