World Team Carcassonne Online Championship
2025
Week “four”
Dear followers of fascinating facts,
With four rounds behind us and just one more to go in the group stage, the pressure is mounting. Some teams have already secured their ticket to the knockout phase no matter what happens in the last week. Others, unfortunately, have seen their hopes come to an early end, but for most teams everything is still on the line. Excitement is guaranteed.
Weekly records and fun facts
- 17 matches, 85 duels, and 204 games were played this week
- 1 duel(s) had 1 game played (1 game(s) total)
- 49 duels had 2 games played (98 games total)
- 35 duels had 3 games played (105 games total)
- Four teams have already secured their place in the playoffs: the two former world champions, China (Group A) and Japan (Group E), are joined by the United States (also from Group E) and Croatia (Group G). These four teams have managed to win all their matches so far. For team Croatia this will be their first appearance in a WTCOC knockout phase.
- Alas, Thailand’s winning streak has ended. They were stopped by the very team whose record (longest winning streak of a debutant team) they had threatened: Romania.
- This week’s highest score (145 points at table #674971939)… and the 2nd highest score (143 points at table #674987165)… were both earned by mirr14 (Gre). mirr14 is also the only player to have two game scores in the top 10 so far this year.
- Unsurprisingly, one of mirr14’s games (the one at table #674971939) also had the highest combined score (273 points) and highest losing score (130 points).
- Wolf Ren (Vnm) had this week’s lowest winning score of 66 points
- Round 4 was definitely the week of large fields.
- Helic (HK) and Lapinkoski (Fin) established a new record by sharing a 39 point field at table #674035884 (13 cities!)
- But there were further 3 games with fields worth 36 points. (the largest fields scored in the first three rounds were worth only 33 points.)
- The other feature records for this week are:
- 14 point unfinished road scored by Navarre79 (Ger) and kspttw (Pol) at table #674991018 on move 138
- 38 point city scored by HaraoH (Jap) at table #674904948 on move 84
- Geo100 (Rom) scored 40 monastery points at table #674492863 (1 complete and 4 incomplete monasteries)
- Finland is relieved that there were no draws in their match against Hong Kong, and we’ll have to wait until next week to see if Hong Kong can win their 4th draw.
- 6 games ended in a draw this week, but each draw occured in a different match
- This week only one game was lost due to a player not showing up…for the 2nd game of the duel, not the first!
- 5 games ended with a player receiving a BGA time penalty because they exceeded the time limit, but two of those games were in a tournament that was accidently created with only 5 minutes of thinking time per player! However, only two of those 5 games were entered into the WTCOC database (by the winning team’s captain) as games ‘lost by time’.
- After HotlyHotly’s (Twn) defeat this week, only one player is left with a 100% record in all four rounds: GUN007 (Tha) has won all 8 of his games so far – despite having been the starting player only 3 times.
- Both should (Jap) and Salva3xz (Col) extended their long winning streaks: their wins in R4 mean that these streaks are now 11 and 10 duels long, respectively.
- Although players had to discard tiles 6 times this week, no players or teams had to discard more than one tile (which was the cccc tile every time).
- But…for the first time this year (and maybe in WTCOC history?) pollo_verde (Ita) discarded a tile during a game that ended in a tie… thereby losing not only the starting player advantage, but also the game. Ouch! 😣
- It hurts to be the starting player and lose a draw due to the tiebreaker, so some players jokingly describe this unpleasant experience as getting Raf’d because the tiebreaker was implemented by BGA for all Carcassonne games after CraftyRaf (Bel) suggested having this tiebreaker as a tournament option.
Winning more games – and still losing the match?
Round 4 brought us a curious statistical twist: for the first time in this tournament, a team lost a match despite winning more individual games than their opponent. And it didn’t just happen once—it happened four times! Taiwan, the Netherlands, Thailand and Slovakia all won more games overall, yet still came out on the losing side of their respective matches against Croatia, USA, Romania, and Uruguay. This unusual outcome can occur when a team wins three duels 2–1 but loses two duels 0–2, resulting in more game wins but fewer duel victories. It’s a rare scenario, but Round 4 delivered it in style—with four such matches in a single round!
Clock Curiosity #2 – A starting player disadvantage?
Last week, we looked at how BGA’s scoring animations can take away precious seconds from players’ clocks. But there is another issue – BGA quirks often make it difficult to find and join tournament games, which will more likely affect starting players. This results in lost seconds (or in some cases even minutes) at the beginning of the game before the first tile is even placed. This is caused by the fact that BGA tournament games start once all players have joined the game but… the players might not see the game board right away, or even realize that they have already joined. Players therefore need to find and navigate to the tournament game “table” that has already started. Unfortunately the way this is done is not entirely self-evident, and even experienced players can get lost on the site and lose valuable time.
In the first four rounds of the group stage, 78 games (9.3% of all games) had a starting player who needed at least 30 seconds to place the first tile. In 11 of these games, it took more than a minute. The slowest start? A full 3.5 minutes before the first tile was played!
The wasted time must have been particularly painful for Secret Star (Chn), who lost 75 seconds on his first move of the deciding game in his Round 3 duel vs Sunny369 (HK), where he eventually lost the game – and the duel – by running out of time. In general, there may also be some correlation between the initial time loss of a starting player and losing the game by running over time. While the sample may not be large enough to make general statements, it is the case that the vast majority of the players who lost by time were starting players, and their average initial time loss was 25 seconds.
In all cases, the first tile took at least 4 seconds to be placed, while plenty of non-starting players were able to place their first tile within 1 second.
Of course, it is also possible for a non-starting player to lose time at the beginning of the game, but usually to a lesser degree because they don’t start losing time until the starting player has completed their first turn. On average, non-starting players placed their first tile in 11.6 seconds, compared to 16.3 seconds for starting players. In fact, if we look only at games where the first tile didn’t have a city cap so no animation was triggered, the average is 10.7 seconds.) And there were “only” 47 games (5.6%) where it took the non-starting players at least half a minute to place the first tile (compared to 78 games reflecting 9.3%). However, it is interesting to note that 13 of these cases were very high time losses of over 1 minute.
Conclusion: at the beginning of the 1st game of a tournament, the starting player’s disadvantage is greater. They lose 7.5 seconds more than the non-starting player, on average. In the following games the difference is not so significant, averaging 2.7 seconds.
We strongly recommend that all players (though for some it might already be too late 🙁) read the BGA Tournament Survival Guide written by Mingo. It explains clearly how to find and join your games quickly—so you can save time and avoid early trouble.
Mr. Curiossonne presents…
Meeple meetups
Although WTCOC is held entirely online, that doesn’t stop players from meeting up with each other in person! Here are some examples involving WTCOC players from just this past year:
- The biggest Carcassonne meetup every year coincides with the Carcassonne World Championship in Herne, Germany. Each year there is an increasing number of players traveling to Herne to watch the championship and to catch some late night games in nearby hotels. Some players and spectators are extending their trips to take in the sights. Last fall, for example, JinaJina, Nallerheim (Fin), and Mingo decided on a whim to travel to Wuppertal (south of Herne) to take an evening ride in the hanging cars of the oldest electric elevated railway in the world.
- Superhosts: Carcassonne Cats in Barcelona (notably defdean, Pronom feble, senglar and former WTCOC players Pere V and La Nova Era)
- When crocodilefundy (USA) met up with the crew in early March, he played his first ever in-person game of Carcassonne against the reigning Carcassonne world champion senglar. How many people can say that?
- Earlier in March, bazilyuk (Ukr) played Carcassonne with defdean, Pronom feble, and senglar in a board game cafe, and also spent an evening eating pizza, checking out bars, and singing in the streets (and bars) of Barcelona with LadyOfAvalon (WTCOC ‘23)
- Someone_you_know (RCP) met up with the Carcassonne Cat crew in October before continuing on to Germany for the 2024 Carcassonne World Championship.
- dremkad (Col) gave former WTCOC players Kaa-/mquaresma/Melvin and danpessoa (along with Carcassone Brazil player Diego Raymundo) a city tour when they all happened to be in Bogotá, Colombia on the same day.
- admitted (USA) met up with Sunny369 (HK) in London last May after they both participated in the Azul World Championship in Lisbon, Portugal (another significant Carcassonne meetup that was mentioned in last year’s Curiosities here). admitted also traveled to Greece, Paris, and Germany to meet up with other BGA friends. Boardgame tourism! 🤓
- Last November, admitted merely had to take the subway to meet up with his ‘United We Stand’ league teammate Priskus (Por) who was visiting NYC with his wife to celebrate her 50th birthday.
- Pronom feble (Cat) attended an international environmental work camp in Iceland in July, which just happened to be located about 20 minutes from the home of bobondi (Icelandic national champion) and his wife Kaisa15, who enthusiastically invited Pronom feble *and* her 5 camp-mates to dinner and an evening of games.
- Malaysian team members bubblecroman and kaika87 (WTCOC ’22-’24) met up with Ted the notty bear (UK) who was visiting family in Malaysia last June. Ted the notty bear and kaika87’s played two games of Carcassonne in a coffee shop, drawing the attention of other nearby coffee drinkers.
- Last week ComplixVandh (Mex) quickly greeted Kaa-/Melvin (Bra) upon his arrival in Boston (USA) before Kaa- was whisked off to do some photography work in Maine… where Kaa- and Mingo took in some of the sights near her mother’s home town in a lesser-known corner of the USA.
- Alexey_LV (Lat) is undeniably this year’s International Carcassonne meetup Champion:
- Alexey and Sunny369 (HK) co-streamed a series of week 2 WTCOC matches live from Alexey’s studio in Cambridge, UK.
- Alexey and adrear (Ukr) played a few games of Carcassonne (without meeples!) outdoors on a rumply blanket in Cambridge, followed by co-commentating the week 1 duel between Nallerheim (Fin) and Megot Noskill (Aus). Correction: That ‘blanket’ was actually a giant tablecloth from the Azul World Championship.
- In March, Alexey met up with philosophy professor Lord Terrycloth (UK) in Cambridge for an illuminating discussion on the philosophy of tile counters
- Besson (Bra) visited Alexey in February, helping him practice for (and win!) the 2025 CCL (Carcassonne Champion’s League). Another satisfied customer of “Carcassonne School of Besson!”
- Alexey had a full-day layover in Montreal, Canada last August, where he had breakfast with bazilyuk (Ukr) and climbed to the top of Mont Real with Mingo to play Carcassonne on a flat rock overlooking the city. All three gathered for a multinational game of “Perfect Information Carcassonne” before Alexey had to catch his flight back home.
- Carcassonne Brazil takes superhosting to a whole new level: Last August, Alexey was immersed in Brazilian hospitality as he visited past and present team members and their families, played in the Minas Gerais Carcassonne league, taught a class of Carcassonne Young Talents in São Paulo, and live streamed the 2024 Brazilian National Championship alongside Kaa- and Fukuda…all giving commentary entirely in Portuguese! Alexey’s answer when asked which members of this year’s Brazilian team he has actually met in person: “All of them!”
Have you participated in any International Meeple Meetups over the past year? Mr Curiossonne wants to know!
Thank you for reading, sharing & caring,
szigfrid, manarori, JinaJina & Mingo 😘