Re: 2017 Meeples Choice Awards - Final Results

I really pushed for #4 and #5, but I have to admit I'm not very familiar
with The Gaia Project.  I have to check it out now!

Thanks again for running a super fun vote!  I can understand why you want
the user count to grow (better than the alternative) and I'm sure someday
it will grow big, but for now I enjoy having a vote that's worth so much.

Jacob

On 22 June 2018 at 13:25, [email protected] [spielfrieks] <
[email protected]> wrote:

>
>
> Stop pushing those electrons, everybody—the voting for the 2017 Meeples
> Choice Awards is over!  You known, one of the great things about the MCA’s
> is that they’ve been around long enough to have established a history.
> After all, we began the process in 2001 and have voted on years going back
> to 1995.  That means it’s significant when someone accomplishes something
> for only the second time.  It’s also of interest when a formerly dominant
> award winner barely misses a return to the winner’s circle.  To make these
> ramblings clear, let me cut to the chase and announce that the winners of
> this year’s Meeples Choice Awards are:
>
>
>
> AZUL
>
> HEAVEN & ALE
>
> GAIA PROJECT
>
>
>
> Before we delve into history, let’s look at the expectations for this
> year’s awards.  As usual, there were plenty of candidates from last year,
> with no fewer than 10 games in the Geek’s top 100.  The top candidate had
> to be Gloomhaven, the #1 game on the site.  But Spielfriek voters have
> shown in the past that they march to their own drummer and this year was no
> exception.  Gloomhaven got off to a very slow start during the nomination
> process and there was real possibility that it might not even make the
> final cut.  However, it did rally late, although it still didn’t make the
> top 10, making its chances for victory pretty unlikely.
>
>
>
> Instead, the two leading vote getters during the first round, by a fairly
> significant margin, were a couple of Michael Kiesling designs, Heaven & Ale
> and Azul.  The former was something of a surprise, since, even though it is
> well regarded, it didn’t have the stratospheric ratings of many of last
> year’s other titles.  After those came the two Terra Mystica “spinoffs”,
> Clans of Caledonia and Gaia Project, along with Reiner Knizia’s El Dorado
> and Tom Lehmann’s Jump Drive.  It figured to be a spirited battle for the
> three top spots.
>
>
>
> And that’s just how it turned out.  Azul zoomed to the top of the voting
> fairly early and by the end of the weekend, it had garnered twice as many
> votes as any other game, virtually guaranteeing it’s victory.  But there
> was a real scramble for the remaining two positions.  At one point, El
> Dorado and Nusfjord were looking good.  But then Gaia Project wedged its
> way into the top three.  Then, Heaven & Ale, which had been hanging back in
> the voting, despite its excellent showing during the first round, had a
> late surge on Tuesday and zoomed up to second place.  El Dorado still
> threatened, only one vote behind Gaia.  But that last vote never came.
> Five other games (Altiplano, Clans of Cledonia, Jump Drive, Nusfjord, and
> The 7th Continent) were only one vote further back.  Lisboa rounded out the
> top ten.  Gloomhaven, which is clearly not a favorite of the group,
> finished in a tie for 11th.
>
>
>
> So what’s the history I was talking about earlier?  Kiesling becomes only
> the second designer to have two MCA-winning games in the same calendar
> year.  The only other instance is Knizia, who, remarkably, did it in
> back-to-back years (1998 and 1999).  Kiesling, who has created so many
> great games with Wolfgang Kramer over the years, but who consequently has
> lived in his considerable shadow over the last two decades, had a fabulous
> year last year and this just puts an exclamation point on it.
>
>
>
> The other big story is how close Knizia came to winning another award.  No
> one has had more MCA success than Reiner—10 of his games have won and no
> other designer has more than 4 victories—but his last win was for Blue Moon
> City, way back in 2006.  Since then, none of his games has made a serious
> bid for an MCA award until this year.  El Dorado fell just one vote short..
> Instead, Gaia Project, which figured to be one of the favorites to finish
> in the top 3, beat it out.
>
>
>
> So congratulations to designers Michael Kiesling, Andreas Schmidt (the
> co-designer of Heaven & Ale), Jens Drogemuller, and Helge Ostertag.
> Remarkably, these are the first MCA wins for Kiesling (his best shot among
> his previous 7 nominations was for Tikal in 1999, but it finished fourth,
> beaten out by Knizia’s second MCA winner that year, Lost Cities).  It’s
> also Schmidt’s first win, while Drogemuller and Ostertag won previously for
> Terra Mystica back in 2012.  Congratulations as well to the publishers,
> Plan B Games, eggertspiele, and Feuerland Spiele.
>
>
>
> 68 people voted in the final round, which is just about as many as voted
> last year.  I’d like to see that number grow a bit, but it’s large enough
> to yield significant results, so I can live with it.  We only had 59 voters
> during the first round, which is a bit low.  I don’t know if more people
> vote during the last round, because the choices are easier, or if the word
> doesn’t get out soon enough that the voting has begun.  I do post things on
> the Geek and the Opinionated Gamers websites about both rounds, so I’m not
> sure how to publicize the beginning of the voting better.  Geeklists
> undoubtedly attract more attention than Forum posts do, so maybe next year,
> I’ll put together a “Predict the Meeples Choice Award Winners” Geeklist or
> something, just to get some notice and remind Spielfriek voters that the
> voting has begun.
>
>
>
> I’ve listed the results for the final round at the end of this note.  The
> games are shown in the order of the votes they received during the final
> election, with the number of votes received during the first round shown in
> parentheses.  If you’ll go to meepleschoice.win and click on the “See
> Results” button, you’ll be able to see the results of both rounds of voting
> this year.  If you click on a specific election, you can see all the
> results on one page.  If you click on a game title for a particular
> election, you can see all the public votes for that game, so you can check
> out how your buddies voted.
>
>
>
> Thanks to everyone who participated in the elections.  The Meeples Choice
> Awards are one of the highlights of my gaming year and I look forward to
> conducting them next year and for many years to come.
>
>
>
> Here are the final results of the 2017 MCA’s:
>
>
>
>   1.  Azul – 21  (25)
>
>   2.  Heaven & Ale – 13  (26)
>
>   3.  Gaia Project – 12  (16)
>
>   4.  The Quest for El Dorado – 11  (17)
>
>   5.  Clans of Caledonia – 10  (19)
>
>   5.  Jump Drive – 10  (15)
>
>   5.  Nusfjord – 10  (13)
>
>   5.  Altiplano – 10  (12)
>
>   5.  The 7th Continent – 10  (7)
>
> 10.  Lisboa – 8  (11)
>
> 11.  Magic Maze – 7  (12)
>
> 11.  Rajas of the Ganges – 7  (12)
>
> 11.  Gloomhaven – 7  (11)
>
> 11.  Photosynthesis – 7  (8)
>
> 15.  Gentes – 6  (12)
>
> 15.  Sagrada – 6  (9)
>
> 15.  Charterstone – 6  (8)
>
> 18.  Pulsar 2849 – 5  (13)
>
> 18.  Keyper – 5  (10)
>
> 18.  Barenpark – 5  (8)
>
> 18.  Dinosaur Island – 5  (7)
>
> 22.  Codenames Duet – 4  (13)
>
> 22.  NMBR 9 – 4  (9)
>
> 22.  Ethnos – 4  (8)
>
> 22.  Sidereal Confluence – 4  (7)
>
> 26.  Riverboat – 3  (8)
>
> 27.  Santa Maria – 2  (7)
>
> 
>