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I don't get the popularity of Azul either. It's not terrible, but it's so
dry and not particularly elegant.
I definitely recommend Quest for El Dorado, though.
On Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 11:17 AM Clay Blankenship [email protected]
[spielfrieks] <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> I will have to check out El Dorado. I hadn't heard much about it.
>
> I don't understand the appeal of Azul. It's pretty but I didn't find it
> very interesting.
>
> I've only played about 7 of these (sadly). The only one that has really
> excited me is Charterstone.
>
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2018 at 3:42 AM, Christopher Dearlove
> [email protected] [spielfrieks] <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> I should have voted, I might have given El Dorado it's extra vote.
>>
>> El Dorado is, for me, Reiner's best game of the last ten years. That's
>> not a random comment, I did a Geek search for possible competitors and
>> decided it beat them all. You wouldn't have to increase ten years by much
>> for that not to be true, but at ten years it had it for me.
>>
>> Of course always hPpy to hear which other Knizias of the last ten years
>> you think beat it.
>>
>> --
>> Christopher Dearlove
>> [email protected]
>> [email protected] <[email protected]> is dead
>>
>> On 23 Jun 2018, at 06:48, Jacob Lee [email protected] [spielfrieks] <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> 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)
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Clay Blankenship [email protected]
> "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." --Helen Keller
>
>
>
>