Third-round match: A hard-fought match between moomoo and qdread ends in. . . yet another tie! Very exciting and enjoyable games.
round 1 (moomoo wins 6-0 by achievements)
http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201412/09/game-20141209-175530-d9e26e36.html: A six-nil shellacking where moomoo exploited Clothing, Wheel, and Masonry early on while I was stuck teching up with Math, ending up with the useless board of Feudalism and Printing Press. Moomoo made short work of me with Agriculture scoring.
round 2 (moomoo wins by score, achievements were 6-5 in favor of qdread)
http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201412/09/game-20141209-182119-aec1c66a.html: I was frustrated by this one, as I scored a lot of points early on with Clothing and Perspective which also got me Monument. However, I could not quite get the 7th achievement. Moomoo built a giant forecast with Glassblowing, accessed it with Math, then teched up big time with Slide Rule, but I was able to equal the tech levels with Piano. At the end I was forced to try some desperate gambits with Thermometer and Hot Air Balloon to try to end the game on points, but all that ended up happening was me giving Moomoo Databases, which eviscerated my score pile, leaving the road open to quickly empty the 10's pile.
round 3 (qdread wins 8-6 by achievements)
http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201412/09/game-20141209-184905-685cdaf7.html: This was a very back-and-forth affair. I tucked many cards early then set Moomoo back with a War decreed by Tigernmas. I had two inspiration effects in yellow so I kept milking them to tuck cards, luckily giving me Monument. Moomoo achieved the early standard achievements, and I inadvertently put Almanac on Moomoo's board. I was falling behind, but then teched up with Printing Press to level 8. We traded a few achievements and then Moomoo went on a binge with Watermill to get up to level 7 as well. Luckily I was able to cash in 3 achievements in one turn to win because my board was so built up by that point, but it was definitely a come-from-behind win.
round 4 (qdread wins by Radio Telescope, achievements were 6-3 in favor of qdread)
http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201412/09/game-20141209-191547-801ec34d.html: This was a truly ridiculous game, which I have come to expect with all three expansions in play. We began by frantically melding and drawing cities. Moomoo teched up quickly with Lever, while I built a big board by endorsing Deodorant and took a few early achievements. Moomoo used cities to tech up even higher while I tucked cards and decreed Expansion. After Moomoo scored Monument with a big Suburbia, I pulled some major shenanigans: I activated Palampore to splay purple right and expose the echo of the card that again came up huge: Piano! I shared Clock with Moomoo to draw an 8 with the echo, which ended up being Radio Telescope, and got Catherine the Great as a sharing bonus. Moomoo started to meld 10's and got a big points lead, but I melded Radio Telescope and Catherine the Great. This gave me so many lightbulbs that I even had to voluntarily return Atomic Theory from my board to drop me from 39 bulbs to 33. If I had not, I would have lost on points by activating Radio Telescope. As it was, I activated it once to draw 16 cards, meld A.I., and sleaze out a victory!