age of renaissance

Updated Nov. 30, 2015

2015 WBC Report

2016 Status: pending
December 2015
Membership Trial Vote

Wade Campbell, on

2015 Champion

WBC Event History
1996 Mike May 30
1997 George Sauer 106
1998 Mark Giddings 124
1999 Ewan McNay 115
2000 Ewan McNay 81
2001 Rich Curtin 80
2002 Ken Gutermuth 65
2003 Ewan McNay 47
2004 Steve Simmons 42
2005 Mark Smith 36
2006 Jeff Mullet 29
2007 Kevin Sudy 33
2008 Jeff Mullet 24
2009 Ted Simmons 23
2010 Doug Galullo 26
2011 Harald Henning 33
2012 Bruce Reiff 25
2013 Ted Simmons 38
2014 Nick Henning 24
2015 Wade Campbell 23

Enlightenment Event History
1998 Bill Crenshaw 31
1999 James Pei 30
2000 Tom Taaffe 41
2001 Bill Crenshaw 34
2002 John Coussis 36
2003 Chris Byrd 34
2004 Jeff Mullet 31
2005 Bill Crenshaw 25
2006 Jeff Mullet 30
2007 Ken Gutermuth 19
2008 Steve Simmons 31
2009 Ken Gutermuth 27
2010 Terry Coleman 25

PBeM Event History
2001 Tom Taaffe 32
2002 Bill Crenshaw 57
2003 Jason Levine 57
2004 Arthur Field 63
2006 Harald Henning 43
2008 Mark Neale 48
2010 Carl Damcke 44
2012 Jeff Mullet 50

Laurels
 Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
   1.  Jeff Mullet        OH    15    472
   2.  Bill Crenshaw      VA    10    331
   3.  Ken Gutermuth      NC    10    276
   4.  Ewan McNay         CT    10    271
   5.  Harald Henning     CT    12    261
   6.  Carl Damcke        IL    12    200
   7.  Steve Simmons      NJ    13    197
   8.  Chris Byrd         CT    07    186
   9.  Mark Smith         KY    14    160
  10.  Kevin Sudy         VA    09    138
  11.  Tom Browne         PA    10    126
  12.  Ted Simmons        NJ    13    117
  13.  Tedd Mullally      NJ    14    103
  14.  John Coussis       IL    15    102
  15.  Arthur Field       SC    09     93
  16.  Tom Taaffe         VA    01     82
  17.  Doug Galullo       MD    12     76
  18.  Brett Mingo        MD    05     76
  19.  Terry Coleman      CA    10     72
  20.  Nick Henning       CT    14     69
  21.  Mark Neale         RI    08     60
  22.  Jason Levine       NY    05     60
  23.  Jim Jordan         MD    01     60
  24.  Rich Curtin        NY    01     60
  25.  James Pei          TX    99     60
  26.  Stephen Koehler    NC    12     58
  27.  Rodd Polsky        PA    09     53
  28.  David Hood         NC    14     60
  29.  Marty Hoff         TX    01     42
  30.  Bruce Reiff        OH    12     40
  31.  Eric Eshleman      PA    09     36
  32.  Lyman Moquin       DC    02     36
  33.  Nicholas Anner     NY    00     36
  34.  Wade Campbell      on    15     30
  35.  Ron Clement        on    15     30
  36.  Doug Mercer        MD    11     30
  37.  Sean Whitaker      bc    06     30
  38.  Peter Staab        PA    02     30
  39.  Greg Stripes       VA    10     28
  40.  Rob Kircher        MA    02     27
  41.  Mark Frueh         IL    12     25
  42.  Eric Hupin         qc    05     24
  43.  Marvin Birnbaum    NY    01     24
  44.  George Young       VT    12     23
  45.  Eric Wrobel        VA    09     23
  46.  Robert Davidson    IL    12     20
  47.  Pierre LeBoeuf     MD    05     20
  48.  Winton Lemoine     CA    12     19
  49.  Ed Lathioor        on    05     18
  50.  Jim Stanard        MD    02     18
  51.  Charles Hickok     PA    02     18
  52.  Robin Barbehenn    MD    99     18
  53.  Kurt Miller        PA    13     17
  54.  Chris Trimmer      TX    07     12
  55.  Sean McCulloch     OH    03     12
  56.  George Sauer       OH    02     12
  57.  Andrew Cummins     uk    01     12
  58.  Don Greenwood      MD    99     12
  59.  Kevin Wojtaszczyk  NY    02     11
  60.  Phil Watkins       MN    10     10
  61.  Steven Spisak      on    15      9
  62.  Jeff Ridenour      CA    05      8
  63.  Eugene Hourany     CA    09      6
  64.  John Boyd          TX    06      6
  65.  Olin Hentz         CT    00      6
  66.  Dan Leader         MA    10      5
  67.  Chris Kessel       OR    02      5
  68.  Nicole Kaiyan      au    06      4
  69.  Roger Whtney       FL    15      3
  70.  John Stevens       NY    14      3
  71.  Crawford Lopez     VA    01      2
2015 Laurelists Returning Laurelists: 3

John Coussis, IL
2nd

Ron Clement, on
3rd

Steven Spisak, on
4th

Jeff Mullet, OH
5th

Roger Whitney, FL
6th


Past Winners

Mike May, NY
1996

George Sauer, OH
1997

Mark Giddings, NY
1998

Ewan McNay, CT
1999-2000, 2003

Rich Curtin, NY
2001

Ken Gutermuth, TX
2002

Steve Simmons, NJ
2004

Mark Smith,KY
2005

Jeff Mullet, OH
2006, 2008

Kevin Sudy, VA
2007

Ted Simmons, IL
2009, 2013

Doug Galullo, MD
2010

Harald Henning, CT
2011

Bruce Reiff, OH
2012

Nick Henning, CT
2014

The Canadians are Coming! ...

TA group of three buddies from the far north showed that Canadians can dominate games other than Age of Steam and Innovation, making a big impact on both Age of Renaissance and Advanced Civilization this year.

In Game 1 of the first heat Jeff Mullet as London scored 3693, the highest we can remember. At an early point he chose Industry over Cathedral. It didn't matter much as he bought Cathedral on the next turn. The game would have mercifully ended a turn earlier but there was one card left in the draw pile and Jeff had not bought out the advances. The winning strategy seemed to be well summed up by  'win every die roll'. To cap his day, Jeff started the last turn as the obvious target with no Gold territories but ended with four of them.

The second game of the heat was full of oddities. Who would expect less with Mark Smith involved? Epoch 3 ended with no one higher than a 3 boat. Venice at one point chose to buy off a Stone shortage (“I'm sure that is what started my slide to my last place” he would later say). Wade Campbell's Paris had no ships, but won anyway in the closest game of the day with Paris scoring 140% of runner-up London.

Game 3 had only two players with significant experience and both found themselves trailing the pack from the start. Their fortunes went in opposite directions with Steve Spisak's Venice finishing first and Winton Lemoine last. A 156% winning score meant no alternates would likely be qualifying to advance from Heat 1.

The second heat yielded no interesting stories, just closer games. Mark Smith with Barcelona won the closest game of the event, beating Roger Whitney's Genoa by 26 points, a 102% score. In the second game John Coussis managed the rare Hamburg win with a 111% score.

Though the Final is usually a 6-player game the decision was made that since there were only 5 preliminary games the Final would be 5-player, advancing only winners. As it turned out we would need an alternate; Mark Smith wrestled with playing but didn't want to force others to play faster to make sure he made his other Final. It's hard to argue with his choice since he won History of the World instead. First alternate Roger was not present so second alternate Ron Clement—who did have two seconds—would advance, ensuring the three Canadian friends, Ron, Steve and Wade would all reach the Final. John and Jeff would have their work cut out for them.

But first they would have to get a game. The finalists met at the agreed time but without a copy of the game. That delay behind them, they set about determining a winner. If the Canucks are to be believed they started breakfast Saturday stating 'no mercy’ would be asked or given, that they would play hard and to win. Wade bid 3 to take Barcelona, Ron 2 for Paris, Steve 1 for Venice, and Jeff and John got Genoa and London respectively for free. Turn 4, the first turn of note saw a Silk payout of 72 for Paris, Paris winning War with Genoa, a 2 x 100 Wool payout, and Barcelona purchasing first Cathedral.

But by Turn 6 it was Paris who had emerged as the clear leader, so much so that Ron was hit by Black Death, Alchemist Gold, and Pirates/Vikings and was reduced to three cities. If there is any evidence the Canadians were not playing favorites this would be it.

Circumstances led Jeff to opt to Chaos out. With three religion advances and a hand full of leaders that would never get played he stayed at the table till Turn 7. Turn 9 found Wade's Barcelona and Ron's Paris buying out advances. John's London lacked only Middle Class and Steve's Venice was four advances off. Venice would finish fourth with 1575. Paris made a Silk run but with 500 misery would finish third with 1991. London made a big Wool run for 160. It would be 50 points in misery making the difference as his 2076 was second to Barcelona's 2105.

As you can see from the preliminary round results only Genoa failed to notch a win. Average order of finish by country: Hamburg (three games) 2.67, Barcelona and London 2.8, Genoa and Paris 3.6, and Venice 4.2.

Assuming Age of Renaissance returns we would do well to coordinate with the GM's of Advanced Civilization and History of the World to minimize conflicts. No fewer than four players say they would have played at least one more game if not for these conflicts.

It took 20 years, but the event has now fallen out of the Century for the first time.
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