After watching the predicted Snowpocalypse dissolve, a surprising number of friends braved the roads to come to February game night. Not me, of course. I didn't even walk to my mailbox. Still, I did shiver a bit looking out my window in the morning while sipping coffee.
Dave, Joe, Paul, Pete, and Tony joined me for a full expansion board game:
Because I was hedging against the possibility of canceling game night early in the week when the total snow fall by Sunday had a high end estimate of over two feet, I only bought some frozen Sliders plus cookies (regular and unleaded) and potato chips (regular and jalapeno) and dip. When it looked like much less snow but a chance of icy roads on Saturday, I bought a couple bags of pizza rolls and hauled out my chafing dish, if needed. Plus there were the usual dietary needs stored in the freezer.
As it turned out, everybody showed. But we had enough! So I didn't have to make some poor pizza delivery guy hit the roads. And Pete and Tony brought some higher quality beer to supplement the usual house swill, Labatt Blue Light, and a smattering of better beers still left over from past gatherings. Thanks guys!
Paul brought his 3D-printed skull dice tower. Bravo, naturally.
But Pete turned the Bad Ass dial to 11 with his special padded case for his dice tower, boob device [No, I'm not explaining. Pete can make his excuses in the comments if he wants to.], and personal dice selection. For those about to roll, we salute you!
For Dave who does not appreciate the lore of how Klaus can descend upon Game Night to bestow his blessings ... or the Fisting of Klaus ... behold when the latter happened two and a half years ago.
And some game flavor quotes:
- Dave: Whose rallying call to sanction Joe as he surged into the lead in game one led him to coin the term "Joecott."
- Joe: "I yearn for log." Not judging. Just quoting.
- Tony: Reacting to the plague of robbers, boasted he had "outsmarted" the dice. Oh? "Mister Probability" now thinks mere humans can influence the dice? In another year, Tony will accept that resistance is futile and change dice with the fervor of a new convert.
We played the harbor master variant, as usual, so 11 points were needed to win. The Grim Reaper of Catan award was bestowed upon Paul for his record of carnage last month. He displayed it proudly during the game as a warning sign to fear him. Or to remind us whose picture to put up during our two-minute hates.
I had planned to put the emphasis on initial placement as a change of pace, including the theoretical resource production of initial placement (Total Original Number Yield) based on the sum of the resource production value for how many times out of 36 rolls you can expect that number to come up. Tony will patiently explain it to you if you ask. But since we played only two games, I did the full Monty on the game play, too. Don't get spoiled.
GAME ONE
The order of placement and movement was Pete (white), myself (red), Paul (green), Dave (brown), Tony (blue), and Joe (orange) in the double-placement position.
Rock was hit or miss. Wood seemed substandard while brick was good but concentrated. Sheep seemed generally poor but few people care about that--until it's not there. And wheat was kind of a problem.
The at-start map:
Pete grabbed the good brick-rock-wood site with his first pick. And to have decent wheat and a token sheep to round out his resources, picked his second site with his road pointed inland where nobody had staked out. He at least had a lottery ticket right from the start. And he was close enough to think about linking up his enclaves. He probably had sufficient room to expand, but it could get tight.
TONY #: 19.
I jumped on the rock-wheat-sheep site to get a foundation for cities. By the time my second placement came back to me, I was happy to get the good brick and wood site next to the desert. I had good resources for everything but sheep. But had the best sheep hex near me with a road in my hand to start the game. I was a bit cramped in the northeast but with some luck could expand to two more sites. And in the south I felt pretty confident of getting two to four more build sites, as long as I could make that turn first.
TONY #: 19.
Paul took a good rock site with decent wood for his first choice; and then selected bricks and better sheep for his second placement. But no wheat. He also had a lot of space between his sites. It's always interesting to me to see the choices between being so close you are cramped and committing fratricide on overlapping build areas on the one hand (but easily able to link roads for longest road) and maximizing expansion opportunities but being too far apart to link roads up.
TONY #: 21.
Dave had a nice road building choice with great sheep, and aimed for the rock. That avoided an early game road contest with me. Then with great indecision over his second choice, ultimately concluded he could not do without wheat. And an 8 wheat site made up for having to take two sheep or set up on the coast for a bit more wood, instead of sheep. And he pointed his second road inland in a bold move to head to the interior rather than the coast. Personally, I hate risking an inland orientation and rarely choose that.
TONY #: 21.
Tony started with good brick and adequate wood for road building. Then he selected a coast rock-brick site in reach of a brick port to make up for lack of sheep or wheat--and less-than-great rock. As it turned out his coastal site had lots of open area around it even as his initial site was rather hemmed in.
TONY #: 20.
Joe selected decent road-building on one site and rounded out his resources, getting number diversity too--but lacking any high-value resource. His southeast site was hemmed in but his northwest site had room around it for expansion.
TONY #: 18.
On to the game!
I was able to move to the coast and extend my rock source, and created a big dipper around the wood site while extending northwest behind the shield of the desert as I hoped. I took harbor master from Joe at one point, which put me to 10 points before my resource production dried up and a series of knights and robbers plagued me. We've all been there. I fell back to eight points. I was unable to build as my cards were taken away before I could use them. Eventually I was able to build a hut on a 3 wheat. Finally, a great number was rolled that might have let me build two roads and take longest road! But I knew that before it was my turn, two others near to winning would go fist--I mean first.
Pete was barely able to build roads. But he did manage two new sites and promoted all four to cities! Near the end he finally managed to had wrapped around his coastal rock hex for two more settlements--finally getting a generic port--and he created a rare inland flux capacitor. He even played a monopoly card on his little poop phase to get the single rock from Dave that he needed to promote a city! Plus he had two knights up (and one down, we all assumed--and we were right)! All he needed was for the big poop to be passed to him!
QUESTION: Pete couldn't play more than one development card on his intermediate build phase. Did he choose the monopoly card instead of playing a knight, assuming Joe couldn't reach harbor master on Joe's turn before Pete would move? Just occurred to me. Ouch, if true. But that doesn't make sense. Playing the knight card would have given Pete 12 points and the win. Perhaps Pete bought his final knight on that build phase. Anyone remember?
Tony somehow managed to stretch all across Catan after getting blocked expanding in the southeast by Dave. That gave him the longest road by far. But. Tony exposed his neck to Dave. Tony later explained he hadn't imagined Dave would have time to cut the road. Dave did have the time. While Tony did not lose longest road, it did make it harder to hold. So Tony extended his other road net north along the coast. He held it to the end.
Dave stretched across the inland threading the needle between Pete and Joe. He moved inland and made a late lunge for the coast when Tony began to expand in the southeast. In the center of the map, with visions of newsletter fame--and a coveted 2-10-12 build site--built on Tony's road and broke it. Dave promoted four cities--oddly with low-performing 8 wheat and high-performing 3 and 11 rock! Without any ports, that was an achievement. Of course, playing a monopoly card to get about a dozen bricks--tragically one needed one from me if I hoped to get longest road.
Paul gave me some heartburn when he built on the desert slightly inland from my hoped for path. But he focused on his question mark (sad) in the north. Contrary to past practice, Paul did not "accidentally" get longest road during the game ("A one-in-a-million shot, doctor!). He ran out of build sites, but did have six sites settled.
Joe grabbed the longest road while he built his S in the northwest.With that and harbor master he surged into the lead, attracting some unwanted attention. When he lost the longest road, he fell to last place! But the game went on. Did I mention this game would last nearly three hours, quite likely setting a record that not even the longest Mega Catan set? I did not? Well, that's what we were in. After I'd been stymied for a couple rounds hoping for cards, Joe tied me with four harbor points. And on the turn he rolled a 9 to give me four wood and two wheat to add to my few cards (meaning two roads with my wheat port and generic port!), he marched down the coast in the southeast with two roads to settle on an open port site that I'd feared he might reach, and with one settlement point and the harbor master card back in his hands, won the game.
Congratulations, Joe! It was a fine lesson to all of us.
It was truly a triumph of the will after his failed beer night pusch earlier in the game.
The end map:
Pete followed with 10 points. The rest of us had 9! Three naturals and one (Tony's) including longest road. This is probably a record for average player points in a game--9.5!
"Probability"
Unseen on the photo of this chart are the 22nd 7 roll (Dave), and 23rd (also Dave). See game two chart for documentary evidence.
It is simply amazing that 7 was more than a quarter of the total rolls (26.1%). And 2,3,11, and 12 were amazing. [Insert Tony's protest that of course "probability" accounts for this BLAH BLAH ... ] As was 8 in the amazingly bad form of amazement. The plague of 7 rolls was the basic cause for the long game as players were both denied resources with a 7 and frequently lost resources by having too many cards. Dave figured he must have lost more than a couple dozen cards that way. I'm not sure how badly others fared. But I don't remember being hit by the robber for holding too many cards. But perhaps I've blocked it out. After the game I thought the robber had passed me over and never struck when I had more than seven cards. There might have been one hit that still allowed me to retain enough for a city upgrade, now that I think about it. That may be why I initially thought I'd been free of hits. Or maybe I'm remembering a game two hit. Either way, I was lucky on that score.
I may start keeping track of who gets hit by holding too many cards when the robber strikes. [AFK] Done! I edited the game log that I keep to track that. Now we can track another measure of misery! [But in the long run--just stop!]
You may understand why this game drove Tony and Pete to resort to the Malӧrt to put them out of their misery. We're down to two single doses of Dr. Kevorkian's Best.
Joe and Paul wisely stuck to their dose of Bailey's.
GAME TWO
The order of placement and movement was Paul, Dave, Tony, Joe, Pete, and myself in the always coveted DP position.
Rock was decent as was wood. Brick was a real problem and sheep was great.
The at-start map:
Paul grabbed the coastal brick location and on his second placement took the coastal rock-wood site. Sadly, with two coastal cities with just four resource hexes, he started with zero port points. Egad.
TONY #: 16.
Dave started with great rock and good sheep and wheat. Cities and lottery tickets! He had to settle for volume on his second pick with lots of sheep and more wood. So he'd keep busy in his castles. But sheep ports on the west coast were clearly out of reach.
TONY #: 25
Tony was pretty close together and nobody spoiled his enclave hopes by building on the 8 wood. But he had no wheat or rock. And no hope of getting them except through trade with a sheep port within easy reach. A bold strategy. But with settlements pointed in different directions, an easily established enclave was within easy reach.
TONY #: 21.
Joe selected good bricks, wood, and rock. Sheep was poor but he could get it from Tony. Wheat would be a problem. Although a minor wheat was within reach. And Joe did seem to have hit the sweet spot between initial placements too close and too far.
TONY #: 17.
Pete staked out the coastal rocks and wheat port and seemingly took a risk to see if the interior wheat belt would go unclaimed. Pete bet on the DP strategy without having the security of the actual coveted DP position. Bold strategy. But he did indeed get the wheat belt.
TONY #: 17.
I had the DP position and after locking down that wheat-rock-sheep site had to decide what to go without on my second placement. I decided going without brick would be better than going without wood. Especially when you consider that getting the remaining good brick would have required me pissing off Paul and Tony. Having them feuding tilted the field. As did the desert between my selection of the rock-wood site that also bumped up my city production. I hoped I could build an enclave somehow.
TONY #: 21.
On to the game!
Tony largely established his enclave with a minor losing border skirmish with Paul on the northern coast marring his eastern enclave flank. But Tony didn't mind that one bit.
Dave was blocked from the start in the north. He pushed to the coast and with a two-segment gap had a good shot at getting longest road first. But the lure of a generic port to somehow use his flock of sheep in a socially acceptable manner was too strong. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Pete would have to operate on total spite to cut that option.
Paul started out with a race for the turn against Joe. Paul started with a wood. He rolled a six to start the game, giving him a first-turn road to quickly squash Joe's hopes. So there's a grudge right off the bat. Paul then managed to reach the one option for a settlement in the north, beating Tony's construction project heading that way. So that's two Grudge Points, for those keeping count. At one point Tony retaliated with a knight to shut down Paul's brick production. Which was basically my only hope of trading for them! I used one of my knights to break the siege, earning me first dibs on bricks for a couple rounds of trade until Paul decided I was unworthy of his "eternal" gratitude. So three Grudge Points.
Joe abandoned his western settlement for the moment to drive to the sea and push inland. He had a lot of settlement options open to him And he could link his enclaves. With good brick and wood, that was within reach.
Pete was again barely able to build roads, but he built two cities and snagged harbor master with his short coast. His inland expansion options were closed. And his coastal options were one settlement or road by Dave from being blocked. But he did start buying lottery tickets and eventually put two knights up.
When my first turn came around with no trades providing me with brick, I broke the glass and pulled the lottery ticket alarm. I drew a road building card! Thank God I had nothing to do with shuffling the deck. At some point I snagged a brick with a trade. After Tony's turn, I was able to build two roads on my Interstellar build phase and extended both of my starting roads south. Then I was able to build on the rock-wheat-wood. And then I built on the southern coast. I kept buying lottery tickets and when I had 8 resource cards in my hand during my Interstellar, I felt I had to use my year of plenty (!) card to buy non-brick cards to build a settlement on the 11-11 site rather than risk the robber. Which immediately struck the board on the next roll. Whew.
Eventually I had two knights up and could see a path to victory. I had to decide during my Interstellar whether to first play a knight card or the second (!) road building card I had drawn (there are three in the expanded game, BTW). With Pete showing two knights and a couple down cards, I chose the knight to get largest army. I then prayed for the big poop to get to me without staring too much at the two-road gap between my enclaves. The usual suspects clamored for my blood. The embargo was strictly enforced on me. And robbers started appearing on my property. Yet I pointed out that I had no bricks, no hope of trading for bricks, no ports to easily get two bricks, and few cards in my hand. What chance did I have to get two wood and two sets of four matching cards to trade to the bank for two bricks?! My logic was sound. Every word was true. Everyone agreed. And so nobody fed Dave the gifts of bricks and wood to link his enclaves first. He instead worked on his last settlement options on the coast.
On my turn I played my road building card and reached 11! I forged an unlikely path to victory but "probability" did not deny me.
The end map:
Pete followed with 9 points, including harbor master and a victory point card, Joe had 5, Dave (including a victory point card) and Paul had 4 each, and Tony had 3, including a victory point card.
"Probability"
The robber was finally fat and happy (and exhausted) after game one, so was slightly below average this game. Six was the big winner of the game. And ten produced well.
We ended gaming at around 8:30 so people would have time to drive home carefully. I don't know if we've every played fewer games on a Game Night. But we hung out for an hour after, for coffee and time. Sadie finally ran down when it was just me and two friends at the door, and raced to the kitchen to stake out her food bowl. [NOTE TO RANDOM VISITORS: Sadie is my cat and not a mail order slave ordered to stay out of men folk business upstairs. One day ...]
Thanks to Joe and Paul for keeping the statistics that fuel our probability phobia. Probanoia? Hey, it isn't paranoid to believe probability is out to get you and benefit your foes. That's just called "experience."
And with a massive robber crime wave in game one and a slightly less than probability robber in game two (he got tired, I suppose), the winner of the Grim Reaper of Catan Award for rolling the most 7s--with seven--goes to ...
Thanks, Dave. You will be able to proudly display it next month--if you make it!
I was the kindest, as one would expect, with a mere three rolls.
And a meme!
Great to see everyone and reduce the Malӧrt stock by half. We'll do it again at Casa Beej in March before hitting the road for an away game in South Lyon if Landry (he's as real as Dave or Dennis, I swear) can swing an open Saturday in April that is also open for me. Thank God I already submitted my taxes.
I swear I will have mass quantities of pizza in March rather than the iron rations we relied on for this month. Can't set the bar too low prior to Landry's debut hosting!
And please feel free to comment on either your initial placement strategy/hopes or game play. Hell, just whine about your bad luck while you can before our statistics expand too much to rely on our faulty memories. I keep hearing about wondrous apps from the computer and engineer types among us ...
