We had July game night at Casa Beej, playing on the small board.
We dined on White Castle sliders (without cheese, as God intended), chips, dip, and assorted cookies and brownies. The usual house swill (Labatt Blue Light) plus a some scattered brands and non-alcoholic beverages were available, too.
Let me note that I am damn proud to serve with friends who each brought their own dice tower. ... I'm not tearing up! You are! Or its the sliders. I take no responsibility for explosive diarrhea, I should also note. Probably the damn lettuce you ate before arriving.
We played with the harbor master variant, as always, which requires 11 points to win.
GAME ONE
The order of placement and movement was Pete (blue), Joe (white), myself (red), and Paul (orange) in the double-placement position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Other than wheat and sheep, the resources were awful unless you got to them first. This game would take a lot of rolls. And everyone got within easy striking distance of winning.
- Paul reached five settled areas and had room to grow, with enough road-building success to reach them. Or promote a couple cities. And with just five road segments, took the longest road card.
- Joe locked down harbor master and had a decent shots at a couple more build spots. Or he could promote a couple cities. I'm not sure what motivated Joe to comment on the "dark soul" of Paul.
- Pete embraced the role of standing in No-Man's Land, firing in both directions. Talk about a dark soul! Pete resorted to trading four wood for a brick. He only built one road in the game. And really only had a remote chance of getting a fifth spot to settle. But he did fully urbanize.
- I too had to trade at 4:1 for brick, luckily with sheep from my vast pastures. I settled in 5 areas, promoted four cities, and had a shot at one more build site. Even longest road was a possibility. But in a rarity for me, I nabbed the largest army to get to 11 first! I got the knights when I couldn't get enough rocks to build cities initially and needed to dump cards to avoid the robber.
The final map:
It was a three-way tie for second place at 9 each for Pete (with a victory point), Joe (with harbor master), and Paul (with longest road).
"Probability":
That's an odd curve, no doubt. The plentiful cities were made possible by the high rolls for rock resources.
GAME TWO
The order of placement and movement was myself (red), Paul (orange), Pete (blue), and Joe (white) in the DP position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Rock and wheat were sub-standard, at best. Brick was okay if you squinted.
- Paul didn't have much road-building success. But he had enough to elbow out Joe's early game effort to cut him off from the northwest coast. That remained a bitter bit of friction for the remainder of the game. Paul also blocked Pete's advance down the coast by building on the coast before Pete could.
- Joe turned around and somehow advanced through the center to nearly link up with his position on the southwest coast. Longest road was a possibility. Harbor master was not happening. And he had just one more potential settlement spot.
- Pete's western city was completely besieged by Joe. But Pete found room on the northeast coast to expand enough on the coast to get harbor master. But the only way to build was up.
- I again fielded the largest army and built a rare (for me) longest road. But I managed to reach 11 before the Catan antibodies could fully kick in. My Plan B was a march up the coast to retake longest road while building settlements. But I held longest road long enough. Woo!
The final map:
Pete followed with 8 points, including harbor master; Joe had 6; and Paul had 4.
"Probability":
The high 3 and 10 explain my longest road. Nobody had more than two cities with the rolls. Pity the fool who relied on 4.
GAME THREE
The order of placement and movement was Joe (white), myself (red), Paul (white), and Pete (blue) in the coveted DP position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Road-building material sucked. Nobody had both in high values. Sheep frolicked.
- Joe struggled to build roads, as we all did. Which meant even late in the game he had new site possibilities and an opportunity to challenge for longest road.
- Pete hurt himself in the early critical part of the game by rolling a 7 when he had nine cards. He managed to fully urbanize. But while new build sites were within reach, toad building without bricks was a problem.
- I managed to build on five sites and promote four cities. I too had a shot at longest road. And a shot at one more build site (maybe two with luck). But Catan antibodies kicked in this game. The 8 was rolled four times when the robber was on my 8 rock. And I had a rock port! On the other hand, my monopoly card got me 11 sheep in addition to what I already had. And I had a 3:1 port for that.
- Paul built on five sites with a sixth lined up. He had harbor master locked down and was able to get ahead in the road race to be the first to take it and reach 12 points! Whoa. Congratulations, Paul!
The final map:
I followed with 9 points, Pete had 8, and Joe had 6.
"Probability":
The center-right of the curve certainly dominated this game.
GAME FOUR
The order of placement and movement was Pete (blue), Joe (white), myself (red), and Paul (orange) in the always coveted DP position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Rock and brick were sub-standard.
- Pete stretched out nicely and was in range of linking his enclaves. Sadly the path was past the desert. Harbor master was out of reach. And city building was low. But a couple building sites were within reach.
- I thought I had a decent enclave possible. Sadly, I was able to build just one road. A road building card provided the other two. And after Paul put the robber on my only brick source--a 2--Pete rolled ... a 2. It was gruesome. Ironically enough I ended the game with 3 unused bricks in my hand. But I did get largest army again.
- Paul stretched out in the north, slipping in front of Joe's trans-Catanian road to reserve a build site on another port in case he needed to defend his harbor master title.
- Joe both stretched out across Catan to seemingly lock down longest road; and promoted two cities. And seemingly this was all done in one turn. With 19 cards in his hand (hello ... robber?), in an epic surge he built a road and a settlement, and promoted two cities to reach 11. Congratulations, Joe!
The final map:
Paul (harbor master) and I (largest army and victory point) had 7 each, and Pete had 6.
"Probability":
I guess this one looks normal enough.
We wrapped up at about 10:30. Four games is perfectly adequate. Thanks for everyone who came by to play. It is always a good time. And a big thank you to Joe for his statistics work again. Sadly, no engineers have developed the long-discussed app to move beyond pen and paper. My game log will remain paper and pen, naturally.
Miscellaneous
The Grim Reaper of Catan Award for rolling the most 7s and unleashing thievery on the peace-loving people of Catan goes to ...
Also, we have data for who can validly claim victim status, robbery-wise, from holding too many cards when the 7 robber strikes.
Nobody won this week, with another tie. Better luck next month.
And a meme!
