November 2016 Game Night

Dave asked about last month's outcomes but time, age, and beer denied those of us present the knowledge base to brief him.

So he suggested we need a newsletter.

So here you go.

Game traffic had eased enough to allow ground traffic into Casa Beej for the 8:00 start time.

We had five contestants: Me, Dave, Joe, Paul, and Pete.

It was Pete's birthday so we had a card, cupcakes, and Guinness beer (thanks Joe!) in his honor.

Otherwise we feasted on White Castle "burgers" with three types of corn chips, three types of dips, and three types of cookies (two baked by my dear daughter) plus peanut M & Ms (thanks Joe!).

I can report that I suffered no agonizing stomach pain from the White Castles as I did in the 1980s (although I never approached my personal record of 13 sliders).

We managed three games won by myself, Paul, and Pete, in that order.

Pete won with the satisfying strategy that we often dream of when he bought a lottery ticket to get the 10th point.

Two games were quite close nail-biters with the usual trade embargoes attempted on the point leaders, while Paul ran away with his win.

In the last game, my only rocks were on a "12" and while I was not in the running for victory, I did have 7 points with three cities!

Pete used every road he had (and proper placement of settlements and cities to guard the string (ask Joe about that angle) in his win to deny anyone the opportunity to take the longest road away from him.

Dave tried a new strategy of releasing the Kraken early in the third game by unleashing the robber on peaceful Catanians. Interestingly enough it did not unleash full-scale revenge warfare as players focused on points, it seemed to me. Although for a while opportunities for revenge were taken it seemed to wane until the traditional end game. And I lacked the rocks to buy development cards to buy knights for open warfare.

Joe brought up an interesting house rule on knights he heard of. Consistent with preventing players from playing more than one knight card in a turn (to prevent a rapid gain of two points for playing three knights),

I have a couple ideas on house rules for longest road and biggest army that I think could make things more interesting without allowing more than one play of a down card per turn. More later for your approval.

We wrapped up by about 1:30 after a traditional coffee and Game of Thrones episode (season 2, ep. 8). Dave and Joe left prior to the often-promised booooooobs appeared. (Really, see the Honest Trailer for first season of Game of Thrones if that reference is obscure).

I will try for early in December to avoid stepping on any of the days of Christmas holiday activities.

And note that there are 3 leftover Guinness beers that will be here for the first three guests (or the first guest to drink the third one, I suppose) in December. I don't like Guinness so there is no danger I will drink it before then.

And no worries if we ever have more than 6 players. I have alternate games that handle more, or if we have 7 for example, we could rotate players with myself out the first game and the winner of a game rotating out to focus on drinking and eating for a game. Heck, we might even run 2 games at one table (Dave has seafarers) and rotate between the games!

Good game night, all around.

Please add your thoughts if I've left something out or misrepresented your bard-worthy exploits! (or if you recall November results and action!)

Beej/Brian