January 2017 Game Night

Joe, Paul, and Peter made it for game night. This time with a full happy hour starting at 7:00. We dined on cottage inn pizza, two types of chips, 3 dips, and cookies (that I found unsatisfactory--the leftovers went in the garbage), with coffee and the by-now required game of thrones episode (season 3 ep. 1) after. So we wrapped up about 2:30.

All the more premium beers are now gone.

We managed but 4 games from 8:00 to about 1:30. There was no game that just had one person go off to the races and get the win fast.

I won one game, Joe won one, and Paul won night's honors with two. Clearly his weekly beat downs of his children in home games of Catan is paying off.

I'm not sure why Pete didn't get one given that he seemed to have the strongest grasp of basic math as the night went on. But the games were all pretty competitive.

Notables:

In one game I used my double placement position to try the oft-mentioned strategy of relying on a sheep port and a sheep-centric spot. I will say it darned near worked. I had four cities and 8 points in that game--including making a city upgrade with 10 sheep.

But Paul had 8 points too, in that game, and when he played 4 bricks and 4 wood to connect his separate road segments, that gave him the game. Well played.  Everybody assumed we'd have a little more notice for such a connection. Oh, and ask Pete about that road-building card that he had languishing in his hand that might have been handy if played before that ...

Paul had two road building cards in one game. The game above? Don't recall.

Another game had the odd situation of Joe with a near monopoly on rocks and I had a very strong wheat position. I forget who won that game.

Few point cards were drawn. Maybe just two? I know I never saw one. But I don't think any contributed to any of the victories.

Nobody ever got largest army, I think, although there were several tries for it.

In one game there was an incredible crime wave of consecutive 7s and knights played that all seemed to settle on my cities. Oh the near-universal hilarity that created! Thanks guys!

Although to be fair there may have been some lingering burning desire for revenge from a prior (?) game when I unleashed the "I'll trade you guys X for Y and Z--and then played a monopoly card to collect all the X" ploy. People seemed not to be as pleased with that as I was. Go figure.

Joe tried the same thing but when he got up to offering 3 X for one of my cards without the usual "you're killing me, I have mouths to feed you know" reluctant march to such an uneven deal, I got suspicious and rejected the trade. He then played the monopoly card.

Yes, I confess I had longest road in my single win. So sue me.

The bank got wealthy with lots of bank trades over the games.

Oh, and I freshly windexed the plexiglass board covers which fairly sparkled. You are welcome.

Please feel free to remind me of incidents that went by me. This morning there were a lot of empties in the sink and I know a fair number were mine. Over 7-1/2 hours not so bad, I suppose. But it looked impressive.

Thanks for a good Catan night! We'll do it again in February.

Beej