Saturday
night was game night at Casa Joe in South Lyon. I won't say that the
disturbance in the Force by having key fans outside of Ann Arbor had any
non-Catan effects. But the skies did open up as if spawned from the
depths of Hell to destroy all that is good and just in its path.
But
other than that, Away Game Night hosted by Joe was a grand success!
Driving home and drinking responsibly to do that was a pain, but waking
up to a clean home was nice!
Annoyingly, I discovered I did have to sort the components from the basic game from the expansion pack in the morning.
And I admit I kind of like looking forward to eating game night leftovers for many days. I don't have that. Enjoy Joe!
And the valet parking was a nice touch, Joe.
Joe, myself, Dave, Pete, and Paul (in order of arrival) contested the big island.
Paul
brought his 3D pieces but with too few for 5 players, we went 2D. Those
of us who have played 3D can attest that it is actually a little
difficult to get used to for processing the visual information. But it
does look cool.
We
celebrated the return of both the prodigal tiny die and proved that
Dave was not a Catanfishing ploy. This was actually his first game
playing with the poop emoji to signify the current turn-owner. If you
haven't been in a game with the poo, you have clearly been away too
long.
We
dined on three types of pizza: Hawaiian, chicken barbecue, and some
mushroom Hell-spawned thing (but perhaps that's just me); plus potato
chips and dip and corn chips and salsa/dip; and nuts; and candy and
chocolate-filled cookies; and the official beer of game night plus a
higher brow of beer to start. Bailey's was available, too.
There was no kale evident.
We
managed four games on the big board. Paul scored the first win; I took
the middle two; and Pete wrapped up the night with a win.
Game one took what seemed like at least an hour and a half to play as everyone got within striking distance of victory.
All
the games were competitive in fact, probably helped by 5 players on the
board big enough for 6; although I felt particular ire for winning my
games seemingly out of the blue by playing 3 points at once to hit 10 in
each of them. I bought only two develop cards all evening and one of
them was a victory point card for one of the wins.
Dave
was buying lottery tickets like it was his retirement plan. Although it
wasn't all that bad since he said several bad words on a couple of the
victories that he claimed deprived him of the win if only the turn had
reached him. Preaching to the choir, brother Dave.
I
was also very impressed with the wide swathe of pastures that Dave had
in the last game, virtually monopolizing the sheep industry. He nearly
got that game. I don't think I've seen anyone play more of one kind of
resource without also playing a monopoly card!
And
in a lesson of not assuming a late building of a specialty port will be
wasted because once built you will no longer roll that result was
disproven by Paul who continued to roll his 6 resource and reap the
benefits of the port he almost reluctantly built.
The
last game was a horror show of Pete seeking early robber vengeance on
me for road-blocking him on my first turn. While my 6 forest came up a
lot, the robber seemingly had squatter's rights there for much of the
early game. I thought Pete would be more understanding given that before
I did that to Pete, Pete road-blocked Paul even before Pete's official
first move in an interstellar build phase. Although since I was stuck on
9 for a while under that assault, it may have helped Pete in the end. I
will note that my purported harm was not enough to keep him from
building up a sufficient faction capable of reaching the win!
Other
things of note was the earning of the largest army in two games (Pete
for sure on the last game, and I think Dave?); and my taking the longest
road in one game and holding it until the end. That was odd. And the
Joe Rule seemed under-used during the night. Perhaps because it was the
subject of a meme parade that Joe set up on a tablet by the snacks. Well
played, Joe!
We
wrapped up at about 1:00 am, with the storm passed. A couple people had
to go so we put off Game of Thrones until a bigger audience.
Thanks
again to Joe for hosting game night in his new digs. Nobody spilled
beer or otherwise wrecked his carpeting on this opening gig.
Next
month we will be back to Home Game Night. Assume early in the month to
avoid trampling on Thanksgiving. You should hear news of that in 2 or 3
weeks.
Beej
