October 2017 Game Night

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