April 2018 Game Night

Dudes,

Thanks to Joe, Paul, Pete, and Tony for joining in on the festivities.

Saturday was Ito Night! Timed well for the day after Ann Arbor's Hash Bash (and for the new algorithms designed to guide advertising, nobody was partaking of that medicinal path). We dined on Tacquitos, Doritos of both the regular and taco variety, chili Fritos, and Cheetos of the regular crunchy and flaming hot crunchy variety. Salsa and chili cheese sauce were available as well. Three varieties of cookies, including Paul's unique dietary needs of frozen thin mints.

The beer was the usual house brand--Labatt Blue Light--and fancier versions of Namaste White left over from last game night plus District 16 that Tony brought.

There were also several varieties of pop and sparkling water of the sugar, sugar-free, caffeine, and caffeine-free varieties, of course.

Also, Pepto Bismal available for the low, low price of $10 per dose.

Gaming began at 8:00 after a short happy half hour and we wrapped up at not quite 12:30.

We tried a Traders and Barbarians variant that used lakes instead of the deserts, and fishing grounds off the coasts. The plan was to play one game and then go to vanilla Catan, but the consensus was that the game was fun and so we continued it.

Below is nearing the end of game 3. I don't know why the picture rotated when I embedded it. Note the Green city with two roads leading out from it. That was mine. Blue (Paul) blocked me in one direction. And then when I attempted to go the other way, Blue (again, Paul) made the effort to go around to block me again from the sea. Just noting it for future reference when people wonder why Beej is ruthlessly going after Paul for "no reason" whatsoever. But we'll get back to that game in order.

Anyway, in the first game, we discovered that the fishing is a parallel economy that helps you overcome resource deficiencies in the traditional game. You can use fish to build roads, and purchase or steal resource cards. I don't think anybody ever used the ability to remove a robber or to buy a lottery ticket.

The one negative is the "old boot," which if you draw requires you to turn the victory point requirement dial to "11."

Yes, cry out "Ow, my nipples" at this point.

Which brings us to Pete.

Pete, reached 10 points and then remained stuck there, with each passing round increasing his worry that someone else would win with 10 points.

The boot is that bad, you ask? Well, you can freely give it away. But only to someone who has the same or more points then you have. So with 10 points, Pete could not give it away. He had to win with 11 to give the victory that extra push that nobody else could provide.

As for me, the need for fish was apparent. I believe I literally went 7 rounds with only one resource rolled despite having two "6" settlements at the start ( I went three rounds of rolls to win the first placement spot). But the fish rolled in for me, allowing me to have a start at thinking about competing. By the time 6 started coming up, it was too late for me to think about winning.

As Pete sought that one single small point and as I turned to fishing as my unwanted Plan B career, Joe began advancing. Yes, Joe finally TIED Pete with 10 points and at that moment--lacking the old boot--won the first game of the fishing variant.

Game two was as glorious a game as one would hope Ito Night would provide. I was able to avoid the curse of the old boot by going from 8 points to 11 on the strength of a settlement and getting the longest road (at 5 road segments long, and little hope to extend it, I figured I had to win on that turn or see the title stolen from me) in one turn. Fish were not as important to me that game but did help, I think. Other people really got into the fish aspect in this game, seeing the value.

Although we all agreed that not even fish can take the place of sheep in our hearts.

After game 2, Paul and Pete got into the Bailey's Irish Cream; while Tony began to accept his role as ritual sacrificial victim and declared his only hope was to mess with the leaders. That will teach him to come each and every month to avoid going up against Catan veterans who have seen the sheep with that 10-road-segment stare marking us as killers with wood and sheep.

Strangely, by then Joe and Tony seemed to have established a trading bond that led them to trade "because it's you" rather than based on actual selfish need. I leave it to more sober minds than I have to judge whether that was sincere or they were lying through their teeth about their generosity.

Game three was fun as well, with Joe trying to relive the glory of game one and Tony starting to wonder if Season 4 Episode 2 of Game of Thrones would feature boobs.

Yes, sigh "Ooh, some nipples" at this point.

I was prepared to win game three with 8 points in four cities and two knights showing and one down in my hand. All I had to do was wait for the poop of power to reach me. Sadly for me, Pete was to my right and thus between me and the poop; and he was prepared with his massive ability to convert a resource at 2:1 to get the three points he needed to reach 10.

Sadly for Pete, Paul was to his right, and on Paul's turn he managed to leverage his longest road card to victory by building up to 10.

Sadly for Paul, Joe was to his right, but that's another issue altogether unrelated to the outcome, possibly related to over-consumption of tacquitos.

For me, just having a shot at winning in game three was amazing because for a long time I was at Tony levels of despair until my numbers starting coming in hot and low. Despite being territory-constrained from early inability to spread out, a plethora of rocks and wheat let me build up all of my four settlements to cities.

Note that the fish resource is triggered by the resource roll, and like traditional resources, you draw double the fish tokens (that range from 1-3 fish each) from the elephant cup (note, like the poop, the elephant cup is not an official Catan piece) if you have a city rather than a settlement at the fishing space. But you cannot spend fish in the Interstellar build phase (or whatever random names it was called, oddly none the actual term that nobody seems to recall).

And I just noticed in the rules that those who placed their second settlement on a fishing space should receive a fish token in addition to any traditional resources received by second placement. Which I am sure everybody can now use to blame their losses on--I know I will! Even in game 3 where I had zero fish resources at any time at all because of my inability to build roads to the seas.

We started GoT by 12:30 and did have the opportunity to see King Joffrey die while having coffee or whatnot, which gave everyone a chance to judge whether they should take me up on the standing offer of sleeping here or can hit the road home. Everyone went home, and this morning with only non-life threatening gut pains overnight--no doubt due to tainted romaine lettuce, I assume--I am now faced with the task of separating out the basic and expansion packs for both Catan and the game variant.

Thanks to all who attended. Much fun, as always.

I welcome reply alls to correct any errors or to add your perspectives, whether game- or boob-related.

Joe is planning to host in June in South Lyon.

But we'll do it again here in May!

Beej