July 2018 Game Night

Gentlemen,

We turned the Catan dial to 11 last night. When I walked downstairs this morning with no carnage before me to clean up, I thought I'd dreamed the magical night. Then I remembered it was an Away Game!

We had July game night at Casa Joe's last night. Joe was a fantastic adequate host, all in all. He would like to do it again in October or November.

I joined, Paul and Tony--and Joe of course--for the evening.

Game night started early with a 5:00 visit to a local pub to start drinking early. Paul and I joined Joe for that. Most excellent local brew!

Official happy hour began at 7:00 and we began games at 8:00 or so, when Tony arrived--who had started drinking earlier, too. Rumors he made it all the way to Ann Arbor before realizing it was an Away Game remain unconfirmed.

Joe served us a variety of snacks, based on two types of pizza plus bread sticks and salad. Chips (of the potato and corn varieties) and dips, cookies, and M & Ms rounded out the menu.

And cheese and crackers. We manfully avoided that and nobody touched the salad.

Beer was the usual Labatt Blue Light, the official beer of Game Night, plus Bailey's and a couple forms of hard liquor. Tony brought a delightful microbrew to add to the mayhem. And a selection of pop and mineral waters.

We managed three games by about midnight. We used the harbor master variant which simply adds the harbormaster card to the largest army and longest road cards. You get it with 3 harbor points (1 for a settlement and 2 for city on a port space). Also, you need 11 points to win rather than 10.

Tony won the first game (congratulations on a first Game Night win!) using both the longest road and harbormaster card. Nobody else came close, with Joe glum that he had built one road and promoted 2 cities for his total building effort in the game. Sometimes plans don't work out. And while Paul and I rivaled Tony in actual physical revenue-generating property, neither of us had the point additions to our hand.

I won game two, but with a horrible faux pas that I assumed would bite me in the butt with cosmic retribution. I laid down my tenth point (along with a longest road with a paltry 7 road segments) and waited for the cursing and wailing to begin. They did not. At which point I realized I had 10 points in a game requiring 11. Luckily nobody rubbed my nose in that failure (on top of my first game inability to remember what numbers I had, this was looking bad for Beej) by racing to victory. I finally managed to lay down the last point with a settlement and end the game. Tony had the largest army and Joe had the harbormaster card. Paul was scarily close to being able to take the longest road from me, needing three to take the card.

Joe won game three even as Tony and Paul engaged in a blood feud while I ineffectively suggested that maybe the Pete rule should be in effect (on top of the Joe rule, for Pete's sake!). Joe actually had a tiny footprint that seemed to doom him early, but on the strength of four cities, a settlement, and the harbormaster card, reached victory as he watched the bizarre (but good natured) feud rage on. My joy came when I placed 4 roads right before Joe won to come out of nowhere to steal Tony's longest road card, which seemed like a pretty good lock. And if the game had gone on, my position and Paul's denied Tony the chance to retake it from me. And while Paul had the room to build it, he lacked sufficient road segments. I actually had the lock! But alas, the Joeggernaut plowed through us.

The games did see a lack of widespread lottery card purchases. Tony was big on it in one game and Joe dabbled. I bought only one. Paul a bit more, I think. But zero point cards were drawn. Which was unfortunate in a game requiring 11 points to win. I know one game I was in required me to get a victory point given my constricted territory.

And we wrapped up with Game of Thrones season 4 episode 3. Boooobs. And headed out by about 1:00 a.m.

Oh, for those still unfamiliar with that inside joke, you may wish to watch this video.

Honest Trailers - Game of Thrones Vol. 1 Become a Screen Junkie! ► http://bit.ly/sjsubscr The return of "Game of Thrones" is upon us! Watch as we break d...

Joe graciously offered sleep overs for those unable to travel. But we travelers were all good lads who eased up by the end of the night.

Thanks to Joe for an excellent hosting job! Seriously, he went out to buy a blu ray player Saturday afternoon to make sure we had G0T.

But if I have to, I will inflict Ito Night in August to dispel the notion that Joe set a culinary standard that must be met.

And thanks to Paul who offered to drive both of us. I didn't mind him blackmailing me into a bad resource trade by threatening to leave me in South Lyon one bit. Nope. Not at all. Kudos.

As always, please feel free to correct any errors or omissions. I did take pictures of the end game maps to jog my memory.

Beej