E veryone seemed to enjoy the menu of Cottage Inn pizza (bacon and pepperoni plus sausage and ham), potato chips plus green onion and ranch dips, chocolate chip and sugarless chocolate cookies, peanut M & Ms, plus some Sam Adams and the usual house brand of Labatt Blue Light. Joe brought beer brewed in the honor of a sunken freighter. Thanks Joe! Pete and Paul had their usual special dietary needs met.
F or the first game (and keep in mind that I was orange, Pete was brown, Paul was red, Tony was green, and Joe was blue), we had a battle for the longest road. Pete had the edge because Tony had side spurs that reduced his potential length. And Pete marched across Catan bisecting the continent, nearly going coast to coast. Joe got the harbormaster card but the largest army went unclaimed. This game featured a single interstellar build phase in which three of us built a road and settlement. Pete reached 11 first, of course. Paul and Tony were stuck at 4. Joe had 6. And I had 8, with a hope I might steal the harbormaster card. Note that the first three people not named Beej who used the dice tower rolled a '7" which pretty much ended the widespread use of the dice tower last night.
E veryone regrouped for game two, with Paul playing a game of Tempest to clear his mind. This game featured groupings of bricks, wheat, and sheep, which complicated things. Joe tried to use his double placement position to get a brick port and park in the brick expanse. It looked like I had a shot in this game. Note that Pete had a ton of knight cards, but he didn't start to play them until after I placed my first one. Everyone assumed I had three and with my 9 points on the board, would be unstoppable since a played before Pete. Alas I had a point card for my third and Pete's army road me down, and Pete added his own point card to the largest army for 11 points. I had just 10. Paul finished with 8. Tony had 8, with a tenuous longest road that allowed us to recall with humor how Joe learned about how a longest road can be broken. Ah, memories! Good times. Good times. Joe had 6 points with the harbormaster card. Note that Tony whined endlessly about how "worthless" his heavy investment in lottery ticket development cards was. Note the monopoly card, two road building, and two year of plenty cards he was "stuck" with. 😲
A nd our third game included Joe and Paul pulling out the Bailey's Irish Cream--without umbrellas this time. So tradition is restored. That and opposable thumbs separate we humans from the lesser forms of life, of course. Interestingly enough, nobody purchased any development cards this game. Bricks were in short supply but I thought my heavy investment in rocks would compensate. I cannot stop the nightmares of how many times I had to trade four cards for a brick. The horror. Pete ended up with 11 points. Paul and I had 5 points. Joe had 8 points. And Tony had 4 points. Another odd factor was the reluctance to take the longest road. I actually assumed Tony had it, not noticing the gap. And when I noticed figured he'd get it any minute now. I had a shot at taking the longest road. But figuring I couldn't hold it in the face of Tony's potential, built out toward the coast instead to try for building spots. Which was a mistake. Because Pete took the longest road with 5 segments and won the game.
T he A-10 flyover before the football game at the stadium was awesome, by the way. I live under the flight path for such spectacles. So allow me to share the flight heading north:
P ete was, to recap, the victor in all three games. Congratulations Pete! Don't even think that resentment and burning desire for revenge will affect anyone at all in December. Using the big board required me to break out the expansion kit for the first time since Dave Night in Dexter. And that is where Pete's missing poker die was, allowing him to use them all night. I'm sure that nothing at all will happen to those dice between now and next month.
E veryone was of course very supportive of Pete's impressive record of sweeping the night. And that nice gesture of reminding Paul to pick up his rock allotment right before Pete played a monopoly card to take all the rocks on the board will surely just be recalled by Paul with the warm glow of distance as "Oh that rascal Pete!" And we eagerly await the Lego dice tower that Pete will build. He has his eye on a two-dollar plan for sale.
T he gaming ended at about 11:30 and we retired to the living room area for coffee, sobering up, and Season 5, episode 4 of Game of Thrones. If you are hazy on the show, that's the episode with booobs in it. We wrapped up by about 12:30 and nobody took me up on my standing offer to crash here if unable to drive safely because of beer or weather. Thanks for those who came by. Game night is always great fun!
E veryone be advised that Joe is interested in hosting game night in January. But next month will be here at Casa Beej and I will of course work for early in the month to avoid stepping on family gatherings. And finally, another entry in the continuing series on game night memes that play on my computer during game night.
