April 2020 (Virtual) Game Night

Really, we're handling game night absence just fine:

 
Obviously there is no physical world April game night to report. But let's address four five things:

1. Online beta game tests.
2. Your local game nights.
3. Virtual Game Night 1.0.
4. May Virtual Game Night.
5. Mega-Catan! We're gonna need a bigger boat.

I failed in an effort to get a Settlers of Wuhan variant going:

You have to have three hex sides between settlements. And the first player to build 3 wet markets gets the Largest Epidemic card, worth two points.

But I was told this is in poor taste. Too soon, I guess. Anyway ...

First, Paul, Pete, Paul's son, and I beta tested the official online gaming site at Catan Universe, while using Skype for a more personal feel.

When you sign up you get 100 gold and you need to buy 400 more for 3.99 Euros. Which is either $4.50 or $45.00. I forget the exchange rate. Then you need to share your screen name with whoever is starting the game so you can be added.

And we had to share Skype links to have party-line video call.

We played two games and while my attempt to do a print screen of game one failed, the second one worked when I pasted it into a word document first and then copied and pasted into this post.

Paul won the first game with the longest road and 10 points. Pete had 6 points. And I had 4 or 5, I honestly can't remember.

In the second game I (red) actually stole the longest road from Pete when I placed four road segments. And then hung on until I could finally get the extra points by promoting a city and building a settlement. Pete (green) had 6 with a victory point down while Paul (yellow) had four.

The map almost at the end of game 2 screen grab, it doesn't show my last two builds that got me to 10. (and note to self, while the picture below doesn't appear in edit mode, it is there!):



The game worked pretty well with Skype.  And it would have sucked with just the game interface. It would not have seemed like game night.

Paul wants to set up Zoom instead for this, and planned to try it prior to a general game night.

Pete and Paul tried solitaire for practice. I didn't realize that was an option, but picked up the game on the fly without too much of a problem.

One weird thing is that I didn't even pay attention to what numbers I had since the game never forgot. Pete and Paul agreed.

But no dice tower. No changing dice for better luck when the rolls dry up. And no psychic willing of players to take the card I want when they send the robber at me.

And the game doesn't let you trade a wheat for a wheat just to be difficult.

Unfortunately the online version does not have the expanded 6-player version. So in May if many want to play, we can play multiple 4-player games while all on Zoom.

Although I think we could have 6 players who rotate through the game. I'd certainly volunteer to stay out of the first game to let others play.

I was hoping that regular game night might be possible in late May and that this online option will be set aside for the most part. But that's not how I'd bet.

A few days later we tested again with Zoom instead of Skype.

This is the end game. I was red, Pete was grey, and Paul was purple.

Actually, taking a picture off of the screen works well enough. Doing a screen grab and directly pasting to blog works but it doesn't appear as I'm editing the blog. And pasting the screen grab into a word document so I don't have to blog while playing locked up the system when I tried to copy from the document and paste to the blog.

The robber hit us a lot in the game. Very frustrating not to have the dice tower or the ability to change physical dice. Paul initially got the longest road--and cut me off. I took it from him. then Paul built 3 roads to tie me. He tried to trade with Pete for one more brick but Pete had none. He assured both of us that if he had a brick, Paul would have gotten it. Thanks Pete. On my turn I was able to build a city and get ten. Pete had 9 with the largest army and would have won if I hadn't. Paul had 6.

Second, for the duration of the lockdown and social distancing requirements I would like to deputize all on the game night mailing list for your game night recaps. If you have your own game night within your family or are already deep into online Catan, write up your review and email it to me! I'll post it on the blog and send out links. I'd like to read about your games even if I'm not playing them.

Third, we had a Virtual Game Night version 1.0 Friday night to give it a final real world run. I invited our regulars to see if this works live with a reasonable number of dedicated attendees. We had five which let us try the rotation option. Dave, Joe, Paul, and Pete virtually joined me.

Tony sadly had to report that his Internet connection could not handle Zoom so he had to decline. The words were English but they just made no sense to me. But please note that Joe was completely on phone connections with his devices and it worked. Occasionally he went on the Catan Warning Clock when his connection faltered. But never long enough to be kicked off.

I sat out the first game as virtual host, and Paul kindly FaceTimed the board to me so I could follow along. He didn't have it terribly steady which was a little motion sickness inducing. He said he might need to 3D print something to hold it viewing the computer screen. I suggested  Paul could tell his son to hold his phone very still under threat of mild physical punishment.

Somehow I was considered out of bounds for that completely practical suggestion to solve my problem. Go figure.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this is the way to go for all players who might sit out a game but it worked for us. Paul is on the case to resolve that issue. Without threats of corporal punishment, apparently.

Happy hour was in part to iron out difficulties. We talked about the process and the beta tests. When we started to play we ran into a glitch. The problem was that Dave thought that buying the required amount of gold needed to purchase the game was actually purchasing the game. When we had problems signing people up for the game we finally figured out the cause of that issue, and Dave quickly purchased the game with his gold and we were off!

Here's my command center, with game 2 up and Zoom on a second device:

Everybody used two platforms for the game although you certainly could have it all on one screen. And I had to use a headset for better sound both ways.

Game one was hosted by Paul and his commentary follows.

An historic night, to be sure - our first game commentary from yours truly (Paul) and oh yes, also the first prime time, officiated virtual game night. It's not clear exactly who hosted, because everyone was responsible for their own beer and snacks. Props to BJ and Joe for getting it the closest to right, with Joe finishing up with the now coveted Irish Cream Liquor. Brian was drinking some weird green thing that looked like it needed an umbrella. In fairness, BJ did have something that sounded like Ito.

After some drama getting all four starting players ready to play, Powool (Paul) gets the roll, SMP_Machine (Pete), SchoonerJoe (Joe, duh), and Conanthe Librarian (aka Dave, but note the space) rounds out with the DP spot. Brian, the ever gracious host with the green drink sat out the first round, as only four were able to play at once.

Starting off, we were faced with what appeared to be a fairly nicely laid out board, no major resource constraints to complain about, not that we abstained from complaining:

Early game, Dave took the lead with 3 natural, and the longest road. Other than that, the board looked reasonably fair, other than Pete maybe beginning to suffer due to limited building spots, as he was prevented from building inwards anywhere.

Mid game, the early placement challenges were starting to become more apparent, as Dave had no room to extend and defend his longest road, giving it up to Joe, who took it with a commanding 8 segments. Despite picking up the 8 segments, Joe was otherwise not able to capitalize, limited at the time to three settlements:

Midgame score showed Paul at 6, Pete at 4, Joe at 5, Dave at 5, with Joe holding the longest road.

Things turned ugly with an early vindictive placement of the robber against Paul, apparently jumping the gun on the Pete rule. Pete had begun to get traction on resources, obtaining numerous development cards, and gleefully using them to further his evil plan of global domination through ultimately gaining the largest army card. A protracted, unrelenting Robber fest continued through end game as resources and cards were lost by all. In spite of challenges, all players built up their empires admirably well, with a three way tie score for first of 8-8-8-7, with Joe trailing due to resource constraints. Despite thefts plaguing him, Paul managed to continue building towards the sea. Manifest destiny realized at last! Late game, with 7 points on the board, a settlement in his hand, and a roadbuilding card turned down, Paul was able to build his settlement, scoring 8 points, then lay down two segments to acquire the longest road for the win:

[Back to Beej] Thanks Paul! Showing off with his fancy multiple maps for a single game. Harrumph. Ah, what you can do without a hangover.

I must say that Paul's 5 rock hex attracted a lot of robber attention from the other players. Despite Paul's near monopoly on rocks, other players did manage to build cities. Dave's heavy wood investment and a wood port helped that out. And I was wondering if Joe would cut Paul off at the sea.

And my light green drink was the Mojito but with mint syrup rather than mint leaves. It was NOT the color of sheep hexes. So let's end those ugly rumors now.

Here's the clear map end game:

For those choosing platforms, it seems as if the Apple app provides far more detailed statistics on the game. So you can really drill down to find out how badly "probability" screwed you over.

Normally, Paul would have stepped aside for game two because he won. But Dave had to leave for physical world events anyway. So we started game two down to just four on Zoom:

Brick was poor, as you can see. And wood. I was red. Paul was blue. Joe was brown. And Pete was purple. Paul had grabbed the longest road and was close to making it unbeatable. Until I built a settlement and broke it. Oops. I did it again. I imagine that is still a painful memory for Joe. To be fair, Paul had to deal with a plumbing emergency during the game.

Paul still had the longest road but he had less potential for holding it. Glad that I had practiced solo the previous day which allowed me to finally figure out how to buy development cards in the game, I deployed the longest army.

Eventually, I was able to play a monopoly card for ... something ... that seemed plentiful (I had a lot of wheat and wood but don't remember if the wheat was from my wheat investments or the monopoly card), and with my wheat port and general purpose port built the roads needed to get longest road and ten points. Paul had 7 points. Joe had 6. And Pete had 8.

Huzzah.

Joe and Paul wanted to call it a night early, so we sadly set a record for fewest games played at a game night. But the system works!

It was weird playing virtually, but fun. The Zoom (or Skype) link was critical to make it seem more normal and social rather than just using the game interface. That would just seem like an AI with unusual abilities to hold grudges. Also, it was helpful to simply tell people what you had and wanted without always relying solely on the game interface for initiating trades.

This clearly works and so Virtual Game Night can go on until we can resume normal game nights at some point.

Fourth, the idea is to have a regular Virtual Game Night in May. Depending on how many people sign in, we can have one 4-player game, perhaps with someone who rotates into and out of one game; or we can have multiple games going at once if 6 or more people sign into the Zoom Virtual Game Night. We'd all be on Zoom but we'd be playing separate games. There would be some cross talk but the game host could name their game after a resource (Game Sheep would be mine) and announce the game name before discussing a trade or robber placement to reduce confusion.

We would trade players as the night goes on. Those who host the game would be responsible for emailing me a recap with map photo if possible so I can put it in the blog. As I noted, taking a picture of the final game screen worked. But you may need to take notes on players and other details the final map doesn't reveal like who is what color, victory point cards, or largest army holder.

I'll send out the email for that with instructions for how we will proceed and what you will need to play, along with Catan user names that I already have so you can add us as friends to play.

Fifth, when we had our first over-sold game night at Casa Joe's in February, we had to rotate players under the emergency provisions. In theory with one extra, the winner steps aside. At Joe's, Joe went for more beer after game one to handle the crowd size, so the winner did not need to step out for a game.

I began to mull options that don't involve non-Catan or multiple games going on at the same time.

And the need to invite people for the first limited run of Virtual Game Night for April filled me with such guilt that I wanted to make it up to everyone once real world games resume.

I mapped the geography options and figured this basic option is the best:

The 19 shiny pennies are the original board. That's about 5 or 6 hexes per player with 3 or 4. And I wanted to double the size to handle 8 players. The expansion kit adds 11 hexes to allow up to 6 players. That's 5-6 hexes per player.

So with the enlarges board that uses 18 more hexes (the older tarnished pennies), we get 37 hexes. Which gives about 5-6 hexes for 7-8 players.

And it really could be expanded six more hexes at either end to have 9 players if it ever comes to that.

At that point we're crowding around my table and have reached my peak chair supply. Although I have four stools that could work in a pinch for people drinking, watching, and waiting for their chance to play in the unlikely event of having that many people crowded in here.

So I think we are at maximum for game night list for now, even with this expansion. So no more additions. But obviously no deletions for those already on it! This will work.

I began looking around for replacement parts to allow this. I quickly figured out that just buying a new basic game is the cheapest option. And I made two more edge extenders to go with the expansion kit extenders.

I'll leave out one sheep hex from the second game and add in the number disks of the second game up to "Q." I'd add more resource and development cards to match the expansion kit's additions (so no new victory point cards).

I painted the roofs of the new game pieces and distinguished the roads by blackening the ends of the roads because the colors of the second game are the same as the original game's pieces. Sadly the terrain hexes are a new design. Although that does help with separating the pieces at the end of the night, so I guess perhaps that's a good thing.

And my first impression is that we should reduce the victory points needed to win down to 9--or 10 with harbormaster variant--to keep the game time down a bit. But that could be changed depending on our experience.

Behold and avert your eyes, puny mortals! Freaking MEGA-CATAN!

It is the Dark Lord of Nightmares! The Bringer of Terror! Tremble before its scale! Fear it!



Try building the trans-Catanian highway on this world! Now go change your armor.

Anyway, we have this potential to look forward to after lockdown. I'm certainly eager! Hope to see a bunch of you, whether regulars or newly signed up players, in May for the first full-scale production run of Virtual Game Night.

Oh, and a meme from the game night slide show at Casa Beej: