Formally, I am the host for whatever that means when it is BYOB. My local liquor store called with some concern for my health recently because people aren't here for game night, bolstering my purchases. Anyway, Paul and Pete joined me for game night virtually. We managed four games with a pretty early end time. Was it in another world when we would play until 1:00 or later, and then watch Game of Thrones?
GAME 1
This was the game 1 ending. I was red, Paul was green, and Pete was grey.:
I invested heavily on bricks and wood with a bit of wheat, and managed to expand out to sheep and rocks. I expanded so well that for a time I even had longest road. But Paul was a road-building machine whose mileage diverted me from focusing on building to the brick port. As I've said, trying to defend my longest road once I reached the coast with the 3:1 port was futile and counterproductive.
Of course, Paul's focus on that may have deprived him of any cities. Although the poor showing of 5 demonstrates why. Yet Pete managed two cities and I got one with a poor 3 while we both got to the 12 too late to get any rock from there. Still, Paul had two victory point cards which got him one city promotion from victory. Or one knight card would have done it. Or maybe he needed two by the end of the game. Also, the robber spent a lot of time on Paul's 8 woods.
Pete expanded south after I beat him to the 3 rock building place; and expanded his northern enclave a bit. Unable to compete on the longest road, Pete managed to get the largest army with 3 knights, reaching 10. Congratulations Pete! Paul finished with 9 and I had 7.
This was the "probability" spread:
Robbers were about normal this game. Six, 8, and 9 were really good.
GAME 2
I was red, Pete was brown, and Paul was blue.
This is the end (sorry, that's a rock 2 under the sheep logo):
Paul and I blinked and the game was over as Pete road a stream of early 9 rolls to victory with 3 cities and enough 6 rolls to get the longest road at 5. I'm not sure what else to say about the Peteskrieg other than that I had four points and Paul had three. The horror.
Here are the dice rolls we lived through.
GAME 3
I was red, Paul was brown, and Pete was gray. This is the end of the game:
I beat Pete and Paul to the rock-wood-sheep vertex, which was a big deal. And I am shocked that I made a left-handed push south to build on two sites. With three cities and a longest road at 5 segments, I reached 10. Paul had 6 and Pete had 4.
And the dice:
Four, five, and eleven were shockingly good. Nine was pretty sad.
GAME 4
I was red, Paul was blue, and Pete was brown.
I screwed up and neglected to get the end game map before I quit the game, but this is a screen grab Paul got right before he went to 10 points with a port settlement build:
With the double placement spot, I tried the classic move of building in the middle of the forest and getting the wood port. At first I couldn't get any rolls and really began to doubt my strategy, given that I had no high value hexes. But the woods started coming in at last and I thought I could win this one!
I was so close with 9 points, including the longest road. I'm still not sure how Paul built 4 cities with just an 11 rock! But without a point card, largest army, or longest road, Paul earned the 10 the hard way by building on the brick-wood 3:1 port in the west. I had 9 and Pete had 8 in a very close game. His four cities were pretty impressive with only a 4 rock, although that was the best rock hex.
Here's the dice:
The robber was extra busy this game.
And a meme for you.
I'm glad we are keeping game night alive, but Lord I miss in-person gaming.
Next month Joe wants to host an in-person game night at Casa Joe in South Lyon. Fingers crossed!
