This is my gaming set up.
This is Joe's with an extra large viewing screen on a TV while he plays on tablet.
So if anyone is looking to join in the virtual game nights, these are a couple options that work.
Note that I was much more attentive to making sure labels from lax cursor discipline didn't obscure the map photos this month. Alas, I was but 3 for 4 on another measure of my duties.
Game 1
I was red, Pete was green, Paul was grey, and Joe was purple. We played the harbormaster variant. So the points needed to win was 11.
This is the end map:
Brick was poor but its cousin rock was really good.
Somehow, I managed to squander my few rocks on lottery tickets and didn't get any city upgrades. Near the end I had a hope of getting the longest road and with 3 and 11 virtually inactive I initially had to spend four rock on a brick just to get to a position to block Paul and stake out some territory for builds. And it took some accumulating of cards to build two roads and the settlement all in one turn to avoid wasting the effort.
Paul said that my settlement set him back five turns in getting building sites. But he did manage to hold the longest road. Like me, his 6 rock resource didn't provide the same bang for the buck. But he had the excuse of lacking his own wheat supply.
Pete spent the game with very little horizontal expansion, but good 6 and 9 rolls let him build cities. And those cities game him harbormaster. He also managed to get the largest army. I was trying to get it but stalled at two knights, and you can see my hand above which game me a road building and monopoly cards too late in the game to use, when I wanted knights.
Joe, too, was stymied on road building but got a couple cities, and started a road-building spree that fell short. Although I think in this game that at one point Joe had but lost the longest road and harbormaster honors. Ow, my nipples, to be sure.
Pete won with 11 points while Joe, Paul, and I tied with 6 points each.
This was the dice roll chart:
The robber was at least less active this game. Four, nine, and ten were unusually good while 8 was poor.
Game 2
I was red, Paul was green, Joe was blue, and Pete was purple. We did not play the harbormaster variant--my bad. I could have sworn I selected harbormaster. So this game just went to 10.
This is the end map:
Rock was horrifying this game. That's the only horrifying thing. And the desert was nicely out of the way on a corner.
One thing to note was that there was no blatant blocking as we had room to grow without throwing elbows. There were no actual adjacent colors on the board at the end.
Paul stretched out to get the longest road. But poor 11 rolls handicapped him in city building. Ask him about "dick squash." I really don't want to comment despite being unable to un-see what I saw on the Zoom call. Paul had a victory point card in his hand, too.
Joe managed two cities despite only a 2 rock, I assume with his ability to trade plentiful wood and wheat. His coastal enclave threatened to push north to a brick port that in theory would have been nice for me. Joe may be most notable for his discovery that informed us that we were not in fact playing the harbormaster variant. Sorry. But none of us noticed the clues on the screen, to be fair. I'd have felt worse if Joe had finished the game with 8 or 9 points.
Pete benefited nicely from the 12 rock, of all things. That gave him two cities. He actually had good opportunities to get harbormaster if that had been in play. Pete and I vied for largest army. He came up short while I retained a knight in reserve. Pete is perhaps best remembered for his "I regret nothing!" comment after the roars of anguish that erupted when he played a monopoly card to gain a lot of wood.
I was happy with my initial placements at 6 and 8, lacking only wheat. Thankfully my first expansion was to the wheat, managing to do that before Paul or Pete might expand there. I was horribly abused by the robber this game, losing 12 bricks during one stretch of the game, which ruined my hope of getting longest road, which receded from sight as Paul defended it and Pete challenged for it. I mostly had to trade for rock despite being on all rock by the end, because I missed the 12 cornucopia.
But with 2 cities, the largest army, and a victory point I reached 10, with Joe, Paul, and Pete each at 7.
This was the dice roll chart:
The robber was just awful. Not horribly out of whack given the number of rolls in the game. But still. My 10 sheep gave me trading opportunities, at least. Where was our probability bell curve this game!
Game 3
I was red, Pete was purple, Joe was brown, and Paul was green. We played the harbormaster variant.
This is the end map:
Nothing was gruesome about this map. For the most part there were no territorial clashes.
I was greatly constrained initially, with Joe messing up my hoped for coastal city in the southwest. My drive to the east was threatened by Paul. And if I hadn't gotten to the coast barely ahead of him I would have been doomed to relying on lottery tickets for the win. As it was, with heavy rock investment I had a fully urbanized empire with the longest road secured by building roads into Joe and Pete, but no room to build a settlement. As you can see, if the game had gone on a couple more rounds I could have gotten the largest army. But three of those knights still in my hand were my last-turn buys in my desperation to get a victory point card. So it was 10 points for me.
Yet it did show the difference that even one build spot can provide between almost winning and little hope for winning. I had thought I was doomed. Actually, Paul almost doomed me before that but I managed to reach the desert to build on that site before he could, which was the staging point for my drive to the coast. I shudder with nightmares over what might have been.
Joe may actually have had longest road before I connected my two sections of empire with a major road-building effort in one turn. His sheep port probably would have been a bigger deal but for the 6 fiasco. And he had the harbormaster title this game, which got him to 9 points. As I noted, his build on the sheep port rather than on the coast back one denied me a build on the coast. Amazingly, an 11 rock got him two city upgrades.
Paul was split into two enclaves with no hope of the longest road. He could have gotten the harbormaster and ridden it to victory if he could get to 4 port points and reach 11 victory points before Joe could pass him by with the lock on number of port settlements. And he had room for one more settlement if he could beat Pete to it. But with no victory points and no other bonus, Paul ended at 6 points. Lack of rocks was a hindrance, of course.
Pete was also well positioned on the rock front, and maxed out his cities. He tied for harbormaster but being second to reach 3 port points, did not end the game with it. And he was far from largest army. Sadly, for me--not him, he built a spur road and another settlement on the 12. We had mocked him for building on the 12 again, as if the game two 12-hex outlier would pay off again. As if past good luck predicts future good luck with the dice! We mock the probability gods at our own risk, it seems. So congratulations to Pete for reaching 11 and getting the win! There were no victory point cards pulled this game.
This was the dice roll chart:
I think anybody with even a vague understanding of probability will see what happens when you can't switch dice. Seriously, probability gods? The only saving grace is that 6 was relegated to sheep hexes. Only two dice rolls placed below 6 in frequency!
Game 4
I was red, Pete was grey, Paul was purple, and Joe was brown. We played the harbormaster variant.
This was the end map:
Nothing was horrible, although rock was inadequate when you throw in the desert.
After losing expansion options in my southern portion of my position (thanks Paul, although my guild on the desert no doubt blocked one of his options.), with only a port 11 within reach in theory but within reach of Joe, I actually managed to build 3 roads to the coast and build on the coast. That gave me another build at a port with good wheat resources. By rocks resources were poor, highlighted by my single city. I thought I had a shot at longest road if I could build north from my city. And even hoped largest army might be an option. But alas, all that fell through and I lacked even a victory point to get me above 6 points.
Paul took the longest road from me. He protested that I had taken it from him. Which was true enough. But I swear to God he lamented out loud that he had the longest road in the beginning, as if it was a curse. I thought I was doing him a kindness to take it from him. I swear! With good rock access he built 3 cities. But he had no knights and no hope of harbormaster. He needed just one city promotion or a victory point card to reach 11, but he did not do that and finished with 10 points.
Joe had decent rock access but only managed one city. Perhaps that was his punishment for building on the 12-11 wood hexes. I did not imagine that anybody would build there and figured I had room to expand to the coast for building sites, if nothing else. But no. But that wheat port at least helped him get and retain harbormaster. He still had three build spots within reach but all would have been contested by somebody else. Still, with 3 city promotions he had a path to victory if the game went on long enough. It did not and he finished with 8 points, including no victory point cards.
Pete basically build cul-de-sacs around 8-hexes. I'm not sure what else to say about his low-energy play other than that when he placed his ninth point on the board we were all rather shocked when the game ended. He had two victory point cards in his hand. He was actually working on the largest army, with 2 knights already played. But two victory point cards work, too. Ow, our ... somethings. The Catan gods were with Pete, for sure. I imagine Paul will be nursing a nice grudge for the new year.
This was the dice roll chart:
Finally, a reasonable distribution. Although the robber was a tad excessive, if you asked us. Sacrificing the dick squash may have satisfied the dice gods, for some odd reason.
We logged out of Zoom at about 11:30, having started at 6:00. We've never set a game record online despite needing the time to reset the game pieces. I'm not going to go through the game night posts, but I think five is the record, with a small chance it was actually six games.
So ends 2020 game nights. Unlike certain major league and college sports we did not let a mere pandemic stop us. Our last in-person game night prior to lockdowns was in March. And in July and September, Dave and Joe hosted in-person game nights. I had an off-the-books patio game day in the summer and we also had a couple off-the-books outside games playing the online version at Paul's so we could maintain social distancing and still play without Zoom.
I eagerly await in-person games in 2021. Spring? And as I mentioned in a previous post I'm going to start a non-Catan weekly game night for as few or as many as want to join me. It will at least be an opportunity for me to haul out some of my many unplayed board wargames for solitaire play, if nothing else.
And after all the taunting (well, all from me) that a history major built the only dice tower in our gaming gang club, Pete has offered up his own:
It is surely glorious. And a welcome addition for when in-person gaming can finally resume. But it has the obvious look of a purchased dice tower. Although Pete assembled it. So nice, but no end to the taunts.
And I realized I'd forgotten about the the Catan memes that I had been adding. I guess it has been so long since we had in-person gaming here that I forgot about them (I put them on a slide show here during game night). So here's one more:
Thanks for playing! Virtual game night is way better than no game night. But in-person beats this. Even though in-person gaming isn't one of those really tough game nights were you have to drink large glasses of warm gin served with a human hair in it.
And as always, I welcome comments to provide different perspectives as well as corrections of gross errors on my part. Cheers and we'll do it all again in the new year.
And yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
I think we can all agree on that this season, eh?
