November 2020 (Virtual) Game Night

We held game night early in November. Dave, Joe, Paul, and Pete joined me for game night. It was virtual but after the first game that I sat out Paul wasn't involved. Paul was streaming screen shots all night on an FTP site so I could watch the first game. Then he had to go for parental duties so we didn't need the usual 5-player protocol.

I learned my lesson from last week and stuck with beer this game night.

Game One

In this game Dave was blue, Joe was red, Paul was purple, and Pete was green. I was just drinking--just beer, having learned my lesson in October.

Wood was barely adequate and bricks were poorly placed for sharing. Nonetheless there was quite the battle for the longest road by Dave, Joe, and Pete. Joe dropped out after completing the classic "swimmer" road Pete had blocked further progress north. Pete maxed out too; while Dave had room to expand unless Peter blocked him. 

Only Dave made a real play for harbors. Paul had 4 points of settlements along the coast but only one was on a port.

But after Catan ... ah ... frustration last month, Pete rolled to the top spot with 11 points.

End game map with dice statistics:

Pete had 11 points, including the longest road plus a victory point card.  Paul had 8 points straight. Dave had 8 points, including harbormaster. And Joe had 6 points straight. Congratulations Pete!

The robber was very active. And 5 and 11 were unusually productive.

Game Two

I was red. Dave was blue. Pete was gray. And Joe was purple.

Wood was not the best but I was pleased with my numbers and resource diversity. I had a good chunk of territory walled off, even considering my vast desert holdings. 

I was pushing for longest road but sadly it did not occur to me that Dave had two victory points down and that I should have a sense of urgency. Pete apparently made the same mistake. Oh well. 

In my own defense I really thought I needed a port before I needed the longest road. And I thought Pete could get it quicker anyway. My memory was that I didn't want to connect my two segments unless I could do it in one move and so not waste a road if I lost the race.

Joe would have been in competition with Pete for the northern coast if the game had gone on longer.

Dave had the resources to promote to cities even if he didn't get longest road, so he was in a pretty good position regardless.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this was the game when Joe asked for our help because his screen said he had one more point than he could see on the board. Which told the rest of us he had a victory point card. Oops.

Game 2 end map:

 

Dave ended up with 12 points, including the longest road at 5! Five! and the largest army plus two victory point cards. Joe and I were tied with 7, with a victory point card each. And Pete had 5. Congratulations Dave!

Game two dice:

 

There's no curve in that curve. I'm shocked I had only one city given the 4 frequency. And 2 and 12 were pretty good, really.

Game Three

I was red. Dave was blue. Pete was brown. And Joe was green. 

Other than lacking sheep, I was pleased with my set up. And I eventually made it to sheep. I had the classic space station configuration in the east and managed to get to the coast before Dave could cut me off. 

Dave didn't build many roads, but he had no bricks at all, which slowed him down.

Joe expanded quite a bit, linking his starting settlements. And he had a shot at longest road. Pete had a decent enclave in the north and had a shot at harbormaster.

In the end, I reached 11 on the strength of the longest road and a couple cities.

Game 3 end map:

 

I had 11 with the longest road. Dave had 8 with harbormaster. Pete had 5 and Joe had 4. Nobody had victory point cards.

Game three dice:

Can you believe the robber frequency and the poor performance of 6 and even 8? Three and 5 beat out 6 and 10 tied 6!

Game Four

I was red, Dave was blue, Joe was green, and Pete was brown.

I was on the verge of winning for some time later in the game, and Dave didn't understand why I didn't build a settlement at the 3:1 port even though my rocks were refusing to come in. I couldn't get rocks to save my life. At some point I mentioned that I already had 5 settlements on the map and so could not. I blocked it out just in case and to keep Dave from building there. But what I really needed was a city upgrade. The robber did not help my effort. But I guess my largest army was one place my few rocks went. So there's that.

Although I was strangely pleased with the extent of my inland empire.

Dave build along the coast with an inland salient and a small separate enclave that provided sheep, rocks, and wood.

Pete took the sheep 3:1 site I had hoped to expand to. But again, I had no settlements to spare.

Joe had two separate medium-sized enclaves with heavy investment on the wood 8.

I don't remember why Pete was stalled at 10. And how he got three cities with the same 4 rock resource is beyond me. At least Joe had a 10 to supplement to reach 2 cities. Hey, Dave managed 3 cities with just the 10! The robber really sucked.

In any case, Dave got his 11th point and took the honors.

Game 4 end map:

Dave ended up with 11 points, including a victory point card. I had 10 with longest road, largest army, and a victory point card. Pete had 10 points with harbormaster. Joe had 8 straight. Congratulations Dave!

Game 4 dice:

Now that's a curve. But if you thought the robber was active in game 3, WTF? Twenty-two times? Catan was not mostly peaceful that night, my friends. Six and 8 were reliably good for once. Only 2 crapped out. Lucky me. And as you can see, my 4 was not a rock producer for me.

Thanks to everyone who played. It was fun. Not as good as in-person, but I guess we're not there yet.

As always, please feel free to add thoughts, perspective, and corrections in the comments. I was in a rush to catch up on recaps so my proofreading was not up to even my minimal standards for a blog.

But we'll keep doing this. By all means, even if people don't want to invest in the Catan Universe game, feel free to show up like it is a happy hour. Paul could set up his FTP in Chrome that provides frequently updated maps to follow along if you want. It worked for me in game one. And since we do a lot of trading offers by voice and not just the online mechanism, you aren't totally in the dark on that.

Next time in the latter half of December before Christmas!