January 2021 (Virtual) Game Night

Beejorians! 

Happy new year! Ito Night is coming. Eventually.

The year 2020 did not somehow continue through January. Rejoice! Game night continues. The phrase of the game night was "expressing oils." I'm not explaining. 

Dave, Joe, Paul, and Pete joined me this past Saturday. With a limit of four players online, we were under standard protocol of  me sitting out the first game and then the winner of a game sits out the next one.

Paul sent out the endless Zoom meeting link (Thanks Paul!).

We started up at 6:00 and began gaming shortly thereafter. As Dave struggled with getting his Catan up and running he graciously bowed out of game 1. So I played instead of following along. We played the harbormaster variant for all the games. As if somebody could be drunk or stupid enough to forget that, eh?

On to the games!

Game One

I was red, Joe was grey, Paul was brown, and Pete was green. Pete placed first followed by Joe, me, and Paul in the coveted DP spot.

No resource was too bad. We had the unusual eye of the hurricane desert.

Pete grabbed a great spot for wheat, wood, and brick. Joe followed with a good 5,9,10 spot. I had to make choices. I couldn't have everything. Shockingly my first placement was on the 6,4,3 spot had not been taken. I needed sheep (of course), bricks, and wood. And better wheat. The best compromise seemed the north coast 8,4 space to give me bricks and sheep plus access to a rock port.

Lack of wood really hurt me. And sadly I had to use a good amount of rock to trade for wood. Rolling 2 three times outperformed probability although it was just out of reach when it hit. Although once a robber was on it, placed before I built there. But I did get one roll with two settlements. Paul had a road every 8 and he pushed south--I was lucky to reach the 9 wheat as my priority over reaching the rock port. And Paul pushed west on the southern coast ending my hope to reach the wheat port and stake out some coast for a good shot at harbormaster.

Joe was well positioned for harbormaster but Paul grabbed the title first. With enough time Joe could have taken it. I still hoped to beat Joe to the 5,2 port with plenty of wood. But my wood situation was not good. Joe's incessant complaints that 5 kept being rolled didn't bother me one built. But his wood surplus didn't last more than four hours so there was no need to seek medical attention.

Pete blocked my northern avenues of expansion. His move south staked out some wheat a bit and threatened to cut Paul's really long road option. But ...

Paul's road-building prowess was unstoppable. Before Pete could challenge Paul and block a connecting road, and before Joe could grab harbormaster, Paul achieved longest road with his southern highway and made it to 11. Joe, Pete, and I each had 6 points. Nobody had victory points and only I had a single knight. Congratulations Paul!

Note that nobody built more than a single city. As I said, I needed my early rocks to try to stake out enough territory to be able to build enough! By the time I was looking at city building Paul had won.

The Dice

The robber was actually pretty tame. And 3, 5, 11, and 12 were very good. I can't complain about my dice luck. I won't say camping on rocks was an error. My mistake was probably not just biting the bullet and parking on the rock port instead of including sheep, too, out of distaste for losing resource opportunities.

Game Two

Paul bowed out as victor and Dave had a fully functional Catan game. I was red, Dave was blue, Joe was gray, and Pete was brown. Pete again placed first, followed by Joe, me, and Dave in the coveted DP spot.

The concentration of rock with the mountain range looming over the desert and sea was restrictive. Otherwise resources were okay.

Pete grabbed the very nice rock and wheat combo. 

The desert gave me nearly wide open vistas for expansion on the north! But this game I did not try to park on the rock mountain in the east and instead wisely invested in a respectable 9 woods with a minor 12 woods bonus. All I had to do was reach the brick port and I'd be good to go for cities and expansion in the north! But those darned other players got in the way of that plan. And cursed probability, of course.

Pete had road problems. His 2 brick came up once. I don't remember it it came up when he had two cities there, or not. And his wood 9 came up once. His southern enclave was boxed in and he began the long crawl north on the coast. 

Joe was sad to notice that he picked poorly for number diversity with a pair of 3,4,6 settlements. I staked off his expansion options to the north in his western enclave. And he was blocked totally in his eastern enclave.

I made the coast in the south where all I really wanted was to build around the 5 wheat, with the brick port the prize. In the north I reached the coast for more wheat and sheep, grabbed desert bricks, and looked forward to branching off to the northeast to seal off that territory from Pete's northern push. I hoped to promote cities as I built roads for new settlements.

Alas my wood supply dried up with just one 9 rolled in the game, and later at that! Which hurt Pete as well of course.  Really, I built only four roads while Pete and Joe built just 3.

Dave went on a tear, coming close to building the trans-Catanian road. He even managed to thread the gap between Pete and Joe in the east, attesting to the road-building limits of both of them. With equally successful city building, Dave fully urbanized. With the longest road and a victory point card down, Dave hit 11. Congratulations Dave! Joe and I followed with 8 points. Me aided by a victory point card and Joe held the harbormaster. Pete followed with 7 points, including a victory point card.

In this game Dave actually traded away two sheep for wood. Any time Dave is on the short end of a trade, be warned that he anticipates victory. Just sayin'.

The Dice

Behold the 9. And shudder. My 12 produced more wood. But I will say 5, 10, and eventually 11 (but I can't remember if its production predated my settlements there) were very good. The robber was more active than expected. 

Tell me we don't need in-person gaming with the Tower of the Dice and the Ark of the Probability?

Game Three

Dave sat out as victor of game 2. I was red, Joe was brown, Pete was grey, and Paul was green. Pete again placed first, followed by Joe, me, and Paul with the coveted DP spot.

Nothing was too bad for resources, but both 6 hexes were wasted on sheep.

I managed to have full resource diversity although wheat was light. I was blocked by Joe on my hope of reaching the woods coast and the brick port. Instead I pushed to the north coast and also expanded to the southeast coast as well as moving inland.

Joe cruelly blocked Paul's drive south to the coast. Ow my nipples, indeed. Highly reliant on 11 and 12 wood, Paul's road building was a problem. Wasting two hurt. Other building options were constrained by the desert which required extra roads to get around.

Joe was able to expand in the south along the coast. He took the longest road and tied for harbormaster.

Pete got stuck after building two more settlements.

I actually got harbormaster and held it as Joe challenged for it. That seems to be a rarity for me. And with a last push to build a road and--I think--promote a city--I finished with 12 points, including harbormaster and longest road. Woo! Joe finished with 5, Pete had 4, and Paul had 3.

Nobody had point cards or knights this game.

The Dice

The robber was relatively inactive. And 9 really made up for its game 2 performance. Luckily I did not abandon it in frustration! And 3 and 8 over-performed, helping me build 3 cities.

Game Four

I sat out this game as penance for winning, as is standard operating procedure. Why has Klaus left us stranded on Tiny Catan?

Joe broadcast a map of the game on Zoom so I could follow along. I was unwilling to test my barely capable tablet computer that I use for the Zoom connection by trying to expand the map screen. But by looking close I could barely follow along. As long as nobody minded my eyeball close ups on their screen. Thanks Joe!

Dave was blue, Joe was green, Paul was red, and Pete was purple.  Pete placed first, Paul went second, Dave was third, and Joe had the coveted DP spot.

I really hope players will add their comments for this game. 

All the hard things were in short supply. Wheat was plentiful so nobody went hungry at least. Who set up that map, anyway?

Dave had a rock port but only a non-performing 2 rock. Bold strategy, Cotton. With high-performing wood resources, lack of rocks and bricks might have been overcome. But inland options were closing and the coastal enclave was not secure. Dave responded to his predicament with the robber. Not to desperately try to get points, but because "I hurt somebody just so I can feel something." So there's that.

Paul had a promising empire with a real possibility of linking up his enclaves to get and keep the longest road. Even without rocks he managed to promote a city. 

Joe was pushing up the coast, benefiting from road-building resources. Although he had no really outstanding resource. With a shot at a decent rock resource--that over-performed--he would have been in a good position. And with a shot at an eastern port, harbormaster was an option. Even longest road was a possibility.

But Pete had other things in mind.

This isn't that kind of a blog, of course. So we'll stick to Catan.

Pete managed to get all of the resources and had a strong commitment to the 9 rocks. I assume his first pick was the 6,9,10 spot. That resource gave him two cities. His coastal empire had a couple of inland spurs, including a sheep pasture to go with his sheep port. Pete grabbed both the harbormaster and longest road, reaching 11 before anybody could pry away any of those 4 points. Paul followed with 6, and Dave and Joe had 4. Congratulations Pete!

There were no knights and no victory point cards in this game. Which sort of makes sense. Only Pete had real rock resources and he built cities. And I don't know if Joe reached his 12 rock in time to get any. If he did get rock getting a lottery ticket would have been a tempting recourse.

The Dice

Nine again worked to make up for failing me. Sadly I was not in the game. Ten and 5 were outstanding. What happened to 8?

Game Five

Joe retired for the night before game five. Joe's wording was ambiguous. Either he needed to spend time in the bathroom or he had a bootie call. Hard to say. 

But perhaps I reveal too much about game night. Still, while the first rule of game night is don't talk about game night, the second rule is that you can totally blog it.

The bottom line is that Pete did not need to have a time out from the game. Dave was blue, I was red, Paul was grey, and Pete was green. For once, Pete did not place first! This dime Paul placed first, Pete was second, I was third, and Dave had the coveted DP spot.

Rock was in poor shape. Nothing else was noticeably bad. Wheat was good.

Right off the bat, Paul screwed me in my effort to extend my road and build at the sheep port. I honestly didn't think his build location ranked that high. But I at leas had all resources on my initial placement. I did manage to expand out around my other starting build. And I could see the coast If I could get enough brick. But again I got stuck at the stage of building up cities prior to the final sprint to victory. I kept feeling the need to burn cards. I at least managed to get the largest army. Had I just managed to get that sheep port, my sheep holdings would have been very useful. My hopes for longest road might have even panned out!

Paul very rapidly built up his cities somehow. And while I was busy building inland he built past my potential drive to the coast to block his southward movement. Getting the longest road in the process. He had the potential of taking the harbormaster from Dave.

Pete was trapped in the north, but he was able to reach the coast and stake out adequate building territory. He built a city and also threatened my largest army. Indeed, on one turn he had the chance to take largest army but played a monopoly card instead, taking my entire flock and hope of building a city. He too had a shot at harbormaster at that point. But alas it was not to be.

Dave managed three cities somehow. I'll guess his prolific 6 and 9 bricks and brick port were the key. And when he got the harbormaster I began to worry because I suspected he had a victory point card. With a lot of cards in his hand, Dave began trading and was suspiciously quiet. I suspected the worst and waited to see if he would promote a city and win. But he did not. Instead, Dave started rolling out roads on the southern coast. He grabbed the longest road from Paul and the game ended with those two points. He had no victory point card after all. Well played Dave! Paul and I followed with 7 points and Pete had 6. Nobody actually had a victory point card.

The Dice

Well, 9 tried to make it up to me a second game. The robber was pretty close to average, with 6 good and 8 a bit up. I think 12 stole some of 2's probability. Not too out of sorts.

We wrapped up before 11:00 with 5 games played. Which is a pretty darned good pace. 

I'm going to be honest, staying up a few more hours is far easier with in-person gaming. Zoom game nights are good, but it seems less like "real" socializing. Oh well. And maybe the number of games played is a limit. I think 5 games in a night is a record but take longer in-person. Although Pete thinks the decisive factor might be sobering up to drive home. He has a point. This is still fun and it is great to see friends until we can restore standard gaming routine. Better times will arrive, I'm sure.

And here's another game night meme:

Thanks for playing! This definitely eases the lock down. One day we'll have in-person with room for up to 9 players. Ito Night is coming.

As always, please feel free to leave comments for your perspective on the games!

I've been pondering how to handle interstellar build phases in larger games. In those between player rounds you can buy stuff but can't trade to provide opportunities to avoid the robber until you turn comes around. In the standard game you can only buy and can't trade. But would that be enough with 7-9 players? Dave suggested having a higher robber trigger than 8 in the standard games. That sounds like a simple but effective method rather than adding trade options as I was pondering. 

For 7 or more players the robber trigger could be number of players plus 3. At 6 players in expansion Catan (or fewer players, of course) 8 cards triggers robber losses, but for Mega Catan 7 players would have a 10 card trigger with 9 players would suffer at 12 cards. That might work and it is a simple adjustment rather than an over-complicated effort to reduce the effect of a long time between active turns.

Stay tuned for February game night announcement! 

NOTE: I amended the post for game 4 to include a quote from Dave that I meant to use.