July 2021 Game Night

We had game night last night! We're getting that old pit crew skills back in resetting the game.

Paul, Pete, and Tony joined me for gaming. Although Tony missed the first game. Happy hour started at 6:00 and we started playing a little before 7:00.

We dined on pizza (mushrooms(!), sausage, bacon, and pepperoni), potato chips with ranch and green onion dip, apple pie-zza, chocolate chip cookies, sugar-free chocolate chip cookies, and the usual dietary needs of frozen thin mints and HoHos for Paul and Pete. The M & M jar was also refilled.

Thank you to Tony and Pete for eating all of the mushroom slices. I vowed none would remain in my home at the end of the evening.

The usual house Labatt Blue Light was available in enormous quantities--I really over-estimated drinking capacity. Plus the usual assortment of pops and sparking water. Tony and Pete generously brought higher quality beers, which I will endeavor to retain for next month.

In all the games, I am red, Paul is orange, Pete is white, and Tony is blue. Since there was no way to screw up starting with harbormaster, all the games were harbormaster variant.

I screwed up most of the starting position photos so left them out this month. Sorry! I'll do better next time.

And I really need to take notes about who places and moves first. I've forgotten.

Anyway, Pete brought his own dice tower and his special metal dice, so shit got real. On to the games!

Game One

This was the end game map:

Wheat and wood were not in great supply. Pete's long road speaks to his presence on the best forests. Paul was big on sheep. The game went pretty quickly as Pete built around the desert with a wide birth. Paul had a lot of room in the north with an enclave in the south. Paul split my potential road union to make a try for longest road. But with urbanization and rapid drives to the coasts, I was able to get harbormaster and end the game with 11 points. Pete had 8 points with the longest road. Paul followed with 7 points.

Not many development cards were purchased. I had just the one knight. I think Pete placed and moved first.

 

Game Two

Tony joined us at this point. This was the end game map (Sorry about the glare. And we really need to stop putting the robber on the numbers.):

That's a 4 brick under the glare on the left.

This game ended fast. Rock was really good. The rolls apparently went really well for Paul who swept ahead to 11 points, including the harbormaster and longest road, in nothing flat. Pete at least could say he was in the game with 5 points. Tony and I had 3 points each. He built one road and upgraded to a city; while I built one road and built a settlement. 

So the pain of me building past Tony's effort to get to the coast was lost in the paulskrieg. Pete did block Paul's push southwest on the coast, but all Paul really needed was the 5 roads to get longest road. 

I was totally blocked in the east while my northwestern enclave was squeezed by Tony with only a long march to the south my only option. Ending the game was a mercy, really. The game took less than half an hour to play. I think only Pete bought any development cards, with a knight played.

I'm going to be honest, as people were leaving I completely forgot we had played 5 games and not 4. I had suppressed the brief memory of this brutal beat down. But the photograph of the map did not lie. Ouch.

Congratulations Paul!

Game Three

This was the end game map:

That's a 10 forest under the glare.

Wood was weak. But when 3 hit, Pete was rolling. I think I was able to get the sweet, sweet 4 action often enough to matter. And when 3 hit, I swam in wheat. My 11 supported my modest sheep needs.

Paul, Pete, and Tony started their settlements close together in their placements. I was a little more spread out, lacking only sheep. But I was able to expand to improve wheat and rock while getting that sheep.  Paul was threading south between Pete and myself, while also reaching the sea. Pete pushed to the coast on parallel drives, picking up harbormaster. Tony did the same advance on his part of the map. The desert separated their domains.

I managed to promote four cities and by placing two roads, reached 5 segments and got longest road to reach 11 points without the need to hold it against the other players who were well placed to pass me and take it. Pete finished with 9 points, including harbormaster. Paul and Tony each had 5 points.

 

Game Four

This was the end game map:

That's a 12 forest under the glare.

I think it was this game that the robber really came out in force for the rest of the night. Tony and Paul seemed especially good at rolling 7s, especially when they had more than 7 cards in their hands. Not that Pete and I didn't manage that, too. But Tony and Paul seemed haunted by 7 rolls.

Yet still, Tony doubts the curative powers of switching dice. Go figure. And he resists the one true dice tower.

Paul brutally built past my push south to the coast where I hoped to branch left and right to two ports. Instead I had to reroute past the desert; and shift expansion to the north coast while I could. Thanks Paul!

Pete built a small coastal gated community. With no more build spots he needed to start buying lottery tickets to get a point card or build the largest army. I had a lineland, with one and maybe two more build spots if I could beat Paul to them. Tony had a coastal enclave and sat in the no-man's land between my territory and Pete's. He had no more build spots. Paul cut to the sea and built up in the northeast. I hoped to regain longest road that Pete had stolen from me.

But Tony managed to urbanize while getting harbormaster and won with 11 points. Pete had 10 points, with longest road. I had 7 points. And Paul had 6.

Congratulations Tony!

Game Five

This was the end game map:

Rock was virtually non-existent. Brick was poor, as well. That's a 9 brick under the glare.

Despite poor brick and nearly non-existent rocks, I managed to seal off the northern edge of Catan. Getting the 3:1 port in the west was key to promoting two cities. When I got to ten points, the vultures descending, empowered by 7 rolls beyond imagination and a sudden interest in buying and deploying knights against me. It was gruesome. And when I wasn't losing cards to 7s (and not getting any), the 9 was coming up repeatedly which only helped my foes. Even Paul's playing of the monopoly card took a card from me--which seemed like a relief given the other events.

And not to make this game about me, but Pete virtually gave Paul the cards he needed to challenge me for the longest road. Paul did in fact take it from me during my first card drought. I finally took it back for good at 15 points! Paul could only match me. All I needed was a settlement or a city promotion! But the cards were not coming.

And after setting off the arms race between me and Paul, Pete began clawing back lost ground.  Tony, too, started closing in, even getting the largest army as he sent his brigands against my poor people.

The game was close. I literally stopped Paul from winning when I took back the longest road. And if Pete hadn't gotten the win on his turn, when he passed the poop to me, only a 7 would have stopped me from promoting a city for the win. But Pete did get the win with 11 points, including the harbormaster card. I had 10 points, including the longest road. Paul had 9 points, including a victory point card. And Tony had 8, with the largest army card.

So this was the first game with all bonus cards earned.

Congratulations Pete!

The robber, as I may have alluded to, was brutal this game. And there were a lot more knights. Sadly, those two things were directed against me when I first had 10 points. the result was that the robber spent a lot of time sitting on my property preventing me time after time from getting multiple cards to get the last point. It was so brutal that Tony confessed that he almost felt bad for me. The humor value was too high, I guess. But hey, I would have done the same thing in their places. But it was stunning in its duration and effect. 

Ow, my nipples.

We called it a night at about 12:45, without Game of Thrones.

 

And a meme, of course:

Thanks to those who came over Saturday to play. Much fun! Although I'll be using a lot of soothing balms to recover from game 5 ...

As always, I encourage players to share their perspectives or for others to comment on how horribly I was treated in game 5. We like to think that things like that can't happen in our enlightened era. But there it was.

We'll do this again in August!