September 2022 Game Night

Paul hosted game night in September with an outdoor event that had great weather for playing into the evening. Without further commentary, Paul's recap:

This game night was an away game at Casa Paul. Since my favorite pizzaria burned down, I chose to grill steaks instead. It was a warm, pleasant late afternoon and evening. The noon football game traffic had died down, so the outdoor setting under the trailer awning was comfortable and quiet. 

Grilling and eating the steaks took awhile, as it turned out, so we were only able to get two games in. 

In both games, Paul was white, Pete was red, Joe blue, and Brian was orange.

GAME THE FIRST 

Paul rolled for start position, followed by Pete, Joe, then Brian in the coveted DP spot. 

The first game made us all pay for our culinary gluttony by depriving us of brick. Joe's placement on the only strong brick served the rest of us maximum pain, as we would have to "go coastal" in order to get decent brick. Now that I look at it, I don't know why I didn't place on the 3:1 port next to the wood and brick. It would haven given relatively easy access to road construction. I plead food coma. 

After second placement, Paul completely forwent any access to brick. No doubt bravely hoping for rolls that never quite paid off. 

 

During play, the center section's general weakness of good numbers made it harder to build up critical mass of production, except for Joe, who blitzkrieged across Catan, of course gaining longest road, but also my undying appreciation for his beautifully done coast to coast highway. Wisely, Joe's initial placement set him up for a road segment on every 9 roll. 

Despite several production barriers, Pete and Brian were able to at least make this came a little bit close, with Pete obtaining a victory point card, and Brian ending with the harbormaster card. Paul distantly trailed with 4 points. 

Joe led with 11 points, followed by Brian with 9, Pete with 7, and Paul with 4.

Dice rolls for game one appeared to be relatively normal, with a single 12. Otherwise nicely distributed. 

 

GAME 2.0

In the second game, wood was a little soft [editor: I see what you did there], again keeping the start a little slow, as people struggled to obtain road and settlement materials. Pete led us off, then Joe, Brian, and finally Paul. 

 

Despite the slight shortage of wood, the initial placements appeared to be of relatively even quality, this time with Pete choosing to forgo direct access to wood. As he placed first, he chose to emphasize city building matrials in the sheep/wheat/rock position. This also gives a nice stream of development cards, which he used to his advantage as well. 

This game almost certainly went a little bit faster, in particular, all three bonus cards were out, Pete with largest army, Joe again with longest road, and Brian with harbormaster. 

Paul, hemmed in a bit, and without rock, again trailed at 7 points, Joe, with a bit more room to stretch out, took longest road, but was also hampered a bit by poor rock (the 11 in the center). He made it to 8 points. Brian may have suffered weak rolls early in the game slowing expansion - at the end, he had decent diversity and resources, but it probably came a little late to give him more than the 10 points he finished with. Pete made hay with his 8 hex rock, upgraded his four settlements to cities, then grabbed largest army and a victory point card for the win - good job, Pete! 

Dice stats in game two showed two was never rolled, and three with an impressive showing of being rolled 6 times. 

Having started game one a bit late, we finished up around 9:30 or so if I remember. It was dark and late enough we decided to call it a day and return home to nurse our real and mostly imagined injuries. 

Thanks to Joe for recording dice statistics, as well as a nice bottle of Buffalo Trace. It was well received!

And so a great outdoor dinner with a side of Catan concluded. Thanks to Paul for hosting and taking up writing duties!

I leave you with a meme.

Next month back at Casa Beej.