January 2024 Game Night

Paul and Dave joined me for game night in the new year. A series of unfortunate events kept attendance down. Dave arrived late after family responsibilities, allowing Paul and I to add the game part of the drinking and gaming we'd been doing for several hours.

We dined on Sliders and french fries, with chips and dip plus a couple kinds of cookies, Twinkies, and mini Nestle's Crunch bars. Plus the usual house swill and a couple leftover beers of higher quality. And non-alcoholic beverages, of course.

We managed to play four games, but it required an unusual extended game night to about 12:30.  

Paul was red, Dave was blue, and I was white in all the games.

Game One

The order of placement and play was Dave, Paul, and myself in the double placement spot.

Rock was poor. Brick was worse. I was reasonably happy with my placement, at least getting a road building hand for my first turn. Fascinating that the eastern side of the board had 5 out of 6 initial settlements. I was feeling very constricted. I had a bad feeling about this game.

Starting map:

I did break out to the coast in the southeast and build a tuning fork. In the north I planned a port settlement. But then Dave--who had already built a road to the west along the coast--suddenly turned east. He built two roads and a settlement to strangle my already slim hopes for victory in the cradle. Thanks Dave! I still had two more potential build spots. And a decent city-building potential. But Dave killed my best shot for harbor master.

Dave had the best road-building capacity to start and improved it with his Spermian Empire in the north. His southern outpost remained undeveloped. Dave grabbed the longest road but was vulnerable to a challenger--even by me.

Paul had the best city-building potential and built better road-building than either Dave or I had. He had blocked my route to more rocks--as I expected so didn't waste a road heading to a second rock settlement. I went north for the more likely--oh, never mind. With four city upgrades placed, but only three port points, the game could have been an interesting race to hold harbor master and the longest road. Lack of rocks and sheep seemed to rule out largest army efforts. But all Paul needed was a single point and he got it to reach 11. Congratulations Paul! 

And as with many games, if Paul hadn't won that turn, Dave had a good shot to win on his turn with a city promotion and harbor master.

End map:

Dave followed with with 8 points, including the longest road. I had 5 based on two city upgrades.

Probability:

Probability looked fairly normal other than the really good 3 and 11--and low 7. Which saved my rock and brick production. I also won the "6 versus 8" choice of high-value placement. The saddest were the extremes with no participation ribbon given.

Game Two

The order of placement and play was Paul, myself, and Dave in the coveted DP spot.

None of the resources were horrible. Dave used his DP spot to squat on a wood port located on vast woodlands. Paul found his northern settlement route blocked. I felt really good about my initial placements, notwithstanding my poor sheep potential and weak wheat. My northwest settlement had options to expand despite my risk of pointing inland. And my southeast settlement had open spaces behind me with a desert holding my southern flank.

Starting map:

Dave had an interesting position. He started with a wood port and two good wood settlements. And he was able to build through two collectively good sheep hexes to get a sheep port. All this and he only built two roads in the game. To win near the end he'd have needed an unlikely additional five roads. He did promote three cities and his port-resource strategy paid off with good dice for those resources. And he hedged his bet on the "6 versus 8" debate, with both pretty close in rolls.

Paul turned around in the north and reached another settlement. In the south he gained a good sheep resource. And late in the game he build roads to block my inland move to the 4-9-11 build site and to prevent me from breaking any longest road he could build connecting his enclaves. His dilemma was that he could not connect the roads in one turn (to get to 8 segments) nor build on the 4-9-11 spot in one turn. But his choice didn't matter as some post-game discussion on his decision revealed.

Despite my poor sheep resources, "probability" was very kind to my 2 and 12 sheep resources. I did not lack for the company of sheep. With strong builds on wheat and rock I built 3 cities. And on the last turn built a settlement, I think, and reached 11, still holding a six-segment longest road. Yay! 

In the end, I didn't need to cut Paul's potential longest road. Although if Paul had one more road to build and he had linked up his enclaves to take the longest road from me, I had enough cards to build one road and a settlement at the 4,9,11 location instead, which would have broken his longest road into two segments of four and reclaimed the longest road.

End map:

Dave followed with 9 points, including the harbor master. Paul had 5.

Probability:

The robber was again weak, 6 and 8 balanced. Thank God I didn't rely on 10. And thank you bountiful 2 and 12!

 

Game Three

The order of placement and play was Dave, Paul, and myself in the always coveted DP spot.

In this game you either had rocks or didn't. Wood was really good. Everything else was adequate for their purposes. I had to shoot the gap in the east but my western enclave had good expansion potential. My best resources were for roads, plus good wheat; and I again started with no sheep. At least I didn't have the worst rock. Dave used his firs placement to claim the good rock yet made sure any second and third placements there would pay a price. Paul didn't even bother to get rock and placed his hopes on the gods of probability and ports.

Starting map:

Dave curled around the empty 8 rock, looking to claim the monopoly on rock. And he reached the sea in the east to claim the sweet 11-12 port (actually, they were better than "expected"). But Paul, too, had his eyes on 8 rock quarries, stopping Dave from getting a port on the rock hex. But while his 6 wheat was outstanding, his rock production was extremely poor. And going to war with your gentle host didn't make it better.

Paul finally got to the coveted 8 rock and reached the coast for decent wheat. But roads were scarce for Paul. And that pretty much ends this discussion.

My road-building was good, with resources for wood and brick each having a poor performer and a high performer--so it balanced out. And my 2 and 11 rocks matched or exceeded 8 production! 

Still, it looked grim when early on Paul and Pete Dave decided economic warfare was the way to go. So I started to buy development cards to get knights to protect myself. At one point I parked the robber on the 8 rock, followed by global gnashing of teeth when the 8 was rolled under the watchful eye of the robber. 

Sad.

In one turn I built two roads, a settlement, and promoted a city to get longest road and harbor master. It's possible that Dave's dice went flying across the room at that point.

Mind you, I'd been drinking. So I must have thought I had 7 points because I thought I had to build all that in one turn to get to 11--with the 11th point also getting me two more with harbor master. But when I laid it all out, it turned out I had 14 points. I know I thought I had to play my cards in a specific order to use a newly built port to have enough for the second round of builds. But I suspect that building the two roads and a settlement got me to 11. So unless someone at the table can explain it, I won with 11 points and the longest road.

End map:

Dave and Paul tied at 4 points each, with Dave also having a victory point card.

Probability:

Well that's weird. Six trounced 8. I had bet big on 6. And 2, 11, and 12 were above expected--which I relied on for rocks unlike the poor suckers who counted on 8.

 

Game Four

It was 11:00, but late-arriving Dave wanted another go at it. Ah, I remember when we'd play until 1:00 AM and then watch Game of Thrones--on Thursdays.  So Hell, yes. Game four, it is! After starting a pot of coffee going.

The order of placement and movement was myself, Dave, and Paul in the always intensely coveted DP spot.

The map was remarkably similar to the previous game with the 8 rock and adjacent desert. No, I did not place the map tiles this game! But rock was better overall. Sheep was poor and wheat was in an inconvenient belt. I jumped on the rock, generously leaving two spots for other players. And in my second, final placement, I chose brick and wood plus crappy sheep over ample wheat resources. I hoped to reach wheat with good road-building.

Starting map:

Dave maneuvered through the center of the map, reaching toward the 8 rock as I proved 8 was not abandoned by "probability" this night. And with ample sheep, he bought development cards rather than trying to accumulate the resources for cities that his 5s and 6 provided. Of note, he organized a cabal of Catanians--an Axis of Steal, so to speak--against me? And for what? My good looks and good luck? After Dave started buying bullets development cards, whenever I could I bought development cards

Paul went without sheep. But with heavy brick and wood holdings, built roads like he had a sibling in the transportation department. He lived the dream and fenced off a huge enclave shielding the southern coast. Needless to say, he claimed and held the longest road. All Paul needed to win was one more point. And he had settled on all the high-performing numbers! But rock was not one of them. And without sheep, drawing a victory point was difficult to arrange. Still, one more turn likely would have given him the game.

I expanded to the 6 wheat hex and then the 6 brick hex. Those shielded future expansion on the other side of the barriers and let me reverse course in the north to get the rock port, and eventually, the harbor master.

But the biggest benefit of my defensive development card spree was not the knights I used to move the robber off my rocks. 

No, it was the year of plenty and the monopoly cards. The former helped earlier in the game to build something. I played the latter on the last turn to get two wood. I only needed one to use with my existing wood for my wood port. I got two. Which gave me the 11th point with a city promotion, I believe. I think I needed to trade rock and wood to get the wheat I needed, just ahead of Paul's likely 11th point play. Whew!

End map:

Paul followed with 10 points, with longest road. And Dave had 5, including 2 victory points. Oddly enough Dave and I ended the game with two knight cards up, neither of us getting the third one for the first largest army of the night.

Probability:

The chance gods seemed pretty normal, with 4, 5, and 6 shifting the odds left over their 10, 9, 8 partners. Although 11 and 12 tried hard, winning over their 3 and 2 partners. The robber was most active this game.

And speaking of probability, I think the 7 robber nailed me just once all night with too many cards in my hand.

 

We wrapped up after four games, just after 12:30. I have way too many leftover Sliders to eat. And Sadie in protest to her long exile upstairs apparently retaliated overnight by playing with my computer desk coaster. Sigh. I look forward to finding it one day when I move furniture. 

Thanks to Paul who took notes on the original scroll of probability sheet. My ink is dead. After over a week I'm oddly still trying to order more ink from a new source that gets me a discount. I'm not sure if the problem is the store or my credit card company thinking it is dealing with a stolen credit card number with a new store and a suspicious ink and paper purchase. I'll make calls Monday. Sigh. 

But I have a scanned version for printing. So if you get PDFs in the mail and a request to print a couple sheets, don't be surprised! And Dave pledged to draw up a nicer statistics sheet with a "computer".

And a meme!

Thanks to Paul and Dave for attending. Sometimes we have Mega Catan and sometimes we rattle around on the small board.

As always, please feel free to offer your comments or perspectives.