November 2024 Game Night

Joe, Paul, Pete, and Tony joined me for some Catan on the expanded board at Casa Beej.

And as promised we had a special event. Paul unveiled his new 3D-printed dice tower!

I stand in awe of the power of technology over my MacGuyvered towers made from household detritus.

Paul promises a paint job for his new tower. This is the kind of initiative that Game Night at Beej's® deserves! Bravo, Paul!

Sadly, he brought only one because his cyan plastic extrusion cartridge ran out so he couldn't print anything else until he replaces it.

Just going to note that so far nobody has added lights or mechanical dice rolling aids to a tower. Not a complaint. Just an observation considering the engineering types who play Catan here.

We dined on pizza, cookies and pastries, corn chips with salsa and cheese dips, the usual house swill Labatt Blue Light, and assorted non-alcoholic beverages. Tony brought in much-appreciated higher class swill--Guinness.

For the evening, Tony was green, Pete was blue, I was red, Joe was orange, and Paul was brown. We played the harbormaster variant and so you need 11 points to win. Though shalt not win at 10, lest thou then proceedeth to 11. Twelve is right out.

 

GAME THE FIRST

The order of placement and movement was Tony, Pete, myself, Joe, and Paul in the double-placement position.

Rocks were a problem. Bricks were a problem. And resource concentration was a problem.

The starting map:

I took the last good road-building combination in the north but wasted my road with other placements to my north. I managed to get a decent rock and good wheat in the south and figured I had to prioritize expansion there. I did manage to expand in the south and reached my minimum standard of 5 settled positions, with another close to settling and another within reach. I even managed to promote 3 cities. I was feeling pretty good if the game went on. 

Alas, my best moment was not on the board. Late in the game Joe tried to accuse me of putting the robber on his wheat hex after he lost 5 wheat when the hex number was rolled. I calmly replied, "Did I put it there? No. Did I laugh? Yes. On the inside. Where it counts." But perhaps you had to be there and slightly inebriated to find that funny.

Paul didn't expand too much but with only for settlements he promoted three cities, including two on port positions to get harbormaster. A couple positions for new settlements were within reach. But his plentiful wood resources just weren't producing to get the roads needed.

Pete managed a very rare (the first) inland flux capacitor anchored darn near the geographic center. And he managed to build along the northeast coast, building roads near the end to give himself a chance at longest road. Gaining largest army with no real threat to it put him within striking range of victory.

Tony managed to thread the needle in the north with three settled spots and had another 3 settlements holding an enclave in the southeast. So two more settlement spots were locked in. And another was prepped for building outside the perimeter. Although he reached 9 points, Tony couldn't get any of the 2-point cards, although largest army was at least in theory possible. But one more city promotion plus a settlement would be enough. Or a victory point card would help.

Joe was pinned in place in the southeast and spent his efforts building a small enclave in the west around two wheat hexes. Despite no ports, Joe promoted all four cities. And he grabbed longest road. Even losing I think 10 wheat from the robber, we were unable to halt the Joeggernaut from steamrolling to victory. Congratulations, Joe! Weirdly, Joe had 5 ocean view points. But that really doesn't matter in any version of the game.

The end map:

Three players tied with 9 points (Tony, Pete with largest army, and Paul with harbormaster). I followed with 8.

"Probability"

Welp, I didn't have the foresight to settle on 5. But 9 was good to me. Stupid me, I bet on 6 and 8. Only 12 produced less than 8. But at least the robber was not too motivated this game.

GAME THE SECOND

The order of placement and movement was Tony, Pete, myself, Joe, and Paul in the coveted double-placement position.

Sheep was great. Rock was decent but the mountain range concentrated a lot of it. And nobody really liked the rest of the map. Notably, there was a vast wedge of unsettled land from the desert

The starting map:

Tony abandoned his northeast settlement but constructed a decent enclave in the west. He only built on 4 positions but did promote 3 to cities. And he had two more build spots within his enclave. And if he wanted to move inland from his isolated outpost, shockingly there were still opportunities near the central desert.

I was able to build to sheep to end my one resource shortage. And I was pretty happy to be able to expand both of my enclaves. I had two cities and three port points. With six settled positions I had more than my minimum breadth; and at least two more were within easy reach, including another port. The port was on a desert. But points are points!

Paul tried the wood port and settlement smack in the middle of a three woods forest with his DP opportunity. He expanded along two coasts for the most part, and grabbed harbormaster early. And with four points had a cushion, with my 3 points the closest challenger. The wood strategy worked pretty well to overcome lack of wheat and brick, but not quite enough.

Joe started far apart but somehow rapidly drove south with a massive road-building spree that crossed Catan from coast to coast with a Lineland empire. Playing the monopoly card to cruelly take our hard-earned bricks certainly helped that out. Needless to say, he took the longest road card and nobody had a reasonable chance to take it. Tony might have taken it but he'd be unable to hold it for long.  Six settled locations garrisoned Joe's road, making it unbreakable. He even had one more settlement build spot in easy reach around the central desert. But with five cities and a single city, he needed to promote at least one city as the most likely route to 11 points.

Pete bought a lot of development cards this game. He didn't build many roads but quickly built up all four cities. Expansion was limited. And his southern city moved one road west in the same time Joe moved 8 roads to cut Pete off from expanding that way. Unable to get either longest road or harbormaster, he started playing knights and picked up that card to reach 11 points and win the game. Wooo!

The end map:

Joe and Paul followed with 9 points each, with Joe holding longest road and Paul holding harbormaster. I again had 8 and Tony had 7.

 

"Probability"

We had a plateau of probability. I had three pretty good numbers this game, including 6 which outperformed all other numbers.

GAME THE THIRD

The order of placement and movement was (again) Tony, Pete, myself, Joe, and Paul in the coveted DP position.

Road-building and wheat resources were poor. Note the heavy concentration of four players in the top three rows of hexes. I was all alone in the south with a two-hex wide DMZ protecting me from my game frenemies. I felt pretty good about my chances to reach wood and round out my resources. At the end of my game my northernmost building was on the same parallel as the southernmost building of anyone else.

The starting map:

Joe was unable to expand much but did reach the northern coast and was pushing into the southern half void in the west with little competition.

Tony started out with his settlements near each other. His interior settlement was a kill sack with a desert blocking the theoretical outlet. He linked his enclaves and headed south on the coast, but found himself blocked that way. That path required rapid road building to exploit. And he was blocked going north by Joe's expansion to the coast. Moving inland required him to go all the way around a desert. It quickly started to look ugly. Especially as his two 6 resources failed to produce.

Paul abandoned his quality northwest outpost after building it into a city. Tony pushed him south and Paul eventually pushed south of my northern outpost to build a city on the coast. After serving as the proxy of a cabal of my enemies who fed him road building materials, Paul built three roads south along the coast to take my hard-earned, up-by-my-bootstraps longest road card built on my decent road-building twin 4-hex cities. There was much laughter and merriment at that stunning development. ...

... Especially by Pete who built just two roads in the game but nonetheless fully urbanized his four settled spots and took harbormaster with two cities. Pete really needed to stall my drive to 11 to allow his frantic development card buying spree to give him either largest army or a single victory point! Alas ...

... My wide open frontier in the south was completely alien in a game usually defined by bastards blocking your expansion paths. My priority was getting to the 4 woods. After than I headed east and then south to advance along the coast. I built four port points along the way. And with Pete stalled at 10 just like me, the cabal plan stripped my 7-road link with Paul's 8-road link. But with a couple good rolls before Paul's road-building spree and the little poop sitting in front of me,

I kept my mouth shut as I viewed my hand of cards with enough cards to build two roads and also promote a city. I played my roads first to reclaim longest road. Then I promoted my inland city to reach 11. Which was good because if I didn't win, Paul could have built a settlement to break my longest road and permanently deny me the longest road. I could have promoted a settlement on the coast to also get harbormaster. But that's a dick move that gets you remembered not just the next game, but the next game night, eh? Not even making the newsletter was enough to do that. Still, if Paul had been able to build one more road I could have promoted a city on the coast to get three points a different way. Whew, that was a close end game.

The end map:

 Pete followed with 10 points, including harbormaster; Paul had 6; and Joe and Tony tied at 4.

"Probability"

My city-building hexes performed well and my road-building cities finally kicked in with late-game 4s propelling my coastal advance to get and regain longest road. And 9 was good for the third game. But 6 under-performed as did the robber. Not surprisingly, Pete and I shared the high-performing numbers.

GAME THE FOURTH

The order of placement and movement was myself, Joe, Paul, Tony, and Pete  in the always coveted DP position.

Rock was good or bad. The other resources were fairly adequate and decently spread out for the most part. And this game Pete took my place in the southern hemisphere, but without as much of a DMZ. (Is this normal and I simply noted it so much this game night?) And Pete used his DP position to try the sheep port and sheep resource pair.

The starting map:

Tony built a lot of roads south and built a flux capacitor in the northwest. I didn't even whine when he went north to further settle the 4 brick. Tony was cut off at his second but good settlement so needed the southern route despite the limits on resources the desert inflicted. As it was, Tony hit the minimum five settled spots and had one more available to build. With time, he'd have the settled areas to seek the last point with development cards.

Paul made it to the coast in the east for some good resources. But he really advanced north along the coast with another spur to the south opening up. Paul's rabid and cruel use of a monopoly card to take ten rocks from peace-loving Catanians--including seven from your mild-mannered if stunningly handsome host--was certainly a monkey in my wrench--a veritable fly in my ointment--to quote a wise and jolly man. But  that plethora of ill-gotten gain was insufficient to be decisive even with a rock port. He managed to get four port points--tying me. He had two opportunities for another port open. And unknown to us, getting one more port point before I could would have won him the game. All Paul needed was more time. The sad lament of all would-be conquerors.

Joe built up rather than out, quickly getting four cities. While penned in he did have one more settlement position available to reach the critical five. With 9 points he'd only need largest army--or two victory point cards that hadn't been drawn  even once in the first three games--to win.

Pete took the opportunity to expand inland rather than following his usual practice of port building. But the allure of lebenstraum that drew his panzers inland did provide many resource hexes and put him two roads from taking longest road. One more settlement spot was fully secure making 11 points quite reachable. In this game Pete was buying developments cards like a crack-addled addict. Six? Seven? How many are enough?! Including two right at the end that yielded two monopoly cards that would have wreaked havoc on me with time to play them. He wanted knights or victory point cards but "probability" denied him the right lottery tickets.

I built around the 8 rock to rapidly get 4 port points. Two year of plenty cards were invaluable for that. And my other enclave had room to expand southeast toward the coast. I figured that was a better option than sparring with Tony over a settlement site. As noted, I quickly reached ten points which attracted attention. Robbers and knights hit me hard in that initial frenzy of rage, raising the specter of The Fist of Klaus visiting me once again. And that monopoly card by Paul. But despite the robber sitting on my 8, I had an open build spot at the desert and eventually "probability" stopped bitch-slapping me long enough to build a settlement to reach 11 before I could lose harbormaster and before Pete could fire a salvo of monopoly cards on me to buy time for that. Woo and whew!

The end map:

Joe, Paul, and Pete tied with 8 each, including Paul's victory point card that was the sole appearance of that point source tonight. Tony followed with 7, including the longest road.

 

"Probability"

The robber came out to play this game. And 6 beat 8. Most notably 9 continued its run of productivity into the final game. Past performance was a predictor of future gains for the 9. The extremes bothered to show up for this game.

And that was it! We wrapped up at about 10:30 and all were capable of driving within legal limits. Even me, and I didn't have to drive home.

The winner of the Grim Reaper of Catan Award for most rolls of 7 in the evening was ...

No winner! I had the fewest rolls at 3. Paul and Tony tied at 8 each. Although Paul held the single game record of 4, that is not the measure for Grim Reaper of Catan. There are no "co-winners" in Catan. No participation awards. As Yoda said:

 

And a meme!

That is all. Much fun as always with a great group of friends. One day we'll again attain Mega Catan numbers!