We had game night in June at Casa Beej. Dennis, Joe, Matt, Paul, and Pete joined me for the expanded game.
We dined on pizza, chili cheese fries, potato chips and dip, peanut butter cups donated by Thomas last week, and assorted cookies. The usual house swill Labatt Blue Light was on hand as well as a few pints of Coors Light. Pete brought Labatt Raspberry Lemon, Joe brought peanut butter pretzels, and Matt and Dennis brought assorted fancier beers and donuts (!).
You guys were unnecessarily generous. But thank you.
We played on the expanded map and used the harbor master variant (as usual), meaning you needed 11 victory points to win.
GAME ONE
The order of placement and movement was myself (red), Pete (white), Joe (orange), Tony (blue), Matt (mint), and Dennis (maize and blue) in the double-placement position.
You would have rock or wouldn't. Sheep were plentiful and wheat was good. Wood was fine but uneven. Brick kind of approached adequacy.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Pete didn't expand much--holding the fewest roads title--but his city-building materials rolled in. He held harbor master, giving him 9 points, but sat to my left as he plotted to secure harbor master from my covetous eyes.
- Matt expanded inland while linking his settlements, taking the longest road.
- Joe had room to expand and was close to linking his roads to take the longest road. He had the room to take harbor master. And he had a victory point down.
- Tony was in the same position as Joe on taking longest road. And he triggered the sequence of events that led to somebody else winning.
- Dennis continued his long tradition of existence.
- With my plan in my hand, Tony decided to send the robber against me. He took a card that spoiled my hopes for getting enough rock to promote a city to secure harbor master.
- Worried that Pete would beat me to four harbor points, I played my knight against Pete (Pete Rule!) and got lucky by taking a rock! That gave me two rock, two wheat, and three wood to trade for a wheat. That put me at 11 points with a city promotion and my own victory point card! Whew.
The final map:
Pete and Matt (including longest road) had 7 points, Joe had 6 with a victory point, Tony had 5, and Dennis had 3.
"Probability":
Yikes. I had counted on 8 and 5 for city building, but my Plan B 10 and 11 were the ones to produce! Those banking on extremists were out of luck. Six was the biggest producer.
GAME TWO
The order of placement and movement was Joe (orange), Tony (blue), Matt (mint), Dennis (maize and blue), myself (red), and Pete (white) in the DP position.
Are there rocks this game?
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- A lot more roads were built this game. Joe had a 14-long road to hold the title!
- Tony had three port points, but did not get harbor master first; and twelve roads (helped by road building and year of plenty cards) until ...
- ... Matt snipped off three of Tony's road segments by building a settlement along Tony's road, um ... circumscribing ... that path to victory for Tony; and promoted all his cities!
- Dennis abandoned his inland city to expand to three ports on the coast to get four harbor points, securing the harbor master from challenges by me and Tony. His road maxed out at 14 which ended up being enough to guarantee he held it after the Mint Mohel did his work.
- Pete was oddly fully inland, but did have five settled areas and room in the middle for one more settlement.
- I had 9 points on six settled areas with no hope of a 2-point card and a slight shot at one more settlement site. I wasted a monopoly card to get four rocks, inspiring yawns rather than outrage.
- Joe had a sizable empire with room to build for points and harbor master, finally securing his longest road and holding a victory point card we did not suspect.
- Matt kept buying development cards and playing knights until he recruited the largest army, reaching 11. Congratulations, Matt!
The final map:
Joe was in second with 10 points, including longest road and a victory point card; followed by myself and Dennis (with harbor master) at 9; and Tony (including a victory point card) and Pete with 7 each.
"Probability":
Lady luck leaned right this game, with every number on the right outperforming its mirror image on the left.
The robber was only working part-time this game.
GAME THREE
The order of placement and movement was Joe (orange), Tony (blue), Matt (mint), Dennis (maize and blue), myself (red), and Pete (white) in the always coveted DP position.
No resource made me openly weep, but perhaps I'm made of sterner stuff.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Pete played the classic DP initial placement by parking himself in the middle of sheep herds and grabbing a sheep port.
- Joe shocked me by building on a single coastal 8 wheat for his final placement, rudely blocking my hopes for another wheat settlement and a port.
- Tony pushed west from his interior settlement, breaking out of potential isolation; and added a rock port to his good rock quarries. But new settlement options were limited to two sites anchored by a desert.
- Matt built a flux capacitor and spread his other settlement inland and to the coast. The sneaky SOB also had a victory point hidden as he pursued knights.
- Joe was unable to escape his coastal wheat ghetto; but managed to turn his other settlement around and race to the coast ahead of Matt and Dennis, with two more settlements within reach.
- Pete's expansion in the middle was shut down quickly; and advancing around a desert became his only expansion option. But he did fully urbanize.
- Dennis expanded nicely, with plenty of build spots open to him, grabbing longest road and ... for a while ... harbor master. But lack of rock crippled his city building to deny him a surge to victory.
- I was limited in the north but fully urbanized that pocket; and expanded sufficiently in the southwest.
- As the poop advanced around the board with Matt ominously standing at 9 points on the board, he took his turn without going out. I rolled a 5 useless to me, but which Matt had been beseeching Klaus to bestow upon him to win the game with a city upgrade. I was able to promote a city and take harbor master to reach 11 points!
The final map:
Matt followed with 10 points, including a victory point card; Tony (two victory point cards) and Dennis (longest road) had 7 each; Joe and Pete had 6 each.
"Probability":
Well this looked relatively normal. Huzzah! exclaimed Tony triumphantly.
Miscellaneous
Thank you to Joe for his "probability" work during game night. Without it our excuses would not be data-based.
The Grim Reaper of Catan Award for rolling the most 7s and unleashing thievery on the peace-loving people of Catan goes to ...
Also, I record the times players were hit by the robber in an evening--but not how many cards were lost--so we have data for who can validly claim victim status, robbery-wise.
"Congratulations" to nobody, because Tony and I tied for the lead with two hits each, with Matt and Pete getting hit once each.
And a meme!
We wrapped up well before 10:00, making up for May game night going over. Great to see everyone who showed up! We'll do it again next month here at Casa Beej, most likely.
As always, please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments on the game to flesh out my incomplete and Beej-centric memories of the game.
