We had game night for July recently. Joe, Paul, Pete, Thomas, and Tony joined me on the expanded game.
We dined on two types of pizza plus garlic cheese bread; corn chips with salsa and queso; brownies and cookies (including some that Thomas brought); puff pastries (much better than the pancake pastries from a previous game night) from Barb's husband's wife; the usual house swill, Labatt Blue Light; and an assortment of New Belgium beers. Plus the usual non-alcoholic beverages.
We played with the harbor master variant, and so needed 11 points to win.
GAME ONE
The order of placement and movement was Pete (white), Tony (blue), Thomas (green), myself (red), and Paul (orange) in the double-placement position.
Rock was decent. Wood and wheat were poor.
The opening positions:
I was pleased with my placements, worried only about wheat while having easy access to building on sheep to round out my resources.
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Tony beat Paul to a coveted rock port and wheat field.
- I built 5 roads in the game to get longest road with 5 (!), which is understandable when you consider that everyone else combined built 8 roads.
- Basically, I built on the numbers that dominated in this brief game (4, 9, and 11) and built toward the other producing number (8). I got harbor master, too, and reached 11 points. The hand of Klaus rolled the dice for me.
The final map:
Pete followed with 5, Paul had 4, and Tony and Thomas had 3 each.
"Probability":
Again, I started with two 4s, a 9, and an 11. I built on a 4-8, a 8-11, and a 4-10-11. It was all over before Tony could argue for the sanctity of "probability". I hated to waste my most sober game on this one.
GAME TWO
The order of placement and movement was Pete (white), Tony (blue), Thomas (green), myself (red), Paul (orange), and Joe (brown) in the coveted double-placement position.
Rock was poor. Sheep was concentrated. Wheat was a problem. And brick and wood were good.
The opening positions:
I was pleased to get in on the best rock available. I lacked bricks but at least started with a road building hand to get on the 8 brick early.
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Thomas surged into a quick lead, getting both the harbor master and longest road to get to 10 points! It looked like another brief game. I had just four points, for example.
- That's when the Catan anti-bodies kicked in. I used my knights to open the war and the Catan-wide trade embargoes hit. Thomas lost his longest road to Pete (who surged up to 9 after that), and built to 11 segments, guaranteeing that Thomas could not retake the title.
- While Thomas struggled for either city building or lottery tickets because of few rocks, no wheat, and no way to extend his road enough, the other powers began closing in.
- I invested heavily in development cards. I picked up the largest army and promoted a couple cities to reach 10 points. Joe and Paul got within striking distance.
- Tony reached 10 as I desperately sought to promote a city; and then he built roads to take the longest road (12 segments) and hit 12 points, ending a long war of attrition. Congratulations, Tony!
The final map:
Following Tony were myself with 10 (largest army), Thomas with 9 (harbor master), Joe with 8, and Pete and Paul with 7 each.
"Probability":
This was better balanced, but 4, 10, and 11 excelled. And finally, 6 and 8 checked into the game.
GAME THREE
The order of placement and movement was Paul (orange), Joe (brown), Pete (white), Tony (blue), and myself (red) in the coveted DP position.
Once again, rock sucked. Wheat was great. And you can always trade for sheep.
The opening positions:
I was happy getting every resource, including one of the "best" rocks and one of the worst sheep. But you can always trade for sheep--as conventional wisdom holds.
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- People were confused after nobody would trade me a sheep and I whipped out a monopoly card to take a total of two sheep. But I was desperate to build a settlement and expand production. I worried I could fall behind waiting for a rare sheep that apparently I couldn't trade for! It made no sense to anybody until ...
- While Tony and I struggled to build roads, Joe and Paul--who first got longest road--embarked on a road-building race across Catan trying to link up their at-start settlements to maximize road length. It looked like the opening months of the World War I Western Front race to the Channel as trenches stretched across France and Belgium.
- Their race came to an end as Paul finally blocked Joe from linking up. And he had the roads to link his enclaves.
- Joe counter-attacked into Paul's vulnerable road flank (helped by cooperative trades) to break Paul's longest road and take it back.
- Bizarrely, Joe's road created a wall to give me a sizable enclave! He had no more roads to build into my region.
- While everyone focused on the Great Road Race, Pete built roads and then grabbed the longest road.
- Tony was able to build to two more potential build spots and fielded the largest army.
- ... I played my second monopoly card for rocks, and based on that bounty of four new rocks, had the foundation over the next two building phases to promote two inland cities and reach 11, including the harbor master. I had prioritized my first two cities for getting and defending the title. Whew!
The final map:
Paul followed with 9, Pete had 8 with the longest road, Joe had 7, and Tony had 6 with the largest army.
"Probability":
So that "curve" happened. And I pity the fool who relied on 8. Only 2 was less productive (barely).
Miscellaneous
The Grim Reaper of Catan Award for rolling the most 7s and unleashing thievery on the peace-loving people of Catan goes to ...
I had to go to a tie-breaker of robbers-per-game. Thomas tied with Tony for most rolls (5 each), but Thomas played in just two of the three games, so won the title 2.5 to 1.7 per game).
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" Joe, with three hits in the evening. And in only two games!
And a meme!
We wrapped up fairly late, before 11:00. My thanks to Joe for his usual statistical duty gallantry; with a nod to Paul who pitched in for game one as Joe sped here to make game two.
Great to get together again. Next game night we'll need to sign our names to a gesture of thanks to Barb's husband's wife.
