We had game night in November with a Michigan football game on in the background. Fall game nights are always faced with this problem. Noon games, people! Noon games!
Joe, Paul, Pete, Matt, Tony, Landry, and Dennis joined me for an episode of Mega Catan.
And for you peculiar pizza pals, fine!
We dined on pizza, cookies and pastries, chips and salsa plus cheese dip, and the usual house swill, Labatt Blue Light and assorted non-alcoholic beverages. The bar was open, as well. Dennis and Matt brought home-made hummus and pita chips plus a regional beer to try.
We played the harbor master variant, as always; and the robber's lair variant that makes one or more settlement points on a desert a wild card resource on a roll of "7". The resource is drawn before determining whether you are hit by the robber for too many cards. You are safe with up to 9 resource cards in your hand in Mega Catan. And with 8 players the victory points needed to win with harbor master are 10.
Note that a TONY number followed by an "R" indicates use of one or more robber's lair desert build sites at start (counting as a six resource).
GAME ONE
The order of placement and movement was Dennis (maize and blue), myself (red), Joe (orange), Paul (pink), Pete (brown), Matt (mint), Tony (blue), and Landry (plaid) in the double-placement position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Brick was a bit of a problem. Same with wheat. But nothing really sucked.
- Robber's lair initial placement attracted three players.
- Paul brutally preempted one of Joe's settlement attempts.
- Landry linked up his enclaves to grab the longest road; while Matt tried to stop him.
- Joe claimed harbor master, with Tony tied and able to out-build port points in the long run.
- Matt played a monopoly card to take 23 resource cards! Is that a record?
- Pete put a robber on a 6 wood hex to hurt three players settled there. Thanks, Pete.
- Dennis circumnavigated his 10 wheat hex.
- I played a monopoly card to get 20 rocks, which made for a nice build phase that got me a city and settlement to reach a natural 10 points!
The final map:
Joe (harbor master), Paul (a victory point), Pete, and Landry (longest road) had 8 points each; Matt and Tony had 7 points each; and Dennis had 6.
"Probability":
It was an interesting plateau with an 11 outlier. I lived on that plateau. The robber was as expected.
GAME TWO
The order of placement and movement was (again) Dennis (maize and blue), myself (red), Joe (orange), Paul (pink), Pete (brown), Matt (mint), Tony (blue), and Landry (plaid) in the DP position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Brick was worse than I can ever remember happening. I ended up settling on a robber's lair for bricks--and sheep if I couldn't trade for that. There were only two good rock hexes.
- This Mega Catan game took only 40 minutes to play!
- Landry again took longest road early; Tony, Pete, and Joe were poised to challenge that by linking their enclaves.
- We were in a middle game phase with seven of us at 5 points plus or minus 1 showing.
- At that point things really escalated quickly. I built enough roads to take longest road and in the same turn built a settlement to get harbor master, vaulting up to 10 points.
The final map:
Following were Matt with 7 (a victory point), Joe with 5 (a victory point), Dennis, Pete, and Tony with 4, Paul with 3, and Landry with 2.
"Probability":
We didn't play long enough for the ends of the bell curve to show up. But 3 was impressive.
GAME THREE
The order of placement and movement was Pete (brown), Matt (mint), Tony (blue), Landry (plaid), Dennis (maize and blue), myself (red), Joe (orange), and Paul (pink) in the coveted DP position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Rock was pretty bad.
- Tony dueled with Paul for longest road. Tony grabbed it but Paul was two road segments from linking his enclaves and getting a good lead.
- Those counting on the robber for resources this game were deeply disappointed.
- Joe could have taken harbor master but chose--against my free advice--an inland city improvement for the resource production. A classic dilemma.
- Pete did reach three port points but sadly he was the second to do so.
- Four players did not build any cities.
- Landry deployed the largest army! The only time this appeared during the evening.
- Wait. What? Is Landry using his--or someone else's--phone as a coaster??
- Matt built three cities and took harbor master to reach 10. Congratulations, Matt!
The final map:
Following Matt were Joe with 9 (including a victory point), myself with 8, Tony (longest road) and Paul with 6, Pete and Dennis (a victory point) with 5, and Landry with 4 (largest army).
"Probability":
Another light robber show. Man, you really wanted to be on 9! Three players were not ...
Miscellaneous
The Grim Reaper of Catan Award for rolling the most 7s and unleashing thievery on the peace-loving people of Catan goes to ...
Also, we have data for who can validly claim victim status, robbery-wise.
"Congratulations" Paul, with two hits (half the total) in the evening.
And a meme!
We wrapped up at 10:03, hitting our mark for the conclusion of the night. Getting in three games of Mega Catan was a record, I believe. I do think the games rolled along pretty well. Good job to players for paying attention and getting their turns in!
Thanks for coming by and playing. It's always great to get together with you guys for a night of drinks, gaming, trash talking, and juvenile humor.
Feel free to comment. I'd especially like your thoughts on the usefulness of the robber's lair initial placement (or later build on it). I continue to see it as an early game advantage but a late game anchor. And I can't remember if anybody tonight was hit by the robber for too many cards after getting a card from being on the robber. Anyone remember?
One more for 2025!
