We had game night in January to start off the new season. Joe, Landry, Paul, Pete, Thomas, and Tony joined me for two Mega Catan games. Landry and Thomas departed, leaving those remaining to play a third game on the Expansion map.
Look at that board! We had huge ... tracts of hexagons. [INSERT ST. CRISPIN'S DAY SPEECH]
We dined on pizza (three types), potato chips and dip, the second-largest apple pie I've ever seen, and assorted cookies. Thomas brought some sort of candy/pastry thing that was good. Thanks, Thomas! The usual selection of beer, including the house swill, Labatt Blue Light, and assorted soft drinks. And the bar was open, of course.
The Mallort may or may not have been finished off. It may have changed somebody's luck trajectory in defiance of the choking grip of so-called "probability."
But enough foreshadowing.
We played all the games with the harbor master variant. For Mega Catan we played with the Desert Lair variant and the Longest Road variant. As a reminder, building one or more settlements/cities on single desert site gives you a wild card resource on a roll of 7--before determining if you are hit by the robber for half your stuff. In Mega, you can safely hold 9 resource cards; and the build phase mini-turn is for the player 4 seats to the left of the player rolling the dice. We needed 11 points to win.
And in news from the Borg, we see that resistance is futile. This is what Tony brought to game night:
It was a thoughtful Christmas gift. As I commented, with that kind of display you'll always see when you have no settlements to build! We've all experienced that moment after laying down our four resource cards ...
Anyway, on to the games!
GAME ONE
The order of placement and movement was Paul (pink), Joe (green), Pete (orange), Tony (blue), Landry (white), Thomas (brown), and myself (Red) in the double-placement position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- By numbers, rock wasn't bad. But coastal rocks less usable. Brick was a problem.
- Early in the game, Pete and Tony--perhaps giving up on the game early--managed to convince Thomas to exploit his 7 roll by placing the robber on my hex--when I had four points. Aimed and fired him, they did. I did not retaliate to start a destructive war that early; and I hope Thomas learned not to trust anybody but me. But I admit it was fairly funny.
- Tony struggled to build roads and had to go three roads to build another settlement.
- Landry exploited his double port initial placement to grab and hold harbor master.
- Joe locked down the 12 sheep hex and the 5 wheat hex. The former was the wise move. He even got close to longest road with four roads on that sheep hex.
- Pete also suffered from road envy, but somehow promoted two cities.
- My road building was also sad, but I at least had a flux capacitor. And with two cities and three harbor points, maintained some hope. The robber's lair I counted on for brick was needed for rock when my 5 rock failed to produce any rock during the game (I got one from my initial placement!).
- Paul promoted three cities, built the longest road with his five roads in a row--and then flipped his victory point card. BOOM. Congratulations, Paul!
The final map:
I followed with 7 points; Joe, Pete, Landry (with harbor master), and Thomas had 5 points each; and Tony had 3.
"Probability":
Well, thank you 5. I relied on you for rock. No hard feelings. And awe, look at how 4 over-performed! How cute. The robber over-performed, too. As did 2, 9, and 12.
GAME TWO
The order of placement and movement was Tony (red), Landry (white), Thomas (brown), myself (red), Paul (pink), Joe (green), and Pete (orange) in the coveted double-placement position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Wood and wheat were weaker than you'd want.
- Thomas was trapped in his central city; but managed to break out to the coast from his other original placement.
- Landry expanded in the center and also reached the coast where he had room to plant settlements. And with a heavy investment in development cards, deployed the largest army. Sadly, Joe was collateral damage to knight reveals as Landry learned the wrong lesson from game one and hit Joe--who had four points at the time.
- Joe expanded along the coast after getting stymied at his non-coastal city. As Pete, Tony, and Paul competed to get harbor master and possibly win, Joe emerged out of nowhere (well, Pete quietly noticed) to take harbor master! Three port points were not enough to hold harbor master this game.
- My hopes rested on building four cities and two settlements--and drawing a victory point. I'm pretty sure that playing the monopoly card to get 14 wood was my best chance to win. But at 3:1, that's 14 cards. The road building card really helped.
- Tony didn't get harbor master, but he did get longest road. Sadly his effort to build a settlement was foiled by having all five settlements played already. Well, Tony perhaps wasn't ready for his nerd accessory. And Tony regretted ignoring my advice to place on the 8 rock and double-3 woods hexes. He also played a monopoly card, but few cards were in play so he gained little. Still, that beats not playing the card.
- Pete built lots of roads and promoted all his cities. All he needed was a road and a settlement--or a victory point card--to win it all. He barely noticed the single lost wood from my monopoly call.
- Despite Paul providing me with about half of the wood I got with the monopoly card, he forged on to promote all his cities and take harbor master from Joe. Which bounced the point rubble with 12 points! Congratulations, Paul! You bastard. I guess I did type that out.
The final map:
Pete followed with 10 points; Tony had 9 points, including the longest road; I had 8; Joe had 7, including a victory point; Landry had 5 with the largest army; and Thomas had 5.
"Probability":
So that happened. The wild card 7 did not pay off. Number 5 once again disappointed. Number 3 made even average 4 look like a slacker. Yet 9 barely won the crown.
GAME THREE
The order of placement and movement was myself (red), Paul (pink), Joe (green), Pete (orange), and Tony (blue) in always coveted DP position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Quality wood and rock were unfortunately concentrated. And sheep was weak.
- Pete managed a flux capacitor and had another one set up to build. I think we can blame 4 for this.
- Paul stretched along the coast to stake out build sites after his other initial enclave maxed out with two build sites. Nobody really understands why, on Joe's turn, he said to Joe--and I quote: "Wait, let me get my stuff out of your mouth." Paul was, of course, referring to Joe's skull.
- Tony battled for longest road and had two harbor points.
- Joe also stretched out and barely kept ahead of Tony's road length, yet could out-build Tony unless Tony took the road to win and end the game.
- I did not build anything until three rounds in. Not that I was alone in the firehose of fours at the start of the game. I changed dice--twice. And even resorted to Mallort to change my luck. I salute Pete for joining me. Pete chugged it. I sipped it for the slow cleansing pain. As Paul observed, in writing: "We've never seen him make more horrific faces than ever before in one sitting." As Tony and Joe vied for victory through road power, I gained strength from new dice and the taste of despair and old sneakers (on the rocks), and earned the harbor master with two port cities.
- Finally, with my facial muscles finally contorted to eliminate any victory tells I might betray, I traded a brick to Tony for a rock. And after feigning interest in trading with anybody but Joe, reluctantly accepted his offer of a rock for my brick--no doubt fearing Tony could use the brick he got from me. With six rocks and four wheat, I promoted two cities and then revealed my victory point card for 11.
The final map:
After me, Joe had 9 (with the longest road), Tony had 8 (with a victory point), Paul had 7 (with a victory point), and Pete had 5 points.
"Probability":
Before we get to the probability chart, let's look at how "probability" started this game:
But what are the odds of that continuing? Surely that's the end of its reign of error, no? Oh how cute of you to think so:
That's 8 out of the first thirteen rolls. Only Joe and Tony were playing, at that point! Pete drew four cards in that time. I got just two wheat. Paul drew but one wood!
But things did even out a bit before the game ended:
The 4 managed "only" five more rolls after that fast start--nearly 25% of all the rolls. And even those last 5 rolls were 9% of the total--which alone would have matched the expected 8.3% of the rolls for the entire game!
And thus ends the latest cruel lesson in "probability" that Catan teaches us. In the long run it evens out. But we do not play an infinite number of games. Hence the chest of dice.
And God help us all, the Mallort.
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, from holding too many cards when the 7 robber strikes.
"Congratulations" Paul, with three hits in the evening.
Thank you, Joe, for your exemplary record keeping for our damning written record of "probability" during Game Night. It hates us.
And a meme! But this can happen in any game when your numbers refuse to turn up on the dice.
We wrapped up later than usual, after 11:00. Thanks to everyone who came by. It's always fun and the banter is often entertaining. It's a pleasure to host.
Feel free to comment on your plans, hopes, and dreams. On the Catan board, of course.
We'll do it again next month. And without any Mallort to cast a pall of doom over the evening.
