We had game night in May! We had fewer for the first game; and added one but subtracted one for the last game. All on the small board.
We feasted on pizza, corn chips, queso and salsa, and assorted cookies. The usual house swill, Labatt Blue Light was available plus some leftover other beer from an earlier game night.
GAME ONE
The order of placement and movement was myself (red), Joe (orange) and Pete (blue) in the double-placement position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- The hard resources were weak. Wheat was on average okay.
- Joe struggled with roads.
- I struggled with roads and despite my theoretically good city-building potential, promoted just one.
- Pete surged ahead, building as many roads as Joe and I combined to get longest road; and promoted two cities despite virtually no rock, which helped him get harbor master. So ...
- Congratulations Pete!
The final map:
I had 6 points, including a victory point card; and Joe had 4, including a victory point card.
"Probability":
Ah, "probability."
GAME TWO
The order of placement and movement was myself (red), Joe (orange), Pete (blue), and newly arrive Dave (white) in the coveted double-placement position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- Road-building resources were weak. Sheep frolicked across the land.
- Amusingly, everybody had the same TONY.
- Joe stretched out, making the bare minimum of five settlements for a good shot at winning. Dave cut him off from one port build site. Joe did promote two cities in one turn to take away harbor master from Dave.
- Pete had an effective enclave in the east with the desert as a hub. And was close to linking his fully urbanized clusters. But he seemed stuck getting settlement sites for more points.
- I went on a road-building spree (I know not how, but probably reliant on my plentiful sheep rolls) but was completely penned in with just four settled areas. If the game went on long enough, Pete could take it. Yet I secretly knew I only needed to promote two more cities to win.
- Dave built more up than out, fully urbanizing on his five settled areas; and by promoting a city and building a settlement, immediately recaptured harbor master before continuing his progress to reaching 11 points. Congratulations Dave!
The final map:
Pete followed with 9 points, including three victory point cards (!). I also had 9 points with longest road and a single victory point, and Joe had 7.
"Probability":
But really, in the long run, "probability" wins out.
GAME THREE
The order of placement and movement was Dave (white), myself (red), Joe (orange), and Pete (blue) in the much-coveted double-placement position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- We could build anything except cities, per the map.
- Joe stretched out both north and south grabbing six settled areas; yet was blocked getting another port as Dave build to the coast.
- Dave expanded out in the east to hold a total of seven build spots and had to abandon his other starting location. Two more city upgrades would give him the game.
- I was once again penned in to just four build sites. Early lack of road-building materials caused that; and late rolls gave me nothing to do but build roads to lock down the longest road. And by playing a monopoly card to get six wheat, I promoted two cities. I needed just one more city and a victory point.
- Pete built just three roads; and despite having only coastal build spots locked down the harbor master with three of his four cities on ports. And with a victory point reached 11! Congratulations Pete.
The final map:
Dave had 9 natural, I had 9 with the longest sperm road, and Joe had 7 natural.
"Probability":
Okay, that's looking more normal, although the robber was painfully active. Note that all night, there were 19 instances of players losing cards to the robber.
GAME FOUR
The order of placement and movement was Joe (orange), Pete (blue), Paul (white, arriving late and replacing Dave who set up white but decided perhaps staying up late was a bad idea because he had an early morning fowl event--or was that last month--perhaps this time it was just a foul event*), and myself (red) in the always coveted DP position.
The opening positions:
TONY rankings:
What happened?
- All the resources seemed fairly adequate; and even the sheep concentration was a "meh" event.
- Pete didn't build many roads but he did get two port points and had another port within reach. With two cities he made it to striking distance of the winning (at least 7 points, IMO).
- Joe had five settled areas, three cities, and was within reach of two more build spots (but they weren't ports). One more city upgrade would get him a city and harbor master. And he threatened for longest road, too.
- Paul had no bricks yet threatened to get longest road. He had four cities and getting another build spot required two more hard-to-get roads. He played two or his three knights, holding the last in reserve ...
- I somehow managed to get longest road and harbor master despite having just one city on my five settled areas. That gave me 10 points. With Joe and Paul creeping up to my road length and Pete and Joe creeping up to my harbor master card, dice rolls dried up for my resources and I took minor robber strikes, too. Things were looking bad for the homesteaders under attack ...
- ... but as I pondered on my turn whether I should smartly try to save resources to promote a city or build a settlement for the eleventh point, I had to admit there was little chance of holding even one of my bonus point cards. Such is the precarious position of having 10 points with both harbor master and longest road. You are a target but lack the resources to back your appearance of strength. So ...
- ... I traded resources for the cards I needed to buy a development card. I reached out, angled the card up as I lifted it to see what happened and ...
- ... flung down the victory point card for the walk-off point! Whew.
The final map:
Paul followed with 8 points, and Joe and Pete had 7 points each.
"Probability":
So there you go. Way to go the little engine that could, over-performing 2!
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.
We had two players tying for first. No "winner"!.
And a meme!
We wrapped up by about 10:00. Sorry this one took so long to write up. Been busy!
It was a fun time as usual. Always great to host you guys! Sadie ran down soon after you all left. What does she sense that I don't?
As always, feel free to comment. There are no dumb comments. Well, there are. And we all know that. But still, comment anyway.
Also, I did almost no proofreading on this to get it out the door.
*Allegedly, of course.
