Two-player Settlers game with Tim

This afternoon, Tim suggested playing another two-player game.

Once again, it was pretty fast-paced, since Tim thinks at great speed. We both had good starting places with reasonable resources and a good spread of numbers. Early in the game he was convinced I was racing ahead and that he couldn't possibly even begin to compete. But then he started buying cards, something he doesn't often remember to do, and was pretty lucky in his choices.

I usually buy cards anyway, so it was quite interesting that while Tim had some very useful cards: - including two monopoly cards and a victory point:


Almost all of mine were knights.


I made a strategical error at one point in the game when I had a huge handful of cards, some of which I could trade 2:1, sufficient for a settlement and three streets. So I built the settlement, then thought I'd aim for the longest street card.

My two sets of streets were separated by four intersections, so ideally I should have had four streets to complete them; I did think about waiting, but with so many cards in my hand I was likely to lose them if a seven was rolled.

As Tim pointed out later, I'd have done better to build four streets and gain the card, and leave the settlement for another turn, since it was a safe spot. As it was, I thought that by building three I would block him.. and realised, as I put them down, that he only needed to build two streets to block me, and then gain the longest street card himself.


Still, with my handful of knights, I did gain the largest army. I then built my final settlement - cities came quite early in this game, giving me 15 points. Tim had 14 points on the board. So it was very close, and in the end he won by luck as much as skill, since he produced his victory point development card as he built his final settlement.

Perhaps it's better to play to 15 rather than 16, since that element of development card luck doesn't then have so much significance. Then again, having the largest army relies on buying at least three knights, and as the cards above show, that too has a strong element of luck.