Seafarers of Catan: seventh scenario - Pirate Islands, game two

Having tried 'Seafarers: Pirate Islands' for the first time, it was only 9.30pm and the game was still set up... so we decided to have another round immediately. Our fortresses and shipping settlements had to be in the same starting positions as before, but we deliberately chose slightly different places for our other starting settlements:


Once again, I didn't have a 6 but hoped I might get one eventually.

Once again, Richard picked up a LOT of cards initially, but they didn't seem to be much use. I started more slowly but was able to expand, and also to buy cards, most of which were, once again, knights. So I could build ships and turn them into warships, meaning I was protected against pirate attack. I really didn't want to win a second game, though, so I delayed my ship-building as long as I could, and instead concentrated on settlements and cities. I'd built them all, and turned six ships into warships before I attacked the pirate fortress:


We were fairly equal by that stage. Richard had only one settlement left to build, and had as many ships as I did. The only problem was... every time he bought a card, it was something other than a knight. He played a nice monopoly on sheep (when I had five in my hand), and had a useful road-building card which he used to build a couple of ships. He had two 'year of plenty' cards as well, which gave him some much-needed resources to help in his buildings.

But he couldn't create warships, so he kept losing to the pirate ship, any time it attacked his settlement. And when he finally decided to build a last ship and attack the pirate fortress anyway, since he only had two warships, he lost.


If the fortress is stronger than the number of warships, the attacker loses two ships. If they're equal, the attacker loses one. On one of my attacks, they were equal so I lost one ship - by which stage Richard had built one of the ones he had lost.

By that stage, the only thing I could do was to buy cards, since I'd built all my settlements and cities on the main Catan island. I was able to reveal another knight, giving me seven warships, so I couldn't lose. Two more rounds, and I would have defeated the pirate fortress. I did actually delay my attacks for about three extra rounds, hoping that Richard might be more successful - but he wasn't. And I was getting tired, and rather bored of doing nothing but buy cards - there aren't even any victory points used in this Seafarers scenario - so I finally did my last attack, and was the winner.

This shows the development cards Richard had bought - which would have been very useful in a regular Settlers of Catan game, but were not so good when he really needed knights to build his warships!

Seafarers of Catan: seventh scenario - Pirate Islands

We decided to try out the seventh scenario from Seafarers last night. It looked a lot more complicated than the previous ones; even the board was bigger. The robber is not used in this game, and the pirate ship moves on a set route, the number of hexes moved depending on whichever die shows the lower number for each move. The pirate ship attacks any city or settlement where it lands.

Moreover, there's no chance to explore - instead we had to build ships on a set route towards one of the pirate fortresses at the other end of the board. There's no 'longest route' card, no 'largest army'. Instead, a race to destroy the pirate fortress, as well as building cities and settlements as usual on the main island. There isn't even a variable set-up for this game.

So we followed the directions in the booklet, placed the fortresses and initial settlement as required in the booklet. They give instructions for both a three-player or four-player game; we simply ignored the other pieces and set ours up as the red and yellow shown in the booklet - fortunately in symmetric places. Then we built two settlements of our choice each, in the usual way (me, then two for Richard, then one for me) rather than three since one was already built with a ship, and took resources for the two we chose. Here's how it looked after we'd done so:


There weren't any really obvious places, so we chose as best we could. I would have liked a 6...

At the start of each turn, the pirate ship moved forward. It wasn't long before it landed on the hex next to Richard's pre-determined settlement:


The strength of the pirate is also the number on the lower of the two dice. Richard's strength was the number of his warships. That's not the regular ships... a warship is built when someone has bought a knight from the development cards, and then (on the following turn) played it. At this stage, Richard had not bought any cards so he had no warships. The pirate ship vanquished him... meaning he lost a random resource card from his hand. If he'd built any cities, he would have lost another card for each city, too. We're not sure what would happen if he didn't have any cards in his hand at that point.

I quickly realised the great importance of buying development cards, and did so whenever I could, even though it delayed some of my buildings. I picked up a couple of knights, and on subsequent turns played them, which gave me two warships. Slightly surreally, a warship is shown by turning a regular ship on its side:


I kept buying ships and cards, as well as gradually expanding. It was odd: at first Richard was picking up a lot more cards than I was (his 6 on wheat helped) but he didn't seem able to do much with them. Then for some reason his settlement was attacked by the pirate ship WAY more than mine was, meaning that he lost quite a few cards since he managed very few warships.

After a while, I built my ships as far as the pirate fortress:


I had five warships, so decided to attack. The way to do that is to roll one die. That determines the strength of the pirate fortress. Mine is, again, determined by my number of warships. I was lucky: each time I rolled a number less than five, which meant that I removed one of the three 'chits' that was underneath the fortress. So after three turns, I'd defeated the pirates, which gave me that settlement.

If the pirate fortress had been stronger, I would have lost my two closest ships.

The winner, according to the booklet, is whoever has defeated the pirate fortress and has at least 10 points. We decided to make it 12 points (since I already had 10 by that stage) so we played a few more rounds before I finally won:


I was quite a long way ahead. Richard only had 6 points as he'd only been able to build one city.

Unusually (for me) six of the seven cards I bought were knights:


Very useful in this particular game!

Cities and Knights game for two

So, once again on Wednesday evening we decided to play a round of 'Cities and Knights'. Setup is a little quicker than it used to be, now we're familiar with the game. I (playing orange, as always) started. There weren't any obviously good spots to take; had we been playing regular Settlers or Seafarers, I'd probably have opted for the 4-8-10 intersection in the bottom right, which Richard took.

But I knew from experience how important it is to have a supply of wheat in Cities and Knights. The best hex for wheat was the 5 at the top... but I wasn't so keen on the sheep-2 it was bordering. So my first choice was the intersection on two wheat (10 and 11) and an ore on 9. We seem to get a lot of 9s so I like to have at least one.

Richard then took the 4-8-10 (clay, sheep and wood) for his first settlement, and then the only remaining intersection where he could get both ore and wheat, giving him 3-4-8 (wheat, ore and wood). Then it was me to place my second settlement and a city, so I went for a 3-6-9 (sheep, clay, ore) and put my city on a 5-6-11 (wood, sheep, wheat). I had all the resources, but no 4 or - more worryingly - 8.

Richard placed his city on a 4-6-11 (ore, sheep, clay) meaning that he was lacking the numbers 5 and 9. If I were him, I'd have taken the 5-9-10 hex on two wood and an ore for my city. Perhaps I should have done myself; but from experience I prefer to get the commodities that go with sheep and wood rather than ore if possible. I'm not keen on the progress cards that come with the 'coins'.

I even remembered to take a photo of the initial setup:


At first, Richard did pretty well. 8s were rolled several times, giving him sheep and wood, while I had nothing. He had to trade lots of ore for clay in order to build, but did start expanding and quickly took that useful 5-9-10 hex, and upgraded it to a city as soon as he could in order to start his city improvements.

I collected cards more slowly, but did buy and then upgrade a knight; and since I was getting a trickle of wheat I was able to activate it before the first barbarian attack; since we each had one city at the time, we beat it and I was 'defender of Catan'.

We each then bought one more knight, and also built one more city each as the barbarians approached Catan for the second time. Richard activated his, and I'd activated my double-strength knight... but, alas, didn't have the wheat for my second knight. So when the barbarians attacked, we were defeated. Which meant that Richard, as the weaker knight-wise, had a city turned back into a settlement.

Except that he didn't have any settlements left. He'd built them all. The rules did not make mention of this possibility.

So we decided to turn one of his cities on its side, so that we knew it was now a settlement:


So, whereas he had been ahead by one point, we were now equal on nine points each. Eight points in buildings; I had a 'Defender of Catan' point and he, as often happens, had control of the merchant.

I doubt if anyone's actually following this in anywhere near as much detail as I'm typing... but just in case anyone spots that the numbers aren't quite the same, it's not a mistake. I had picked up the progress card that allowed me to exchange two numbers on the board, so long as they were not 2, 12, 6 or 8. I pondered for quite some time but eventually simply switched the 5 and 11 on wheat. Unfortunately when Richard took control of the robber he'd wanted wheat, so placed it on the 5.. which is why I couldn't activate my second knight prior to the second barbarian invasion.

The barbarians didn't arrive a third time. We rolled more than the usual number of green, blue or yellow with the event-die and started developing our cities further. With just six road pieces, I gained the longest street. Then suddenly I started collecting cards. Richard rolled a five; by then I had two cities on the wheat-5, so it gave me four wheat cards, plus a wood and a book commodity.

I had a huge handful of cards... if I'd rolled a 7, I would have lost a lot. But I rolled yet another 5. I had the wheat harbour. I also had the merchant card - unusually - and a lot of sheep. So I was able to do a lot of trading in my turn. I wasn't really thinking strategically at all; I simply wanted to reduce the number of cards in my hand. I had a couple of other useful progress cards (one gave me yet more wheat; one allowed me to build a city improvement for one commodity less than was required). I do like being able to play several development cards at a time.

So, going slowly, I built one metropolis. Then realised I could built the other, so thought I might as well do that too.

'Have you won?' asked Richard. I was a little surprised... I thought we were still some way off the end. I still had a city unbuilt, and only one 'Defender of Catan' card. But I counted up, and he was correct:


11 points in regular buildings, 4 extra for metropoloi, 2 for the street, 1 for the merchant, and one card. 19 in all, to Richard's 10.

Seafarers of Catan: Cloth for Catan (random board setup)

We were both extremely tired last night. We didn't feel like the complexities of Cities and Knights, or even a new scenario for Seafarers of Catan. So we decided to have another game of the sixth scenario, Cloth for Catan, which we played once before.

However we decided on the 'random' setup this time. The central islands were as given in the booklet, but the two main islands had random placement of hexes and also of numbers, with the proviso that 6s and 8s never go together, neither do any two numbers that are the same.

I didn't remember to take a photo until we'd played a few rounds. However all we'd done by that stage was build a few boats, and (for me) a road and settlement on a 3:1 harbour, so it shows our initial placements with the usual variety of resources and numbers.


Although we'd pretty much forgotten the previous game, this one proceeded with a similar pattern. Richard got to as many little islands as possible to establish trade routes and collect little chits, while I concentrated more on building settlements and cities. Sheep were in very short supply in this game, but other resources were plentiful so we did a lot of trading. I was glad of my 3:1 harbour, and Richard soon took the ore harbour since he was collecting a lot of ore cards.

For quite some time he was ahead of me on points. We played the usual two-player rules, in that if a 7 is rolled it's controlled by whoever is behind. For the first half of the game, that was me. I was pretty sure Richard was going to win; chits are collected from islands with established trade routes any time the relevant number is rolled, as long as there are still chits in place. So after doing some building I set out to sea a little more, realising that if he collected all the chits from all the islands, he would be a long way ahead of me, no matter how much building I did.

It turned out that my early building - including a couple of cities - was worth doing after all, since it gave me so many extra resources. I was able to continue expanding inland as well as going out to sea, meaning that I eventually overtook Richard in points.


Due to the extreme lack of sheep (and sheep are needed for ship-building) there was only one development card bought in the entire game. It was one I bought, on a rare occasion when I happened to have the three resource cards needed, and was a knight. Useful, since by that stage I was ahead and Richard was controlling the robber when a 7 was rolled.

This game ends when there are chits left on only three of the original places. It happened as I built my final settlement.


So I had 13 points on the board, and 13 chits, giving me 19 points in all. Richard had 21 chits (10 points) - but had only managed to buy buildings worth 5 points, so he had 15 points. With the lack of development cards, there was obviously no 'largest army', nor any extra victory points.

Once again it seemed that the better strategy for this game was to build quickly before sailing out to establish trade routes. That gave more resources, and also enabled a couple of harbours. While Richard did claim the ore harbour, he never managed to build on a 3:1, so frequently had to trade four resources just to get another sheep. And with only one city he wasn't gaining nearly so many cards as I was, by the time I'd built four of them.

Cities and Knights for two players

We were ready to play a game by about 7.45pm last night, so plenty of time for a round of Cities and Knights.

I started, and chose what looked like a good spot for my first settlement, on the clay-ore-wheat intersection, giving me 8, 4 and 10 as my numbers. It looked as if wheat and clay would be the most difficult resources to get hold of, so I thought I'd make sure of some - unless the dice behaved very erratically - and also some good ore.

Richard then played his two settlements roughly where I expected him to, the first one on an intersection that would make a nice upgrade to a city (since city improvement commodities come with sheep, ore and wood), and the other in the place where I'd have liked my second settlement, with the other resources and some more useful numbers.

With no useful way to access the 6-clay hex, I placed my second settlement on one that bordered two clay tiles - 9 and 10 - and a sheep, and my city then went on a border with two sheep and a wood; more numbers, and immediate access to some commodities. Richard was slightly surprised I hadn't taken the other intersection with all three potential commodities available - however I was put off by the 2 on ore. So he took that one for his city.

I forgot to take a photo until we'd played a round of the game and had both built an extra street, so here's what it looked like at that point:


The game moved fairly swiftly. I expanded fairly easily, building settlements and cities, but didn't gain commodity cards as quickly as Richard did. He reached metropolis level on coins surprisingly early in the game. I did manage to buy knights, and activate them; so the first two times the barbarians attacked, I won another victory point as 'defender of Catan'.

He continued being able to improve his cities. He picked up four instances of the 'merchant' card, enabling him to trade 2:1 on different resources, as appropriate (and an extra point for that). And he managed to achieve two more metropolises. Since I was still at the third level for most of the city improvements, and thought there was little chance of overtaking Richard, I did deliberately build my roads so as to take the longest street card, albeit with only six.

For some reason, we decided to count up our points when I'd built my last settlement. I had 13 points on the board, 2 for the street and 2 extra defender points. 17 in all.

Richard had only three cities and three settlements... 9 points, plus three metropolises giving him an extra 6. He controlled the merchant - throughout the game - and also picked up a victory point progress card. 17 in all. We were playing to 18 points, so whoever gained one more point would be the winner...


My only hope was picking up a victory point, or possibly being Defender of Catan again. All Richard needed to do was to join his two sections of roads, to take the card from me. Which is precisely what he did:


So he won the game with 19 points, to my 15.

Except that we decided we'd just play a few more rounds until the barbarians attacked again....

But by that stage, I'd managed to build yet more roads, and had taken the longest street card once more.


What's more, although it can't really be made out with the smaller size of photos I've uploaded, we had exactly the same number of knights. We each had one 'mighty' knight and one 'strong' knight on the board. Meaning that neither of us gained a victory point; instead we both picked up a progress card. So we were back at 17 points each.

Which meant that we had to play another few rounds until the barbarians attacked once more....

So Richard built more roads, to take the longest street card back. And I built my last few, and took it again...


... and since I'd now built everything I could, I concentrated instead on commodities. I was lucky, and was able to build one to the fifth level, meaning I took one of Richard's metropolises.


So I had 19 points, and he had 16 points (since had had by that stage built another settlement) - so our positions were reversed. But the barbarians hadn't yet attacked for the last time, so we kept playing...

He built his last city. He built more streets to take the card back from me. Now he had 19 points, and I had 17.


He collected sufficient commodity cards to upgrade his city improvements to the last levels, meaning that his two remaining metropolises were secure. And he built his last two settlements. He also managed to have more knights than I did, giving him one final victory point when the barbarians attacked for the last time:


So he won resoundingly, with 22 points (13 for regular buildings, 4 metropolis points, 2 for the street card, 1 victory point, 1 defender point, 1 merchant point). I was still on 17. The last few rounds were actually a bit dull; by that stage I had nothing left to buy other than knights. I continued improving my cities so I'd be able to pick up more progress cards, but most of those weren't a lot of use either. The only ones that would have helped me are victory point cards, and I didn't get any of those.

Once again, we made a decision - as we had before! - that we would stop when one player reaches 18 points. It does feel as if the game should continue when that happens... but if we keep playing, it gets rather tedious. 18 is a good number for two-player Cities and Knights.

Cities and Knights for two, again

It was nearly 9pm by the time we thought about playing another game last night. I'd have opted for one of the shorter versions, but Richard was eager to play Cities and Knights of Catan again. It would be quicker, he said, since we were now familiar with it...

I got to start, for once (with oranges pieces, as ever). I always prefer starting since there's often one really good intersection... so of course I took it for my first settlement, knowing I'd want to upgrade it as soon as I could to a city. It was the one with 6-wood, 5-ore and 9-sheep. All resources that yield commodities too when cities are built there; but I knew if I didn't grab it, Richard would.

So here's our initial placement of two settlements and one city apiece. Richard put his city on an intersection with three ore hexes, hoping to get plenty of coin commodities. I opted for an 8-wheat for my city, and put my second settlement on the same hex, aware of the vital importance of grain in Cities and Knights.


I didn't have anything on 11, but Richard didn't have anything on 10, which proved to be more of a problem. I started collecting quite a bit of clay, so used a couple of them to build a city wall: a useful device that allows two extra cards in one's hand when a 7 is rolled. We allow 9 each anyway with the two-player game, so having a city wall allowed me to hold 11 cards before potentially having to give half of them up to the robber.

With a good bit of ore and wheat in our initial cards, we each built a city early in the game. I also managed to buy a knight (ore and sheep needed), and activated it (with wheat). But we hadn't really been watching the progress of the barbarian ship until it was too late... Catan was attacked with four cities, and only one knight to defend it.


We haven't had that happen before so had to refer to the instructions. What transpired was that Richard (who had no knights) had one of his cities knocked down and replaced with a settlement.

I bought more or upgraded more knights after that, although it was much harder for Richard to get sufficient resources. I'm not sure why. My knights managed to defend Catan in two subsequent attacks of the barbarians, aided by one or two of Richard's after a few turns. But since mine continued to be the greater force, I gained a 'defender of Catan' victory point each time.

Richard's ore hexes paid off in that he did manage to reach the metropolis level with coins fairly quickly.


Soon afterwards, I gained metropolis level with the book commodities. That gave us each an extra two points. I continued building, and - slightly to my surprised - realised that I could take the longest street card. I thought it would just be temporary - Richard was only one street away from having a much longer one, if he joined his two segments.


- but then we did a quick point-count, and realised that I'd got to 18. 14 on the board (including the extra two for the metropolis), two for the longest street, and two 'defender of Catan' cards.

It seemed rather abrupt. I always feel slightly disconcerted when I add up points to see who's ahead, and how far away we are, only to discover that one of us (usually me) has actually reached the level we're playing to.

So I suggested we play a few more rounds, until the barbarian ship attacked again. It wasn't far away, and would give Richard a chance to take the longest street away from me. As, indeed, he did. So I was down to 16 points, but as there were a couple of turns with coloured 'event' faces being shown, the barbarian didn't attack immediately and I was able to build my final settlement, taking me to 17 points.


Then, when the barbarian finally attacked, and I took my turn, I managed to gain the street card back once more, and in addition received an extra 'defender of Catan' card, taking my winning score to 20. Richard was controlling the merchant at that stage, and had 12 points on the board (including the extra two for his metropolis) so he was some way behind with 13.


Had we continued, he would have been able to take the longest street card, and I would not have been able to get it again; however I would have still had 18 points even without it.

And although the game was quicker than our earlier forays into Cities and Knights, it was still 10.40 by the time we finished, and I was extremely tired!

Seafarers of Catan: sixth scenario - Cloth for Catan

Last night, we decided to try the sixth scenario for Seafarers of Catan. This one is entitled 'Cloth for Catan'. The story goes that Catanians explore and find these little islands where the people who live there are experts at making cloth. The setup looks like this:


- two main islands at the sides, four small islands in the middle (two desert, two gold - but that's not really relevant). We set up the hexes and numbers exactly as given. The small islands don't have numbers in the middle, but one at each side; they represent villages of islanders. And the five little Catan chits around each one represent the cloth. Part of the game includes sailing out to these islands; on reaching one of the numbers, relations are established.

Anyone arriving receives one Catan chit (sorry, one bolt of cloth) and then subsequent ones when the relevant number is rolled, until they have run out. Every pair of Catan chits counts one victory point; it suggested that we play to 15 points, or until there were no more than three villages with chits remaining. We decided to do the latter. We were also interested to note that the 'longest street (or trade route)' card is not used in this game.

Interestingly, the booklet says that everyone should set up three initial settlements in this scenario. With our two-player rules, we start with three anyway, so we decided to stick with that rather than having four initially. We picked up resources for the last two settlements placed, too, following our two-player version so far.


As usual, we opted for a wide range of numbers and resources. I didn't have any 4s... and Richard didn't have any 9s. That was unfortunate, since we seem to get a lot of 9s in our games.

We set off fairly quickly for the little islands, and Richard accumulated a vast number of chits when the relevant numbers were rolled. I was a little slower in reaching islands, although I eventually I managed to reach most of them which had chits remaining. However, I did much better with my general building of settlements and cities. We very quickly lost track of who was ahead - we decided that the robber would be controlled by whoever rolled a 7 rather than whoever was behind; in retrospect I think that was a mistake, since I was ahead for most of the game and, any time I rolled a 7, was able to pick up whatever resource I needed. I also bought cards when I could; a 'year of plenty' card early in the game was extremely useful, and I then played a couple of knights when the robber was on one of my hexes.

Shortly before the end, I had done all the building I could, so I concentrated on buying cards. The first time I bought two: a knight and another 'year of plenty'. I knew I could play the knight on the following round to gain an extra two points with the 'largest army'. As it happened, the next round was the last one, since there were only four islands remaining with Catan chits by that stage. I first played the knight card, so I could get the 'largest army'. Then I rolled, and one of those village numbers came up, meaning the final chits were taken from it, leaving only three. However, since Richard had started we agreed I would finish my round. With some useful 2:1 trading using my harbours, I was able to buy three cards in all: one knight... and two victory points.


I hadn't quite realised how few buildings Richard had managed to buy until we counted up. He actually only had 7 points on the board. However, he did have a most impressive number of Catan chits:


- ten pairs, giving him an extra 10 points, so he had 17 in all.

I had 13 points on the board, with all my building done; I also had 2 points for the largest army, and the two victory point development cards. In addition, I had 13 Catan chits, so that was an extra six points.


- so I was the winner, with 21 points in all!

Settlers of Catan: a basic two-player game

It was 9pm by the time we were ready for a game last night. I was already tired, so suggested a basic game of Settlers without any expansions. It's quick to set up, and even playing to 16 points is not usually more than an hour at most.

For once, I rolled the higher number so was the first to place a settlement. Since, with only two of us, it's always possible to get all five resources and a reasonable spread of numbers, I looked at which resources were likely to be in short supply. Clay was the obvious one; it only has three hexes anyway, and the numbers were 9, 10 and 12. Wheat also looked as if it would be a little harder to come by than usual. So I (playing orange) opted for an intersection with the clay-9, that also gave me a 10-wheat and a 5-ore.

There weren't any 'ideal' places, but several good ones, so we placed our other settlements as best we could. I had a fair range of numbers; no 11 (or 12 or 2) which was fine. Richard had 2 and 11, but was lacking any resources on 9s, which he knew would probably be a problem.


The game proceeded as usual, expanding and building without too much difficulty since there's plenty of space with just two players. I realised I had the longest street, after about twenty minutes, since I was building out towards both an 11 hex (where I built a settlement quickly) and aiming for the sheep harbour. I don't usually bother with the longest street - by that stage I had already bought three cards, monopolised ore in order to build a city, and played two knights, so I had hopes of the largest army card before too long - but having got the longest street, I thought I'd quite like to keep it.

I could see that Richard was going to join up two sections of street in order to overtake mine by several sections, so I made a move that I'm sure many of our friends would have done, but which was a little alien to me... I built two streets which weren't of any use to me at all - they didn't go anywhere, and didn't give me any building spots - but they stopped Richard's streets from being joined up. I felt a bit bad about it - I still do, over 12 hours later! - but one has to be unpleasant sometimes when playing Settlers!


By that stage I was far enough ahead that Richard took control of the robber every time the 7 was rolled. I concentrated on building, and - with the aid of my various harbours - managed to build all my cities and - eventually - settlements. My longest street was still a little uncertain; it had nine segments, and couldn't be expanded any further since I had run out of streets. Richard's was eight, and he could - if he sacrificed building spots - join up his two segments of street to beat it, going a longer way around than he had planned originally.

However, I now had to concentrate on buying cards. I picked up one, which was a knight. So I knew that on my next turn I could play it, and achieve the largest army. I had forgotten, temporarily, that - with the longest street and 13 points in buildings - it would give me 17 points, and enable me to win. So on my next turn, after two good rolls of the dice and some trading using my harbours, I bought three cards. One was another knight, and two - as Richard predicted - were victory points. Then I played my knight from the previous round anyway... which gave me 19 points in all (although I suppose I should have stopped at 17 since the game was won by that point).

Cities and Knights of Catan for two

We had a couple of hours available, so we thought we'd try another game of Cities and Knights, now we're more familiar with it, in the hope of consolidating our expertise somewhat. So we set up the usual random Settlers board, plus all the various bits and pieces needed for this expansion, and build our first settlements (two each, since we're playing the two-player game) and one city each.


Richard (playing red) chose a prime spot for his first city, bordering an ore and two wood, which mean that any time those numbers were rolled he would receive a commodity card in addition to a single resource card, which would enable him, fairly quickly, to start building city improvements. We both had a good range of resources - in particular wheat, necessary for activating knights - and a reasonable spread of numbers, although not as good as either of us would have hoped.

After the first three rounds, when we started using the event die and the barbarian ship came closer to Catan, we bought our first knights and activated them. There have to be as many - or more - knight powers, so to speak, as there are cities on the board. So with four cities, there must be four single-strength knights, or two double-strength, or some other combination. We've never yet had a scenario where the barbarians won with greater strength: if that happens, then whoever is weakest loses a city (which reverts to a settlement). We don't know what happens if the player doesn't actually have any settlements left to play at that stage.

It looked as if Richard was going to have the stronger knights - which would have given him an extra victory point card - but then I picked up the 'Deserter' card. So, just before the barbarians attacked for the first time I played it: meaning that he lost a knight, and I replaced it with another of mine, at equal strength. That gave me the victory point; something that was repeated through the game since my knights remained the stronger army.

We each built a metropolis fairly early in the game, and both retained them. The merchant didn't come into play at all since his card was not picked up. And once ahead, I seemed to stay ahead since Richard didn't pick up any of the cards that can be played against anyone with more victory points.

For once, neither of us claimed the longest street card. I thought about it a couple of times but was still expanding cities and settlements. We'd decided to play to 18 points, and I was the one who got there first.


It wasn't difficult, since I had four victory point cards: three for winning in the barbarian attacks, being 'defender of Catan' with the strongest armies, and one which I'd picked up as a progress card:

Seafarers of Catan: Fog Island once more (random numbers)

Richard was working until nearly 9pm last night, so decided, rather than anything complex, we would play a familiar Seafarers scenario: fog island. He set up the hexes exactly as in the booklet, but we used random number distribution, with the proviso that no 8s and/or 6s were next to each other.

Then we set up our first three settlements, and I forgot to take a photo until we'd played a few rounds. I was aware that both sheep and wheat were going to be in short supply, whereas the other resources were likely to be plentiful. I knew we wouldn't need wheat as much as we do in Cities and Knights, but that sheep are quite important in Seafarers games, since they're needed (along with wood) to build ships.

I thought I'd like the wood harbour, so one of my first settlements was on an intersection with two wood and a sheep, and I quickly managed to build the extra street and settlement to gain the harbour. Richard had very good access to ore, and started with two wheat resource cards after his initial placements, so he quickly built his first city. By the time I took my first photo I'd also managed a second extra settlement on a 3:1 harbour, which (although I hadn't realised it) Richard was also aiming for.


Since I now had some coastal settlements, I decided to start exploring - building out into the unknown, which allowed me to turn over tiles from the 'face-down' pile: either more sea, or useful resources. The first one I uncovered was wood, and its corresponding number was 3. Then next one was another sea hex.


My usual technique is to build a settlement as soon as I can, but I thought I might explore a little more and - I hoped - uncover something more useful. Like sheep or wheat, preferably. So I continued building ships and uncovering more hexes. The next one was the desert. Then another sea. Then an ore. Then, at last, I uncovered a sheep hex. The number was 4, which isn't great, but better than 2 and 3 which I had already. Following that I uncovered an ore, so decided to build a settlement between them.

Richard, meanwhile, had a lot more luck with his early explorations:


He was picking up handfuls or ore and clay by this stage. That's why he decided to expand down to the clay harbour, and then sail out on his voyages from there. However, he spent so long building on the main island to get useful harbours that he got rather stuck in his explorations, with nowhere which he could easily reach, and no way at all of sailing into more unknown territory. I took the longest street/route card early in the game, and he quickly realised that there was no way he could gain it back.

So Richard reached the stage where he had built all his cities and settlements, and there was nothing he could do other than buy development cards. These cards hadn't featured at all during the game, other than one knight which I bought - and played - in the early stages. But now, he was picking up cards every round, and was easily able to trade them to buy one or two development cards each round. He then played a couple of knights on two subsequent turns, followed by a monopoly card - when I had just picked up four or five ore in one round - and then another monopoly card. The round after that, he played a third knight, gaining him the longest army.

By that stage I had built my final city and was hoping to build my last settlement, so that I, too, would have to start buying cards. Unfortunately I'd spent so much time and so many resources on expanding my trade route with new ships, and exploring unknown regions, that I was behind on useful building, which I suppose was my downfall from the point of view of winning. Richard was bound to pick up a victory point eventually, and sure enough that's what happened. So he had 16 points while I was still at 14.


Here's a closer view of all the development cards Richard bought in the last few rounds of the game. He still had four of the knights unplayed.


It seems to both of us that part of the enjoyment of this particular scenario is building and manoevering ships, and turning over the unknown cards. But unfortunately it's not a winning strategy. Building lengthy routes of ships uses up resources which would be much better put into settlements and cities. In the seafarers: fog island scenario we played with Tim a couple of weeks earlier, Tim didn't build a single ship but was only one point behind the winner. Richard, who built by far the most ships, and had the longest trade route, was a long way behind.

I do like this scenario, but if it's easiest to win by NOT exploring, but simply concentrating on settling the main island, then it rather defeats the object. Just as well we don't actually mind who wins or loses!

Cities and Knights of Catan, another two-player game

After a slightly frustrating afternoon, despite it being later than usual when we were ready for a game, we decided it would be a good idea to play another Cities and Knights. Just so we didn't forget it all over again. By the time we'd set up it was 9pm, and I'm not an evening person at all. We still couldn't decide how many points was reasonable in the two-player game; maybe 17? 18? more? I suggested that we just play to 10pm and then count points.

Richard played first (with his usual red pieces), and - remembering, this time, how important wheat is in Cities and Knights - opted for a nice spot with two wheat hexes on his first placement. I'd have had that one too, if I'd been playing first. However, there were plenty of other good number combinations, so I chose a couple of them for my two settlements, taking the resource cards for wood, clay and sheep - so I could at least build a street straight away.

Richard then took the two other spots I'd been looking at for his second settlement, and city... and after much deliberation, and some hesitation, I then built my city on the wood harbour, with an 8-sheep and 4-wood hex. Not ideal, but I really wanted some access to an 8 hex, and I also wanted my city to produce the commodities (cloth, coins and paper, necessary for improving cities) and they're only possible from sheep, ore and wood hexes, respectively.


We've decided the first three rounds in this game are free of both the barbarians and the robber. So we don't roll the third die, and if a 7 is rolled, the dice are simply rolled again with no action taken.

We didn't actually get very much done in those first three rounds, however. And once we had the third die in play, it was surprising how often we rolled black (barbarian advance) at the same time as 7:


The same thing happened in last night's Cities & Knights game. Of course statistics do say that 7 is the most frequently rolled total of the number dice, and 50% of the rolls of the third die should show the barbarian. But still, the combination of the two seemed excessive. I think the robber and the barbarians must have been in communication somehow...

Richard, once again, drew the merchant card once he'd started improving his cities, and enjoyed, for a while, 2:1 trading with wood. I had the wood harbour, but not much wood, so it wasn't much use to me.

I did, however, remember about the metropolis pieces this time, and fairly quickly managed to build one with cloth. It helped that I started out with a city on a 6-sheep hex, and fairly quickly built another one on the 8-sheep hex! I even made it to the final level, where my metropolis was secure from being taken from me.


Ten o'clock came and went. We didn't even think of stopping - we were both too engrossed in the game. I suggested that 10.30 would be a better stopping time.

Richard built his first metropolis, using coins, although he didn't go to the fifth level to secure it. I took the longest street card from him. I had also had the most active knights when fighting off the first barbarian attack. By the time 10.30 came around, or perhaps a little later, I had 17 points: 11 regular buildings, 2 for a metropolis, 2 for the longest street, and a victory point card from defeating the barbarians with the most active knights. I was also controlling the merchant by this stage - having picked up a relevant card - and was in the happy position of being able to trade anything - resource or commodity - at 2:1. I had four resource harbours, plus the merchant on wheat, and had passed the stage of being able to trade 2:1 on all commodity cards.


I'm not sure why we didn't stop at that point, unless perhaps it was that 17 didn't feel like a very useful number. We were just getting into the game properly, and were both interested to see how much further it could go. So we thought we'd keep going for a bit...

Richard rapidly took the longest street card, as I knew he would. I built my last settlement and city, and he built another metropolis. He also won victory points for the next three barbarian attacks, and one development card with a victory point. We'd just about stopped counting points by this stage - we'd decided to play until 11pm - but at this stage, Richard was WAY in the lead. Looking at the board, I can see that he had 14 points in buildings (including the two metropoloi). He also had the longest street, and was controlling the merchant, and had those extra four points on cards.

So he had 21 points in all, while I was trailing behind with 17 (although we weren't counting and hadn't quite realised this. If we had, I think I'd have suggested declaring him as the winner and stopping). I had no way to get the longest street card back... and for a moment, wondered if there was anything at all left that I could do. One can't buy cards in Cities and Knights, after all. I had a handful of cards - I had just rolled a 9, which gave me four clay and two wheat, by this stage, so I traded the clay for another knight level, and made sure they were active. The barbarian, after all, was about to attack.


We decided to play until one more barbarian attack happened, and then - definitely! - stop. Slightly surprisingly, we had quite a few more rounds with coloured gates showing on the third die, meaning that we kept picking up more resources, and more progress cards. I realised that I did have one more thing to do: continue improving my cities, and attempt to take Richard's metropolis pieces from him. A metropolis is awarded to whoever first reaches the fourth level in each kind of building, but if someone else reaches the fifth level first, they get it to keep.

So I traded - I got control of the merchant again, and thus had 2:1 on everything which was very useful. I also took advantage of progress cards that only applied when another player had more victory points than I did! And I managed to get one more metropolis, thus increasing my points by two and decreasing Richard's by the same amount. We'd totally given up counting by this stage, though. I was getting quite tired, and neither of us was keeping track. We were too focused on seeing what else there was to be done.

Finally, the barbarian ship reached Catan. We had way more knights than necessary, and - again we hadn't been counting - discovered that we had exactly the same number of active knights. That meant that neither of us gained a victory point card as defender of Catan; instead we each got to take a progress card.

It was a little after 11pm, and we'd beaten the barbarians one more time. We decided it was definitely time to stop, so we counted up to see who had won.


To our slight surprise, we both had exactly 19 points. What an amicable way of ending a two-hour game. It was interesting that while I was clearly ahead at one point, Richard was easily able to overtake me and get a few points ahead - and then we ended up with the same. It does rather validate our decision that whoever rolls the 7 in Cities and Knights should play the robber, rather than whoever has the lower points (as happens in the regular game for two players).

However, we decided that in future we would play to 18 points when there are just two of us, and probably 15 with more than two players. . That's fairly easily achievable, but beyond that the game does feel a bit long-winded.

We're still not at all sure that we're confident enough to teach this to friends who don't know it, though! Clearly we need to play several more rounds so it begins to feel as familiar as the regular Settlers game.