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!
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