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!