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).