Two-person Settlers game with Richard

After a couple of games of Seafarers the previous two evenings, and both being fairly tired, we decided on a basic game of two-player Settlers yesterday evening. It's certainly a lot quicker to set up! I forgot to take a photo until we'd played a few rounds and built some streets, and Richard (playing red) had built another settlement. Here's how it looked in the early stages:


As usual we both opted for a range of numbers and resources, and put our first three settlements near the coast, so as to get to harbours fairly quickly. The hexes and numbers had fallen quite nicely, with resources fairly well spread out, and none of them going to be in very short supply - assuming the dice fell reasonably much as expected.

Advice on Settlers strategy talk about the wood-clay placement, and the wheat-ore placement. The former is a basic strategy for expanding fast, and is one we both used in the early days of playing. The wheat-ore placement is what I used in this game, while maintaining - as far as I could - a supple of everything else. My weakest link was wood, and, indeed, five wasn't rolled very often, meaning that I frequently had to trade for wood. On the other hand, I did get a LOT of ore, so was able to build cities pretty fast.

There's no player-to-player trading in the two-person rules for Settlers of Catan, but Richard had a very good supply of wood, and quickly gained the wood harbour, so he was easily able to trade for other resources, and expanded across the board. As so often, he quickly gained the longest street card.


I struggled a little more to build settlements, although I was able to trade using my harbours too. Then all that was left for me was to buy development cards. I had picked up a couple of knights during the game, and played them; so it was easy to play a couple more and get the largest army card. I wondered about expanding my streets but quickly realised that there was no way for me to gain a longer route than Richard's.

He still had some more building to do, although he had the cards in his hand for another settlement. But I was lucky: I had picked up, in the previous round, a 'year of plenty' card which gave me two extra cards of my choice. With the cards in my hand in addition, I was able to buy two more development cards, one of which was a victory point. So I had 16, and was the winner.


We're writing down the results - if only to show how very often we play! - but I don't think either of us actually mind who wins or loses. Settlers of Catan is an enjoyable bit of escapism for us both.