Cities and Knights of Catan for three

So, finally we taught Sheila to play Cities and Knights. We thought we'd better start on time as it can be a long game, even with just three people. And there are so many extra rules. We tried to explain all we could at the beginning, and then got started. I didn't remember to take a photo right after our initial placements of settlements and cities, but took one shortly afterwards, when a few extra streets had been built, and a couple of knights:


As usual, I played orange; Richard red, and Sheila brown. I could see that clay was going to be in short supply, so was glad to be able to place my city on the best clay hex. Richard had no access to clay at all.

As usual, we played a couple of rounds before bringing the robber or the event die into play. It was quite a slow-moving game, due to the lack of clay; by the time the barbarians attacked for the first time, I'd turned my initial settlement into a city but that was the only real building so far.


Richard and I had each bought and activated one knight, and Sheila had two, so she earned the first 'Defender of Catan' card.

By the second barbarian attack Sheila and I had each built another settlement, and I'd fortified one of my cities to allow two more cards in my hand. But still, road-building was remarkably slow. This time two of us had the same number of knights, so we both took progress cards - nobody was defender of Catan. I took the photo after we'd de-activated the knights:


We were picking up cards when the event die was coloured, and were building city improvements, which of course can't be seen on the board. But still there was almost no clay, so only one more street appeared by the next time the barbarians attacked:


The game did get going a bit better after that. Sheila had the card which allowed her to change any two numbers on the board (other than 2, 12, 6 or 8) so she swapped an 11 and a 9, giving her better ore and reducing my wood. Still, I managed to build a couple more settlements, Sheila extended towards the coast and built one there, and Richard reached metropolis level for one of his cities.


So by this stage I had 8 points (including control of the merchant), Richard had 6, and Sheila also had 6 (including her Defender of Catan card). Once again there was no outright Defender - Sheila and I each provided two knights, to protect our four cities.

We had planned to play to 15 points. Then we thought perhaps 13 would be better, as it was already 10.30 by this time. Then we thought perhaps we'd stop at 11pm, since I was getting very tired. And suddenly we were rolling more coloured events, and picking up useful cards. Sheila reached metropolis level on one of her cities, and I was able to do quite a bit more building. I also picked up a random victory point card.

Then I suddenly realised that, once again, we'd forgotten about the longest street card. At least, I had. Richard, apparently, was planning to get it on his next turn. But I was able to build a couple of streets, and claim the card - which gave me the 13 points we'd agreed on, just before 11pm.