Settlers of Catan game for six

We've played four games of Settlers in the past few days, and although I took photos my memory of the first couple of those games is now rather hazy. But, for the record, they'll I will attempt to write about them anyway.

The first was on the evening of my birthday, after a meal out with our sons and their girlfriends, and my mother. Seven people in all, so Tim and Jo played as a team (green). I was orange, as usual; Richard was red; Becky blue, Daniel brown and my mother white.


With a six-player game, it's usually possible for everyone to get at least one 'good' placement of the initial settlements, and a fair number of resources. I opted for all five resources on my second placement and a good selection of numbers (albeit only five) - but could see I was likely to be rather boxed in as the game progressed, with nowhere much to expand.

As the game began, Tim and Jo expanded the most quickly, giving themselves a block of land with plenty of building spaces. Here they are in the lead with four points, while most of the rest of us had three:


Richard didn't do too well at first; in the initial placement my mother's second street cut off the path he planned, and a few moves after that last shot, Daniel cut off another spot where he had hoped to build, taking the longest street card at the same time. So Daniel took the lead, with six points:


Tim's early lead meant that the robber was placed on his wheat hex rather more often than it probably should have done, making it hard for him to do anything else after he had placed all his settlements. Richard tried to take the longest street card, but Daniel kept it most of the time. They both started buying cards and playing knights so as to gain the largest army and a couple more Catan points. Daniel achieved this first, so was quite significantly in the lead.


In the 5-6 player game of Settlers, there's an extra building phase for each player - if they have the exact resources needed - after every turn. At one exciting point, Daniel had 11 points and we knew he was going to build his final city and win the game. But we wanted to prolong it a little... and I realised that I could - just - take the longest street from him. It wouldn't much help me but would give a few more rounds to the game. And because it was the turn of the person sitting on my right, I got to build the two streets just before Dan built his city...


So he had 10 points, I had 8, Becky had 7, Richard had 6, Tim and Jo had 5, and my mother had 3.

And then Richard played an additional knight, and took the largest army right before Daniel built a couple more streets to take back the longest street card. So Dan still had 10 points and Richard now had 8, while I was back to 6. The only people with building spots remaining were Tim and Jo, and they had run out of settlements, and were not getting the necessary resources to build cities.


It was getting late, and we were all starting to feel tired and a bit frustrated. Perhaps I should have let Dan win earlier rather than taking the longest street card from him. But as we were quite keen to finish the game - Jo needed to get home - we all traded with both Richard and Daniel, hoping that one of them would reach 12 points.

Richard achieved it by managing sufficient streets to take that card - and then showing a victory point card at the end.


So with only 7 points in buildings, Richard was the winner.