Tim started (green), I was second (orange), then Becky (blue), Daniel (brown), Richard (red) and my mother (white). There were some quite nice spots for us all in the first round; I wasn't really thinking and didn't grab a clay hex when I could have done; clay was clearly going to be the most difficult resource (if the dice rolled as expected) in the early part of the game. However, since my first settlement was near a sheep harbour, I decided to put my second one on a good place for sheep which also gave me three different numbers.
Play was very even at first, each of us in turn getting a third point, and then a fourth.
I like the extra building phase in 5-6 person Settlers; as each person finishes their round, the cry of 'anyone building?' goes up. Richard said 'yes' at one point... when he was literally building his remaining pieces into some kind of construction....
.. which Daniel then photographed at an unusual angle when it was done:
The main feature of this game, in its early stages, was sheep. My 19-month old friend Helen would have delighted in my hand at one point:
It was surprising how evenly play continued, with building a bit slow but quite a few development cards being bought. At one stage we all had four points, then I had a fifth. So naturally, I was attacked with the robber:
However that changed when Becky took the longest street with 5 roads, I took it from her temporarily, and was significantly in the lead for a while with 10 points, but it was evident that she was soon going to catch up. I had no access to clay at the start of the game, other than by trading, and even by this stage my only clay hex was a 12 which wasn't rolled very often.
I took a slight risk on expanding outwards, after some useful trading (and the sheep harbour), and was able to get a final building spot. I did have a potential other one but since my mother is the least experienced player, I didn't want to take her very last building spot on the 4-ore hex.
Daniel made a vain attempt to take the longest street, having collected quite a bit of clay and wood, but to no avail. Becky took it back from me, and held onto it.
With six people, the board soon fills up. So most of us reached the stage where we had nowhere else to build. Cities had been relatively easy to come by, but there are only four each. So after I'd managed my last settlement, I bought a card - it was a monopoly. There were a lot of sheep in the game and I had the sheep harbour so I monopolised sheep on my next turn and was able to buy four cards. Three were knights, one was a victory point.
I had thoughts of building up the largest army but could see that others were much more likely to get there first. Still, the board was pretty even: 10 points for Becky; 9 points for me; 8 points for Tim and for my mother; 7 points for Richard; 6 for Daniel (who was extremely tired).
But before I'd had a chance to play even one of them, Tim played his third knight, giving him the two points for the largest army of Catan, and since he also had two victory point development cards he was the winner once again with 12 points.
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