Settlers of Catan with six on Saturday

My brother and his wife were here on Saturday. They had been introduced to Settlers of Catan at Christmas by my mother, and had bought a game themselves although they have only placed it once.

So we thought it a good idea to play a six-player game in the afternoon, to keep them in practice... and to introduce them to the extra building phase rule in the expanded game.

My mother opted out, and Tim said he would rather watch (and, if necessary, advise). I was orange, as usual, and Richard red. I'm not sure if either of us would manage if we were any other colours. Candy opted for blue and Peter chose green. So Daniel played his usual brown, and Becky took the white pieces.

Initial placements were fairly even; Peter and Candy both opted for good clay and wood intersections. Daniel, who was the first to place (and thus, also, the last) put his second settlement on the risky place surrounded by three wheat.


Play was fairly even at the beginning, with Richard buying quite a few cards; with good access to wheat, ore and sheep, and numbers that kept being rolled. We all, other than Becky, built settlements fairly soon - and she built a few streets. She had placed her second settlement without thinking about the need for clay, so had to trade quite extensively.


It was a fairly rapid-moving game. Peter and Candy had a good grasp of the rules and some of the strategies, and both played well. Peter took the longest street card fairly early in the game, and maintained a lead for a while. At this stage he had 8 points. Richard had 7 - despite having bought several development cards he had only played one knight, as well as a street-building and year of plenty, so nobody had the largest army. I had 6 points, Daniel had 5, Candy had 4 and Becky - who had at last been able to build a settlement - had 3.


I was able to reach the sheep harbour, and managed to collect quite a few sheep... but of course one can't trade in the extra building phase. And Richard played a monopoly card... on sheep. I could have done better without that! It also didn't help that one of my sheep hexes was a popular one for the robber!

And so Richard was able to move ahead pretty fast, even though he didn't have a sheep harbour. So by this stage, he had overtaken Peter and had 9 points on the board. I thought it likely he had a victory point card in his hand, too. Candy slightly surprised herself by playing a third knight card and gaining the largest army, thus giving her 7 points. Daniel and I both had 6, and Becky was still struggling on 3. There were very few building spots left, too.


It wasn't long before Richard played ANOTHER monopoly on sheep - right after I'd collected quite a handful of them - which enabled him to build another city AND another settlement.

As I had thought, he had a victory point card - and thus was the winner. By a fairly good margin ahead of everyone else.


Here are the unusual selection of development cards he bought in the game - only two knights amongst them!