Cities and Knights of Catan for two

We arrived in Cyprus very early Thursday morning. So I was very, very tired by the evening. Watching a film would have sent me to sleep, and I'd have dropped off if I'd tried to read. So Richard suggested a short game... and then, when I said he could choose, he opted for Cities and Knights of Catan, which was rather more complex than I wanted! However, the last time we'd played Cities and Knights was a month previously, and he'd started setting it up before I realised.

Initial placement in our two-player game gives each of us two settlements and a city. So we chose fairly predictable spots:


In Cities and Knights it's important to have cities on ore, sheep and wood hexes so as to be able to collect commodities as well as resources, and thus improve the cities. It's also vital to have sheep and ore resources to buy knights, and wheat to activate them. Richard made a mistake (he was also tired) in missing out on wheat entirely in his initial placement - and wheat didn't look as if it was going to be a particularly abundant resource in this game.

After a couple of rounds the event die is used, and the barbarians start to approach Catan. They approached rather rapidly in their first attack, and somehow neither of us had thought about buying knights. So we had three cities, and no knights at all...


.. which meant that we both had to lose a city. At least I could choose to keep the one which I'd already fortified (clay being widely available for some reason early in this game).

The first progress card I picked up was the one allowing me to remove any unfinished street - mine or Richard's - and, if mine, to move it anywhere else on the board. I was delighted to be able to move one of my initial ones which looked as if it was going to be wasted, and move it to a more useful spot. It meant that my demoted city (now a settlement) stood on its own with no street attached by the time the barbarians attacked for the second time:


Thankfully I had been able to buy and activate a couple of knights, meaning that we didn't lose cities again, and moreover I gained a victory point as defender of Catan.

The next barbarian attack took rather longer. During that period, I first gained the longest street (rather by accident, as usual), and it was then taken from me by Richard. I extended mine more, to gain useful building spots but didn't overtake him. So by the next time the barbarians landed, we were pretty evenly matched. Richard had 8 points on the board, 2 for the longest street, and one extra victory point card he had picked up. I had 8 points on the board also, and thought I would collect another Defender of Catan point too... until Richard bought and activated one more knight, just in time.


So we each picked up a progress card of our choice.

By the third barbarian attack, Richard was a little more in the lead. He'd built his 'coins' up to metropolis level, so had 11 points on the board, plus the longest street (still), and the victory point card: 14 in all. I had 10 on the board, plus my Defender of Catan card, putting me at 11. And this time, Richard had more knights than I did, so he collected a point for being Defender of Catan, putting him at 15. We play to 18 points with two-player Cities and Knights...


However, the next few rounds led to significant building for me. I was able to build another settlement, and my final city. And by extensive trading, I managed to gain metropolis level on another of the city types. So suddenly I had 15 points, while Richard's numbers weren't being rolled and he was still stuck at 15 too.

My turn came around when I had just picked up a large handful of cards. I was thankful not to roll a 7. I was also exceedingly tired, and hoped the game would end soon. I needed three more points to win. Could I do it..?

Yes. It was simple. I held the 'merchant' progress card, so I played it - giving me one more point. And I bought another street, which meant my longest stretch was one more than Richard's. So I leapt ahead to 18 points... and the game was over.