Setup was fairly slow, as we explained strategies and rules. Richard (red) was first to place, and took the most obviously good spot including wood and clay. I was second; I did consider the intersection with three wheat hexes, near the wheat harbour, but decided to be boring and went for another place with three reasonable numbers and three resources, again including wood and clay. More importantly it had a 4-ore hex, and I thought ore might well be in short supply. Becky (white) was next - and decided she would go for the wheat harbour. But instead of the intersection with all three wheat hexes, she went for the spot on the harbour itself, concerned that someone else might have blocked her.
Daniel (brown) went next, and took yet another naturally good spot with wood, clay and sheep on useful numbers. Then we advised Emily (green) to take a similar one, although by that stage there weren't such good numbers. Joan (blue) was last; she's played a few times before but we still discussed the options with her. She decided to have access to both an 8 and a 6, although it meant not having any wood to begin with. Then we all placed our second settlements, opting as far as possible for a range of numbers and resources. Nobody obviously had the best position.
Daniel, like Richard, likes to build structures out of his pieces at the start of the game...
So we got started. 9s and 4s were rolled reasonably often, as were 6s (of which I had none) but not, alas, 8s. So after a few rounds all I'd managed to build was a street. Richard had managed two settlements in that time, one of which blocked the spot where Becky was going to go. It seemed a bit early in the game to be fighting over building spaces, but it was a good one from the number point of view. Poor Becky wasn't happy though, particularly as Daniel had already blocked another spot she'd hoped to take.
Richard stayed in the lead- by one point - until Daniel took the longest street card. So now Daniel had six points, and Richard had five. I had managed to build two settlements, eventually, so was third with four points. Joan and Emily each had three, and poor Becky, thwarted at every turn, was still on two.
Since we were playing - supposedly - a friendly game, teaching it to Emily, we continued talking about strategies and possible moves. Richard described the possible ways he could extend his roads in order to take the card from Daniel, but realised that he would no longer be able to join up his two segments. He would like to have placed two extra roads to block Daniel, but hadn't had the resources. Indeed, resources in general seemed difficult to find. 7s were rolled quite often, and a fair number of knights were played, which at least recycled the resources a little.
Daniel was then very magnanimous, and pointed out to Richard that while he couldn't join his two sections of street, he could theoretically build out to Daniel's long street, and place a settlement of his own in order to divide the street into two.
So that's exactly what Richard did:
... which meant that Richard now had the longest street. And eight points. Daniel, Joan and I all had four points, Emily had three, Becky had two. So Richard was way ahead, and was naturally the most targetted with the robber.
I wasn't doing well at all, but eventually I did manage my first city. Becky managed her first extra settlement, too. I thought Richard would race ahead to win before I'd done much more, since he seemed to be building regularly; then in a surprise move Joan built some more streets, after inland building spots, and we realised that her street was longer than Richard's:
So he had seven points, and Joan was second with six. In fact we all secretly knew she really had seven too (though we'd agreed to forget it...) since she'd bought a development card earlier in the game, and asked Richard if she needed to keep it to the end... and he had said that yes, she did. I had five, as did Emily, who had played three knights by this stage and taken the largest army card. Daniel was no longer doing very well at all and had four points, Becky still had only three.
Not much happened in the next round, except that Becky, Emily and I each managed to build another settlement.. and Richard built two more cities. So now he was right ahead again with nine points on the board:
Richard had planned to extend his streets until thwarted by Joan, who made hers still longer. But with a few lucky rolls of the dice he was able to build another two settlements (when we pointed out that yes, he did have another building spot...) - and then produced a victory point card, giving him 12 points.
So once again Richard creamed everyone else. Joan was second with 8 points, Emily and I had 6, Becky and Daniel 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment