It was a nice board, with the robber right in the middle and plenty of reasonable places to start. Marie (white) placed first and took a very nice spot with ore, wheat and sheep on 10, 8 and 5 respectively. As she said, there were plenty of available clay-wood spots so she hoped there would be one left by the time she put her second settlement down. It's the place I'd probably have chosen too, if I'd played first, since sheep looked as if it was going to be the least abundant resource, for a change.
Becky (red) then went for good numbers: a 5-9-10 intersection on a wood and two ore. I was last, and so was able to get access to all five resources and six good numbers: 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10. Sheep was likely to be the most difficult thing for me to get, with only a 3, but I hoped for the clay harbour. Becky and Marie then both took good clay-wood spots. Street-building was unlikely to be a problem in this game.
And so it proved. We did trade a little, but found that we could mostly build at least one street each per turn. With ore and wheat being fairly plentiful, it wasn't too hard to build cities, either. I was lucky, in that a 3 was rolled just when I needed a sheep for my first settlement (on the 3:1 harbour) and managed to trade for my second sheep, so as to build on the clay harbour.
Then I aimed around the coast towards the 8-wheat hex. With only three of us on the board, there was plenty of space and I managed to get there, and to build (after another 3). I then realised that I had managed to build the longest street, so far:
I was rather too far in the lead. I had 7 points on the board, so that gave me 9 in all. Becky had 5, and Marie had 4. But we did all have plenty of building spaces.
Then it was Marie's turn to be lucky. I managed to build one city in the time she managed to build a settlement AND a city, and also sufficient roads to take the longest street card from me:
So now Marie and I each had 8 points, and Becky had 6. Each of them had bought a couple of cards, and played a knight; I hadn't bought any cards (mainly due to the lack of sheep) so it didn't seem that anyone was going to form the largest army any time soon.
Then it was my turn to be lucky again. I didn't really want to take the longest street card away from Marie, but I had so much wood and clay in my hand that I had to do something. So I joined up my two road sections, while hoping that she would be able to build more and take the longest street card back again. I didn't plan to make it any longer.
What none of us had noticed was that by that stage I had 11 points. So when I built a city on my next turn, I had 12 points - but didn't realise. It wasn't until part way through Marie's turn that she counted up, and mentioned it. Since the rules say that a winner can only be declared on their turn, I said she had better finish her move, and Becky should play hers. So they did that, and managed another building each.
Then it was my turn. After I'd rolled, I had the right cards in my hand to build another settlement... so I did that. And won with 13 points.
Becky had 9 points on the board; Marie had 8 plus a victory point card. So they were in joint second place.
And it was only 35 minutes since we had started.
But rather than another venture onto the shores of Catan, we followed it with a game of 'Ticket to Ride, Europe' where Marie absolutely creamed us.
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