We had not played with six before. The initial setup wasn't easy, with distinct lack of spaces by the end. Becky (playing red, for a change) went first and took what was, in my view, the best spot available. Marie (playing white) went second; Jörn (blue) third; Sheila (brown) fourth. I was fifth, playing orange as usual, and since there were no obviously good spots, decided on some good numbers on sheep and wood - the resources needed to build a boat. Jacob (green) went last, his favourite position, since it meant he placed both settlements together. I'm not entirely sure why he took one spot with only the wood-8 bordering it - there was a similar wood-8 hex with a wheat next to it that he could have had. But he was determined to set out to sea as soon as possible, and to aim for the 10-gold hex.
So the game started. Since I had no ore, my first strategy was to build towards a useful 9-ore hex. Becky built streets out towards the coast at the back of the board, in the hope of the ore harbour. And picked up the longest street card without really intending to.
The first person to uncover a 'hidden' hex was Jacob...and it was a sea hex. Sheila then set out in boats as well, and uncovered a further sea hex.
Jacob kept on building boats and exploring, and for several moves found nothing but sea. Then finally he uncovered a wood hex, with a useful 5, and built a settlement bordering that and the gold hex he had been aiming for.
However, Becky was still rather significantly in the lead. She had 7 points including the longest street. Even if - as was likely - someone took that from her, she had 5 solid points on the board. Jörn was second with five points; Marie, Jacob and I had four each, and Sheila had three.
I did manage to build enough ships to take the longest route card for a couple of rounds, but Jacob soon took it from me. His line of ships was pretty much invincible from that perspective, although he wasn't doing much other building:
Despite losing the longest route card, Becky now had eight points, since she had built two cities and a further settlement. Jörn also had eight points, and Jacob was close behind with seven. Marie, Sheila and I all had five, so it was still fairly even. Marie and I had been discovering some useful land hexes, as had Jacob by this stage. Sheila had remembered a rule which we had quite forgotten in our last game: whoever turns over a land hex takes an extra resource corresponding to it immediately.
Richard and Daniel arrived home from their sailing trip, and Richard sat with Jacob to give him some advice on strategy. He pointed out that since he had by far the longest route, there wasn't much point extending it further; he needed the resources to build settlements and cities instead, to gain more points. Then Daniel took over advising... and Jacob waited until two 12s had (surprisingly) been rolled. Jörn and I both picked up clay for that, so Jacob, on his turn, monopolised clay and received 15 cards:
With those, he was able to trade with others, and then built another settlement.
However, Becky was maintaining a clear lead by this stage. She had 11 points on the board. She still had building spaces too - lots of them! - so could either build more, or buy cards. We had decided to play to 12 points rather than 14, as we were getting hungry. We had to remember to keep counting points; as so often happens in Fog Island, we were all enjoying the exploration phase and tended to forget about trying to gain points.
Unsurprisingly, it was Becky who won - by picking up a victory point card.
We were greatly relieved, not wanting the game to continue much longer. The camera shook slightly on the last shot, and I temporarily ran out of memory space to take any more, so the final board isn't too clear:
But Becky was the clear winner, and Jacob came second with 10 points.
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