He was first to place a settlement and chose one with three good numbers on the 4-6-9 intersection. Becky (white) was second, and chose the equally good 4-9-8. Those were really the only two spaces with good numbers and three different resources - it wasn't a terribly balanced board at all. So Daniel (green) took the 5-8-11 with three resources, and Sheila (brown) took the one I rather liked the look of: the 5-6-9 with two ore and a wood. Jörn (blue) took the 5-8-10 with two wood and a sheep... and at last it was my turn. There really wasn't anywhere obvious. I couldn't get all five resources, so I opted for the best numbers I could. I was reluctant to be without wheat, since it looked as though it would be scarce in the game - but at least I had everything else.
Then everyone else attempted to get the best spots they could on the way back. Sheila was lacking clay, Jörn lacked ore, Daniel lacked wood. Only Richard and Becky managed access to all five resources, with a good selection of numbers too, although Becky did take a spot that blocked Richard's easy to access to a couple of harbours.
I forgot to take the photo until Richard had played his first street, but it didn't really matter.
With plentiful wood and clay, a good number of streets were built pretty quickly, and a few settlements. Becky was first to build a city:
This put her in the lead with 5 points. Jörn had 4 by this stage, and all the rest of us had 3, other than Daniel who was still stuck on 2.
It wasn't long before Sheila took the longest street card - although at any point it could have been taken by someone else.
By that stage Jörn and I had each managed to build a city, by dint of extensive trading. So Jörn and Sheila were jointly in the lead with 6 points each. Richard, Becky and I were close behind with 5 each, and Daniel - who kept getting blocked from building spots - had 3.
I realised I had a few building spots available so long as I moved fairly quickly - so with wood and clay still being plentiful, I built around the coast. And then realised I could take the longest street card away from Sheila:
So suddenly I was jointly in the lead with Jörn, both on 7 points. Richard and Becky each had 6, Sheila now had 5 - although it would only take one more street for her to regain the longest street card and the lead. And Daniel was still lagging a little, now with 4. But it was still pretty even, really. Jörn had no way of getting ore, and only 12 and 2 on wheat. I had managed a 2-wheat hex, but that was my only access to wheat. Building cities was still rather tricky.
Then Sheila played her third knight card, and claimed the largest army. Daniel, meanwhile, had run out of building spots already, so was limited to buying cards and building cities. He had played two knights and had hoped for the largest army card, but Sheila got there first.
We were lucky, I suppose, in that unlikely numbers like 2 and 12 were rolled more often than we would expect ... and Jörn managed to build a couple more cities without too much effort, helped by his sheep harbour:
So he now had 10 points and was solidly in the lead. I kept the longest street by extending as far as I could, so had 9 points. Sheila and Becky had 8, Richard had 7, and Daniel still had 4.
Then Jörn played another settlement, giving him 11 points.
Then Daniel played a fourth knight card, and took the largest army.
And Sheila, in an attempt to gain the longest street card, built three more streets, with the potential for one more:
She succeeded, and took the street card back from me. Had she kept the largest army card too, she would now have had 10 points.
But she had 8, and Jörn was solidly in the lead still with 11. All he needed to do was build another city...
... and that's exactly what he did.
But he didn't use any ore or wheat to do so... he took advantage of his useful sheep harbour and the abundance of sheep in the game:
So Jörn won by quite a margin.
No comments:
Post a Comment