I did then play one two-person regular Settlers game at the end of April, with Tim. But the last time I played any two-player Catan game was when Richard and I played Cities and Knights at the end of April, just after returning from the UK.
So when Tim suggested a game last night, when Richard was out, I was rather out of practice. Tim had played our family two-person variation on Settlers more recently than I had.
We start with three settlements each, to get the game going. I rolled first, so I placed my first one on the 6-9-3 with clay, wood and ore. Looking at the hexes, it was clear that ore was likely to be in very short supply; the 3 was the most hopeful place for obtaining it. After my initial placement, Tim put two settlements down, and took resources for one of them. He took another spot on the same 3-ore hex, bordering 4 and 8 on sheep and wheat, and also took the 5-10-9 with two wood and a wheat.
Then it was my turn to place my final two settlements, with resources for both. I needed sheep and wheat ;that was easy to obtain with an 8 on wheat, 3 and 4 on sheep. Then I looked at my numbers. I had access to 3 (twice), 4, 6, 8 and 9. I was lacking 5 and 10 (as well as 2, 11 and 12, but they're less important). So I chose the 2-5-10 with another chance of ore on the 2, another clay, and more sheep. I hoped to go for the nearby clay harbour too as an early strategy.
Tim likewise looked at his numbers, and opted for the 5-6-11 with two wood and a clay. It didn't give him great access to clay - and we don't allow player-to-player trading in the two-person version of the game - but did give him a nice selection of numbers.
With six settlements, the game got going fairly quickly. I built out to the clay harbour, and Tim took the wood harbour which looked as if it would be very useful to him. I then built to a 3:1 harbour, while Tim - despite the general lack of ore - upgraded to two cities. The wood harbour was very useful to him in this.
I finally managed to upgrade to my first city by using the useful 'year of plenty' card, which I had bought, and also rolling a 7. In the two-player game, we don't take a resource from the other player when a 7 is rolled; instead we take one from the bank matching whatever hex we put the robber on. So I placed him - several times in the game - on the 12-ore hex.
We did entirely forget until about half-way through that we usually have the robber (when a 7 is rolled) controlled by whichever player is behind in points, regardless of who rolled it. But since we hadn't remembered, and were fairly even anyway, we decided to abandon that rule for this particular game.
The next achievement was Tim gaining the longest street card. We both thought for a moment that we were competing for a building spot - but I wanted the 10-3-desert intersection with two sheep (since by this stage I had the sheep harbour) whereas Tim wanted the 9-10-11 on wood, sheep and clay. So there was no clash of interests. Neither of us is a particularly aggressive player, and there's plenty of room on the board for two players so there's no real need for racing to particular building spots.
By this stage, I'd managed another city so I had 9 points. Tim also had 9 points on the board, so the longest street card gave him 11. We agreed that we would play to 16, as usual for the two-player Catan game.
It didn't take much for me to extend my streets and take the card from Tim. I calculated my streets carefully and realised that since I only needed two more building spots by this stage, and had plenty of spaces, I could extend it to 13, which Tim couldn't beat. Since I kept on picking up wood and clay - which I no longer needed - it was easy enough to keep extending it.
So at this stage, Tim had 12 points - one more settlement to build - and I had 10 on the board plus the longest street, giving me 12 too.
I upgraded my final city; probably I should have attempted to build my last two settlements rather than worrying about completing my street. Tim built his last settlement easily and then started buying development cards. Since he had excellent access to wheat and wood, plus the wood and wheat harbours, he was easily able to buy at least two on every turn. Whereas I needed the resources I had to build.
So Tim had 13 points on the board, and I had 11 on the board plus the longest street. We were still even... but I assumed that Tim probably had at least one victory point card hidden. He had played two knights, as well, so it was only a matter of time before he declared the largest army.
And indeed, that's what happened. He played a third knight card, and then showed not just one but two victory points:
So Tim has now won four out of four games he has played in five days since returning to Cyprus... an impressive record.
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