Rivers of Catan (for two)

It's been a few months since we last played the 'Rivers of Catan' scenario from Traders and Barbarians. So we decided we'd try it again yesterday evening. The main differences in setup are the 'rivers' hexes which replace some of the regular ones, the 'swamps' which replace the desert, and the fact that the 2 and 12 numbers are put on the same hex.


During game-play, bridges can be built (for two clay and one wood) and coins can be earned by building roads or settlements next to the river. These coins can be traded for resources.

We decided to use the 'harbormaster' card in our game, but to use dice rather than Catan event cards. And although we weren't sure if there would be much point using the 'wealthy settler' and 'poor settler' card, we decided we might as well...

Then I forgot to take a photo after we'd placed our initial pieces. Here's the game after a few rounds:


I'd managed to upgrade one of my settlements to a city, and Richard had built another settlement on the coast. We'd built a few streets too.. and I had also built my first bridge:


In a two-person game there's usually plenty of room for expansion, so they tend to be fairly amicable. However, Richard really wanted the 8:3 ore:wheat coastal intersection, which I'd rather hoped for, so he took it in a single move:


We then noticed that I had the longest street. So that gave me 9 points in buildings, plus the other two, making 11. Except that I also had the 'poor Settler' card, which meant I needed an extra two points if I were to win. 18 rather than 16, in other words...

I had the clay harbour from my initial placement, and that had come in useful. I thought I might go for the wood harbour too, as I was getting quite a bit of wood... and Richard pipped me to the post.

So then I thought I'd go for the sheep harbour, as I had been collecting sheep... only to have Richard built streets to block me from that one too:


He was the first to reach three settlements on harbours, so took the Harbormaster card, and an extra two points.

So I had twelve points on the board and he had ten. We each had two extra points... but since he still held the 'wealthy settler' card, and I was the 'poor settler', he was in practice a point ahead of me rather than two behind.

I built my final settlement. I also extended my long street, so that it couldn't be overtaken. I had been buying development cards, and had played a couple of knights. So now I played my third knight, giving me the largest army:


So I had 17 points, which should have been enough to win... but I was still the 'poor Settler'. So I needed one more. Richard had 12 points on the board, plus the harbormaster, plus the 'wealthy settler' which gave him an extra point, so he also needed only one to win.

But my turn came first. I bought a couple more cards... and one of them was a victory point:

Fishermen of Catan and the Harbourmaster

We've played quite a few regular games of Settlers and Cities and Knights; I'm only writing about more unusual variants now. One of those happened on Monday, when we pulled out our 'Traders and Barbarians' expansion, and decided to start at the beginning again. There are several interesting sets of pieces within the box, and variations on the Catan theme which can be used with or without other expansions.

The first scenario in the booklet is the one called Fishermen of Catan. There are fish tiles laid around the outside, and a 'lake' hex replaces the desert:


The little pile of blue next to the resource cards are the little fish tiles, which may have one, two or three fish on them, and which can be traded in various ways. I described this in some detail when writing about our first game of Fishermen of Catan.

We used dice rather than the event cards, but we did decide to bring in the 'harbo(u)rmaster' card which functions like the Longest Street or Largest Army. As soon as any player has three or more harbours - of any kind - that player receives the Harbourmaster card, and two extra victory points. It can then be taken by another player who gains more harbours later on:


Since there were just two of us playing (Richard red, me orange, as usual) we started with three initial settlements each. We don't play the two-player version described in the Traders and Barbarians box (although we should probably try it some time) but our own two-player house rules, although we vary those from time to time too.


As can be seen, we each took an intersection by the lake, which produces fish any time 2, 3, 11 or 12 is rolled. Other than that, we took fairly predictable spots. Richard took one on the coast, with a fish ground tile nearby (which would give him a fish any time a 5 was rolled) but I kept mine inland.

I decided to head, first, for the 3:1 harbour which was by the 6-fish tile, and built my first settlement there:


So that would give me a fish piece every time a 6 was rolled.

Richard headed for a couple of fish tiles on the coast, too, but I decided to build my second settlement on the 8-ore hex:


I decided, next, to head for the other end of my 6-fish tile, and the wood harbour. In my hand, I had a wood, a clay, and a wheat resource (and a couple of ore, which weren't relevant). I also had five hidden fish tiles, which added up to 9 fish. I knew I could trade four of them for any resource of my choice.. so was going to put down the street I could buy from my hand and perhaps buy another wood and clay. Then realised that I needed to think more strategically. With five fish tiles, I could place a free street, leaving my wood and clay resources towards my settlement. Then I could use the other four fish to buy the sheep I was lacking, and place the settlement immediately:


Obvious, I know. But we were just getting used to these extra pieces and it wasn't always easy to think straight!

We'd both built all our settlements, in a fairly even way, and had to start building cities. For some reason, that wasn't so easy, and it was good that we had the fish to enable us to buy extra resources. Richard remained one point ahead of me for the first half of the game:


He then joined up two sections of streets, so took the Longest Street card and two extra points. He then picked up the 'old boot' tile, which nestles amongst the fish tiles... which meant that he would need one extra point to win the game. He could give it to 'any player' with as many or more points than he had - but since he had more than me, he couldn't give it away...


I built out to the sheep harbour, which gave me three harbours and thus the Harbormaster card - and two more points.


The extra settlement meant that I now had nine points on the board, the same as Richard, and we each had a card giving us an extra two. Naturally, I didn't point this out (when I noticed) since I didn't want to be handed the old boot...

Play continued as ever, with resources being gathered faster than ever, although I don't think either of us was caught out by the robber. We play to 16 points; we'd reached the stage where I had built all my cities and settlements - giving me 13 points on the board - and Richard had built all of his other than one settlement, so he had 12 on the board. I still held the Harbourmaster card, and he still held the Longest Street card. Neither of had bought many development cards, but Richard had played two knights, so it was likely that he would gain the Largest Army before long...

.. so, when I managed to collect several wood tiles, and a pile of fish, I decided to spend them on streets to link up my two road sections, and thus took the Longest Street card:


So I had 17 points, winning the game, and Richard was back to 12. Even if he had given me the old boot, it wouldn't have been a problem as I had the extra point.

Settlers of Catan... via Skype!

I decided a few weeks ago that I would stop writing about every single Catan game we play, and only include new posts when there are variations (such as those in 'Traders and Barbarians') or other unusual features.

One such very unusual feature - indeed, unique from our perspective - occurred on Tuesday evening, when we were chatting online to our son Tim, who is a student in the UK. We live in Cyprus. Tim was feeling a bit bored and made an idle comment about how he wished we could play Settlers over Skype. Immediately, I wondered if it would be possible. Would the quality of my webcam be good enough...? So we set up a board, out of curiosity, and put Richard's laptop on the sofa, where we could see Tim:


Then we set up my little portable webcam on a chair, pointed at the Settlers board:


And Tim could see it quite clearly enough!


Of course, it was quite absurd to suggest actually playing a game. And yet... it looked rather a nice layout. And we had half an hour before Richard needed to go out, and Tim needed to eat. So we thought we might just try a bit of a game to see if it was possible. And since Tim wanted to see us as well as the board, Richard set up the internal webcam on his computer to point at us, via yahoo chat. We were probably at our maximum bandwidth...

Tim had to go and fetch resource cards from the set in his house, and we were all set. We chose three fairly distinct colours that were easily distinguishable via the webcam. I had my usual orange, Richard opted for white rather than his usual red, and Tim took blue. We rolled our dice, Tim used a random dice generator on his computer when it was his turn. I went first and placed my settlement, then it was Tim's turn - since we were playing clockwise - and he told me where he wanted his one to go. With the second settlements, he took the cards from his set of resources.


Then we played our first few moves. It must have felt a bit odd to Tim, but I was surprised how oddly 'normal' it felt to be playing a board game - a physical board game - with someone a couple of thousand miles away.


Trading resources with Tim was easy enough. We agreed the relevant exchange, then each traded with our own 'bank' of cards, as if trading with each other.

We had to think for a moment when Richard wanted to place the robber on one of Tim's hexes and steal a card from him. But it wasn't a problem. Tim held his cards up to the screen, so Richard could choose:


.. and when Richard decided which one he wanted, I closed my eyes, Tim showed Richard what the card was, and discarded it himself, while Richard took the relevant card from the bank. I didn't take many photos of the board; I was too interested in the game and the technology. We did take a break when Richard and Tim had to depart, temporarily, but then resumed an hour later.

Tim was in the lead for a while, then I took the longest street card and had eleven points. However, Tim took it from me fairly quickly:


- he then built another city, which put him in the lead with ten points, while I was back to nine:


Richard, who set it all up technologically, wasn't doing so well in this game.

Tim built another city, and so did I. Then I built another settlement, too. So we both had eleven points:


Oddly enough, very few development cards had been bought in this game.** Partly, I suppose, because ore was a relatively rare resource, so when any of us had any, we used it to build cities. Even at this stage, clearly near the end, I had bought - and played - one knight card, and that was all.

My turn came round. I could trade my cards to built another settlement, and I had a building spot, which meant that I could win... except that I didn't have any settlements left to play. I needed a city first, but could not gather the resources for that. And since I didn't want to be caught by the robber, I opted to buy my second development card of the game.

It was a victory point.

And so, although I had rather hoped Tim would win, I was the first with 12 points.



**If Tim had wanted to buy a development card - which didn't happen - we would have picked up the top card, and put it under the webcam (without looking at it ourselves) so that he could see what it was, and then take the equivalent card from his own set. We would then have replaced our card at the bottom of the deck.

Settlers of Catan, basic game for two players

We devised our two-player house rules for Settlers of Catan at the end of last year, and have enjoyed several two-player games over the months. We're more evenly matched than we used to be, so last night we decided to ignore the 'robber' rule which we adopted at first. In other words, the robber is controlled by whoever throws a seven or plays a knight (as in the regular Settlers game; originally when a seven was rolled, it was controlled by whoever was behind). However, rather than stealing a card from the other player, since there are just two of us, we take a resource matching whatever hex we put the robber on.

We started by placing three settlements each, as usual for a two-player game. I rolled to go first, so I started by placing one. The board looked like quite a nice layout, with several good combinations of numbers. I could see that ore was likely to be the scarcest resource, so I knew I wanted my first placement on the 10-ore hex, which was the best option for it. It was a fairly easy decision to place it where I would also have access to the 5-wood and 9-sheep.

Then it was Richard's turn to place two settlements. He acknowledged later that he made a strategic error in not also taking the 10-ore hex - there was a good spot with an 8-clay and 3-wood which I would certainly have taken if he had played first, and taken the spot I did.

Instead he looked at the intersections with the best numbers. He likes to start with a 6 and an 8, as the most likely numbers to be rolled. So he opted for the other 8-clay, a 6-sheep, with 3, 4, 5 and 11 as his other numbers. He had theoretical access to all five resources, but his only ore hex was the 11. He took cards for his second placement, the one that included both wood and clay.

I then placed my other two starting settlements, and took cards for both. I also like to have a 6 and an 8 if I can, and a variety of numbers, so I took the other 8-clay hex with a 3-wood and 4-wheat, and alsothe 4-6 woods with a 3-ore. I could see that my first settlement wasn't far from the wood harbour, so hoped to be able to make use of that. And whereas my numbers could have been better - I could, for instance, have taken the 4-6-9 with the same two wood and a sheep, I thought it would be a good idea to have another number that might give me some ore.

For Richard's last settlement, I thought he would take the 5-9-10 with two wheat and clay. He would then have an excellent range of numbers - everything from 3 to 11 - and great access to wheat. However, he was already heading for that spot with one of his other settlements, so he went instead for the 9-6-12 with wheat and two sheep, heading towards the sheep harbour.


We allow up to 9 cards in a hand before the robber can steal any in the two-person Catan game, since we don't have any player-to-player trading, meaning that there are often more cards that can't be used. And we don't acknowledge any sevens in the first three or four rounds. As it happened only two sevens were rolled in the entire game!

Despite two 8-clay hexes, wood was a much more plentiful resources in this game, with very few 8s being rolled. We both had the resources needed for streets in our opening hands, but the had to trade heavily with the bank to continue. It wasn't long before Richard took that nice spot with the 9 and 10, meaning that he now had access to every number other than 2. I took my nearest 3:1 harbour as soon as I could, so that I didn't have to trade four cards each time!

Oddly enough, 3s were being rolled more often than one would expect, so I had more ore from that than I did from the 10 - and was soon able to build my first city.


Richard, unsurprisingly, took the longest street:


So at this stage in the game, each of us had six points exactly. We were both rather struggling to get clay or wheat, having instead rather an excess of wood (both of us), sheep (Richard) and ore (me).

Richard built on a 3:1 harbour next, which helped with trading, and extended his long street to join up various sections and ensure that I didn't overtake him. However, his problem was that he simply wasn't picking up any ore. Now he had played all five settlements, he had to start a city. He had bought a couple of development cards early in the game, both of which were knights; so he played them on my ore hexes simply so as to enable him to pick up ore from the bank!

Finally he did manage his first city, and soon after built another settlement:


So now he had seven points on the board, plus the longest street, giving him nine. I was managing to build cities almost every turn, so had ten points on the board - but as Richard had also played two knights (and the only card I had bought proved to be a monopoly, which is not all that useful in two-player Catan) he was evidently going for the largest army as well...

... and, indeed, he took it:


I had finished all the possible buildings, giving me 13 points. We play to 16 when there are just two of us, so all I could do was to buy cards and hope for some victory points. In the meantime, Richard could gradually progress with his buildings and reach 16 first. I did have both the wood harbour and the wheat harbour, which were extremely useful since I continued picking up vast quantities of wood on almost every roll of the dice.

Then I suddenly realised that although I had little hope of building a larger army, I could in fact overtake his longest street. I didn't want to make it too obvious what I was planning, so as I couldn't immediately build the streets (wood suddenly became scarce, temporarily), I bought three cards. To my surprise, two of them were victory points... so I had 15 points rather than 13.

On my following round, I picked up sufficient wood to buy two streets... so I won the game with 17 points.


Richard also had a victory point card, but his total was only 10. I was surprised that he was so far behind, since we'd been so close throughout the game... then we remembered that when I took the longest street card from him, I effectively leapt ahead by four points since I gained two and he also lost two. Ignoring the victory points, I'd had 13 and he'd had 11 a moment earlier...

Settlers of Catan for four

Another Thursday evening. Another game with the four of us. Sheila brown, Jörn blue, Richard red, me orange.

It wasn't a particularly inspiring layout for the board. It looked as though there was going to be an over-abundance of wood, a fair amount of sheep, and not a whole lot of anything else. Nor where there any obviously brilliant starting spots.

Sheila went first and took the 3-6-9 with ore, sheep and clay. It's where I'd have gone in first place, too. Probably the best place for numbers, certainly the best spot for clay which was likely to be the scarcest resource of all.

Jörn went second, and took the 4-8-10, with wheat, with wheat, wood and sheep. Equally good numbers, technically, but no clay or ore. I was third. Already there were no attractive spaces to take, so I followed the strategy of taking the best possible ore spot, which was on a 5. It bordered a 6-wood which I hoped would be useful, and also an 11-wheat, which was less likely to be of value.

Richard was last; quite a useful situation for this unhelpful board. He was able to get access to all five resources, and five different numbers: 3, 4 (twice), 8, 9 and 11. I now needed clay and sheep, but the only place to get both was on the coast, with a 2 on the clay, which didn't seem very useful. So, as I usually sacrifice sheep (so to speak!) if one resource must go, I looked at the options for clay. There was really only one possibility: the final place on the 9-clay hex, which bordered a 10-wheat that I hoped would be useful, and also the 2-clay. So that's what I took.

Jörn needed clay and ore, so he took a reasonable spot which gave him both, even though the clay was on an 11; it also gave him an 8 on wood... and made it unlikely that Richard would be able to take the nearby 3:1 harbour.

I then took a photo, not realising that Sheila hadn't placed her second settlement. She suggested I post it anyway, and ask readers where they might have placed the second brown settlement...


Sheila pondered two or three options. She needed both wheat and wood, but couldn't possibly take both. She had considered one of the 8-wood hexes, but one possible spot bordered only the desert, and the other bordered only the 3-ore hex which she had access to already; she was tempted by it, since it would have given her an instant 3:1 harbour, but it looked as if she might have been boxed in rather rapidly, with very few - if any - building spots.

So, as wood was evidently going to be plentiful, Sheila opted for the 3-10-11 intersection which gave her two wheat hexes, and five different numbers altogether.


Play started quite slowly, except that 11s were rolled more often than would be expected, and 10s not at all in the first few rounds. Jörn and Richard were both easily able to build streets, and I went as rapidly as I could to the intersection with two wheat hexes which would give me a five. Richard built in the spot where Sheila had hoped to go, which meant that her building spots were rather limited anyway, and he was first to gain the longest street card, but Jörn soon extended his street further and took it away.


So Jörn had five points, as did I; Richard had four, and Sheila had three.

With my extra wheat and reasonable ore (5s were rolled pretty much as expected statistically), I was fairly quickly able to build another city. I did have to give up cards to the robber more than once; but I found myself with wood and sheep all too often, and nothing I could do with them. It then occurred to me that I should probably take the wood harbour; I hadn't thought of it as a useful building spot, since I already had two settlements on the 2-clay hex, and one on the 5-wheat. But with the amount of wood I was collecting, it was definitely worthwhile.

So I took it - just before Richard planned to. He kept extending his street in the hope of taking back the longest street card. He did for a few rounds, but then Jörn took it back again, and we realised that he was now unbeatable as far as that went.

I then built another city, made almost entirely of 2:1 traded wood.


So Jörn had eight points at this stage, and I had nine. We each had one remaining building spot, although my last one was also Sheila's last one, and she was struggling to do anything so I didn't plan to take it, even though she urged me to! I had already played two knights - being in the lead, I was frequently the target of the robber - and needed only one more to gain the largest army. I also knew I could fairly easily build one more city, so I didn't actually need another settlement.

And that's what happened. If Jörn had had a hidden victory point card, he would have won, but he didn't. So when my turn came around, I built my last city, and played my third knight:

Four-person Settlers of Catan game in the evening

Looking back at the scoring lists we keep, I was a little surprised to discover that the last time Richard and I played a four-person Settlers game with just Jörn and Sheila was back in May. We've loved having so many other people to play Catan games with, of course, but sometimes it's good to have just the four of us who played so many games together last year.

We set the board up outside, for the first time this year. And, since I'm writing this four days after the game happened, I've forgotten who started. I think it may have been Jörn (with blue pieces, as usual). If so, then he opted for the six-wheat hex as one of his starting ones since wheat looked as if it might be in short supply. if he was first, Sheila was second (brown), and took one of the 8-4-3 intersections which I had been looking at. I (orange) then took the other. Richard, who (I think) was last (red) began with good numbers (5, 9, 10) - the best selection of numbers available - on wood and two clay.

It was quite a nice board, and we all managed to begin the game with a reasonable selection of resources and numbers. Richard lacked wheat by the end, while Sheila and I each had only 11 on wheat. But nobody was obviously in a much better position than anyone else:


The first few moves were fairly predictable, and also reasonably amicable. Jörn and Richard both headed towards the coast, and the relevant harbours. Richard did build an extra street to protect the wood harbour from Sheila; so she went the other way towards a 3:1. I decided to head for an inland spot first; not particularly useful in theory (3 on sheep, 11 on wheat, and the desert...) but I could see that inland spots were going to be at a premium, due to the layout of our initial settlements. I did have a faint hope that I might be able to build out quickly towards the 5-wheat/10-ore hex, but suspected that Jörn would get there first...


...which, indeed, he did. Sheila headed to the other side of that nice 5-wheat hex, so I concentrated my building around the coast near the 8-ore hex I'd taken at the start. Richard hoped to get there too, and we did compete for the spot which eventually I took - but since he'd built an extra street it was still possible for him to get a spot around the edge of that 8-ore hex.

Oddly enough, 11 was rolled rather often in this game, so it wasn't long before I was able to build my first city.


So Sheila and I each had five points, Richard had four, and Jörn had three.

I decided, next, to head towards the coast at the bottom of the board in the hope of being able to get a 9 hex. Sheila, meanwhile, gained the longest street card. Richard and Sheila each built a city, but Jörn was having a hard time getting the resources he needed, and was still stuck on three points:


So Sheila was well in the lead with eight, while Richard and I each had six.

Building spots were fast becoming scarce, but Jörn had good supplies of both ore and wheat, so was able to build some cities - and as he did so, naturally gained more frequent resources which he could trade as needed. In quite a short space of time he went from three to eight points. I managed to get my coastal hex including the 9-clay, and Richard took the sheep harbour, which I did also consider. It could have been decidedly useful. Sheila extended her longest street to ensure that nobody else could take it - not that there were really any possible contenders by this stage.

Sheila and I had each played two knight cards, but she was first to play a third and thus gain the largest army:


So she now had ten points. Jörn had jumped to second place with eight, while Richard and I each had seven.

We now concentrated on building cities and buying development cards, while hoping not to be caught by the robber with more than seven resource cards. We reached the stage where Sheila had eleven points and I had nine... and then I played a fourth knight, and took the 'largest army' card from her. So now I had eleven, and she had nine.

I had one more city to build, and although nobody would trade with me, I managed it anyway and thus scraped another win:


But it was all very close. Richard and Sheila each had ten points, and Jörn had nine.

Two-person Settlers of Catan game with Richard

It's been quite some time since Richard and I last played two-person Settlers of Catan without any expansions. We decided to play just the basic game, rather than anything more complicated, since I was quite tired.

Richard had his usual red pieces, and I had orange. I went first, so placed my initial settlement on the 5-8-10 with ore, clay and sheep. I suppose the 5-6-9 nearby (ore, wood and sheep) would have been slightly better from the number point of view. But it seemed that ore and clay were likely to be the least available resources, so I wanted the best spot I could for both.

Richard then placed two settlements. He chose the 5-6-9, and the 3-4-8 with ore, wheat and sheep. It gave him a good range of numbers and he expected to be able to find clay on his third placement.

I then looked at the best possible combination of numbers - with three starting settlements, it's usually easy to get access to all five resources, and, indeed, most of the numbers. I still needed wood and wheat, so an obvious spot for me was the 4-6-9 with clay, wheat and wood. So I had 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 which are the six most commonly rolled numbers. I decided that for my third settlement, I'd opt for the intersection with a 3 and 11, both on ore, and another useful 6-wood hex in addition.


With three settlements each, play usually gets going fairly quickly in the two-person game. We start with resources for our second two settlements (and are allowed nine cards in our hands before the robber can strike). We decided, too, that rather than giving control of the robber to whoever was behind, when a 7 was rolled, we would just go with the person who rolled it since we're fairly evenly matched. But would still take the resource matching the hex on which we put the robber, rather than stealing from the other player.

Ore was, indeed, rather a rare resource. 3 and 11 were hardly rolled at all in the early stage of the game (although, ironically, there were a couple of 2s and 12s). However, there was reasonably plentiful wood and clay, and we could trade with the bank for anything else we needed; so we both quickly built the first settlements we had planned, and Richard was able to buy a couple of cities.

It took me a little longer, but at last I, too, built my first city, with the help of my useful 3:1 harbour:


So Richard had seven points, and I had six.

I built more streets, basically to reduce the number of cards in my hand, and also bought a few development cards. One of them was a victory point, which wasn't a whole lot of use at this stage. But I did play a knight to move the robber - as did Richard - and had another one hidden. And a very useful 'year of plenty' which would give me two resources of my choice.

I managed to take the clay harbour - although I wasn't picking up a huge amount of clay - and then Richard took the longest street.


So he was now well in the lead with 11 points. I had seven. We usually play to 16 in the two-player game, which means - basically - having all 13 points from buildings on the board, plus either the longest street or largest army, and a victory point. Since Richard had the longest street, I decided I'd aim for the largest army, so played my second knight and bought another card, which was another knight.

With my year of plenty card, and some trading with the bank, I managed to buy another city - ore still wasn't coming with the rolls of the dice - and then took the sheep harbour. I continued putting down streets in the hope of more building spots - and to reduce the cards in my hand - and Richard started building out around the desert. He didn't have any 10s, and really wanted one, so I expected him to build on the 8-10-desert intersection. But instead he started expanding around the 10 and heading towards the 2.


So he still had 11 points, but by this stage I'd managed 9 on the board, and realised I would catch up when I played my third knight.

My turn came around. In my hand, I had three wood and three clay resources. I glanced at Richard's red pieces, and realised that he had used up all his streets, so could never expand his 'long' street beyond eight lengths. So, with a slight apology, I placed the three streets needed to join up my two segments, giving me eleven contiguous streets and the card. I only had two streets left unplayed, but they were sufficient to give me two more building spots which was all I needed.

I played my third knight too.


So now in a complete reversal, I had 13 points, and Richard had 9.

Ore starting being rolled, at last, so we were both able to buy cites. And since I kept forgetting to count points, we played a little longer than we should have done. Richard managed to reach 12 points, and I also played another settlement, giving me 12 on the board, plus the two cards and my hidden victory point meaning I won with 17: