Seafarers of Catan: Cloth for Catan (random board setup)

We were both extremely tired last night. We didn't feel like the complexities of Cities and Knights, or even a new scenario for Seafarers of Catan. So we decided to have another game of the sixth scenario, Cloth for Catan, which we played once before.

However we decided on the 'random' setup this time. The central islands were as given in the booklet, but the two main islands had random placement of hexes and also of numbers, with the proviso that 6s and 8s never go together, neither do any two numbers that are the same.

I didn't remember to take a photo until we'd played a few rounds. However all we'd done by that stage was build a few boats, and (for me) a road and settlement on a 3:1 harbour, so it shows our initial placements with the usual variety of resources and numbers.


Although we'd pretty much forgotten the previous game, this one proceeded with a similar pattern. Richard got to as many little islands as possible to establish trade routes and collect little chits, while I concentrated more on building settlements and cities. Sheep were in very short supply in this game, but other resources were plentiful so we did a lot of trading. I was glad of my 3:1 harbour, and Richard soon took the ore harbour since he was collecting a lot of ore cards.

For quite some time he was ahead of me on points. We played the usual two-player rules, in that if a 7 is rolled it's controlled by whoever is behind. For the first half of the game, that was me. I was pretty sure Richard was going to win; chits are collected from islands with established trade routes any time the relevant number is rolled, as long as there are still chits in place. So after doing some building I set out to sea a little more, realising that if he collected all the chits from all the islands, he would be a long way ahead of me, no matter how much building I did.

It turned out that my early building - including a couple of cities - was worth doing after all, since it gave me so many extra resources. I was able to continue expanding inland as well as going out to sea, meaning that I eventually overtook Richard in points.


Due to the extreme lack of sheep (and sheep are needed for ship-building) there was only one development card bought in the entire game. It was one I bought, on a rare occasion when I happened to have the three resource cards needed, and was a knight. Useful, since by that stage I was ahead and Richard was controlling the robber when a 7 was rolled.

This game ends when there are chits left on only three of the original places. It happened as I built my final settlement.


So I had 13 points on the board, and 13 chits, giving me 19 points in all. Richard had 21 chits (10 points) - but had only managed to buy buildings worth 5 points, so he had 15 points. With the lack of development cards, there was obviously no 'largest army', nor any extra victory points.

Once again it seemed that the better strategy for this game was to build quickly before sailing out to establish trade routes. That gave more resources, and also enabled a couple of harbours. While Richard did claim the ore harbour, he never managed to build on a 3:1, so frequently had to trade four resources just to get another sheep. And with only one city he wasn't gaining nearly so many cards as I was, by the time I'd built four of them.