Seafarers of Catan: seventh scenario - Pirate Islands, game two

Having tried 'Seafarers: Pirate Islands' for the first time, it was only 9.30pm and the game was still set up... so we decided to have another round immediately. Our fortresses and shipping settlements had to be in the same starting positions as before, but we deliberately chose slightly different places for our other starting settlements:


Once again, I didn't have a 6 but hoped I might get one eventually.

Once again, Richard picked up a LOT of cards initially, but they didn't seem to be much use. I started more slowly but was able to expand, and also to buy cards, most of which were, once again, knights. So I could build ships and turn them into warships, meaning I was protected against pirate attack. I really didn't want to win a second game, though, so I delayed my ship-building as long as I could, and instead concentrated on settlements and cities. I'd built them all, and turned six ships into warships before I attacked the pirate fortress:


We were fairly equal by that stage. Richard had only one settlement left to build, and had as many ships as I did. The only problem was... every time he bought a card, it was something other than a knight. He played a nice monopoly on sheep (when I had five in my hand), and had a useful road-building card which he used to build a couple of ships. He had two 'year of plenty' cards as well, which gave him some much-needed resources to help in his buildings.

But he couldn't create warships, so he kept losing to the pirate ship, any time it attacked his settlement. And when he finally decided to build a last ship and attack the pirate fortress anyway, since he only had two warships, he lost.


If the fortress is stronger than the number of warships, the attacker loses two ships. If they're equal, the attacker loses one. On one of my attacks, they were equal so I lost one ship - by which stage Richard had built one of the ones he had lost.

By that stage, the only thing I could do was to buy cards, since I'd built all my settlements and cities on the main Catan island. I was able to reveal another knight, giving me seven warships, so I couldn't lose. Two more rounds, and I would have defeated the pirate fortress. I did actually delay my attacks for about three extra rounds, hoping that Richard might be more successful - but he wasn't. And I was getting tired, and rather bored of doing nothing but buy cards - there aren't even any victory points used in this Seafarers scenario - so I finally did my last attack, and was the winner.

This shows the development cards Richard had bought - which would have been very useful in a regular Settlers of Catan game, but were not so good when he really needed knights to build his warships!