Cities and Knights for four players

We decided we'd like a game of Cities and Knights with our son Daniel and daughter-in-law Becky, during the afternoon when there was plenty of time, and when we were all wide awake. It's not very often that we've played Cities and Knights with more than two of us, but they play regularly when they're at home.

Richard (red, as usual) was first to play, and went for a good ore-wheat combination. Daniel was second, with brown tiles; he remembered the importance of wheat in Cities and Knights, so took an 8-wheat, with a couple of other good numbers. Becky, playing blue, took what I usually think of as the best three-number combination (5-9-10) and then it was me. I don't much like playing last, but the advantage, of course, was that I could place my settlement and city together.

My beginning strategy - if one can call it that - with this game is to have my first city on the best possible wood hexes. I like to get as many 'books' commodity cards as quickly as I can, so I can pick up the green progress cards which are often useful, and then reach the heights of being able to choose any resource if I get 'no production on a roll'. So my city went on a good spot with two wood and one sheep, and for my settlement I opted for a spot with three different numbers and as many different resources as I could get. I hoped to be able to trade for wheat.

Becky then placed her city, on another intersection with very good numbers and the potential for 'cloth' commodity cards - the only disadvantage being that she didn't have much of a range of numbers - but as they were 5, 6, 9 and 10 there was a good chance that they would come up regularly.

Then it was Daniel's turn. He studied the board.. and someone commented that, with the first six placements, we had totally blocked the central 11-wheat hex. In fact, by placing where we did, each building directly opposite another, we had actually managed to block every other inland intersection. The only remaining building spots were on the coast!

So Daniel took a spot with good ore - and the potential for 'coins' commodity cards - and Richard took a useful place with both sheep and wood:

Daniel and Becky did both have all five resources available, while I was lacking wheat and Richard lacked clay. 

Then, since we realised that resources were going to be thin in the ground, and we've had games where 11s seem to come constantly, we decided to use the Traders and Barbarians cards instead of rolling dice, so that we would, at least, get statistically likely numbers in proportion. 

As usual, we don't play the event die nor use 7s until at least two rounds have passed, and until at least two people have built something - we also play the 'friendly robber' scenario, meaning that the robber may not be put on a hex that is adjacent to any player with only two (or, in Cities and Knights, three) points. But a couple of 10s were turned over early in the game, so it wasn't long before Becky had expanded and built on the sheep harbour - something she hoped to use extensively - and I had also managed to build another settlement:

Richard and Daniel were stuck, and clay was a scarce resource at this stage, so nobody wanted to trade it. 

With limited building spots available, Becky and I both expanded as rapidly as we could, and it wasn't long before she had the longest street:

So she had eight points, and was in the lead. I had managed a second city by this stage, so was second with six points. Daniel and Richard each had four, still struggling for clay, but hadn't been able to build any cities yet, although a few knights were by now scattered around Catan. 

When we started rolling the event die, several of us had already made a few city improvements; I found that the books commodity was coming fairly often, and picked up some useful cards. Surprisingly quickly, I gained an extra two points with a metropolis on books: 

So Becky and I each had eight points. Daniel had gained a victory point for the most knights when the pirate ship landed for the first time, so he and Richard each had five points by this stage. 

I kept expanding, and - with the help of a useful street-building card - managed to gain the longest street card from Becky: 

So I had 12 points on the board, and nobody else was likely to take the street card from me. We play to 14 in Cities and Knights for more than two players, and I had picked up one victory point progress card - so I was one away from victory, and quite a long way ahead of everyone else. 

However, I forgot entirely that I should have activated my knight. I only had one, and was - as usual - leaving the proctetion of Catan to other players. But the pirate ship was fairly close to landing, and we didn't have enough activated knights. It was Richard's turn, and he had the cards to build another city. He didn't want to do so, not wanting to lose it... but then realised that, with a little trading, he could also buy and feed a knight, so he did that. 

Then it was Becky's turn, and she rolled the black event, so the pirate ship was just one move away from landing. She had a choice - she could activate her knights so as to protect Catan, and then gain a victory point through having the most active knights - or she could activate just one, meaning that I would be the player with the least active knights (ie zero!) and would lose a city. 

Becky decided to be kind, so she fed her knights. We were safe... 

... then Daniel, who didn't move the pirate ship on, built another city.  Catan was no longer safe.  My turn at last, and I would be able to activate my knight so long as I rolled one of the coloured events... 

.. but I didn't. I rolled a pirate ship event, and Catan was attacked. And I lost a city, and therefore a point:

So now I was back to 12. Richard, who had control of the merchant, had 8, Becky and Daniel each had 6. But it was only a matter of time. It did, at least, mean that we all had another turn, which enabled Becky to reach the metropolis on cloth, as well as another settlement and city, giving her 10 points by the end. 

I had too many cards by the time it was my turn again; had I lost half of them to the robber, we would probably have played yet another round. But as it was, I was able to re-build my lost city, giving me 13 points... and then I produced the progress card I had collected during the round which enabled me to take control of the merchant, and give me the final victory point I needed: 

So Becky and I were quite  a long way ahead of our menfolk. Possibly, as Daniel pointed out, this was (at least in part) due to the fact that they had been forced to place their initial cities on the coast, giving them fewer resources at the beginning.