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. 

Settlers of Catan by Facetime, for five

It's over a year since we first played Settlers via Skype with our son Tim (who is in the UK). Since then, we've played several such games with him, and have gradually changed the technology; Facetime is now the usual method, and there is always some discussion about what microphone and cameras to use. 

But we've never played a five-person game this way. With our other son Daniel and his wife Becky staying, Tim suggested we try. Richard and Daniel set up a proper microphone, balanced on a stand in the middle of us so that Tim would be able to hear us all, and we got started... 

Daniel took these first two pictures.. while we were doing the initial set-up, Becky played with her remaining pieces to make some little stick figures: 

Then I took the camera, so the board looks a little turned around. Here were our starting places - Richard was red, as usual, and I was orange. Tim played white, Becky blue and Daniel brown:

Of course it's quite hard to see all the numbers in a photo of the bigger board. We all had fairly evenly distributed numbers and resources at the start. It wasn't long before Becky built a city, and Richard managed two of them fairly quickly: 

I was struggling through lack of clay, and thus was last at this stage, still on two points.  Richard was in the lead with five. 

Becky was adapting her stick figures to suit her remaining pieces, and produced this, possibly a cyberman of some kind: 

I traded and traded, and at last managed to build a few streets and settlements, and even gained a possible clay resource, although as it was on a 3 it wasn't all that frequent:

So suddenly I was sharing the lead with Tim and Richard - all on five points - while Daniel had four, and Becky was still on three.

Here's a photo showing Tim thinking about his move, with the little Settlers picture at the side being the image of what he was seeing:

I managed my first city, then decided to expand a little more in the hope of more clay - and someone pointed out that I had the longest street. So, bizarrely, I was in the lead with eight points. But only just. Daniel was building cities as fast as he could as well as expanding, and was on seven. Tim, playing his usual ore-wheat strategy, had three cities and thus six points. Richard, who for some reason was not getting cards, was still on five, and Becky had four: 

I managed another city, and thus nine points. Tim built, in quick succession, a settlement and then an upgrade to a city, so had eight points. Then Daniel not only expanded but took the longest street, so now he was in the lead, with ten points.  

Becky and Richard were trailing a little with six each. But since Becky had won each of the last three games we had played, she didn't mind!

Then Tim played a third knight, giving him the largest army, and sharing the lead with Daniel, also on ten points. Daniel then took his turn, built another settlement... and showed a victory point development card.  So Daniel was the winner:

Here's how the board looked at the end:

Daniel won with 12 points, but Tim also had a victory point so he was close behind with 11.  And the rest of us had eight points each... Becky had a victory point card too. It was a good game. 

Five-player Settlers of Catan

Becky returns to the UK this week, so Sheila wanted one more Catan game while she's still here. Jörn was out last night, so that meant - for a change - a five-player game.

Sheila (brown, as usual) placed first, and took a spot with good numbers and resources. So did Becky, playing second (and confusing us a little by playing with the blue pieces). I was third. I could see that clay was likely to be in short supply in this game, so I opted for a coastal tile with clay on 6 and ore on 4. It happened to be on the ore harbour, too, which I hoped would be useful.

Richard (red) was next; he opted for the other placement on the 6-clay hex, although the other numbers weren't great, and Daniel was last, playing white. He was able to get access to all five resources, although his numbers weren't too great: 3, 6 (twice), 9 (twice), and 12.

Richard, who always likes, if possible, to have an 8 and a 6 in his initial placements, opted for the 8-10-11 for his second settlement; he had no ore, but hoped to reach the 5-ore tile soon.

There was no way I could get all three of the resources I needed, so I decided to take the best available number combination. That was the 4-6-9 on wheat, wood and ore. I thought that since I had the ore harbour, another good number on ore would be sensible. It wasn't until after I'd placed my pieces that I realised I only had three numbers: 4 (twice), 6 (twice) and 9. However I'm not sure that there was any significantly better place that I could have chosen. Becky then took a good spot giving her potential access to all five resources, and Sheila went right in the middle of three wheat hexes, which gave her probably the best numbers of all of us: 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10.


Play started fairly slowly, although I was lucky in that both a 4 and a 9 were rolled in the first couple of rounds, meaning I could build a city rather quickly. I regretted not having an 8, since 8s were rolled significantly more than 6s - however, when 6 did come around, I picked up both wood and clay. When I was able to make my second city, I effectively picked up two streets any time a six was rolled.

I had hoped to aim for the 5-ore hex but realised that Richard would also do so, and block the place I hoped to build, so I set off in different directions - a safe one around the coast and towards the 3-ore hex, blocking Daniel's access as I did.

So here's the board after a few rounds. I had six points; Sheila, Becky and Richard all had five, and Daniel had four. However Daniel had been buying a lot of cards, so we expected him to take the largest army sooner or later.



In fact it was Richard who first managed to play three knight cards, and so gained the largest army. Daniel had picked up some other useful cards, however, and was able to get first access to the longest street:


So Becky had eight solid points by this stage and Richard had eight including the largest army. I had seven solid points, and Daniel had seven including the longest street. Sheila had six. It was still very evenly matched, depending very much on the roll of the dice. Some rounds I picked up nothing at all - still being rather limited for numbers, although not as much as I was at the start - and other times I picked up a couple of streets or (when a 4 was rolled) a city.

With just five of us on a 5-6 player board, there was plenty of room for expansion. I don't think anyone ran out of building spots entirely. I took this photo a few rounds later, when the situation was similar to the previous one, except that Daniel had played a fourth knight and so taken the largest army card from Richard:


That gave Daniel 9 points, despite the fact that he hadn't yet managed to build a city. Becky and I both had nine solid points on the board too. Richard and Sheila both had seven. It could still have been anybody's game.

Then Richard linked his two road sections, gaining the longest street and two more points:


Sheila, who had been watching the numbers closely, monopolised sheep. Unfortunately for her, Becky hadn't been picking up the sheep she should have taken when 8s were rolled (although she had taken her ore). Sheila should have been able to extend her street to take the longest street card..

But she couldn't. She was able to build another city, putting her on eight points and (although we didn't know it at the time) she had two hidden victory point cards. So if she had been able to take the longest street card, she would have leapt from 7 points on the board to 12 in one turn, and won the game.

Instead, Becky had another turn. She was also able to build another city, putting her on 11 points... and a hidden victory point meant that she was the winner:


It was a good game. Sheila, Richard and I all ended with ten points, and Daniel had eight.

Settlers of Catan for six (or seven) on Sunday afternoon

Another Sunday afternoon; another Settlers of Catan. We didn't start until 5pm and wanted to eat by 6.30, so I didn't think there was time for a Seafarers game as it takes so long to set up, and the games tend to be a bit more protracted.

Seven of us wanted to play, so Jacob and Daniel decided to be in a team together. An interesting combination, since Jacob is one of the most highly competitive people I have ever met, and Daniel is possibly the least competitive person I know...

Becky was playing with the red pieces, and rolled the dice to go first. Clay was evidently going to be a fairly scarce resources in this game, so she wisely opted for the intersection including the best clay hex with a couple of other resources, all on good numbers. Sheila (brown) was second, and opted for the other obviously good place, again with three great numbers and three different resources. No clay, but she did have wood.

Jörn (blue) was third, and went for three reasonable numbers, including an 8 on sheep, while evidently hoping for one of the sheep harbours. Daniel and Jacob (green) were next, and after some discussion opted for a 3-6-10 intersection. I rather fancied the nearby 4-6-10 and wasn't sure why they didn't opt for that one other than wanting wood rather than wheat. Still, it meant that I couldn't have that one. So I decided to ignore resources, and go for numbers. I took the 5-6-9 with two wood and wheat. Marie (white) was last - so she opted for two places that gave her access to all five resources, plus the ore harbour. Her clay access was only on 12 but at least she picked up one as a starting point, and hoped to build towards the 11 on clay.

I was a little surprised that the other reasonable spot on the 10-clay hex was still available; even better was that it was near the wood harbour, and I had two good wood hexes. So I took clay and two sheep as my second placement.


By the time it got back to Becky, there was still an excellent spot for her to gain the two resources she was lacking: wood on 9 and ore on 8. It was a coastal hex, but undoubtedly the one I would have taken in her shoes.

And so we got started, around 5.15pm. 8s were rolled rather a lot in the early part of the game - I had no 8s, so they were no use to me. There were quite a few 9s as well, however, and even one or two tens, so I was able to build out towards the wood harbour and build a settlement on it. Becky had ore on 8 and wheat on 9, so was quickly able to build a couple of cities. She also bought cards fairly regularly. And when she noticed that there was only one wood resource left in the stack, she played a timely monopoly on wood:


With that, she was able to build another settlement and some streets, gaining her the longest street card:


So now Becky was in the lead with seven points. Sheila and Jörn each had four points, I had three, Jacob/Daniel and Marie were still each on two.

I was pleased to be able to build on the 11-8 intersection giving me an 8 at last, on ore (the one resource I had been lacking). And then I built out again, on a useful 9-wheat and 4-sheep. With 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 I now had a good range of numbers and all five resources, and hoped to start being able to build cities since I had used up my five settlements by this stage.

But Becky had played her second knight. Clearly she was also going for the largest army - and she had six points on the board as well as the longest street. Her next nearest rivals were Jörn, Sheila and me by this stage, each on five points. Marie had managed to build one settlement, but Daniel and Jacob were still stuck on two points. Two building spots they had hoped for had been taken by other people, and they weren't picking up many resource cards at all.


Becky could have won the game, by playing her third knight, since she had two carefully hidden cards which we were all sure were victory points. But she thought she'd play another monopoly card instead. She was unlucky - she asked for wheat, as there was plenty of it in the game; but at that point, nobody had any wheat. So she couldn't play her knight after all, and we knew there would be at least one more round. It seemed that the game was going to be over before it started.

I realised that, with my useful wood harbour, I could take the longest street. So when my turn came around, I built two more streets - not going anywhere, but joining up my two sections of road. So I took the card from Becky, reducing her victory points by two. Except that she had already built another city in someone else's building phase, so she had seven points on the board and was evidently going to claim the largest army when it got to her turn again.


When Becky's turn came round, she had the cards to build yet another settlement. So she had eight points on the board. She then played her third knight, giving her two more points for the largest army.


.. and, as we surmised, she also had two victory point cards:


So Becky had won with twelve points, and I was her nearest rival at seven. We finished by 6pm, so it was one of the quickest 5-6 player games we had ever played.

Settlers of Catan: The Barbarians (from Traders and Barbarians)

Another evening in with just the four of us. Another scenario from 'Traders and Barbarians of Catan' - and the next one was entitled 'The barbarians'. A lengthy description ensued in the accompanying booklet, which made it sound rather more complicated than I liked.

Firstly, we each had six knights, in colours matching our regular pieces. At least, three of us did. Richard played red, as usual; I played orange, Becky white. But Daniel wanted to play with the brown pieces, and brown is one of the extension colours. So he used brown cities, settlements and road, and blue knights.

Here is my set of knights:


The board is set up rather differently too. No rivers or fish this time, but one extra hex that replaces one of the wood/forest hexes. It's called the 'castle' hex, and goes in one corner of the grid:


In the opposite corner goes the desert. Then the rest of the hexes are shuffled and distributed randomly... but the numbers have to be placed as shown in the booklet. This is so that there is one of each number in the outer (coastal) hexes. Those are where the invading barbarians can be placed.

Here are a few of the barbarians:

And here are the new development cards for this game, which replace the usual ones:


No monopolies or road-building; the majority are knight-placement cards, with one or two that allow knights to be moved.

So - after twenty minutes reading the rules, and setting the game up - we finally got started. Initial placement is as in regular Settlers of Catan, except that the second placement is a city rather than a settlement. As in the Cities and Knights game. That's to enable the game to get going more quickly, since buying cards is more important in this game than in others, so as to build knights to defeat invading barbarians.

We didn't really know what strategy to use for our initial placement, so basically opted for what we would choose in a regular game. Richard placed first AGAIN - it seems to be a trend at present - but as the rest of us were sitting in different places, I was second rather than last. Becky was last, and managed to get a very nice set of numbers and resources, as did Daniel. I was quite pleased with mine, too. Richard's numbers were probably the least useful.


Oh, and the last thing to do in the setup phase was to place a barbarian on each of the outer 2 and 12 hexes.

We had decided to play with dice for resource production, rather than Catan event cards, to make it as simple as possible.

It wasn't long before Becky built her first city. The buying of any settlement or city is a prompt for barbarians to appear in Catan. So after she bought it, she had to roll the dice several times. The aim is to come up with three different numbers, excluding 7 - re-rolling repeatedly, if necessary, to get the three different ones. Barbarians are then placed on the corresponding outer hexes.

She rolled 5, 8 and 9, and so we put barbarians on the relevant hexes:


Richard was the first person to buy a development card, which enabled him to place his first knight. It has to start on one of the paths surrounding the castle hex in the corner, but can then be moved up to three paths at the end of the turn. So he moved his to the 12-sheep hex where he had a city, and where the initially placed barbarian still stood:


Then Becky bought a card, and also placed a knight. And since we wanted to see how the barbarian conquering would go, she moved her knight also to the 12-sheep hex.

At the end of someone's turn, a battle occurs on any hex where there are any barbarians, if there are more knights adjoining it than barbarians on the hex. So at the end of Becky's turn, that battle took place.


If both knights had belong to the same player, that person would have captured the barbarian (worth half a victory point). Since there were knights of different colours, Richard and Becky each rolled a die, and the one who rolled higher (Richard, in this instance) took the barbarian into captivity. Becky had a compensation prize of three Catan coins.

Yes, there are also cardboard coins in this game, although Daniel found some real old coins which we used instead. Two Catan coins can be used to buy a resource card. Up to two can be bought in any turn.

After the barbarians are removed, a die has to be rolled one more time, and placed on the castle hex. A two was rolled. That means that any knights on the battleground which are on corresponding paths have to be removed too - in this case, it was Richard's knight that had to be removed from the board. However, that also gives three Catan coins in compensation.


The regular part of the game was continuing rather more slowly than usual. Becky managed to build several streets, which effectively blocked a building spot I had hoped to use, and also gave her the longest street card:


Becky and Richard both had cities adjoining the 9-wheat hex, so the next battle against a barbarians took place there:


Since there were two player involved (even though Becky had two knights), and two barbarians, they simply took one each into captivity. So now Richard had two captured barbarians, and thus an extra solid victory point.

The next battle involved three of us on the 5-wood hex. So we each had to roll a die, and the two highest took a barbarian, while the third gained Catan coins:


At first we did quite well with vanquishing the barbarians, but settlements and cities were being built fairly regularly, and each time the dice had to be rolled, to enable more barbarians to land on Catan.

And so, before long, the 9-wheat hex had three barbarians on it, and was vanquished. The number was turned upside down, and no more resources were produced by it, until such time as four knights could gather to conquer the barbarians.


The same thing happened on the other side of the board. Becky was not too happy, since each one adjoined one of her cities. She now had nowhere that would produce wheat for her:


I was so interested in taking photos of the various battles that took place that I quite forgot about taking whole-board pictures. There didn't seem much point, since none of us had actually built all that much, at least compared to a regular Settlers game. However, barbarians were being captured fairly rapidly, so we had to keep track of those. The booklet said we should play to 12 points, so we thought we might play to 14... however, it was getting late, and we ran of out barbarians to place. So as Becky had 11 points - including the longest street and several captured barbarians - we thought it would be best to play to 12 as usual.

And here's the winning board:


Becky had twelve points, although there were only six on the board. Two for the longest street, and four from her eight captured barbarians.

Slightly to my surprise, when we counted up I realised that I had 11 points, so was also potentially close to winning. Indeed, if Becky hadn't, I was going to build another city on my turn, which would have given me 12 points. I had eight on the board, and six captured barbarians.

Richard and Daniel were both a bit further behind.

We weren't sure that we liked this scenario as much as others in the Traders and Barbarians set, but it was certainly different, and worth trying again some time.

Settlers of Catan: The Caravans (from Traders and Barbarians)

Last night, we decided to try the next Catan scenario from 'Traders and Barbarians'. This one is entitled 'The Caravans', and involves an oasis hex tile (replacing the desert, and placed in the middle of the board), as well as some rather nice wooden camels:


The idea is that camel trains - or caravans - advance from the oasis, meandering through Catan. A new camel is placed any time a settlement or city is built during the game (ie after the initial placement phase), and their position is determined by a kind of voting. The camel caravan is not allowed to branch, and the camels themselves are placed alongside streets.

The advantage of the camels is that any settlement or city on a camel route has an extra victory point attached to it, and any street on a camel route counts as two streets for the purpose of counting the 'longest road'.

When we started, we weren't entirely sure what would be the best initial placement strategy. The guidelines mention that sheep, usually the most expendable resource in regular Settlers of Catan games, is one of the resources - along with wheat - used for bidding on camel placement. Thus it's a bit more important than usual.

However in our first round of placing settlements we simply opted for normal strategy: that of the best combination of numbers and potential resources. As we'd decided to play with the Catan event cards rather than dice, we knew that the numbers would mostly come up according to statistical probability. Richard (red) went first, and took a useful 5-9-10 intersection with clay, wood and wheat. It's the one I'd probably have taken if I were going first. It was one of only two clearly good spots.

Becky (white) took a 4-8-11 with three resources, and Daniel (brown) took a 5-6-10 which I thought was the only other obviously good place. I was last - as I seem to be rather often at present. I liked the coastal 8-10 on clay and wood which was near a 3:1 harbour, but since I couldn't take the spot Daniel had taken I had to decide which resource to sacrifice. I was quite tempted by the 3-5-8 with two sheep and an ore, near the sheep harbour, but couldn't quite get my head around sheep being more important than wheat. So instead I went for the 6-9-12 with wheat, ore and more wood.


Daniel - who would naturally have liked the coastal wood-clay intersection I took - decided on two sheep and a wood; then Becky took the place with two sheep and ore which I had seriously pondered. Richard had a hard time deciding where he should go; he was seriously tempted by the sheep harbour, with two good ore hexes (8 and 10); the obvious disadvantage of that is that he didn't actually have any sheep access to enable him to make use of the harbour. And he couldn't quite bring himself to annoy Becky by taking the place she was clearly heading for!

Since I started with clay and wood in my hand, and was able to trade for sheep fairly easily, it wasn't long before I built the first settlement of the game. Then - great excitement, since we had to place the first camel!

I really didn't care where it went, so I opted out of the voting. Two of the others both bid one card each (sheep or wheat). The rules say that if one person has more cards than anyone else, that person decides where to place the camel. That didn't apply in this case. If there's no overall majority, then if any two or more players can agree on a place, and between them they have the most cards, then that's where it goes. But the two people who had votes could not agree. That meant that the person who built the settlement (even if they hadn't voted) got to choose... so after all that, I placed the first camel:


I still hadn't quite grasped how significant the camels would be in the game, which is why I simply chose the starting arrow that was nearest to one of my settlements.

Richard placed the second camel, starting a new caravan from a different arrow. He, naturally, chose the one going along one of his streets so that his adjoining settlement would be worth an extra point.

Daniel placed the third one, and I thought he might start the third caravan; he was about to, since he had a street there, but then opted to add to the one Richard started, but going away from Richard's other settlement, towards his (Daniel's). Dan is very good at grasping strategies; he pointed out that eventually someone would start the third caravan, and would not be able to avoid his street. But he didn't want Richard to have one going towards more of his settlements...

It was a good move, and sure enough Daniel was able to guide that camel train to his other settlement to gain yet more points. I took this photo shortly after an earthquake event card was drawn:


Play went rather slowly, not just because of the extra time needed for voting and camel placement. We somehow didn't seem to be getting the resources we needed to do much building. When the event card was drawn requiring the person with the most victory points to give a card to each of the other players, we quickly counted up only to find that all four of us had exactly four points each:


Becky and I each had a city in addition to two settlements; Richard and Daniel had only managed one new settlement, but had an extra victory point each due to having a settlement on a camel train.

Dan, as so often happens, was buying quite a few development cards. His turn came around, and he played a street-building one, thus reaching the camel caravan which I had started. That gave him the longest street card, with six streets and a camel on one of them, making seven for the purposes of counting the longest road:


Daniel was now two points in the lead.

We soon got more efficient at camel-placement, although Daniel seemed to be bidding the most resources most of the time, and making most of the decisions. I had a fair amount of wheat, and was sometimes able to bid one or possibly two; I did 'win' the vote a couple of times. But I had no access at all to sheep, whereas Daniel had plenty, so more often than not he was the one to choose.

I didn't have much strategy in this game, and was hampered by my lack of numbers, even though I had both an 8 and a 6. I decided to aim for the 3-4-11 intersection, but was beaten there by Becky. So instead I built another coastal settlement, on a not very useful 11-12 intersection, both on wood. At least it gave me the ore harbour. So I decided to try next for another settlement on the 9-ore hex.


I was trailing in this game, with only five points at this stage. Richard was one ahead, with six. Becky and Daniel were jointly in the lead with eight points. Daniel had four settlements, two of which were on camel trains, and the longest street. Becky had two cities and three settlements, one of which was on a camel train.

Gradually the game picked up pace, although it was taking rather longer than I had expected. Daniel built his fifth settlement, but for some reason simply wasn't getting the resources to build a city. Instead, he kept buying development cards on his turn. However he continued controlling most of the camels and gained further victory points as a result.

Becky - who was also buying cards -played her third knight, and gained the largest army. Fairly clearly, either she or Daniel was going to win. The booklet said to play to 12 points, so we decided that 14 would be the right number. Daniel had 11 points by that stage, and I don't think any of us had counted up to realise that Becky actually had 12.

Still thinking that Daniel was in the lead, and with the resource cards for three streets in my hand, I did ponder whether to build them in useless places (from the building spot perspective) in order to increase my street to take the 'longest street' card from Daniel. However, it was getting late - it was past 10.30pm, and I was very tired - and I didn't actually want to prolong the game. So instead I built out towards the 9-11 intersection by the oasis, which hadn't yet been taken.

Then an earthquake struck. Becky built another city, and nobody counted up to realise that she now had 13 points.

Then it was Daniel's turn.. and he built his first city. That put him on 12 points...


.. and he then revealed that he had two victory point cards. So he was the winner. It was only when we counted up the other points that we realised how very close Becky had been to winning.

Daniel does seem to be very lucky in his development cards. In the seven he had bought, only two were knights: