Settlers: one of each number - twice!

We played a four-person game about a week ago. I don't tend to strategise too much these days; I focus on whatever I can do with the resources in my hand at any point, and on diplomacy, as far as possible. I don't take a building spot if someone else is clearly heading for it unless it's the only one I have left. I try to expand if I can - but if not I concentrate on building cities and buying cards.

This means that, although I try to start with six different numbers if I possibly can, I often end the game with no more than six numbers. If I can gain a new one, great; but it's not my aim.

So I was quite surprised to notice part-way through last week's game that I had managed to get at least one building spot on each of the ten different possible numbers.

I was even more pleased, from an esoteric point of view, to notice that I'd done so quite efficiently: I had EXACTLY one resource of each number. No duplicate numbers at all (playing orange, as usual):

What's more, since I managed to gain the 'largest army' and a victory point, I won.

I don't recall ever having managed one of each number; it's rare that I get a full set of numbers at all. So I was even more startled, in a five-person game we played a couple of days ago, to find the same thing happening:

I took that photo before the end; it was a very close game, with the 'longest street' changing hands more than once. I won that one too, by building another city: however Blue was the first to reach twelve points so although a game can only be won on someone's turn, it felt like a shared victory morally speaking.

Settlers of Catan with very few building spots!

Last night, for the first time in a while, we played a four-person Settlers game with our friends Jörn and Sheila.

After our initial setup, Sheila spotted that the central 11-sheep hex was entirely inaccessible. None of us could remember seeing that kind of scenario before - but with six settlements arranged around the middle 'circle' of hexes, there were no spots at all available to be used on the central one.

I didn't think to take a photograph until we were fairly well into the game, when we realised that that, with only 18 cities or settlements, we had actually run out of building spots entirely:


Sheila, playing brown, had the longest street and so was well in the lead at this stage, with 10 points and five buildings; Richard (red) was second with 6 points; he also had managed five building spots. Jörn (blue) and I (orange) had only managed to grab four building spots each, and were tied in bottom place with five points. While it's possible to win with only four building spots, it's not easy. I prefer at least five. I did wonder whether I could get the 'largest army' but with sheep in fairly poor supply, it was difficult to buy many cards.

Strangely enough, as we upgraded our settlements as far as we could, 11s and 4s were rolled more than would be expected, and at one point I was able to 'monopolise' sheep, gaining 13 of them. With no harbours I had to trade rather heavily, but it did at least enable me to upgrade to another city and buy a further card.

I did get a victory point, and two knights.. but Jörn got in with a third knight first, and the largest army. Richard took the longest street from Sheila - and built sufficient roads that it could not be taken back - and suddenly our scores were more even: at one point we were on 9, 8, 7 and 6 points. Theoretically it could have been anyone's game, except that eventually there was nothing to do other than buy cards.

It was Sheila who won in the end, playing a fourth knight and thus taking the largest army, as well as producing two victory point cards. So she won with 13 points. Richard was second with 10, I had 9 (including my victory point), and Jörn was back to 6.

Three-person Settlers of Catan game

We've played many games in the past eight months, but this blog was getting a bit tedious... so I left it for a while.

On Tuesday afternoon our son Tim arrived, very tired and decidedly out of practice with Settlers of Catan. But he suggested a three-person game anyway. It was a nice board. We all started with a wide selection of numbers, and either four or five resources. Tim and Richard soon took a couple of useful harbours, and it all seemed quite even, although I was lagging behind. However I managed to take the longest street card, pushing me up to 8 points, only one behind Tim and Richard who were each on 9. I vaguely thought that play would continue for a while, and that any of us could have won. I was the only person who had played any knights, so I thought I might take the longest army in a turn or two...

Then Tim's turn came round. He had sufficient cards to build more streets, and take the longest street from me. And then revealed that he had THREE victory points:


Apparently he could have won in his previous turn (with 12 points) but hadn't remembered that he could declare victory points immediately they were bought. He only bought three cards in all. And it wasn't as if all the victory points were at the top of the pack since I had bought knights in between his cards. And it had been well shuffled.

So the final score was: 14 to Tim, 9 to Richard, 6 to me.

Traders and Barbarians of Catan

Last night, we decided to play another Traders and Barbarians scenario. Richard thought we might as well do the last one - the game that's actually called 'Traders and Barbarians'. It took ages to set up. The story is that the barbarians have, basically, been conquered but there are still a small number to be found along lonely streets of Catan. Buildings have to be re-built, and islanders need to use their wagons to transport relevant commodities to the correct places.

Here's an overview of the initial board:


There's no desert, and no robber. A couple of hexes have been removed too (one sheep, one wheat) and there are three new trading hexes which supply the commodities. The 2 and 12 numbers have been removed - if those are rolled, the person simply rolls again.

There are, however, three barbarians on the board. Rather confusingly, the instructions said that we needed all thirty of them, so Richard also got out the knights. But in fact we didn't need any other than the initial three.

In addition to our regular pieces, we each had a wagon:


And some cards to show us how far we could move the wagon each turn:


- which all seemed remarkably confusing when we read the instructions, but did gradually make sense as the game progressed. We each started with four 'moving points' per turn. The wagons have to be moved along intersections. If they move along one with a street in place, it costs one moving point. If there is no street, two moving points. And if there's a barbarian on the street, then it costs an extra couple of moving points.

However, if the street belongs to another player, then that player has to be paid a gold piece. We should each have started the game with five gold pieces but didn't notice that instruction. Gold is also earned for delivering resources via the wagons.

Here's a close-up of the first of the trading hexes:



Tools have to be delivered there; sand or quartz can be collected from it.

Here's the second:


Sand has to be delivered there; tools or glass can be collected from it.

And here's the third, the castle:


Glass and quartz have to be delivered there; tools or sand can be collected.

Roads can be built to the centre plaza area of these trading hexes, but no settlements can be built on them. Roads cannot be built on their borders with the sea.

So... here is our initial placement. Since there were just two of us playing, we put down three initial buildings - and since the final one has to be a city (which is where the wagons are also placed to start with) we did what we do in the Cities and Knights games: two settlements and one city each.

I was completely bewildered by the new regulations, so just chose my spots as I would for a regular game. The instructions did say that it's important to build plenty of roads so as to allow more rapid movement of wagons, so I made sure of reasonable wood and clay. The 'longest street' card is not in play.


Richard quickly built some streets, and moved his wagon along four of them, using up four movement points. I could not move mine so far as I only had one street at the time. Although it would have been quicker to go past the barbarian... The aim is to reach one of the trading hexes as soon as possible to collect one's first trading commodities - however I was more concerned about building some more settlements to start with.


Still, one can move the wagon every turn in addition to building; Richard got first to one of the trading hexes, and picked up his commodity, and set out for the place he had to deliver it to. Meanwhile I bought a settlement and a city. But I finally got to the first plaza and picked up a commodity card, which had 'tools' on it.


Richard upgraded his movement cards a few times... I didn't think about it until I'd done some more building, then realised that the cards remaining in my hand were exactly what I needed to get to upgrade:


So now I had five movements points per turn, and collected two gold pieces rather than one for each successful delivery.


I could also now take an extra chance if my wagon landed next to a barbarian. I could roll one die, and if a 6 was rolled, could move the barbarian. Further upgrades to the cards give more chances to move the barbarian.

I'd been taking so many pictures of individual parts of the game (the last two forgetting the close-up setting, so they're a bit burned out and not properly focussed) that I'd forgotten about the whole board. But this was the state of play of the game by this stage:


I had nine points in buildings, having had a lot of ore and wheat, and thus built all my possible cities already. Richard had five. What we hadn't realised (I hadn't read the full instructions yet) was that for every successful commodity delivery, we should have had an extra victory point. We did wonder why the instructions said to play to 13 points (regular games of Settlers are 10) and wondered where extra points would come from. Of course, just building all the cities and settlements makes 13 points, and we usually play to 16 in a two-person game (18 with Cities and Knights) but were wondering where extra points might come from.

It wasn't long before I had streets that went, pretty much, from the castle hex to the one nearest me. And I kept on picking up tools from the castle, quartz from the other one... which meant I would have been raking in commodity points if we'd realised we were supposed to get points.


Richard had to travel along my streets from time to time, so I got a fair amount of gold for that. And two pieces of gold can be used, up to twice per turn, to buy an individual resource card. Which was extremely useful at times.. so I kept on building. And the more I built, the more resources Ikept picking up. I did, once, have to give up six cards when a 7 was rolled (although the robber is not in play, the barbarians can steal cards in the same way, but do get moved by whoever rolls the 7).

Sheep were in rather short supply in this game, and were needed for most of the movement card upgrades, so we realised that, until pretty near the end, neither of us had bought any development cards. There's a special pack of 25 that go with this scenario, but they cost the same as in a regular Settlers game.

It's possible for two wagons to be in the same place at the same time, as happened in one of the plazas:


- by which stage I had 12 points in buildings, and Richard had 8. If we'd been counting commodity delivery points, we probably each had about the same number of those.

So I built my last settlement. Then figured all I could do was keep on transporting commodities, and spending resources on development cards. The first one I bought gave me an extra wagon journey, which was quite useful.

The second one I bought was a victory point. So Richard said he thought that made me the winner, and that we should stop:

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 for two of us

Monday evening, and nothing planned... so out came the Catan box for another two-player game. Orange pieces for me, red for Richard, as usual. It would be very confusing if we ever decided to change colours!

Richard rolled the higher number, so - according to our two-player Settlers house rules - he would place his first settlement, then I would place two (taking resources cards for one of them) then he would place two more (taking resource cards for both) and I would then place my final one, taking resource cards for that too. We allow nine in a hand before the robber can attack, and two or three robber-free rounds at the beginning anyway.

Richard said that he was going to use 'my' strategy of starting on the best hex for whichever resource was likely to be scarcest. As it happened, there weren't any obviously lacking resources on this board, but I thought clay and wood would be the most problematical. So I expected Richard to start on either the 4-clay or the 9-wood; most likely, I thought, the useful 5-9-10 combination with sheep, wood and clay respectively.

However, to my surprise, he didn't take either of my chosen spots - instead he opted for the 3-4-8 with wood (on three only) and two ore. That meant that I could place my first two settlements on the two spots I had marked out as the best ones, which gave me five good numbers and access to all five resources.

Richard then took the 5-9-10 with two wheat and wood, and - after some consideration - the 3-4-8 with two clay and a sheep. He liked that spot, which was undoubtedly the best remaining one for clay, but didn't like the fact that it had exactly the same number combination as his first settlement.

As I looked for a spot to place my final settlement, my main aim was access to an 8, since I already had 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10. Since I like having good ore access, I opted for the 8-10-desert hex with ore on 8 and wood on 10. The wood harbour looked rather attractive and convenient too.


Clay and wood were not lacking in the early stages of the game, so we placed streets, and Richard bought a few development cards too. 9s were not rolled, which was a bit annoying since it meant that I could not build a settlement, having no wheat - and nor could I buy any cards. I had to trade four ore, at one point, for one wheat in order to take the sheep harbour, and then trade heavily again for my second settlement.

Then suddenly we rolled three nines in a row, and, with plentiful ore, I was able to build my first city.

However, I had made a strategic error in not securing a spot on the wood harbour; I placed my first two streets next to the other two I had started with, leaving the way open for Richard, who was collecting a lot of wood and clay, to race past me for the wood harbour:


I was ahead at this point in the game (six points, while Richard had four) but he had already played a knight, and had two or three other hidden development cards. As with the last game we played, we decided that the robber would be controlled by whoever rolled a seven (rather than whoever was behind in points) and also that the robber would always steal from the bank - rather than the other player - a resource matching whatever hex he was placed on.

I really wanted a spot on that 5-wheat hex, since wheat was my weak point in this game. Richard had in fact placed his initial settlements as if he were using the 'ore-wheat' strategy, and was beginning, as a result, to get ahead. So I played him at his game, storing up clay and wood until I could push past him to the 2-5 wheat spot on the coast. In doing so, I took the longest street card... for about twenty seconds. Richard then built more streets and took it from me, for the rest of the game.


So I still had six points, while he now had nine. He had also played two knights, so was likely to achieve the 'largest army' too.

And, indeed, that's what happened. We both continued building on just about every turn - in fact Richard reached 16 points before either of us had realised it, and so won the game with 17 points, including both the largest army and the longest street:


I did have one victory point, so I lost with 11 rather than just the ten points I had on the board.