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.

Settlers of Catan for six

It was Marie's birthday; she requested a game of Settlers after dinner. Richard was away, but Annika was visiting, and knows the game. Jacob stayed up too, so there were six of us. Annika took the red pieces; the rest of us had our usual ones (blue for Jörn, brown for Sheila, white for Marie, green for Jacob, and orange for me).

Jörn rolled to go first, and took the obvious spot from the clay-wood perspective. Good numbers for both (8 on clay), and a useful ten on sheep. Jacob was second; remembering that ore is important, he took another nice triple with ore, sheep and clay including a six.

At that point, the two remaining spots with particularly good number selections did not have three resources on them. There was either clay with two wheat, or wood with two ore. I was pretty sure that Sheila would take one of them - which she did - so I took the other. On balance I'd prefer ore to wheat, and could see that the ore harbour was not too far away, so I slightly preferred that place anyway even though Sheila's numbers were significantly better.

Annika was next, and Marie was last; two enviable positions, usually, but by this stage there really were not many useful spots next. Annika opted for ore and two clay, and her other settlement on wheat and two sheep. This gave her a 6 and an 8, but no access to wood - and it looked as if wood was going to be a fairly scarce resource anyway. She pointed her first streets inland, however, which seemed as if it might limit her potential building spots.

Marie managed two settlements that gave her - in theory - access to all five resources, but her numbers were not very good for either wood or clay. I'm not sure what else she could have done, though.

My turn again, and there was no way I could get everything I needed - clay, wheat and sheep - with one settlement. So, as usual, I decided to miss out on sheep. Not too big a deal since the spot I chose, with good access to clay and wheat, lead directly to an 8-sheep hex which I planned to occupy as soon as possible.

Sheila decided she'd take the hex that gave her access to all the three resources she needed, even though it only included a 2 on wood. Then Jacob opted for a coastal intersection that gave him wheat and wood, exactly what he needed. Unfortunately it meant that he and Marie were both heading directly for the same spot, on the wheat harbour. Jörn placed his last settlement on a spot that gave him good wheat, more sheep, and a 12 on ore.


It all seemed fairly even at this stage; nobody had overwhelmingly better spots than anyone else, although the least useful were probably Marie's and Annika's - not through bad strategy, but lack of available spaces.

So we got going, reasonably slowly at first. I was able to get the spot on the 8-sheep without any problem, and then built out to a spot that gave me an 11 on wood - not particularly useful, but I thought I might also go for the ore harbour nearby.

At the same time, Jörn built a couple of settlements too, and Sheila managed three. Jacob managed to get the wheat harbour spot before Marie reached it, which was a pity since Marie had very few possible building spots remaining. Then Jacob was first to build a city. Marie played a monopoly on wheat which gave her quite a few cards, enabling her to build a city too, although we had recommended that she grab her last easy building spot first...


So Sheila had five points at this stage in the game; Jacob, Jörn and I each had four; Marie had three, and Annika had two.

I managed another settlement, taking another spot on the 5-ore. It probably wasn't the best strategy; I was collecting quite a bit of clay, since 9s were rolled regularly, and I could have gone for the clay harbour which would have been rather useful. Sheila built a city and another street.. then Jacob had a street-building frenzy, and took the longest street card:


So now Sheila and Jacob were jointly in the lead with six points each, and I was just behind with five.

I now had to build a city before I could expand any further, and it was surprisingly difficult. 4s and 5s were not rolled very often, and since I kept picking up other cards, I had to buy development cards so as not to exceed the limit of seven in my hand, not wishing to be vulnerable to the robber. The first one was a victory point; the others were knights. Unfortunately, of course, buying them used up some of my available ore. But eventually I managed a city.

Sheila could easily have taken Marie's last building spot, but had plenty of other places along the coast. So she expanded around there, taking the longest street card, and also taking a spot Jörn had hoped for. He - like most of us - lacked wood for much of the game, which seriously limited his expansion potential.

At last Marie managed to build in the centre of the three wood hexes. She did, in theory, have one more building spot but it was likely that Annika would get there first.


So now Sheila was decidedly in the lead, with nine points, including the longest street. I had six (well, seven including my victory point, but that was hidden); Jörn and Jacob each had five; Marie had four, and Annika still had only two. She was not being at all lucky with the rolls of the dice.

However, Annika had bought a few development cards, and had played a couple of knights. She played her third, and thus received the largest army card (and two extra points). She also, at last, managed another settlement, and then fairly quickly upgraded it to a city. I took the clay harbour, although it was too late in the game to be much use. Jörn built some cities...

But it was Sheila who raced ahead of us all. She actually reached 12 points on the board on the 'building phase' of Jacob's turn, including having the longest street card. But the rules state that one can only win on one's own turn. Jacob could, temporarily, have taken the longest street card back since he had a street in his hand, and a street-building card. But he decided not to, realising he couldn't keep the longest street, and hoping for other opportunities to expand elsewhere.

As it happened, it wouldn't have made any difference. Sheila took her turn, and during it managed another settlement, and also picked up a victory point development card. So she creamed us all, with 14 points. Jörn and I were in joint second place, with eight points each...

Settlers of Catan for four people

On Sunday evening, we played a four-person game of Settlers of Catan. It felt like quite some time we had done so - although I didn't realise, until looking in the archives of this blog, that it was as long as three months since we last played regular Settlers for four.

I t was a whole week since we had played at all. I'm surprised we didn't experience withdrawal symptoms. We weren't even the regular four players in the absence of visitors, since Richard was away but John was staying in our guest flat. And just for a change, although we were at Jörn and Sheila's home, we played with our set which I'd taken in case we decided to play the Seafarers expansion.

Jörn (blue) played first. I expected him to take the 5-9-10 intersection with clay, wood and wheat. It's the one I would have chosen, had I gone first. Although I no longer feel the absolute need for having clay and wood in my initial resources, preferring ore and wheat (if I MUST choose), or whatever is likely to be rare, I would certainly choose a spot with wood and clay if they were both on good numbers. However, we all have different strategies, which is part of what makes the game so interesting. Jörn chose, instead, some equally good numbers (4, 8 and 10) on wood, sheep and wheat.

John (with white tiles) played second. He also didn't take my chosen spot, going instead for the somewhat unusual choice of a 2-6-9 intersection with sheep, clay and ore. However, I was almost certain that Sheila (with brown) would take the spot I coveted, as indeed she did.

I don't particularly like playing last, but it does have the advantage of being able to place both settlements together. So I chose two spots which had six different numbers, albeit not the greatest ones, with all five resources available to me, at least in theory. I was quite pleased to have 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 11 (although I would really have liked a 9 - they seem to be rolled more often than one would expect) and I intended to take the wheat harbour as soon as possible since I had two wheat hexes including the 8.


By the final placement, Jörn had no access to clay, and Sheila had no access to sheep (the resource I will most happily do without) but John's second spot did give him his last two resources, even if his sheep access was only on a 2. It looked as if it would be quite a balanced game, with no resource clearly in short supply, so I assumed that trading would be reasonably straightforward for any lacking resources.

As the game started, 8s and 10s were not rolled, but 11 was, more than once. I could see that my wheat harbour was fairly safe - nobody else was likely to aim for it - and I was not picking up wheat. So for my first new settlement, I opted for the 3-11-desert intersection. No new numbers, and not even particularly good ones (theoretically) but a building spot that might have been taken by someone else.

Jörn built a city early on, as did both Sheila and I. I did consider aiming for the 4-11-9 intersection with two wood and an ore, since I really did want a 9 - but thought that John wanted it, or the neighbouring 3-4-9, and would probably get there first. When I have plenty of building places, I try not to take the ones that other people are aiming for unless they are clearly in the lead.

After a few rounds I took this photo:


It was still pretty even. Sheila and I each had four points, Jörn and John each had three. Jörn had twice stopped Sheila from building settlements where she had wanted them; once with his second initial placement, and once when he built an extra street to ensure that he would get the wood harbour, even though it would have been rather more useful for Sheila who had two useful wood hexes.

He then built on her last possible coastal building spot. For a moment it seemed as if Sheila was out of building places altogether, but it was still possible for her to build inland across Catan. I noticed that 4-9-11 spot again. John had not built towards it. He had a a street-building card which he had bought, but instead of building towards that, or the 3-8 sheep intersection on the coast (which I would have wanted in his shoes) he headed up towards the 5-clay.

So Sheila had her opportunity. She took the 5-9-11 hex, and also built out towards the sheep on the coast. And took the longest street card too:


So Sheila was now in the lead with seven points. I had six - I was surprised how often the 11 was rolled, still - Jörn had four, and John still had three. Several times the others had to give up half their resources when a 7 was rolled, but for some reason I was lucky, and it never happened to me. We all rather missed the extra building phase that comes with the 5-6 player Settlers expansion; it's most annoying having eight cards, including the resources for a city or settlement, and perhaps a street or two, and then losing half of them.

Since 8s and 10s were not rolled as often as might be expected, sheep were the rarest resource in this particular game, and meant that very few cards were bought. There were perhaps two knights in the whole game so nobody got anywhere near having the largest army card. I did wonder at one stage if I might have been able to challenge the longest street, but it would have been difficult. Then Sheila played her two last streets, because she had the cards to do so (and nowhere to expand to) meaning that she was unbeatable with 14 contiguously.

By this stage, as is usual, we were all collecting resources and building more rapidly than in the earlier part of the game. We reached the stage where Sheila had ten points (including the longest street), I had nine, Jörn had eight, and John had six. John and I still each had one remaining building spot. I could also build one more city - and was going to on my next turn - and realised that I would then have to concentrate on buying development cards and hope for a victory point. Jörn could build two more cities, and would then need either a couple more knights (and sufficient rounds in which to play them) or victory points.

But we didn't get the chance to find out what might happen. Sheila's turn came round: she built a final city, giving her eleven points, and then revealed a hidden victory point card.

Another Settlers of Catan game for four

Another day, another game. I was slightly startled to discover that my 20-month-old friend Helen not only understands about the sheep cards and harbours in Settlers of Catan, she also knows exactly which colours each of us plays with.... I expect she'll be playing by the time she's about three or four.

Richard was first to place, again (red, as ever), and there were two 'obvious' good places I could see, plus a third which in fact he took (the 8-3-4). He likes to have either an 8 or a 6 in his first placement, and hadn't realised that the two 5-9-10 intersections were actually slightly better, from the statistical point of view, as well as being good from the clay-wood perspective.

I could see that ore was likely to be in very short supply in this game. It's often the key to winning - but the 4-ore tile wasn't next to others good enough to be worth taking as my first settlement. Or so it seemed. So I opted for one of the 5-9-10s, near the clay harbour, and Sheila (blue) took the other one. Jörn, going last (blue), was able to get all five resources, in theory, including two spots on ore hexes, which was a good move. Sheila then took the other spot on the 4-ore hex that was worth having, unsurprisingly. So although I did briefly consider taking the 4-11-desert space, I went instead for the other 11-ore spot, with a 4 on clay and 6 on wheat.


Surprisingly, there were a few 11s rolled early in the game, which was useful from the ore perspective, and meant that both Jörn and I achieved cities quite soon. Richard did well for both clay and wood, which wasn't surprising; indeed, there was rather a lot of clay in the game early on so I was fairly quickly able to gain the clay harbour. I had to do a fair bit of trading to get there since 10s were NOT rolled; I had a hard time getting any sheep at the beginning of the game.

Richard gained the longest street card with five streets.. and we realised that, unusually, all four of us had five points each:


Rather a lot of 8s were rolled, which were only of benefit to Richard, so he continued expanding. Not as fast as he would like to have done, since he was hit more than once by a 7 just as he'd collected eight cards. But he maintained his longest street, and for a while was well in the lead. He reached 10 points when Sheila had 9, and Jörn and I both had 6. I had a hard time getting to the stage where I could build another settlement, and we were all running short of future building spots.



Then Sheila connected her sections of street, and overtook Richard's longest road. She had 11 points, and he was down to 8. It wouldn't have taken much for him to have connected his two sections and added another; potentially he could reach longer than she could if they continued competing for it.


Meanwhile I'd started buying cards - nobody had early in the game, due to the lack of sheep and ore, but since I'd run out of building spots, and wasn't getting a lot of ore, I thought I might as well buy cards instead. I'd played two knights and hoped for another so I could at least claim the largest army, but it wasn't to be. On my final round I bought two cards, one of which was a victory point card, and the other a monopoly. I was going to watch carefully to see which resources accumulated over the next round... but instead Sheila built her last city, making her the winner with 12 points.


It was a resounding victory; Richard was second with 8 points, I also had 8 including my victory point card, and Jörn had 7.

Six-person Settlers of Catan game

Jacob had wanted a six-person game of Settlers of Catan with us, for a while. Some guests were staying with his family who offered to look after his three younger siblings.... so we allocated a couple of hours yesterday, Easter afternoon.

It took a few minutes to remember how exactly to put together the grid for our 5-6 player Catan extension, but eventually it was set up, and we made our first placements. Richard (red) had first choice, I (orange) was last. Some people like going last, since one gets to place both settlements together... I prefer to be first, on the whole. Still, I wasn't feeling at all competitive, and decided - for once - to see how I could do without any access to ore, even though it was in short supply. There was no obvious place for me to take an ore intersection and have even reasonable other numbers, so I opted for five fairly good numbers, with extra sheep and wheat.


The game got going slowly. Here we are after a few moves, all fairly even so far. Jörn (blue), Marie (white) and I all had four points; Jacob (green), Sheila (brown) and Richard all had three [one of Sheila's settlements is slightly off the edge of the photo]. Richard was the only person who had managed a city so far.


Marie, who had no building spots in the middle of the board, continued expanding around the coast and - without aiming for it - achieved the longest street card fairly quickly. So by this point in the game, she was ahead with 7 points, followed by Jörn (6), me (5), Sheila and Jacob (4), and Richard (3).


There still weren't very many cities, due to the general lack of wheat and ore in the game.. Marie and I had both reached the stage of having used up all our settlements, so had to start trying to gain ore and wheat by whatever means possible. She had very good access to ore when 8s were rolled, and I had good access to wheat, so long as the robber wasn't sitting on my 8-wheat hex...

Marie managed three cities without too much difficulty, and also (when given a hint) built a couple of extra streets to ensure that Jörn couldn't extend his roads to take the care from her. However, none of us quite realised that Richard also had that potential... and he needed to get out towards the coast to reach a 3:1 harbour.

I managed a couple of cities by dint of some heavy trading. Jacob tends to trade a little erratically, and will often give away more than he gains, which can be useful for the rest of us. But he managed a couple of cities too, and built out to the coast where he took the wood harbour - something I'd have quite liked. I then had to use a very dull building spot that bordered the desert, although it did give me the wheat harbour.

So, a few rounds later we had reached this picture:


It was still extremely close. Jörn was now in the lead, just, with 9 points. Sheila, Marie, Richard and I were all close behind with 8 points each, and Jacob had 7. It could still have been anybody's game...

In the next round, Richard and I both built another settlement, and Marie built another city. So there were four of us, all equally in the lead with nine points...

... Except that Sheila had played two knights, and had a few other undisclosed development cards. And she had the clay harbour. And a couple of 8s were rolled. Her turn came around again, and she had a huge handful of cards... but did NOT roll a 7.

Which meant that she was able to upgrade TWO of her settlements to cities at the same time, and play a third knight, which gave her the 'Largest Army' card... and made her the winner. Quite exciting to go from 8 (and second-last) place to 12 points in one move!


Richard and Marie each had a hidden victory points cards, so they were in joint second place with 10 points.

We all agreed that it was a very good game.

Settlers of catan with five of us

Jörn and Sheila's older children like to play Settlers, and often ask if they can stay up for a game... so yesterday afternoon Sarah and I volunteered to go and play a game with them. Sheila played with Lukas, who is 8 and a little erratic in his play, so it was a five-person game. I played orange, Marie (12) was white, Jacob (10 and highly competitive) was green, Lukas/Sheila red, and Sarah brown.

I forgot to take a picture right after the initial placement, but here's what it looked like after a couple of moves - all that had happened on the board was that Jacob had built a street.


As can probably seen from the layout of the board, and the numbers, ore was not a shortage in this game. Moreoever, 5s were rolled with surprising regularity. That meant that I was able to build two cities fairly early on in the game, and Jacob managed to build all four of his within about half an hour:


.. although by that time Marie had (temporarily) taken the longest street card.

Of course, four cities placed like that meant that Jacob kept gaining even more ore. And since 10s were also rolled fairly often, he had a lot of wheat, too. We didn't realise quite how much until his turn came around, and he heaved a great sigh of relief that he had not rolled a 7. He had - among other things - the cards for TWO cities (and almost a third) in his hand!


- but they were of no use to him directly, nor could he play them at the end of anyone else's turn, since he had no cities left to build.

He was able to trade for a good amount of clay and wood, and decided to ensure that he got - and kept - the longest street card, by building all 15 of his streets continuously. If he hadn't done that, Marie might have overtaken him again. The disadvantage of that was that he limited his building spots: he only had one more. He managed to build a settlement there, and was then stuck with buying cards; since he had 11 points by then, none of us really wanted to trade with him, so he sometimes had to trade four ore or wheat with the bank for one sheep card.

Meanwhile I had 9 points on the board, and had bought two victory point development cards. Sheila and Lukas (by this stage it was mostly Sheila playing) also had 9 points on the board. I wasn't picking up many cards at all, and thought Jacob would surely get a victory point card... he was buying two or three cards each turn. But he played, and didn't declare 12 points... so Marie played, then it was Sheila's turn. She managed to build a settlement AND a city, giving her two more points... and then showed a victory point card. So she and Lukas were the winners....

.. or so we thought. Jacob then revealed that he did in fact have a victory point card, so he also had 12 points. When we asked, bewildered, why he didn't declare it (so as to be the outright winnner) he said he was hoping for 15 points. He wanted the largest army (and could have achieved it the following round) and thought that if he kept playing he might pick up yet another victory point card. He wasn't worried about sharing his win with Sheila and Lukas; the important thing was that he beat me!

I forgot to take the final photograph until Marie had already removed her white pieces. But she did it tidily enough that everything else was showing: