Cities and Knights with Fog Island

We play 'Cities and Knights' about once a week, usually, with the occasional basic Settlers game. But a week or so back we had played Cities and Knights on Saturday evening, and wanted something slightly different on Sunday afternoon. Alternative games were rejected, and someone suggested trying Cities and Knights with one of the Seafarers games.

The only previous time we played Cities and Knights with Seafarers was five years ago, and it was just three of us. Checking that post, I see we had read that it was a bad idea to combine the former with any of the 'hidden tile' games. We didn't remember that, however, so the largest board I can remember seeing was set up, combining the 'Fog Island' scenario with the extra cards and pieces necessary for Cities and Knights.

I didn't think of taking a photo until after we had started. We followed the layout in our instructions, including the distribution of resource hexes and numbers, and I started. It wasn't difficult to choose my opening placement: the ideal spot for both Seafarers and Cities and Knights was on sheep, wood and wheat with good numbers for them all, not far from a coastline.

It was quite crowded by the time five of us had placed our initial settlements and then - in reverse order, of course - cities, and this shows the board after the first round, where both Tim (white) and I (orange) had built a street and a settlement, and I'd also managed a knight; but nothing much else had happened:

We always play our first few rounds with 'friendly robber' (and pirate) enabled: we don't roll the extra Cities and Knights die that might advance the attack towards Catan, and if a 7 is rolled, the player rolls again. This way, resources are collected in a reasonable way at the start of the game and nobody risks losing half their cards. We continue this for at least two full rounds, or longer if several people have still not built anything.

We're familiar enough now with the complexities of Cities and Knights that we could easily weigh up the various possibilities in each turn.

I took my second photo after we'd been playing for about an hour:

The scores were fairly even at this stage. Tim had ten points, including the 'coins' metropolis. Sheila (brown) had nine, including the 'cloth' metropolis and the merchant (or perhaps ten; I forget, now, who had victory points from the progress cards and from defending Catan). I had twelve including the 'longest route' (streets and/or ships). Jörn (blue) had eight or nine, including victory points; Richard (red) had six but was enjoying building ships.

Only three of us managed to build ships at all; Tim realised that he was boxed in from the start, so concentrated on building on the main island. Jörn hoped to build some ships, but was unlucky with numbers, and never managed to do so. Sheila built a couple of ships, but only 'discovered' water. Richard and I were more successful, although very few of the 'island' pieces were discovered by the time the game came to an end.

I won a round later, although I forgot to take a final photo. But it wasn't much different; I built a settlement on the spot that was available, and also upgraded to a new city. I hadn't won a game for a while, and was quite surprised to find that I had done so, although it often seems to me that, when I'm first to place a settlement, I am most likely to win.

Putting everything away was a bit complex as we had used pieces from three different boxes, but Sheila's very good at that, and we all agreed that it was a good game. We should try this more often as a variation. 

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. 

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.

Cities and Knights WITH Seafarers of Catan

It was Tim's last night here for a while. So we decided to try something new; Cities and Knights of Catan, on a Seafarers board.

We thought about playing our usual 'Fog Island' scenario, but the instructions said that it was not advisable to play Cities and Knights on any of the scenarios with unexplored territory that had to be discovered. So we thought perhaps it would be best to use the first and simplest scenario: heading to new shores. That meant we started with a regular-sized Catan island, and a few smaller ones which we could sail to. Since we could gain extra Catan chits by doing so, quite apart from the extra Cities and Knights points, we agreed to play to 16 points. Or maybe 17...

I was first to place my settlement. I was already a little overwhelmed, wondering whether to head for ship-building resources (wood and sheep), or my usual preferences (whatever is least available, particularly ore), or Cities and Knights commodity-producing hexes (wood, sheep and ore), or even the basic Settlers clay and wood for road-building.

I decided to opt for a good selection of numbers, with resources that would - I hoped - be appropriate for all parts of the game. So I took the 5-8-9 with two wood and a sheep. I headed towards the coast and a 3:1 harbour, figuring that if all else failed I could at least head out to sea.

Tim (white) then took the slightly better numbers of 5-6-9 on wood, wheat and sheep, which I had seriously considered. Wheat, after all, is vital in Cities and Knights in order to feed the knights. And of course it's an essential element of both settlements and cities.

Richard (red) took the 5-9-10 with three resources for his settlement, and the 3-4-8 with two wood and a sheep for his city, thus ensuring some reasonable commodity cards, and six different numbers. Tim took an ore and two wheat for his city, also achieving six different numbers. So I decided that I would also go for numbers... even though it left me with an over-abundance of wood, but no access at all to either ore or wheat.


With the help of my wood and clay, and some useful trading, I managed a couple of streets and a couple of settlements without too much difficulty, Then, since I was still collecting wood and some sheep, I thought I might as well build a ship... and head for yet more wood. Richard and Tim had each managed one settlement by that time, and we had all started gaining city improvements.

It was only as the barbarian ships sailed closer and closer to Catan that we realised we had left it undefended. Tim managed to buy a knight just in time:


So nobody gained a victory point as Catan defender; Richard and I both had to demote our cities into settlements.

With the help of some trading, and some useful progress cards, I was able to build my city again, and even fortify it with some extra clay so as to allow myself more cards before the robber could strike. I also bought a knight, and activated it, so that by the next time the barbarians attacked, Catan was at least defended:


Since Tim and I each had one knight, nobody gained a victory point but we each took a progress card of our choice. Since we both like the green ones best, those are what we took.

Although Richard had started with a city on the 8-wood hex, it took him a few more turns before he was able to re-build it after the first barbarian attack. So I managed to reach the metropolis on books before he did, and thus an extra two points.

Richard also played the card that allowed him to switch any two numbers on the board (other than 2, 12, 6 or 8). He chose to switch the 5-wood (on which I had two cities) with the 11-ore (on which I also had a city, and where he was aiming to build a settlement). Unfortunately for him, he did it the turn before he could built the settlement, in anticipation. He did not know that I held a street-building card, which meant that I was able to build a settlement there instead. Suddenly I had good access to wheat, which I had been aiming for, and also to ore, which I had not expected.

By the next barbarian attack, we had two knights each:


- so each of us picked up another green card. I was in the lead by this stage. I had eleven points on the board, including my metropolis. I also had one victory point from my progress cards. I'd had the longest trade route briefly, too, but Richard took it from me when he sailed out towards the wood-clay island. So he had seven points on the board (plus one victory point from progress cards too), and Tim had seven points on the board.

By the next barbarian attack, Tim had sailed out to the gold hex, and gained the longest street card. So he now had ten points. Richard, who had no ore since I took the spot he wanted, had a hard time building cities, so was still on five points. And I was still significantly in the lead with 12 points on the board, plus my one victory point, and another since I'd taken control of the merchant to enable me to have very useful 2:1 trading on wood.


I was pondering building yet more ships, then realised that two streets joining up my road segments would give me the longest route more easily - so I did that, and by the next barbarian attack was far in the lead with 16 points. So we decided to play to 18.


Richard had six points in buildings, plus an extra chit point for building on another island. Tim had ten points, plus a chit, giving him eleven. I did wonder if he would take the longest trade route card from me - he only needed three more streets or ships to do so - which would have prolonged the game for a few more rounds.

But he didn't. And when my turn came around, I had the cards to build a settlement - at last - one one of the outlying small islands. So that gave me one extra point for the settlement, and another one for the chit that was awarded for being first to build on any of the small islands.


We did, briefly, discuss continuing to 20 points, but had made a note in Cities and Knights that it gets dull after 18 points. So I was declared the winner.

It was rather exhausting trying to think about all the different aspects of the game at the same time, but very enjoyable. And my win was at least in part due to Richard's error of judgement in switching two numbers before he had built on the ore hex.

Settlers of Catan for four

Our game of Seafarers of Catan was over so quickly - it was only 9pm when we finished - that we decided to play a quick game of regular Settlers as well. We kept the same pieces: red for Richard, white for Tim, brown for Sheila and orange for me.

I went first, and took the predictable 4-5-8 with clay, wood and wheat. Richard was next; he decided to go for numbers, so took 6-5-9 on sheep and two wood. Then it was Tim, who took 5-9-10 on two ore and clay. Sheila likes the last position best; she was able to take four useful numbers (3, 8, 9 and two 10s) with all resources other than sheep. Tim ended his placement with a lot of ore, no wood or sheep, and six good numbers (3, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10). Richard lacked wheat after his second placement, and didn't have as many numbers as he would have liked (2, 5, two 6s and two 9s). And I then had nowhere to get ore - which can be a big problem. So I opted for the least bad numbers that would give me the other some sheep, and ended up with six (3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 11).

And I forgot to take a photo at the end of our settlement placements. However, I took this one shortly afterwards when we had all built at least one street - there was no real shortage of clay and wood at the start of this game - and both Richard and Tim had built a new settlement (Richard on the ore harbour; Tim, who would really have liked the ore harbour himself, on a 3:1).


It wasn't too long before Richard took the longest street card, and shot into the lead. He had six points; Sheila and Tim each had four, and I still had three:


However, Tim and Sheila both managed to build cities. Richard (lacking wheat) could not do so, and my lack of ore made it equally difficult. So Sheila caught up with Richard:


They each had seven points, while Tim and I each had five. And due to the placement of the hexes, there were very few building spots left. Tim and I didn't have any; Sheila and Richard each had one left. But Richard and I were having a hard time building any cities. He did manage one, and I managed two... but Tim, with his plentiful ore, upgraded all four of his settlements to cities. He also bought development cards since there was nothing else for him to do... and then won the game, by playing his third knight (thus gaining the largest army) and revealing two hidden victory point cards:


He hadn't expected to win, when Richard stopped him from getting the ore harbour. If he had been able to take it, he would probably have won rather more quickly. But it was quite a decisive victory since nobody else had more than eight points.

Seafarers: fog island scenario (for four)

John and Sarah have left, and Jörn was still away. Tim leaves in the early hours of tomorrow. So we decided to have one more game with Sheila while Tim's still here. She came to our house, so we played with our set. Rather than regular Settlers of Catan, we thought we'd try our favourite Seafarers scenario: fog island. It always takes awhile to set up since it needs pieces from two sets (but not all of them). We used random distribution of the resource hexes within the main Catan island, but placed the numbers according to the booklet.

Richard (red) went first. He took the 8-9-10 which is on ore, sheep and wheat. Sheep are important in Seafarers as they're needed, along with wood, to build ships.

Tim (white) was second, and - unsurprisingly - chose the 3-8-9 on clay, ore and wood. Sheila (brown) took the 4-6-9 on clay, ore and sheep which is the spot I would have chosen if I hadn't been the last to play place. While some people like being in last position, I don't particularly like it. Particularly in this game where there aren't all that many places available! So I decided I'd focus on exploring and hope for some better numbers that way. I built one of my settlements on the 6-9 with wheat and wood, and a ship rather than a street. Then I took the 5-8-12 on wood, ore and sheep. I had no clay at all, and rather feeble access to sheep, so I hoped to be able to trade for what I needed, and find some better places out at sea.


By the time the second settlements had been placed, Richard and Tim had theoretical access to all five resources, but Sheila had no wood, which was going to make it tricky to build anything.

However, 3s and 4s were rolled surprisingly often, giving Sheila a great deal of clay. So she was able to trade easily every time she wanted wood, and soon started expanding. Within a few rounds she had managed six points, including two cities. In the same time period, the rest of us each had three points...


Since I was slightly stuck by the initial position of the pirate ship, Sheila was also the first person to head out to sea.. although the first hex she turned over was another sea one:


However, she then discovered a useful sheep. And took the longest trade route too. I managed to set sail too, was pleased for a moment to see that I hadn't found a sea hex.. and then realised it was the desert. However, I then managed to uncover a wood hex, with a fairly useful 4:


So I built a settlement there, and started to explore across the land with another street, hoping to head for the gold hex. I uncovered.. yet more wood.

Sheila, meanwhile, found rather a nice ore hex (with 5), but decided to move her leading ship and then explore in the other direction, where she found a 9-wheat hex.

And Richard managed to set out to sea too:


So Sheila was well in the lead with nine points, including the longest trade route. Richard and Tim each had five, and I had four.

I was very pleased to discover an 8-sheep hex, so quickly built a settlement there, bordering two reasonably wood hexes. Sheila went back to the ore, and discovered some more. And built her remaining cities. Tim also set sail from the main Catan island:


So Sheila now had 11 points. Seafarers can be a very long game, but we'd only been playing for about an hour. She was evidently going to be the winner by a long way ... Tim had six points, Richard and I each had five.

Sure enough, Sheila was able to build one more settlement... and thus was the clear winner:

Settlers of Catan for six

It was John and Sarah's last evening here for a while. Tim was still here too, for a few more days. However Jörn was away... so there were six of us for a Catan game on Saturday evening.

Richard (red) placed first. He took a very nice spot with 5 on ore, 6 on clay and 9 on wood. I was second (with orange), so I took a spot that was as good number-wise (5-8-9) but with sheep rather than clay. Then it was Sheila (brown), who opted for a 4-5-11 giving her wood, clay and wheat.

That pretty much used up the obviously good starting positions. John (green) was next. He pondered awhile, then decided to go for the best selection of remaining numbers, which was 5-8-9 on ore and two wheat. We'd been talking about the importance of the ore-wheat strategy... so John was apparently going to try it. Sarah (white) was fifth. She couldn't see anywhere that would be much good - and she likes to use harbours. So she placed her first settlement on the sheep harbour, which bordered two sheep hexes on 8 and 11. Tim (blue) was last. He didn't really have any good places to choose, so decided to opt for as many resources and numbers as possible. He ended up with 4, 8, 9, two 10s and a 12, with theoretical access to all five resources.

Sarah then went for two more sheep hexes with a wood - so all the had available to her was sheep and wood, plus the sheep harbour for trading. A strategy that could work very well, or could be a disaster! John was pleased to find that the coastal 6-10 on clay and wood was still available - giving him the wheat harbour too. He was in a very strong position. He had also inadvertently blocked Tim's first intended move.

Sheila then took two more numbers on the other sheep harbour, I decided I'd opt for three numbers (without any clay) rather than just two on the coast in a rather crowded position, and Richard then took the 4-8 sheep-wheat intersection on the ore harbour, which John had been heading for.


With six players, there can be a fair bit of competition for building spots.

Although Richard played before John, he didn't have such good tiles. And so, twice, John built streets that blocked Richard's plans:


So he built in other directions. Play moved reasonably fast, so that settlements and cities started to spring up all around the island of Catan.


Tim was in the lead at this stage, with six points. John and I both had five, Richard and Sarah both had four, and Sheila had three.

Richard took the longest street first:


Then, rather than taking Sheila's last building spot, I realised that I could build inland to extend my street, and also gain a useful new spot on a 5-ore and 10-wheat (and 2-ore... but that was unlikely to be much use to me). Richard and Sarah had both hoped for that spot.


So I now had the longest street, and nine points. Richard was next with seven. Tim and John each had six points, Sarah had five, and Sheila - whose numbers just weren't being rolled - was trailing with three.

Then Richard extended his road, and took the longest street card back again:


.. which now put him in the lead with nine points, and me in second place with seven, jointly with Tim and John who had each built another settlement in the meantime. Sarah had six, and Sheila four.

By this stage, resources were being gathered faster and faster. The extra 'building phase' in between turns allowed us all to build - so we didn't lose much to the robber - and cities came rapidly, with an abundance of ore and wheat. I joined up my two sections of street, and took the card back from Richard - who had unfortunately wasted a few resources by extending his long street without providing any new building spots.


So, at this stage, Tim was in the lead with ten points. John and I each had nine, Sarah had eight, Richard had seven, and Sheila was still trailing with five.

Most of us had run out of building spots at this time, so all we could do was build cities (if we had any left - Tim didn't by this stage) or buy cards.

Richard and I each built a new city:


So I now had ten points, and was jointly in the lead with Tim.

But John, who had started with such a good position, was able to trump us all. He was the first person to play a third knight card, giving him the largest army - and then turned over a victory point card:


So John was victorious, with twelve points.