Settlers of Catan for five (with Mick)

Having introduced our friend Mick to Settlers of Catan, and found him rather proficient, it seemed like a good idea to play a five-person game with Jörn and Sheila a couple of evenings later.

Since Mick had only placed once, it seemed better to use our set, even though we were at our friends' house, so that he didn't have to try and understand a different set of graphics - not to mention German text on the development cards. Mick was happy to play with the green pieces again, and the rest of us took our usual colours: brown for Sheila, blue for Jörn, red for Richard, and orange for me.

Richard rolled to go first, and with plenty of nice spots to choose from, opted for the 5-6-9 intersection on ore, sheep and wheat. I was second, and since I like to have good ore I took the 4-8-9 with clay, ore and sheep. I would have done slightly better, I realised immediately, to have taken the 5-6-9 which Jörn then claimed, with exactly the same resources and slightly better numbers. Sheila went next, and took yet another good spot: 4-6-9 on sheep, clay and wheat. Then it was Mick's turn to play last and first, placing two settlements together. He chose the 4-5 coastal intersection on ore and wood himself, and we advised on various other options; he decided on the 5-8-10 with the other three resources he needed. He had good numbers, but only four different ones.

On the way back, there were still some reasonable spots to take. Sheila needed wood and ore, and found a good intersection providing both, and giving her six good numbers. Jörn and I both needed wheat and wood; so, unsurprisingly, he took the one good spot with both available. I then decided that wheat was more important than wood, so took a spot with two wheat and an ore, giving me six different numbers (one of them being a 12, so not very useful). Richard, in final place, needed wood and clay, and was able to get rather a nice spot with both, giving him also six numbers, including a 12.


So I was the only player who did not have immediate access to all five resources at the start of the game. And wood was in rather short supply, so I was unable to trade for it. Jörn, Sheila and Richard each managed a street and a settlement each in the first few rounds... and I built two cities.


So, technically, I was in the lead with four points. However, without being able to build streets, I was now rather stuck. And, indeed, it took me quite some time before I managed to build even one new street. In the meantime, everyone else had done significant amounts of expanding:


So Jörn and Richard each had five points by this stage, while the rest of us each had four. And I could see that I was going to get boxed in before long, if I didn't start expanding.

Richard was first to take the longest street card. Then, in a move I haven't seen before, Sheila - who wanted a 9-10 double wheat intersection - built in the middle of his street, thus breaking it into two sections, and meaning that nobody held a five-section street any more so it had to be returned to the bank:


Richard had been in the lead with nine points, but was now back to seven. Jörn also had seven. Sheila had six, I had six, and Mick had four.

I managed to build another city, and another settlement. My final possible building spot was on the desert, so I did build one street towards it. But realised that I would do better to buy cards at this stage; I had played a couple of knights, so when I managed my third I did gain the largest army, and another two points. I had a hidden victory point card too, and when my turn came around I bought another card. Had it been a victory point, I would have won... but it wasn't.

So Jörn, who by this stage had ten points on the board, and the longest street card, was the winner with twelve points.


Mick still had only four on the board, but he had a couple of victory point cards, so his total was six, putting him just one point behind Sheila.

Four-person Settlers of Catan

Richard was busy, and Jacob was away on camp... so we sat down to a four-person Settlers game late yesterday afternoon. Jörn played blue, Sheila brown, Marie white, and I was orange.

I was first to place. Ore looked as if it would be the most scarce resource, so I knew I would place on the four-ore hex. I was undecided between the 5 (sheep)-8 (clay) intersection, and the 6 (sheep)-9 (wheat). From the number perspective, they were equally good. I decided that, on balance, I preferred to have slightly better access to clay than to sheep; and clay is always useful at the start of the game. And it looked as if there would be plenty of wheat available for trading.

Jorn played second, and took the 5-9-10 with wood, wheat and sheep. Marie went next, and took the spot with the best number combination on the board: the 5-6-9 with sheep, wheat and wood. Then Sheila was both last and first. Unsurprisingly she took the spot I had seriously considered, also bordering the 4-ore hex. And she also took the coastal 8-10 with clay and wood. That gave her access to all five resources, and five good numbers: 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10.

Marie needed clay and ore, and had two possible spots: she took the 3, 10 and 11 which also gave her sheep. So she had six numbers: 3, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 11. Jörn also needed clay and ore, so he took the other appropriate spot, giving him two clay and an ore. So he also had six reasonable numbers: 3, 4, 5, 9, 10 and 11. No 6 or 8, but it was likely that he would head to the 8-wheat.

Then, at last, it was me again. I was lacking wheat and wood. My instinct was to opt for wheat rather than wood, although it would have made it rather tricky to get started. And the only good spot on a wheat hex was the 8-4 coastal wheat-clay spot,
The biggest problem with that was that I already had an 8 and a 4, so would be limiting myself to three numbers altogether.

So, with an inward sigh, I opted for the 9-10 coastal intersection with two wood. It was a bit annoying for Sheila since it stopped her from getting the nearby 3:1 harbour which she was aiming for, but the board was already looking crowded. Due to some of the initial placements, there were a surprising number of unavailable spots.

I forgot to take a photo until we'd played a couple of rounds, but all we had built by this stage were a few streets:


Since I'd taken the harbour Sheila had wanted, she built as quickly as she could out towards another 3:1 harbour, thus preventing me from going there. So I could not expand anywhere from my first settlement.

Surprisingly, ore was not in short supply since 4 was rolled rather more often than expected. But without wheat its only use to me was trading - which I did, fairly extensively. I did manage to build on the sheep harbour. Marie had hoped for that spot, but my only hope of building anything at all was to continue around the coast. I'd have liked the 6-11-12 intersection which would have given me access to wheat. Marie would also have liked it. But Jörn built out towards it - and beyond, so that it was secure to him - and took the longest street card in doing so. Then Sheila was the first to build a city:


So Jörn was in the lead with six points, although he didn't expect to keep the longest street card. Sheila had four points; Marie and I each had three. But Marie and I were already struggling to find building spots.

It wasn't long before Sheila took the longest street, and incidentally giving herself quite a few useful building spots:


Marie joined her segments of road, so that she took the longest street card temporarily, but she didn't have the potential to keep it. She aimed for her last building spot, on the desert.. and then Sheila built more streets, and took the card back again:


So Sheila was now in the lead with seven points, closely followed by Jörn with six. I had finally managed my first city, so had five points, and Marie was trailing with three.

I realised that I could, potentially, take the longest street card - and since there wasn't much else I could do, and I had the resources in my hand, I did build a couple more. But Sheila had calculated that she could reach 14 segments, which was the maximum I could reach... so she build the rest of her streets, to guarantee keeping it:


So Sheila now had ten points, but Jörn was still close behind with nine, and I had eight. Marie was still trailing with five. By this stage there were NO building spots left on the entire board... so we were all after ore, wheat and sheep, with little use for wood or clay other than for trading.

So although we were all picking up a fair number of cards, not much happened. We just bought cards, and occasionally played them. Then Jörn build another city:


- so he and Sheila were now equal with ten points each.

Then Sheila built another city.

Then Marie played a third knight card, and so gained the largest army.

And then, at last, Jörn bought another card which was a victory point. He already had one hidden one, so that gave him the twelve points he needed to win:


So he had 12 points, and Sheila had 11. I had 9, and Marie - who also had a hidden victory point card - had 8.

Settlers of Catan for six

It was Daniel's last full evening in Cyprus for some months... and he said he'd like to play another game of Settlers of Catan with our friends. John had just arrived, and since he's also a fan of Catan, it meant a six-player game.

Daniel (green) played first, and chose a rather nice intersection with 5-6-10 on wheat, ore and wood. Jörn (blue) was second, and opted for a fairly traditional opening giving both wood and clay, with the useful numbers 4, 6 and 10. That's the spot I'd have opted for too, since it looked as if clay was going to be the most difficult resource to get hold of in this game. Sheila (brown) was next, and took the 4-8-10 with wheat, ore and wood. Then it was my turn; I wanted that 10-clay hex, so chose the intersection with a 4 on wheat and 5 on sheep. Not ideal, but there weren't too many great spots left.

Richard was next. and took the 3-8-9 near the top, which at least gave him access to clay if a 3 was rolled. John was last, so placed two settlements together. He didn't get any clay, but four good numbers (5, 6, 8 and 9) with access to all the other resources, particularly wood. And since he built on the coast, he was only one spot away from the wood harbour. A good move, if a little unusual from our perspective.

Richard needed sheep and wood, and couldn't get both, so he opted for a spot with two good sheep hexes, heading towards the sheep harbour. And, in doing so, made my first placed street useless - but that's how the game goes. I needed wood and ore and couldn't get both, so for once I decided to do without ore, and hope that I could get some by building towards the 8-ore in the bottom corner. I didn't really have great numbers at all; 9 and 5, but no 8 or 6.


For the first round, a surprising number of 6s were rolled, which of course were no use to me at all. However, other useful numbers came up, and I found that I was easily able to trade for ore, despite not having any access to it myself. Ore was a great deal easier to come by than clay, since 10 wasn't rolled at all. I would have done better to have gone for a 3-clay hex!

I was quite pleased when I managed to build my first city, using ore I had traded for:


It was a fairly slow-moving game, with so little clay available. I did, eventually, manage to extend out to the 3:1 harbour, which seemed more useful than getting ore (since I could trade for it so easily). And, indeed, I was able to upgrade another city without too much difficulty.

Although 10 was still not rolled, 3 was, more than once, meaning that there was clay in the game after all. However, it wasn't enough that anyone wanted to trade it at this stage. Jörn managed to build out to several useful spots, and gained the longest street too. And since he had been buying cards, and playing knights, he also gained the largest army:


So Jörn was now significantly in the lead, with nine points. All the rest of us had five.

It still wasn't a particularly fast-moving game, but Jörn continued extending his long street, so that nobody else could even think of challenging it. I still wasn't picking up many cards - ten STILL wasn't rolled - but did manage to build streets out towards the 8-ore hex.

I took this photo when Jörn had managed to gain 11 points, still holding both the longest street and largest army cards:


Sheila did attempt to build out into his street, and I did manage my settlement on the 8-ore hex... and a ten was, eventually, rolled (when clay was no longer any use to me).

But all Jörn needed to do was to upgrade one more city... which is what he did:


So he won the game resoundingly with 12 points. Sheila had a victory point card, so 10 points. John had 9. Daniel had two victory points, so he and Richard both had 8 points. And although I had one victory point card too, I was still last with 7 points.

Settlers of Catan for Six on Sunday

Last night, it was our turn to host the Settlers game. Becky kindly watched the younger children (and a movie) so Jacob could play. And since he wanted green pieces, Daniel played with white. Other than that, we had our normal colours: red for Richard, brown for Sheila, blue for Jörn, and orange for me.

Jacob went first, and took the 4-5-8 spot with three resources. Sheila then took the equally good 5-6-10 spot which was the one I would have chosen, since it included ore. Jörn took 8-9-10 with two wood and an ore; Daniel took 4-6-10 with two wheat and a sheep, close to the sheep harbour. That's another spot that rather appealed to me. Richard took the 3-5-9 with three resources... and then it was me, playing last again. I do quite like getting to choose both spots at the same time, but I would prefer to go first or second. Actually, second is slightly better in the six-player Catan game, in my view.

I couldn't find any ideal slots or combinations, so decided I could best live without sheep. So I took a coastal 4-8 on a 3:1 harbour with clay and wood, and a 3-5-10 with ore and two wheat.

On the way back, most people were surprised to find that their particular choice of location was still available.


So we all started the game feeling fairly positive about our starting settlements. The only problem was that we were all, other than Sheila, incredibly tired. I could barely keep my eyes open.

Daniel was rather creative during setup... like father, like son:


My hopes of building inwards from my coastal slot were rather stymied by Jörn and Richard's second placements, so after much thought - not easy when tired - I determined to head, if I could, towards the 9-11-12 spot with better ore on the 9. I quickly reached the half-way mark, on 3-12-12, and though the numbers were pretty bad, I always think I should take any building spots I can on a potentially crowded board. It was worth having, since 12 was rolled at least twice in the game, giving me unexpected extra clay and wheat.

Unfortunately for me, I wasn't the only one who wanted that spot. Jörn started heading that way, as did Daniel who got there first. So instead I curved the other way and took the 2-3-4 slot. Also not great numbers, but any time a 4 was rolled I picked up resources for a street.

And then I headed towards the coast, with the aid of a street-building card I had bought, and took the ore harbour. Not frantically useful since my only access to ore was on a 3 - but it did give me a very nice 6 on sheep, the one resource I was lacking. And, of course a building spot. And, as a bonus - which I hadn't realised at first - the longest street card. For a while.


Unfortunately, that put me in the lead and thus made me a target for the robber. However it wasn't long before Jörn increased his roads and took the longest road card from me:


This put him strongly in the lead with 7 points. Sheila and I each had four points, and everyone else had 3.

Despite our being tired, the game progressed reasonably fast, although there was nothing particularly worthy of photographing until I realised I hadn't taken one for a while. Sheila hoped to take the longest street card, but Jörn increased his roads sufficiently that he couldn't be challenged on it:


So by this stage he had 9 solid points. A 3 had been rolled, and I'd done quite well with trading, so I was right behind with 8. Sheila had 7 (two of her settlements don't show on that image). Everyone else was trailing.

I realised I did have another building spot along the coast, but didn't want to head out that way until I was certain of getting there since I thought Jörn would probably block me. So I took the risk of keeping too many cards in my hand; by the time it was my turn, I had sufficient for four streets - by dint of some trading. Thankfully no sevens were rolled and I was able to extend outwards.


But before I could build that final settlement, Jörn built one more - on someone else's building phase - and then on his next turn, he was able to build one more settlement, and show a victory point card which gave him 12 points and made him the winner.


It was another fairly resounding win for Jörn - he won the Catan game on the previous evening too - and he told us that he used, basically, the same strategy. Lots of one resource, and the relevant harbour (in this case wood).



It's a strategy I've successfully used in the past, but for some reason haven't been able to recently.

Settlers of Catan for Six on Saturday

We went over to Jörn and Sheila's for another game of Settlers on Saturday evening. Richard was very tired after a busy week, but still managed to create yet another construction as he waited for the setup phase to finish:


He was first to place a settlement and chose one with three good numbers on the 4-6-9 intersection. Becky (white) was second, and chose the equally good 4-9-8. Those were really the only two spaces with good numbers and three different resources - it wasn't a terribly balanced board at all. So Daniel (green) took the 5-8-11 with three resources, and Sheila (brown) took the one I rather liked the look of: the 5-6-9 with two ore and a wood. Jörn (blue) took the 5-8-10 with two wood and a sheep... and at last it was my turn. There really wasn't anywhere obvious. I couldn't get all five resources, so I opted for the best numbers I could. I was reluctant to be without wheat, since it looked as though it would be scarce in the game - but at least I had everything else.


Then everyone else attempted to get the best spots they could on the way back. Sheila was lacking clay, Jörn lacked ore, Daniel lacked wood. Only Richard and Becky managed access to all five resources, with a good selection of numbers too, although Becky did take a spot that blocked Richard's easy to access to a couple of harbours.

I forgot to take the photo until Richard had played his first street, but it didn't really matter.

With plentiful wood and clay, a good number of streets were built pretty quickly, and a few settlements. Becky was first to build a city:


This put her in the lead with 5 points. Jörn had 4 by this stage, and all the rest of us had 3, other than Daniel who was still stuck on 2.

It wasn't long before Sheila took the longest street card - although at any point it could have been taken by someone else.


By that stage Jörn and I had each managed to build a city, by dint of extensive trading. So Jörn and Sheila were jointly in the lead with 6 points each. Richard, Becky and I were close behind with 5 each, and Daniel - who kept getting blocked from building spots - had 3.

I realised I had a few building spots available so long as I moved fairly quickly - so with wood and clay still being plentiful, I built around the coast. And then realised I could take the longest street card away from Sheila:


So suddenly I was jointly in the lead with Jörn, both on 7 points. Richard and Becky each had 6, Sheila now had 5 - although it would only take one more street for her to regain the longest street card and the lead. And Daniel was still lagging a little, now with 4. But it was still pretty even, really. Jörn had no way of getting ore, and only 12 and 2 on wheat. I had managed a 2-wheat hex, but that was my only access to wheat. Building cities was still rather tricky.

Then Sheila played her third knight card, and claimed the largest army. Daniel, meanwhile, had run out of building spots already, so was limited to buying cards and building cities. He had played two knights and had hoped for the largest army card, but Sheila got there first.

We were lucky, I suppose, in that unlikely numbers like 2 and 12 were rolled more often than we would expect ... and Jörn managed to build a couple more cities without too much effort, helped by his sheep harbour:


So he now had 10 points and was solidly in the lead. I kept the longest street by extending as far as I could, so had 9 points. Sheila and Becky had 8, Richard had 7, and Daniel still had 4.

Then Jörn played another settlement, giving him 11 points.

Then Daniel played a fourth knight card, and took the largest army.

And Sheila, in an attempt to gain the longest street card, built three more streets, with the potential for one more:


She succeeded, and took the street card back from me. Had she kept the largest army card too, she would now have had 10 points.


But she had 8, and Jörn was solidly in the lead still with 11. All he needed to do was build another city...

... and that's exactly what he did.


But he didn't use any ore or wheat to do so... he took advantage of his useful sheep harbour and the abundance of sheep in the game:


So Jörn won by quite a margin.

Settlers of Catan for four

It had been a long since we played a four-person regular game of Settlers with Jörn and Sheila. Looking back at the archives, I think last night was the first time this year! We've enjoyed the five- and six-player games, and Richard and I also like our two-person games. But four is what we were most familiar with during last year. As usual, my tiles were orange, Richard's red, Sheila's brown and Jörn's blue.

We started around 8.30 by the time we'd set everything up. I was last to place, and realised I couldn't get all five resources. I realised that there would be a fair mount of wood, so hoped I'd be able to trade for that. Then I forgot to take a photo until we'd played a couple of rounds, although all that had been built was two streets.


I thought my numbers were at least reasonable: 3, 4, 8, 9 and 10 in addition to the probably not-so-useful 2. But for the first round, I didn't pick up a single card: 5s and 6s were the main numbers rolled. Jörn, who played second, had the best selection of numbers: 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. No wood, but he could get to a wood hex fairly easily. Sheila's numbers were almost as good, statistically speaking: 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9; she had access to all five resources, too.

The game got going fairly quickly, other than in my case since I continued picking up very few cards. Still, within about half an hour I had at least managed to build two more settlements, and now had access to a useful 5-wheat hex and the ore harbour (less useful). Richard realised he was lacking potential building spaces, so concentrated on buying streets in order to ensure at least a few spots for settlements. Jörn and Sheila were both doing well, expanding and building much more rapidly.


By that stage in the game, Richard had 3 points, I had 4, Sheila had 6 and Jörn had 7.

Then followed the battle of the longest street. Richard took it at first, with just five. He was simply buying more streets to secure building spots and the longest street was a by-product. Not long afterwards, Sheila overtook him and there were a couple of rounds where they both built streets, realising that neither could get more than 10 so whoever got there first would keep the card.

It was Sheila who succeeded; and with her other buildings, she was up to 11 points. Nobody else had more than 9... but she pointed out that I could theoretically take the street card from her. A 2 had been rolled, giving me three unexpected clay resource cards, and I also had some ore as well as sheep. By that stage I'd used all my building spots, and although I'd like to have built a city, we did want the game to continue beyond 9.30... so Richard and Jörn both traded with me to enable me to have the wood I needed.


So Sheila was back to 9 points, the same as Jörn. I had 8, including the longest street. Richard had 7. All very close, and the game could potentially continue for a while since all building spots had been used up: so all we could do was build cities and buy cards.

I did think about the largest army; three of us had each played two knights, but having built all those streets I didn't have enough cards left to buy anything more. Jörn had bought quite a few, so we weren't surprised when he played a knight, a couple of rounds later, and gained the largest army - giving him 11 points. He then tried to trade in order to build a city, but naturally nobody would oblige since he only needed one more point to win.

Or so we thought.

When he discovered that he couldn't actually build another city, he said he'd been hoping to win with 14 points... and turned over two victory point cards. So he won the game with 13.