Catan Players

Abundant August concluded with Ian winning in runaway fashion.  It was over a 13 point lead and it now gives Ian a commanding lead for the year.  He also leads the number of times he has been the Golden Sheep winner.  

Well we're back to a normal game play September.  One would say "Same Stuff, Differnet Day" September.  Also this month, the a Catan tournament is being held in Memphis, TN and we are still on the fence about entering.  Maybe we can convince Ian to go so he can cry like a baby in fron of complete strangers when he doesn't win.  

Today begins a new month for your favorite competitors. Now a lot of effort was put into creating our new 7 player board. How to construct, how to do number distribution and the like. And what happens? We only get 4 participants today. We were however, very determined to create our big board for a real game and so we played on way too big a board. There was so much space for everyone and was for the most part non-confrontational. 4 people did eliminate special builds which was a travesty has everyone at one point or another was discarding settlements and cities. Ian picked up the win and gets the early lead for the month.

No jerk to speak of today but we did have a brilliant move. It was Ian’s turn and he had just amassed one serious chunk of cards. Ken thought it was wise though to offer him 3 ore for just one wheat. Ian jumped at the opportunity and created 2 cities, a settlement, and a road for good measure. On the very next turn, Ken rolled the special rule “Scarecrow” which netted him 3 wheat from the rest of us. Sadly, no one had any ore for one of Ken’s wheat.

We begin a new month of Catan and it is a Special Rule Month. This month is “Abundant August” as a most of the rules give you resources. Albeit sometimes at the expense of the others. Will are also experimenting with a different board as we will have some games with 7 participants. Should make for an interesting month.

Rules for this Month

If you roll 1-1-1 (value of 1 and 2 ) you get to call your rule.

40 : LOVE – You have to win by 2 victory points. (You are able to win on a special build)

And the winner is... - player grabs a card from the random resource pile

From the Jaws of Defeat – you can build a settlement or a city, only one, for 1 less resource

High Five! – all players get a card of their choice

I Feel Sorry For You – Subtract your point total from that of the leader. Collect that many resource cards from the bank. If you are tied with, or are the leader, collect 1 card.

Ore-afice – All players turn their ore into the bank.

Road Reconstruction – Player can move any road they have to a different legal place. Optional

Scare Crow – Everyone gives the roller one wheat if they have one.

The Drunken Sailor – Cap’n Hazelwood has rendered all trade ports useless due to negligence. No 2:1 or 3:1 port trades allowed for 1 round.

The Joker and the Thief – players moves robber and gets a card from all players adjacent to that tile. (City and Settlement are equal value, but if you have 2...sorry!)

We’ve Struck Oil – Deserts produce Oil (choice of card) for settlements and cities on the deserts on this turn and all 7’s rolled for 1 round.

Welfare – The player with the most points must give a resource card to the player with the least points

Derick is the Golden Sheep winner for July making him a 2 time winner of the award. Tony and Ian before him were able to get consecutive months as well but were unable to 3-peat. Will Derick rise to the challenge or wet his bed like a scared child. We will see.

Now that the Tour de France is over, Tony has come back to the fold. With Lance Armstrong defeated, Tony is looking for blood. He took the game in about 30 minutes with 2 cities, 4 settlements and the Longest Road. Devlin was the next closest at 7 points. Derick was tied for last today actually losing points for the month. However he didn’t lose any ground to Ian because it was Ian that was tied with Derick for last. With an 8 point lead and 3 days left, the window for anyone to catch him is closing.

Game’s Biggest Jerk: Devlin – Playing a Monopoly card can get you this title pretty quick.

Derick wins today’s game in very anti-climatic fashion. His initial placement only left him with 6’s, 10’s, and 12’s. Those came in bunches. He acquired tons of resources while everyone else struggled to catch up. Tony came in 2nd with only 6 points. The other players had either 5 or 4 points. The game gives Derick a huge lead in July for the Golden Sheep as the month is winding down. We are quite dumbfounded as to what has sparked Derick into this recent hot streak. Is it his new Blackberry? Did he get some tips from his Warcraft guild? Are Ken and Devlin eating up all the bad spots forcing Derick into better positions? We’ll figure it out in time.

Game’s Biggest Jerk: Derick for being incredibly lucky, acting like he isn’t, and for cutting off Tony’s road. Derick could have gone the other direction and still taken the Longest Road because he was the only one could build them with ease.

Last night Ken “Red Shirt” Gillum hosted a special game of Catan. It was the first time for some of us to play Seafarers of Catan. Quite enjoyable actually. Although there was some period of adjustment for us as now we had to worry about island jumping, a pirate ship, ships, and gold. Other things to adjust to was not having the luxury of the second 12-sided dice we use for our regular games of Catan. Resource production seemed painfully slow at times. Our first adventure had us using one of the pre built scenarios. The 4 Island scenario victory went to Ian as he had the Longest Trade Route. Second game was “Ultra Random” scenario in which I won. We ended up with just 2 islands and 1 of them had a very odd shape as it had some weird land bridge look to it.

Can’t wait to do it again and I would recommend it as a purchase for those who are on the fence about it. It’s a great was to break up the traditional look and feel of Catan. Not sure when we will combine Seafarers and Cities & Knights.

I was full of win for this 6 player game of Catan. It all started with our initial placements. I was first to place which meant my 2nd settlement would do its best to get me some resources as it would be the last to place. My first placement left me unable to produce Wood and Wheat. My options were then Wood on 8,5 or Wood-Wheat on 12-3. I took the 8-5 wood and Ian threw a major fit. He questioned my intelligence because I was abandoning wheat. It also might have to do with Ian having a road going towards that same 8-5 spot. 8’s and 5’s then started hitting like nobody’s business. I might have been wood’s biggest supplier which allowed me to trade for wheat. I believe I also got incredibly lucky. I purchased 3 development cards through the course of the game. The first was a Year of Plenty to help build a city since I didn’t have any wheat. Second card was Monopoly which I used for brick. It was rare throughout the game and it had just yielded the most it had at any point in the game. Built some roads and a settlement, traded the rest back to the other for more wheat and another city. Third development card was a Road Builder. This helped me take the Longest Road. On the same turn I built a settlement on a Sheep port which I immediately used to trade in sheep for wheat. This let me build one more city for the win.

Game’s Biggest Jerk: Me for not even bothering to mention how everyone else did. All I know is they all finished with less points than me.