Wood for Sheep

Whoops! Did I say that out loud?

I'm back from my literary hiatus. Nothing like the home stretch of a grad school semester to pick the sweet sweet time from your bones like a goddam vulture.

Anywho, like a lot of people, when I attended PAX East I had the opportunity to expand my horizons. One of the ways this manifested itself was in the board game arena. There was a plethora to choose from. A wholesale cornucopia, if you will, of cool games but I picked only one to actually sit down and learn. Twas one that I've heard good things many a time before: Settlers of Catan.



Maybe you've heard of this island. Lonely, yet rife with natural resources ripe for the pickin'. If you haven't, maybe you live on a isolated island devoid of internet or fun. If this were the case, let me know how you're reading this. The first time I learned about its existence was probably while I was in college, but I never knew anyone who actually owned the game, or any other board games for that matter. This makes playing difficult, but hey, most college students don't have anything but beer laying around, and look what happened. Gamification at its best innit?

But I digress.

The concept of the game is deceptively simple. The board is randomly generated, so that the pattern of hexagons that generate 1 of 5 resources (Brick, Ore, Wheat, Wood & Wool) is never the same. The exception being the lone Desert hexagon which produces no resources and is the starting location of the Robber. To add to the chaos, number tiles 2 through 6 and 8 through 12 are placed randomly. "Why no 7?" you ask? Well, my observant friendo, hold that thought.  Each number is accompanied by a number of dots which, for the statistically challenged, indicates how likely you are to roll those numbers using a pair of dice. Players take turns placing settlements, with the 1st person to place a settlement being the last person to place their 2nd settlement. And you get 1 road for each settlement. Roads, when placed with cunning, can really mess your opponents ability to expand. Choose wisely.

"So what's the deal with rolling a 7?" HOLD ON.

When it's your turn, you put on your shiniest pair of shades and roll like you're in Vegas. It helps if there's a hot chick on either side of you. It's science! Assuming you roll anything but a "7", look at the hexagons that contain the number you rolled and you receive one card of that resource for each settlement you have bordering that hexagon. So instead of poker chips and delicious cash, you essentially get chopped trees, dried rectangular mud, sheep shavings, rocks, or the main ingredient to bread. And from this you build your mini-empire.

Ok, so now were at the Robber. He's a real neat bastard. He starts out on the desert hexagon and whenever one of you high-rollers tosses a "7", two things happen. One is that any player caught with their pants down, or more specifically, caught with more than 7 cards in your hand, you have to discard half of your resource cards, rounded down. Then the player responsible for this mayhem gets to choose where to place the robber. When they place the robber, they get to steal a resource card from any player that has a settlement on the same hexagon. When a robber occupies a hexagon, it produces no resources. So this game is a lovely way to irritate your friends and loved ones in ways you never dreamed of. But be warned, payback's a bitch.

Now you need to know is all about what to do with your resources. Assuming you have a decent starting position with your two settlements and are damn skippy lucky, you can build roads, settlements, cities, and buy development cards. There are nuances to how you can manage your resources. You can trade with your friends/soon-to-be-mortal-enemies or by trade them via "port trades" where the exchange rate is definitely hosing you unless you have a settlement in the right place along the coast.

What's the point of all this you say? Well, the first player to 10 victory points wins. You get VP's by building settlements, cities, buying development cards that straight up give you them, or by satisfying the "longest road" and "largest army" requirements.

If you think this is a simple game to master then you, sir or madam, are gravely mistaken. Your starting position and the layout of the hexagons and numbers are hardly ideal. The dice rolls are never in your favor. Your friends will rob you blind at every moment possible. They will block your expansion with their roads and settlments. And if you are playing against the computer on XBLA on the hardest difficulty, may the flying spaghetti monster have mercy on your soul. I've yet to conquer 3 AI opponents on such a difficulty. However as I noted in a previous post, my darling girlfriend (now fiance!) was able to masterfully demolish her 3 hardcore AI rivals not once but twice in a row. She's a better tactician than I apparently.

I'm a fan of the XBLA game version Catan, though it's hard to find human opponents to play against. I'm guessing that all the angry 12 year olds are busy hurling insults on Modern Warfare 3 or "teh Haloz". If it wasn't for the fact that only Sara and I are the only ones around who knew how to play, I'd gladly fork over the cash to get a board set. The fancy table at PAX East specifically built for the game was awesome and I'd aspire to place one in my future man cave.

Just tackled Diablo III on normal with my broski. 12 years since I played Diablo 2, which utterly and completely captivated me once upon a time. Back when you didn't need an internet connection to play single player. Damn that makes me feel old. So now nightmare is beckoning and one of us will be sure to extoll on our experiences there. I'm a barbarian and the bro is rocking a monk. Despite the reliance on melee combat, we have steamrolled our way through the game so far. I also cracked open 4 boxes of Avacyn Restored and am in the process of making and modifying my decks where I see fit. I'll share my ideas another time, but I'm exploring the synergy of the devils/demons that are cheap but come with baggage that could hurt you if you don't have a trick up your sleeve to deal with their quirks.

I'm in a growler club with one of my coworkers and this week's growler is a Berkshire Brewing Co. Pilsner. Light and delicious and I can drink it like water.

Sláinte
-WF