Litlefield Steals Longest Road to Capture Title!

This year, same as last year, the Catan: Cities & Knights tournament at WBC drew 40 unique players. Always good to see the tournament pull consistent players.

There were a few rule changes from prior years, intending for the games to flow smoother. I’m happy to report that there were no significant issues in any of the Heats, so these rules are definitely here to stay.

The barbarian does not move until each player has taken 1 turn. This rule had been optional in prior years, but it is now mandatory.

Progress cards are discarded, with the discards being shuffled to create a new deck as needed.

We had 13 unique winners this year (9 of which appeared for the Semifinal), so those winners, plus 3 alternates, made a 12-player Semifinal (4 3-player games), with the winner of each of those games advancing to the Final.

The Final consisted of James Meyer, Andrew Littlefield, Jamie Tang, and Peter Tu, in that initial turn order. Jamie and Peter were regulars of the tournament, James and Andrew being first timers (and Andrew being a first timer to the con).

Initial Placements

James’s first settlement was on the best clay (arguably the only decent clay on the board), with the clay port nearby (although he placed his road inland, not toward the port). His city was wood, ore, and wheat, although none of the numbers were great (3/10/11).

Andrew’s settlement was on the 3/4/8 (the best wheat on the board, wheat being 3/8/11/11). His city would be on 4/9/11 ore/sheep/wheat, giving him an active knight at the start of the game, as well as production of 2 commodities.

Jamie’s settlement was also on the 8 wheat, taking the 5 and 10 ore hexes with it. Her city was on 3/6/9 wheat/sheep/sheep, possibly trying to outrace the others for the cloth metropolis.

Peter took his settlement on 3/4/8 wheat/ore/sheep, with the sheep port nearby. His city was on 3/6/11 wood/sheep/wheat.

The commodity story would remain a theme with this board. Wood/paper were on 3/4/9/12 (two cities on the 3). Ore/coin was on much better numbers but only had one city, on the 4. Sheep, conversely, was the exact opposite, being 6/6/8/9. 3 of the 4 players had a city on sheep, with Jamie having a city on both the 6 and 9. Peter and Andrew had cities on the 6.

Game Play

All players built a single active knight fairly early in the game, each taking a green progress card for their efforts (somewhat predictably, again, given the lack of paper production from the board).

There was a bit of a knight war after the first attack (because, well, sheep were easy), and an early Smith card by Jamie gave her a defender point. Other than that, the barbarian would be relatively silent this game.

In addition to the knight war, there was a road war between Andrew and James, for longest road. James was able to take it early with the help of a Road Building, but Andrew was able to keep it competitive by trading (with the help of some yellow cards).

The cloth production from the ridiculously good sheep hexes came as expected, with the yellow progress cards being dealt out (and needing to reshuffle the deck), twice. Andrew was able to leverage these cards, using two resource monopolies and a commercial harbor, all on the same turn, to get himself a city, the aqueduct, and the paper metropolis.

Score update: James 8, Andrew 9, Jamie 7, Peter 8.

Peter would follow shortly after with a trade monopoly of his own to advance into the aqueduct, but it would be too little too late.

James was able to play a medicine card for a second city, Jamie was able to do the same, plus mining for a double city turn, and Andrew was able to use mining + irrigation to just hard buy a city that way.

Score update: James 10, Andrew 10, Jamie 9, Peter 8.

The city building would be the last turn of the game for everybody. Andrew would build to James’ road, use Intrigue to move the knight he had protecting it, chop the road (giving Longest Road to himself), and play a merchant card for the final point to win the game.

Final Score: Andrew 13, Jamie 9, James 8, Peter 7.

Everybody ended the game with at least a Merchant Guild (commodity trade 2:1). Andrew got an aqueduct roughly midgame. Peter got one as well, but too little too late for him.