Bunker Project Log

21 Aug

Cities and Knights of Catan

Cities and Knights of Catan  end

It’s early Summer, and I’m just chillin’ with Mrs. G, and she says “isn’t it weird that we’ll be married seven years tomorrow?”

And, because I’m a total blockhead, I say “our anniversary isn’t until Saturday!”

Remember that thing about a land war in Asia? That is like arguing with your wife about when your anniversary is, when her birthday is, where your first date was, when your kids were born, when your kids were conceived, where your kids were conceived, etc. Don’t do it.

Anyway, as the “talk” went on, the icy cold grip of fear began gently massaging my heart. It was tomorrow, and I had forgotten. And… we had just had kid #2, which made it all the more important in her hormone saturated brain. I had to come up with a plan fast.

So, I did what any self-respecting gamer would do. I logged on to boardgamegeek?to find out where to buy the Travel Edition of Settlers of Catan.

My thinking was this… it was our seventh anniversary. The ridiculous gift for seventh anniversary is copper and wool. Wool comes from sheep, and sheep are in Settlers of Catan! It was obvious! She would love a romantic dinner at one of the many new fru fru restaurants in town, we would play Settlers at the table, then I would take her to “Knocked Up”, and then go swing dancing. Best. Husband. Ever!

So, after calling every game store in the metro area and coming up empty, one of the lovely people on boardgamegeek gave me a lead that resulted in a pristine sealed copy. I punched out the bits and read the instructions while driving back to work.

From there, it was magic. She loved the idea! We drove to the snotty restaurant. She loved that too! We ate, then busted out the game during dessert.

So Ro Mantic!

Anniversary 2007

Unfortunately, Settlers ain’t really a 2-player deal, even with variant rules, so we had about three turns before giving up. From there we went to? “Knocked Up”, which was incredible! Those of you with kids… watch it (but not with them!) Then we snuck into the Swing thing 10 minutes before closing time. We acted cool like we were?experts from the next town over?checking out the scene, but we were scared to death. Damn young spry kids, and us all crotchety and old. Youth is wasted on the young.

Anyway, that’s the entirety of my experience with Settlers. With that out of the way, here’s my impressions of Cities and Knights of Catan.

First, I have to describe the Bunker experience. There are about 200 board games, and 200 video games, and about 20 people to play them. Most of them have never been played by me, because the party is my only time to play. This makes it a little hard to commit to a game that lasts over 10 minutes long. No matter how good they are, I want to keep moving on to something else.

So when?six of us started crowding around the table, I got a little nervous. Then, when the tiles were laid out,?with what looked like 3 times as?many hexes as a usual Settlers game, I got really nervous.

A big game

Cities and Knights of Catan

Then, when all these cards, and upgradable buildings, and barbarian tracks and such start coming in to play, I felt like a rat in a cage.

It didn’t help that I had made a painfully witless road placement at the beginning. It also doesn’t help that I am cursed with the most amazingly bad luck (just ask anyone who has played a dice-rolling game with me.) I was a casual onlooker to my own destruction. I could get no brick. When I got brick, it was stolen from me by clever playing of those damned cards I mentioned. When I got one of those same cards, and demanded brick, no one had it to give. Then they started playing cards that let them steal my cards… right when I’d figured out how to use them!

I eventually whined myself out of the full game “I wanna play Dystopia…”, “13 Victory Points?!”, “Will this game _ever_ end?!” And so forth. Yes, poor form, I admit. (But Dystopia was sweet!)

We decided on nine victory points as the winning condition, and Necrontyr immediately scored four more to take it. Surprisingly, I was first loser with seven. Odd how that happened.

Anyway, even with all that whining… I am dying to play it again, just not in the chaos of the Bunker Party setting. It would make a great?game night game?of cutthroat devilry.

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