Monday, September 11, 2006
The Great River of Catan
Last night, after much debate about what to play, Jacquie, Logan and I decided to give the new Great River of Catan expansion a try. I just bought this a few days ago, so this is actually kind of odd that it's hitting the table so soon. ;)
We took out the desert, a mountain and a hill, and then shuffled up the deck of land tiles and created a random setup (a setup that put all three mountains on 2, 3 and 4 rolls :(). As I set up the water, I suddenly realized the slight production fault with the Great River tile piece. It's slightly smaller than the standard Mayfair pieces. While it was a little annoying, it wasn't that big of a deal. It just meant everything didn't quite fit together perfectly.
We started off playing. I positioned a settlement not far from the Great River mountain hex. Jacquie positioned a settlement closer to the swamp. Logan was the only person to actually position a settlement where he could gain a couple of gold points (GPs) immediately. While I at first thought this would give him an advantage, I was proven wrong later in the game. Simply put, he came in last. ;)
With the Great River expansion, the needed victory points (VPs) to win is increased from ten to twelve. This made sense at first because of the extra ways to gain VPs, but as we started to come close to the endgame, VP progression slowed down considerably. While part of this obviously had to do with the rarity of ore, the number of VPs gained by building roads and settlements on the river hexes didn't seem to speed the game up at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I spent at least three or four turns sitting at ten VPs before I was able to get an eleventh. My twelfth took a few more turns to get.
By the time it was finished, we were all just happy the game was over. While the Great River of Catan expansion has some good ideas, it just didn't work for us. I should probably note I haven't been impressed with Catan expansions to date (I've played the 5-6 Player Expansion, Cities & Knights of Catan and Fisherman of Catan).
The final VP tally was:
Chris - 12
Jacquie - 10
Logan - 9
It was a fairly close game. Logan has the least experience with Settlers of Catan of the three of us, so perhaps if he had had more plays under his belt, he would've been able to better make use of his river settlement. But perhaps not.
I don't think we're going to bust out Great River of Catan again any time soon. While Settlers of Catan is far from my favourite game, I think I much prefer it without expansions. :)
We took out the desert, a mountain and a hill, and then shuffled up the deck of land tiles and created a random setup (a setup that put all three mountains on 2, 3 and 4 rolls :(). As I set up the water, I suddenly realized the slight production fault with the Great River tile piece. It's slightly smaller than the standard Mayfair pieces. While it was a little annoying, it wasn't that big of a deal. It just meant everything didn't quite fit together perfectly.
We started off playing. I positioned a settlement not far from the Great River mountain hex. Jacquie positioned a settlement closer to the swamp. Logan was the only person to actually position a settlement where he could gain a couple of gold points (GPs) immediately. While I at first thought this would give him an advantage, I was proven wrong later in the game. Simply put, he came in last. ;)
With the Great River expansion, the needed victory points (VPs) to win is increased from ten to twelve. This made sense at first because of the extra ways to gain VPs, but as we started to come close to the endgame, VP progression slowed down considerably. While part of this obviously had to do with the rarity of ore, the number of VPs gained by building roads and settlements on the river hexes didn't seem to speed the game up at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I spent at least three or four turns sitting at ten VPs before I was able to get an eleventh. My twelfth took a few more turns to get.
By the time it was finished, we were all just happy the game was over. While the Great River of Catan expansion has some good ideas, it just didn't work for us. I should probably note I haven't been impressed with Catan expansions to date (I've played the 5-6 Player Expansion, Cities & Knights of Catan and Fisherman of Catan).
The final VP tally was:
Chris - 12
Jacquie - 10
Logan - 9
It was a fairly close game. Logan has the least experience with Settlers of Catan of the three of us, so perhaps if he had had more plays under his belt, he would've been able to better make use of his river settlement. But perhaps not.
I don't think we're going to bust out Great River of Catan again any time soon. While Settlers of Catan is far from my favourite game, I think I much prefer it without expansions. :)
// posted by Chris @ 10:33 AM 
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