Games In A Pub - 24th June 2011

Islands of Settlers and Frogs!

At the request of Simon, the games under consideration included, Settlers of Catan, Tobago, Forbidden Island and Pirate's Cove i.e. games that conjure up images of sunnier climes; a reaction I am sure to the unpleasant stormy weather of the last couple of weeks – so much for the summer solstice! When the group was gathered the decision was Settlers of Catan.

Stéphane had not played this before, Simon and Oliver had but on the unfortunate evening when it had bombed – a review of that evening can be read here. As I started explaining the rules Oliver, presented with a choice of white or blue was jokingly heard to claim that he did not have enough information to make a considered decision!

As the game developed Simon (orange) and Oliver (white) felt they were always in the second league with the dice favouring Stéphane (blue) and myself (red). This situation allowed me to grab the Longest Road (+2 victory points) a couple of times whilst Stéphane took the militaristic option with the Largest Army (+2 victory points). My efforts though seemed to get more attention than Stéphane and so the robber was almost a permanent resident in my territories, in particular on the brick producing hills.

The attention I was receiving was possibly not helped when I got the Monopoly card and traded away my corn only to then grab it back, and to the insult of the other players trade 4 of them (had I held on to them then I would have been at even greater risk from the robber as I would have had more than 7 cards) for a sheep (the least valuable resource on the island)! This just heightened their efforts to impede my progress leading them to rob me even when I had only 1 or 2 cards when others clearly had more trade cards and where not badly placed in game terms. 

In the end Stéphane prevailed over all of us, grabbing the longest road as well as the largest army. Whilst it had been a enjoyable game for Stéphane and myself the frustrations felt by Oliver and Simon with the poor luck on the dice meant that their parting comment on the game was they could see why it was so popular, with lots of player interaction, however they had felt that it had been less impressive than they had expected.

With half an hour to go I pulled out Army of Frogs, a game where players seek to be the first to create an island of 7 (of the 10 available) frogs of their colour. In my view this is an excellent game that I should try and play more often, simple to explain, tactile and an ideal game for holidays and any situation where a game may suffer the negative effects of liquid. Again I managed to build an early lead and was the first player to have 7 of his frogs on the table and the first to get 6 into one connected group. However once again this attracted the completely unwarranted attention of the rest of the players who pinned my single unconnected frog and refused to bring any more of my colour into the game – boo hiss. 

In the mean time Oliver was struggling with a shortage of green frogs whilst Stéphane and Simon who now also had 7 frogs out were jockeying for position. In the end Stéphane moved one of his frogs in order to win in his next turn unwittingly creating the opening Simon had been looking for and it was Simon who managed to connect his 7th frog – thereby winning the game.

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More photo's of the evening can be seen here (sorry about the quality of the photo's I was having problems with the flash).

Our next event at the Blue Anchor, Crowborough is in two weeks time on Sunday 8th July starting at 7.00pm - £1 per head. More details can be seen on our Facebook Page Social Gamers - Crowborough