Goodbye and Hello!
Thank you for reading Catanaday… but has come to an end. As much as I love playing Catan, I enjoy playing other games too! I now have publishers sending me their games to review and i’m on the staff for BGI, so onto other new things. If you enjoyed Catanaday, then you’ll love my new BOP! www.boardofplaying.com – thanks again, and hope to see you on BOP!
Day 53 – 4/1/2011 – “!!!!”
Make sure you read my previous post “The President and MegaCon” before you read anymore. Seriously, its imperative.
Now then, I have something to say…
The President emailed me back!!! We are playing Catan on Sunday!!!!
Day 52 – 3/30/2011 “The President and MegaCon”
So I emailed President Obama yesterday.
I’m currently in Maryland and will be in DC over the weekend. I’m going to attend the Cherry Blossom Festival and relish in some cherry inspired foods. I haven’t been to DC since I was a little girl so of course i’m going to to also wander around at some of the museums, memorials, and monuments. Then I thought, why not email Mr. President Obama and see if he wants to have a family game night?
Unfortunately, I have not heard back yet. But my hopes are high.
In other news, I attended MegaCon over this past weekend. i was quite excited because they had a miniature painting class and I really want to paint my “Mansions of Madness” and “Battlestar Galactica” pieces. Moreover, play games in the board game room. After about 40 minutes of walking around the convention room I only found a few things of interest including a LEGO replica of LOST, the Ghostbuster team (no, not the real one), and a remote controlled R2D2. I was now ready to play some board games! On the way to the board game room, I did startle the witch from Left 4 Dead.
After taking her out, it was off to play some games! I walked into the room where the board games were supposed to be and it was…. empty. No people. No board games. Nada. I could not believe it! Next door was the card game room and it was PACKED with Magic players, but the board game room was emptier than a Scottish pay toilet! Apparently, MegaCon decided there wasn’t enough of a draw from board gamers so they just canceled it.
So I painted a miniature (quite well I might add), completed a lil’ combat mission, stopped by Friendly’s for a little comfort food, and danced away my board game blues for the remainder of the evening.
Day 51 3/22/2010 – “Meggie”
This blog is dedicated to my little sister (well, not to little anymore), Meggie. I first acquired my Catan addiction 2 years ago and gave it to my mom not too long afterward. My sister, Meggie, tried one game and concluded she didn’t like playing Catan with us. Which was unfortunate because when we went to visit my mom, we now were reduced to 3 player games. (Me, mom and my husband). Meggie claimed we were brutal when we played and that we argued entirely too much. Or in my mothers case, did things like threatened to put the robber on her enemy for the entire game and all future games. Meggie, being the stress-free kind, just couldn’t handle it.
Here and there my mom would bribe Meggie into playing with us, promising to give her a back scratch, or make rice crispy treats for her. Pretty much playing on my little sisters weaknesses in life. Meggie continued to loathe the game but caved for a rice crispy here and there. When playing, Meggie mainly set short term goals, like connecting her two settlements, or attempting to become some kind of Shepard with the most furry sheep production. She never really thought ahead and didn’t even have any method to picking her spots, basically she just didn’t take it too seriously. Really the only pleasure she normally got from Catan was if she acquired longest road. Even if the game ended with her having only 5 points. As long as she had the longest road, she left the game satisfied.
Two years went by of the same routine. And then one day, not too long ago, she asked “can we play Catan?”
I literally think we all heard angels singing that day. So of course we played, but feeling a little weirded out… and suddenly, Meggie was good, like, real good.
Now, usually when we introduce Catan to family and friends, the addiction settles in at half-time during the first game. Although, this happened much later with my sister, it’s okay, because I know we are now addicted together. I can say this with such certainty because she posted on Facebook the other day a link to an article advertising “7 ads if the Settlers of Catant were real.” Which means she was probably googling Catan, and if you spend your free time googling Catan, I know your addicted.
Day 50 – 3/12/2011 “Payback”
This is going to be a long blog. I have much to talk about.
First lets start you off with a little Catan humor, this is totally a conversation me and my mom would have, I can very much relate. (posted on The Settlers of Catan Facebook page)
I love my iPhone, but auto-correct can be a beeyatch.
Now on to more serious matters, like how I finished watching Battlestar Galactica. After an hour or so of contemplation, I decided that I liked the ending. *spoiler alert* I also understood why I liked my two favorite characters, Helo & Starbuck, so much. In a perfect Battlestar Galactica world, Helo could potentially be may great, great… (great x 150,00 years worth of generations)…, great grandpa! Unless of course I resulted from a Caprica/Gaius Baltar mix which would be absolutely devastating to me, I like Caprica just fine, but up until the last episode, I still totally loathed Baltar. And then Starbuck turned out to be like a freggin’ Angel, how awesome is that!?! Although as happy of an ending it turned out to be with the whole finding Earth & starting new beginnings etc., let’s all agree we will never build robotic type people and make them our slaves, k? So say we all???
Speaking of Battlestar Galactica, an epic season finale wouldn’t be the same without an epic game as well. I’ve already blogged about the board game itself in an earlier blog. This is just a fun little story of revenge. The other day at my local game store we had our weekly board game meetup and we played 5 player Battlestar. I was having some concerns the whole game because I started off as a cylon. I happened to be President Rosalin this game, so it kinda worked out perfect that i couldn’t “help” all that much with only two colors. So I grabbed up a whole bunch of quorum cards. No one suspected me! By the half way point we all got our second cards so I knew I had a helper out there somewhere. The only problem was it really seemed like I had two helpers? My husband was brigged and so was another suspected cylon… but, which one was the real cylon?? Within my turn my husband revealed himself as a cylon, I thought “Yay!” we can destroy the humans together!! Everyone, except me of course, thought the other player that had been sent to the brig was the other cylon. He kept claiming he wasn’t, which of course made total sense because I was the other cylon.
Okay. So, A card came up that had two choices on it, “get sent to the brig or give up my presidency or we could choose to loose cards” The current player, who was also admiral, wanted ultimate power. So he said either I give up my presidency or i’m going to the brig. This made me annoyed because he thought I was human, so he was just being a power hungry oaf! I refused so i was sent to the brig. Unfortunately, my husband thought I was human so he was playing cards to keep me brigged. Then my current brig buddy who had been brigged for awhile on suspicions of being cylon, suddely revealved himself as cylon!!!! Which meant the deck had be set up wrong. There were only supposed to be two cylons in the game. But, tt was almost the end of the game and I had been waiting for TWO hours to reveal myself… so… I didn’t say anything. All I wanted to do, was get out of the brig, and send the admiral to the brig as payback.
Of course, I got out of the brig my very next turn. Then guess who executive ordered me to play some quorum cards and save the fleet?? the admiral. The same admiral who had just sent me to the brig a few turns earlier… so what did I do? Used my quorum cards on behalf of his executive order… and sent him to the brig! Revenge was mine!
Then of course, he grabbed my loyalty cards, flipped them over and saw I was cylon too, a third cylon! to which he responded… THREE CYLONS!!!! who set up this deck?!?!?!?! this is ridiculous!!!
hehe. I didn’t really care. i just wanted to send him to the brig.
just like iPhone’s auto correct is Beeyatch, so is payback.
Day 49 – 3/2/2011 “YouTubed about Catan”
Like many of you can relate to, sometimes one spends hours wandering aimlessly on the Web. When I woke up from this trance, I found myself on YouTube… only to find the absolute best, and worst, videos dedicated to the Settlers of Catan.
My FAVORITE was a very thought out, well written, and exceptionally performed, theme song.
I’ve taken the liberty to write down all the lyrics if you feel compelled to sing along.
Also in the top rankings was a movie preview put together back in 2008. I enjoyed it so much, I was sad to find the full feature was never made and released…
A trailer probably put on by a nerdy husband and wife, something me and my husband would have totally done. Salute!!
This will make you smile if you are one of those children at heart who builds little concoctions out of their wooden pieces during Catan games (I do)
A very creative still photo tribute to Settlers. Also shows the “shame on you Klaus” Catan version from the first video on this blog, for those of you that were wondering…
A project done by Asian triplets??? Hehe, actually by Dong, who from the comments was a graduate student at the time, i thought it was cute.
Anything that makes fun of Hitler is hilarious, so this is definitely a must see! (I think it was an excerpt from “Inglorious Bastards” if my memory stands correct). The fellow that made the video had two parts in it which composed of a toot and a lame line, so I took those out for optimal viewing pleasure.
AND LASTLY…. THE WORST CATAN VIDEO ON YOUTUBE… It was so horrible in fact, I don’t think I even finished watching it.
Day 48 – 2/27/2011
Dear CatanADay Diary,
My Catan playing is going pretty well…not today though. I played two games online, lost the first but won the second by the skin of my teeth…what does that mean anyway? I don’t know where some of these expressions come from…
okay, I just googled it, i’m not blogging about it and i’m definitely not using it anymore. So, allow me to rephrase, the second game I won by the very smallest margin! It was quite exciting and i enjoyed the win thoroughly.
I’ve been watching a lot of Catan videos on youtube lately… some people are very creative… others, not so much. Tomorrow I think I may choose my favorites and share them with you.
Love,
Kel/KingKel COW online handle.
Day 47 – 2/17/2011 “My Second Love Revealed”
My now second favorite game on the planet…
Really, you should have guessed it. Just like Catan, I love everything about this game. I’ve now played it through 3 times. Each time, I was human. each time, I was battling with every effort of my being. And each time, the human race was obliterated.
If you haven’t seen the series (btw i’m halfway through the last season…) the game is very much based on the show. After 40 years of an armistice between cylons and humans, they cylons return bringing humanity to the brink of extinction. You are trying to lead whats left of the human race to safety. Battlestar Galactica is an stimulating game of excitement, mistrust, and the struggle for survival. Fantasy Flight Games put together an awesome and quite exciting trailer on the game, check it out.
So the trailer pretty much gives a fantastic depiction of the game… minus the the sound effects, and lighting effects, and of course you have to move your character, it doesn’t magically slide across the board, oh and there is not deep voiced man narrating the entire game for you, although that’d be a nice addition, I think. This game is sooo much fun even if you are not a BSG fan. 5 stars!
Now back to my first love.
The game started off well, it was really a battle between white and myself. I was feeling pretty comfortable until she built to the wheat port and was getting quite a lot of ore and now wheat to trade. It was getting close to the end and white had 8 points, 2 of which were largest army. I had 6 points, one was a Victory point. I needed to do something quick. I only had two knights played and thought about trying to steal longest road. I also had a monopoly I was stashing up for a good steal. Then a whole lotta ore got rolled for blue and white but they had nothing to play it with. By the time it got to me they were over in their hand limits and it was all ore!!!! I monopolized it all!!
Unfortunately I was so darn excited I forgot to take a capture before I started spending. But I had 17 ore and 6 wheat!!! I’ve never seen something so beautiful in a Catan game before. Not to mention the rest of my hand was pretty freggin awesome too. I built two cities first, now I was at 8 points. I could have built one more city for the 9th but instead I traded in the rest of my ore and got two D cards. One of which was a Victory point and the other a knight. So I now had the 9th point AND a knight AND lots of lumber and brick. I was one road short of taking longest road which at this point I realized CRAP! I got sooo excited didn’t think of trading my ore for a brick instead. I could have won right there. UGH! Lesson learned, don’t be too hasty. I blame it on my 10 days of affairs. So all I could do now was build a road. I traded my lumber for a wheat (as to not get robbed). and now I had to hope for a 6 and white wouldn’t win next turn.
She didn’t get the cards to win her next turn. And by my next turn I had plenty to spend for my 10th point settlement and did so with a sigh of relief! I will never be too overly eager again.
To end on a light note, I told my husband that I am going to paint all the raiders and vipers in our BSG game and I found this on BGG I thought was chuckle-worthy:
Day 46 – 2/14/2011 “A Board Game Affair”
It is Valentines Day and it also has been 10 days since i’ve played Catan… 10 days. In the celebration of love and board games, I have a confession….
I have been cheating on Catan.
Seven times. All of them have been different games. There was one affair in particular that tickled my fancy but i’ll talk about it later. I played two games of Catan this morning and its surprising how spending 10 days away from something can really throw you off… I mean look what I did in game 1:
I was thinking, “yea, 8 brick, and 6 sheep!” I didn’t even realize I played on 2 fours and 2 3′s, what was I thinking???
The game progressed, and although I tied for second place in the end, I of course did not win.
Blue won with longest road and 3 stashed away Victory points. Feeling fully unsatisfied I played a second game.
Stay tuned to see which board game stole my affection from Catan and has also stolen spot 2 on my list of favorite games, still under Catan of course.
