The Core Worlds

OxCon 2009 — Part 3 — Sunday

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Sunday was the Settlers of Catan tournament. In 2007 I came 12th, last year I came 8th. I was hoping for a better result this time around.

First though, I managed to squeeze in a quick game of Galaxy Trucker before we were due to start. It’s a game I’ve played before, but not for a while – I’m going to have to make Jim dig his copy out next time we have a gathering of some description.

Settlers came and I didn’t do very well in the first game. It didn’t help that I got cut off from a build site I had built to (every painstakingly gathering up the resources) the turn before I had the chance to play the cards to build my second (not counting starting placement) settlement.

Photograph of Settlers of Catan

The most memorable game of the day saw me use a no more than one brick or wood as building material (I used lots of other resources though). When I did have brick and wood, it usually got traded away. I ended that game with three cities and sixteen development cards (one of which was Road Building, which is how I got the settlement without spending wood and brick on roads). That was one of the wins I’d managed to get.

I had a lot of close, tense games during the day, some of which didn’t end in time. I gather the day saw more time outs then any other OxCon. I don’t know why though.

Still, a game that times out gives you more tournament points then a loss, so it worked out relatively well for me.

I was also lucky enough not to be playing Markus (who has managed to win every year I’ve been and a number before that) or Declan (who had a pretty poor day).

So, I think it might have been more down to luck then skill that I managed to pull into third position (also known as second place discounting Markus).

I’ve got a lot to live up to next year though.