Last weekend I played in the 2nd KwaZulu-Natal Settlers of Catan tournament. I'm the sort of person who can take my gaming quite seriously having played competitive chess, bridge, poker, Scrabble and Magic: The Gathering at various times during my life, but this was my first time playing competitive Settlers of Catan.
I did do some basic preparation in terms of looking at some strategy from BoardGameGeek and a couple of games of the Xbox version, Catan, playing against some pretty decent AI opponents. However, when I got to the tournament, I felt as if I was surrounded by players with much more Settlers experience than me.
Preliminary rounds
The tournament consisted of 3 preliminary rounds with each round randomly matching up the 16 players over 4 tables, followed by two semi-final table for the top 8 and then a final table. Although 80 minutes for a game of Settlers sounds like plenty, we actually timed out on my first game with three of us stuck at 8 victory points (of 10). The next two rounds were good for me as I was gifted excellent starting positions in both - including two 12-spots in round 2 - and managed to win both, though round 3 was quite tense with luck initially favouring me then deserting me towards the end. In the end I scraped a win in that game and with 28 points out of a possible 30, I qualified as the top seed from the preliminary rounds.
With only the stronger players remaining, I wasn't going to get so lucky with the setup in the final. As second in the turn order, I took a gamble that I'd be able to pick up a valuable brick harbour positioned on two brick hexes, but it was taken before I could place my second settlement. My two settlements left me with plenty of sheep and brick but without a source of wood and no prospect of building quickly to a harbour. As the game developed, with qualification for the final looming over us, trading devolved into a 2v2 kind of game and the other 2 raced ahead. In the end I finished comfortably third on the table but didn't make it to the final.
My friend, Paul, finished second in the final (playing White in the setup below, losing out to Blue).
Finals post-setup
Settlers is a decent social boardgame and I did get to meet a lot of new people. But with weaker players unbalancing the game for stronger players, king-making and lots of luck, it's a frustrating competitive game. Despite that I'm sure I'll play in the next tournament - the opprtunity to share the boardgaming hobby with like-minded locals is too good to pass up.
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