Another Catan situation. A game this morning was hilariously entertatining.

Here was the board. I was red, third to act, three-player game.


So, yeah. Sheep shortage, and the best grain spots were in ridiculous proximity to the grain port (allowing for a coveted 8/10 on one resource with a 2:1 on that resource), and a similar situation with rock. There was potential to be the baron of either, but which? Well, I almost chortled coke through my nose when the board wound up coming out as follows for me:


Wow. Both players were poorly rated (in the 1400's) but this was just ridiculous. So rather than try to be the baron of one I decided to be the baron of both!


I placed the rock second so as to get the three rock in my opening hand, and upgrade the grain port settlement to a city as soon as possible. The final spots made the board look as follows:


From there it was cake. For those that say that Catan is all luck, and all determined by the dice, I'd point out for the record that this game, the dice screwed me as hard as they could, and I still scored an easy 10/6/5 victory. We rolled an incredibly disproportionate number of 5's and 4's, the two decent numbers I didn't have camped, and I didn't get any help in the card department either, although the three straight point cards that I wound up getting made my victory a little bit quicker. But I was blocked for a substantial portion of the game, too.

First priority was getting a city up (didn't happen til round 3), then trading for a road and getting a settlement on the rock port. All three became cities very quickly, and with the three point cards that I bought (looking for a soldier to get the damn robber off of me - which never happened), I eventually BS'd a final settlement to get me 10 points. Ridiculously easy victory. I wonder if these players would have done what I did in that situation. Probably not, but giving yourself only 2 resources at the start really does take some cajones, even if you have one port and easy access to a second, with perfect city-building resources. This game was over before the first die was rolled.