In a university town like Jeromeville, groups of students often lived together in rental properties as roommates, sometimes as many as eight people in one large house.  Two new such households had formed for this school year among my friend group.  Courtney Kohl, Cambria Hawley, Erica Foster, and Sasha Travis from church, along with Cambria’s friend Kirsten Mendoza, shared a four-bedroom apartment, with Cambria and Kirsten sharing the master bedroom.  The apartment, in the same complex where I lived junior year, had the address “2601 Maple Drive, apartment F-3,” but among the girls’ friends, their apartment was often just referred to as “F-3.”  I had been there a couple times, most recently one day a couple months ago because I was bored and wanted to be around friends.  I more specifically hoped that Sasha was home, because this was before she formally rejected me as a romantic interest.  Sasha and I did end up talking for about an hour that day.

The other new household was Noah Snyder, Pete Green, Mike Knepper, and another guy I knew from church named Mike Mueller, who had moved into a house on West 15th Street.  With so many Mikes among the young adults at church, Mike Knepper and Mike Mueller were usually referred to by their full names among their mutual friends. Now with the two of them living together, this became even more necessary.  I was headed to the West 15th house today.  I probably could have walked, it was only about half a mile, but I drove, since I was bringing my Settlers of Catan game, and a bag of tortilla chips, and 2-liters of Coca-Cola and Dr Pepper, and I did not want to walk that far carrying that much.

The Settlers of Catan was the original name of the game that is now just called Catan.  It was originally published in Germany a few years ago, arriving in the English-speaking world soon after.  Pete learned it last spring, taught it to his friends, and the game quickly caught on among all of us.  We stayed up late many times last summer playing Catan, and we made a number of variations to the game, like putting two games together to make a bigger game that could be played with more players.  I arrived in mid-afternoon, parking on the side of the street and walking up to the door.  I knocked, and a few seconds later, Noah answered.  “Greg!” he exclaimed.  “Come on in!  I’ll take the food to the kitchen.  Your game will be over there on the folding table.”

I followed Noah down a short hallway into a combined living-dining room.  An old piano stood against one wall of the living room.  I recognized this piano; it belonged to Pete, who played a few different instruments and was on the worship team at church.  Next to the piano was a folding card table, upon which I put my Catan game box.  Across the room, Noah’s copy of Catan was set up on a coffee table next to the couches, and Pete’s copy of Catan was on the dining room table across the room.  Apparently they expected enough people that they would need to run three games simultaneously.

About a month ago, one Sunday after church, Taylor Santiago, Pete, and Noah approached me with the idea of a Catan tournament at their house.  They were still kicking around ideas for the exact format of the tournament, but the general idea was that a bunch of us would all play a few games against different combinations of people, and we would be ranked by the number of games won and the total points scored.  The highest-ranked contestants would then play in a championship round, with the winner being crowned the Catan champion of 1998.  I said this was a wonderful idea, and I wanted in for sure.

So far, other than the four guys who lived there, Taylor had already arrived, as had Caroline Pearson, Pete’s girlfriend.  We sat around mingling and hanging out for close to an hour after I arrived, waiting for everyone to show up.  Cambria and Courtney arrived soon after I did, followed by Martin Rhodes, Brent Wang, and finally Brody Parker, each bringing a snack or drink to share.

“I didn’t know you were gonna be here today,” I said to Brody after he arrived.

“Of course.  I’m here to take all of you down!” he replied in a false cocky tone.

“We’ll see about that,” I said, chuckling.  I wondered why Brody had not mentioned earlier in the week that he was coming, or asked me for a ride.  But Brody appeared not to have been home when I left the house; it was not uncommon for him to hang out with other friends that I did not know and stay on their couches, which is where I assumed he had been last night.

 Shortly after Brody arrived, Noah announced that it was time to begin playing.  My first game was against Pete, Cambria, and Martin.  One of the distinct features of Catan compared to other games is that the board is made of interchangeable hexagon-shaped tiles, so that the arrangement of the different types of territory on the island, and the productivity of each territory, can be different every time the game is played.  This also meant that different games may require slightly different strategies.

For this game, that feature worked to my disadvantage.  The object of the game was to reach 10 points by expanding settlements in various ways.  Players can build roads, new settlements, cities, and soldiers through collecting resources from the tiles representing different types of territories.  Some tiles are more productive than others, based on probability and dice rolls.  I saw two clear spots on the board with good numbers on all three adjacent tiles, and my turn was third, so Martin and Pete took those spots before I got my turn.  I thought for a long time, then placed my first settlement touching a wood tile with number 4, a 5 wheat, and a 10 sheep.  None of these numbers was particularly unlikely to be rolled with two dice, but none was particularly likely either.  Cambria placed her first settlement touching a 6 brick, an 11 wood, and a 3 wheat, the other spot I had been considering.  We then got to place a second settlement, but in reverse order, so that the player who started last did not have a disadvantage twice in a row.  Cambria placed her second settlement exactly where I wanted to, completely dismantling my strategy for this game.  I placed my settlement next to an 11 ore, a 9 sheep, and a port, which would make it easier to trade since I had no access to brick.

Or so I thought.  By the first two turns around the board, everyone else had built something, and I had only drawn one wood card.  Including the ore and sheep that I had started with, I did not have the right cards to build anything.  As I slowly collected resources, the others acquired resources faster as their numbers were rolled more often, and built settlements close to mine, leaving me nowhere to build.  Wood and brick were important for expanding early in the game, but I had no way to produce brick, and my 4 for wood was only rolled twice the entire game.  Pete eventually won, and I finished with only four points.  Not my best start.

After all three games finished, we took a short break before starting the next round of games.  I was confused to see Mike Knepper sitting on the couch with his arm around Courtney.  She and Brody were dating last year, and I knew that they were no longer together, but no one told me until a while after it happened.  Now Courtney and Mike Knepper appeared to be back together after having dated for much of the year before last.  I was always the last one to know about things like this.  Courtney was a good friend, and she was really pretty, and I might have been interested in being more than friends had I ever had a chance, but I did not want to be the kind of guy who jumped in right away after a breakup.  Now she had someone else already, and I still did not really know an acceptable and non-awkward way to express interest in a girl.

My fortunes improved as the night continued.  My second game was against Mike Knepper, Caroline, and Noah.  We rolled to see who went first, I won, and I placed my first settlement on the obvious best spot, an 8 wheat, 9 brick, and 5 wood.  All three of these numbers were rolled more often than average.  By the time my turn came to place my second settlement, last, there was no place left where I could get both ore and sheep, but I was able to get a 4 sheep, 11 brick, and the brick port.  I had five different numbers, and I was in good shape to trade brick for what I needed.  The first new settlement I built after the game began touched an ore tile, so now I could produce the one resource I did not start with.  Due to a much-needed stroke of luck, my numbers for brick, 9 and 11, got rolled more often than usual.  I won the game fairly easily, with Noah coming in second, having eight points when I reached the winning total of ten.

During the second game, someone had four pizzas delivered to the house.  I put three slices of pizza on my plate, poured a glass of Coca-Cola, and sat on the dining room table, within reach of a bag of tortilla chips, which I also ate in between bites of pizza.  Courtney and Cambria came and sat next to me a minute later.  “How’s it going?” I asked.

“Spmeone kidnapped Super Cookie!” Courtney exclaimed.  “He’s been gone for a week!”

“What?” I asked.  “Like someone is pulling a prank on you?”

“Yeah.  We need to find out who it is and pull a prank on them.”

“Prank wars are fun.  I remember when I lived with Brian Burr two years ago, and he had an ongoing prank war with Lorraine Mathews.  He finally admitted it was him, but no one knew I was assisting with Brian’s pranks.  I promise you, I don’t know anything about Super Cookie.”

“We think we know who it is,” Cambria mouthed to me almost inaudibly, making sure no one else heard.

A few years ago, at Christmas, the entire country went crazy over Tickle Me Elmo, a toy stuffed animal of Elmo from the children’s television show Sesame Street that vibrated and laughed when someone tickled it.  Since then, the company began releasing similar toys based on other characters from Sesame Street.  The girls from F-3 had a Tickle Me Cookie Monster toy; they dressed him in a red cape in the style of Superman and suspended from their ceiling by a string as if flying. At least he had been suspended from the ceiling until he got kidnapped.  I wanted to know who did this.  I liked being in the loop.

When it came time for the third game to begin, Noah announced that I would be playing against Cambria, Taylor, and himself.  “Is that right?” I asked.  “I’ve already played against you and Cambria, and there are people I haven’t played against.

“We found that the best way to balance the schedules for everyone was that there would be five people you play against once, two you play twice, and four that you don’t play at all,” Noah explained.  “Unless you meet in the finals.  We tried to work this out many times.”

“I see,” I replied.  I was curious about the mathematics behind this scheduling, although I suspected that they had determined this through trial and error.

The game started similarly to the previous one; I had a fairly good position.  I rolled 7 on my first turn; when rolling 7, no one produces resources, and the player who rolled gets to move the robber, making one tile on the board unproductive and stealing a card from someone on that tile.  There was a sheep tile with number 5 on which everyone but me had a settlement; I put the robber there, to hurt everyone equally, and stole a card from Noah, because he currently looked like the greatest threat.  Noah rolled 7 a few turns later, moving the robber to a 9 sheep only settled by Taylor.  On the next three turns in a row, everyone rolled 9.

“This is messed up!” Taylor said.  “I could have had all that sheep!”

“I guess you’re having baa-aa-aad luck,” I said, chuckling as I drew out the word “bad” to sound like a sheep noise.  The others rolled their eyes at my corny joke.  I did not tell them that I could not take credit for this; I had taught this game to Josh and Abby McGraw, who also knew most of the people here but were not able to come to the tournament tonight, and Josh was the first one I had heard make sheep puns while playing Catan.

As the game went on, no more 7s were rolled, and Taylor grew increasingly frustrated, unable to move the robber and unable to get sheep.  He could have used a soldier to move the robber, but placing a soldier requires building a development card, which in turn requires sheep.  Taylor finally collected enough other resources to find someone willing to trade sheep with him, but the development card he drew was not a soldier.  By the time he was able to get another card, which was a soldier, he had fallen far behind; Noah and I both had eight points, and Cambria had six.  I went on to win narrowly, building cities on two turns in a row.

“I had the cards to win on my next turn if you hadn’t done that,” Noah told me afterward.  “Good game.”

“Yes,” I replied.  “Good game.”

“It would have been better if someone had rolled a 7!” Taylor shouted.

About five minutes later, after Noah tallied up the points, he announced, “For the championship game, we’ll be doing something a little different.  We put two boards together, and you will each start with three settlements.  The winner will be the first to fifteen points.  You will also have seven settlements, six cities, and twenty-five roads available.  Your turn order will be determined by the rankings.”  Noah pointed to a white board where he had listed everyone’s number of wins and total points.  Pete, Courtney, and I had each won two games, but I had the fewest total points because of my terrible performance in the game I lost, so I would be going third.  Noah had the highest point total of everyone who had won one game, so he would be going fourth.  Martin and Brody each decided to leave early, since they did not qualify for the championship, but the others all stayed to watch.

I looked over the larger game board, thinking about how the modified rules might change my strategy.  With three settlements instead of two, it would be easier for everyone to begin with access to all five resources.  With the game going longer, a winning strategy required the ability to continue expanding the network of settlements for a longer period of time, which would be possible since we had more pieces to work with than normal.  I would have to pay attention to what others were doing.  I would also have to be selective with my trades, only trading when it explicitly benefited me, and trying to get as many cards as possible, or the most beneficial cards to my game, out of people proposing trades with me.  I had noticed some of the others doing this during my other games, and it made me think about how I tended to be too loose with trades, trading with people when it might benefit them more than myself.

The game progressed fairly evenly, with no one building a huge insurmountable lead or falling far behind.  With such evenly matched players, and a higher point total to win, the game also dragged on; after an hour, Pete and Noah each had nine points, and Courtney and I each had eight.  It was already almost eleven o’clock; this could be a long night.  I had good numbers for wood, and the wood port.  Wood was necessary for expanding geographically early in the game, but not useful for growing existing settlements into cities or buying development cards.  My wood was getting rolled often enough that I could use the wood port to trade for some of what I needed without having to give cards to other players in trades.

Another half hour passed.  The game slowly progressed toward its conclusion.  I had upgraded a settlement to a city on my last turn, giving me thirteen points, tying me for second place with Noah.  Pete had thirteen with an unused development card that he had had since early in the game, so the card was probably one of the buildings that would give him a fourteenth point.  Courtney was close behind with twelve.  With that city, I now got three wood cards every time a 10 was rolled, and I rolled 10 on my next turn.  I did not use any of my wood, though; instead I spent a wheat, a sheep, and an ore to buy a development card.  I was hoping for a soldier, since the robber was blocking one of my other tiles, but instead I got a Monopoly card.  This allowed me to name one resource, and every player had to give me all of their cards of that resource.  This could be very powerful, but it also required me to pay close attention, to know what was being rolled and what resources everyone else was getting.  I nodded and passed the dice to Noah.

Before my next turn, all three players rolled numbers that produced wood for someone.  I paid close attention to which cards were spent, and there were definitely still wood cards in people’s hands.  By my turn, neither Pete nor Noah had not gotten any more points, but Courtney had built a new city, so we were all tied with thirteen, with Pete likely and Noah possibly having another point in a face down development card. On my turn, I rolled 8, the same that Courtney had rolled before me; Pete, Courtney, and I each got two wood cards on an 8, since we each had cities on that tile.  I now had seven wood cards in my hand, and I was having a hard time keeping a poker face.  I looked carefully at the board again.  Courtney held the Longest Road card, with a road twelve spaces long.  My longest road from end to end was only nine spaces long, and I did not have much room to expand, but one of my settlements was next to a desert tile on the beach.  No one had placed anything there, since the desert produces no resources and it was not on the way to anything, but I did not need resources or a path to anything.  I only needed those last two points, and I was pretty sure there were at least five wood cards in the other players’ hands. I turned my Monopoly card face up and called, “Monopoly on wood.”

“Awww!” Noah exclaimed.  “I was gonna use that!”  The other contestants piled their wood cards, a total of seven, in front of me.  I put the seven wood cards in the bank, along with one more from my hand, and took four bricks, using my wood port to trade.  I then added four more wood cards from my hand, making enough cards to build four roads, which I placed in a loop around the desert from my settlement closest to it.  My road was now thirteen spaces long, the longest in the game, so I took the Longest Road card from Courtney.  “Game!” I exclaimed, pumping my fist in the air.  “That’s fifteen!”

“Good game, man,” Noah said.  “I was gonna take Longest Road on my next turn.”

“I was trying to, but I never got brick,” Pete explained.

“Why are you all picking on my longest road?” Courtney asked.

“Nothing personal,” I said.  “Just a lot of wood was rolled, and I had the wood port to trade for brick.”

“I know,” Courtney replied, laughing.  “Good game.”

“Thanks.”

Taylor, who was not participating in the final round but had been watching closely, pulled a small silver-colored cup-style trophy, about six inches tall, from a tote bag that he brought.  “Congratulations,” he said, shaking my hand and presenting me with the trophy.  “You are the 1998 Settlers of Catan champion.”

“Thank you!” I said.  I was not expecting a trophy.  “Did you have this specially made for today?”

“No,” he said, chuckling a little.  “I got it from a thrift store.”

“Well, it’s perfect.  Thank you.”

“You’ll have to bring it to next year’s tournament.  See if you can defend your title.”

“I will.”

A few minutes later, as Courtney and Cambria were headed for the front door, I heard a strange shaking vibration.  Noah was standing next to Pete’s piano, smiling slyly, as a tinny recorded voice from the piano said, “Hahaha!  Oh boy oh boy!”  Cambria ran back toward the living room, looking around suspiciously, before turning back to the front door.

I tried to process what I heard.  That voice was Super Cookie; I had heard him get tickled before.  Apparently someone from the West 15th house kidnapped Super Cookie and hid him in the piano.  Noah, or whoever had just now set off Super Cookie, was teasing the girls from F-3.  And no one had let me in on any of this.

I had mixed feelings as I lay in bed that night.  I was on a bit of a winning streak this year, in the context of competitions with my friends.  In May, I came in second at the Man of Steel competition, and now I won the Catan tournament.  I kept that trophy for three years, because we did not have another Catan tournament until 2001.  By then, Pete and Caroline were married, and they hosted the tournament at their house in Irving, ninety miles from Jeromeville.  Most of us, including myself, had moved away from Jeromeville by then.  Noah dominated all three of his games so dramatically that year that we never got around to playing the championship round and just gave him the trophy.

But I also felt frustrated at being out of the loop.  It had become obvious to me over the last couple months that Noah and Cambria were a couple, and now it appeared that Mike Knepper and Courtney were a couple, again, and a fun prank war was going on involving their houses.  I had already failed romantically with one of the F-3 roommates, I was left out of their prank war, and nothing fun was happening with my own household.  I always felt on the periphery of my social circles.  However, at least I now had that trophy on my shelf to remind me that I could still beat my friends at Catan.

Tell me about a memorable time you won a game against your friends in the comments.

Full disclosure: I don’t remember for sure who lived at the West 15th House that year, I don’t remember who participated in the tournament, and I don’t even remember for sure if it was 1998 or 1999. But I do remember Super Cookie in the piano. And this is my fictional universe, so I can tell the story how I want.

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