Unexpected victory

allegramente: We should let boggyb win, it's been a while since he's managed to win at Settlers.

...several hours of Settlers + Seafarers + Cities & Knights later...

The GNU: *blocks me from completing a shipping route towards an island*
boggyb: *moves a ship*
boggyb: *moves a second ship using the Diplomat card*
boggyb: *places a settlement with two bonus points on a different island for the win*
boggyb: *places two more settlements because I can*

I was up in Horsham with the family at the weekend (the parents had a rack of lamb in the freezer bought for Christmas that needed eating, and elemnar and I were invited to help them with it) and we ended up playing Settlers of Catan combined with the Seafarers and Cities & Knights expansions. Normally what happens at such games is elemnar unexpectedly wins without realising, but not this time. We used the Through the Desert scenario with a random map that gave some very weird resource balance. I spent a lot of the game trailing, but in the endgame I managed to accumulate a pair of Roadbuilding cards which let me suddenly head out from one coastal settlement (on a hard-earned 2-for-1 wheat port) towards the far side of the desert (the direct route was blocked so I took the long way round). Then in the final turn I accumulated a ridiculous amount of wheat resource, which thanks to the 2-for-1 port and a couple of bonus cards let me turn that into three settlements.

It was a very close-run thing and I was honestly expecting The GNU to win it - I'd had to block him with an earlier settlement placement to prevent him getting to one foreign island. And normally my strategy of using a port for resources doesn't pay off, but this map helped by letting me claim a lot of high-probability wheat supply. So, unexpected victory with two more points than needed!