Despite me trying to block her out of the coal resource patches by taking 2 with my 1st Scout card, Van happened to draw both wheat resource patches on her next settlement build, effectively shutting me out of wheat as well.
Over the course of the game, Van also gained an obscene amount of free resources from holding the windmill and knight tokens for large parts of the game. She also had a Pirate fleet which gave her a free gold each time Year of Plenty was rolled and 2 Land Reform cards which was worth 6 additional resources. With the abundance of resources, she upgraded 3 of her settlements to cities and built a number of VP buildings to put her over the edge. This was despite me managing to wrestle over the windmill token towards the end of the game.
Another reason why I fell behind was that the Science & Progress expansion deck which we played required a Abbey/Library and a University to benefit from most of the expansion cards. Van built an Abbey early and subsequently the University which also gave her nice gains from Progress Event cards, which rewarded the player with those buildings with additional resources. I on the other hand in my bid to be first to 5 settlements, put off searching for a Abbey which left me unable to take advantage of many of the expansion cards. In particular, Van built a Cannon which cost only 2 resources but supplying 6 strength points, effectively giving her the knight token for good. While I also obtained the same Cannon card, my lack of an Abbey/Library and an University left me incapable of building the Cannon to attempt regaining the knight token.
Looks like the Expanded game has been generally brutal with me, with me taking only a single win in our 6 games so far. Hopefully, the tables will be turned when we move into the Tournament game. Only one more expansion deck to go: next up, Wizards & Dragons!
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