Not OP, but I share their sentiment so I’ll add in:

Regular Catan is an incredibly elegant game, but let’s not kid ourselves- the big flaw is that if you get absolutely screwed with your initial placements (or if you get boxed in and can’t expand), there is very little chance you can win the game. What sucks is that feeling of knowing you can’t win the game yet also knowing you still have to sit through another 2 hours for the inevitable.

Cites and Knights keeps most of the elegance and refinement of the base game, but adds in a few different ways in which to earn victory points. But, crucially, it also adds in a few different gameplay mechanics which mean that (victory points aside) even people who it seems have no chance of winning can have things to build towards and look forward to. I.e. not only is there more ways to win, but for the royally fucked people, it’s a much more interesting and fun time.

You were looking for anecdotes?

The first Cities and Knights game I won, I had genuinely gave up hope within the first half hour. I thought “there’s no chance”. But I was amazed at all the different ways I could amass points by the end of the game. For example, I had longest road, I used my progress cards to compensate for the locations my settlements were in, and choosing NOT to build a knight in order to have the barbarians attack other people. There’s a lot of strategy to pull out. In the end I snatched the win.

The 2nd time I won, again, I think I only ended up with 2 cities and a settlement. I was completely blocked in by other players. No room for expansion. I built a metropolis and it gave me 4 victory points. Grab a defender of Catan card after fending off the barbarians and that’s 10 points. In regular Catan, I would have already been out of the running 20 minutes into the game. In Cities and Knights, there’s hope to be had.