Play Catan?

Play Catan is Klaus Teuber's answer to Catanonline and Catan Xbox, and is launching in English sometime this spring.

There are many ways to play Settlers of Catan online for free right now, so I am not sure hope popular this will be ultimately, but they claim to have 12,000+ players, and 1500+ paying members.

The one that catches my eye is the ability to play Seafarers and Cities and Knights, which can be done if you are a member of Play Catan apparently. Perhaps Teuber cleverly withheld these expansions from Microsoft and Brettspielcafe to create interest and addiction in the series.

Ultimately, I am glad to see Catan in the mainstream of gaming. The more the merrier, and the better for all of us boardgamers!

New Catan on the way

New version of Settlers of Catan on the way... Here's the box cover:


There some interesting information on the Mayfair Games website about the new version. Check it out here.

One very interesting rule change (from Mayfair site):

Q) Are there any rules changes?
A) "No" is the short answer. We have cleaned some text up in the rules for Cities & Knights, and we have changed a rule for The Settlers of Catan to match the new international standard. The changed rule affects the robber: "The robber may now return to the desert even after moving out. Thus, a player may choose to move the robber back to the desert rather than to an opponent's hex, if the player chooses to do so."

Your thoughts on this change?

Mom wins Catan

Played my fancy new "collectors" Catan, the monster hand-painted "treasure-chest" edition, in Toledo this weekend. And Mom won!

My parents have been played the Xbox 360 edition on-line, and have logged over 100 plays. I could tell in our 3-player game, both parents played a very solid game. Dad and I battled it out for longest road, he with brick-port and a nice 13-segment road. I had triple-ore (with city and settlement) on a "5"-spot, and an 11-segment road with Sheep and Brick port. The Longest Road bonus traveled back and forth between us until Dad finally yanked it permanetly away.

But Mom landed spaces on both 8's, both 9's and drew enough sheep and wheat that using her 3-1 port she was able to get to "7" and had 3 "1-point" development cards for the win.

It was a lot of fun playing on the 3-d board, and it did enhance the experience to for although my folks said that the poor visibility on the numbers made it a little difficult for them.

Funagain.com still has copies of the 3-d game of Catan, check it out before this hand-painted beauty is gone for good!

Xbox, the new boardgame system?

My brother downloaded the Xbox version of Settlers of Catan just released, and has even played some games versus my dad. Now I hear Carcassone has been released!

Is the Xbox the new "boardgame system"?

CATAN LIVE is coming

Well... it may be time to think about getting an Xbox 360. Catan is coming to Xbox arcade.

Here's a quote from their home page:

"As announced at the recent Leipzig Games Convention, Settlers of Catan, the legendary board game from the mind of Klaus Teuber, is coming to Xbox Live! Arcade. Developed by Brian Reynolds and Big Huge Games, Catan is slated for release in Q1 2007.

Catan places the player in the role of colonists on the newly discovered imaginary island of the same name. Through strategy and trading, 3-4 players vie for control over the valuable territory and resources of this uncharted wilderness. With ten million copies already sold, Settlers of Catan is the rare board game that appeals to casual players as much as hardcore enthusiasts."

Brian Reynolds, designer of Civilization II and Rise of Nations computer games, was spoken of very highly by Settlers of Catan designer Klaus Teuber: "I had no doubts that Brian Reynolds would do a great job, and the first version of the game exceeded my highest expectations. The AI is so clever that I even lost several games in a row! Hands down, this game for the Xbox Live! Arcade is an amazing achievement."

Here are some of the features of the game:

• Precision AI offers realistic challenges to even the most seasoned players.
• Immersive 3D "Living World" environment.
• Addictive and fun gameplay for up to 4 players.
• Play online versus friends or go up against 8 unique AI personalities.

The screen=shots are pretty awesome... I really like the 3d view, and the animation and sound will no doubt be excellent.

Perhaps the best feature that is missing from the Zone.com version ("Catanonline.com") is the fact that it is only 3 players - "Catan Live" has 4 player implementation.

There are some icons that you earn for accomplishments in the game, which I assume will appear in your game profile, such as number of games won with the "largest army" and "longest road", and also the number of opponents defeated and such which is also a nice touch.

It remains to see what the cost of the game will be on Xbox Arcade, but if this and the rumored Alhambra and Carcassone games also come to the 360, it makes it very tempting.

Settlers thoughts

I've been playing Settlers of Catan online quite a bit lately, probably 30 games in the last couple of weeks. Doing so has got me thinking a lot about strategy and tactics in the game (probably because I've been losing so much!). My average score dropped to 6, my rating is in the 1600's, and my win rate is 40% (down from the mid and high 40's).

So how could I be in a position to write a strategy article? Well, perhaps doing so will get me back to the 50% win mark I set for myself months ago - or maybe this is a form of therapy? Either way, here we go:

Truism #1 : There will be games that you will win and lose that are due to pure chance.

Make your roll, and you will win. Miss it, and the next player will have chance, and if he makes it, he wins.

Truism #2: There will be games that you will win or lose, and it will only appear that this happens by chance.

You will forget that you fought and clawed your way through 60 minutes to get to this point in the game. You will forget that you were way ahead, and your opponents caught up. Or, you will forget that you were way behind, things looked terrible for you, and you got into a position where a single roll could win it, and you didn't make the roll. Your opponent did, and you lost. This will feel bad, and will feel like you lost entirely to chance.

In actuality, there was little in the way of chance that got you to that point - there was pure strategies and tactics that you successfully used to get yourself into a winning position.

And, it's possible that there were a number of purely "chance" rolls that put you into the final position - and then finally the die rolls came around against you.

Truism #3: 95% of the games you will play will be won by someone having either the Longest Road, or the Largest Army.

Truism #4: In 1% of the games that you play, someone will win with 4 or 5 Victory Point cards.

Have seen it happen twice in 150+ games. It's amazing when it happens - I try to play for this to happen whenever possible. Great way to win (although it will drive your opponents nuts).

Truism #5: In 99% of the games that you play, someone will have at least 1 victory point card.

Not sure how to capitalize on this, but it is true. You must be wary of Development cards, un-played.

Truism #6: In 99% of the games that you play, the winner will have good access to Ore.

By this, I mean have better than a 2 or 12 spot, or will have a very rich 2-1 port situation to acquire Ore efficiently.

Ore is essential for winning consistently. There will be very freakish circumstances required to win without a good Ore situation. The closer to "7" the Ore number, the higher the odds and opportunities to win. {this deserves much more thought and discussion}

I speculate that Ore is worth in general at least 50% more than of any other resource in most trade situations, because of what can be done with Ore. {special situations frequently arise, that might bring the value down to even, this deserves discussion }

Truism #7: Ports are necessary to win.

{I haven't thought enough about win percentages here - so I am guessing, but perhaps 95% of the time a port is required to win?}

Truism #8: Setup is... Everything.

If you screw up your opening setup, it is highly unlikely you will be able to recover against competent players. Period.

It is very difficult to pick a starting position that gives a huge advantage, but it is almost always possible to find one that gives at least a small advantage.

Taking advantage of this in large part depends on your position in setup. Sometimes (rarely) it's best to go first (perhaps 25% of the time in 3-player games), but usually last is best.

Truism #9: In 25% of your games, there will be an extreme setup position that appears.

Coosing an "extreme" starting setup means generally a double resource placement, with average or better numbers, also on a port of the same resource. Or, choosing the center of a 3-hex area, where all three resources are the same (this happens mostly with Wheat, Sheep and Wood due to 4 hexes of each in the mix).

Exteme setup oddities are dangerous for these reasons: 1) It reduces your access to a variety of resources, making your plays very obvious to your opponents, allowing them to deny you key resources for trade. 2) The die rolls, when they fall against you, hit harder. When they fall for you, your gains are somewhat moderated by the lack of diversity. What you do get, must be traded away with the port, negating some of the gain.

You will win with a "freakish" starting strategy - there is no doubt that it can work. But you do not play in a vacuum, and players will work against you to prevent your extreme strategy from working.

Truism #10: Diversity is important

I have gone back and forth on this and have decided that number diversity is very important.

Number diversity means having 5 or 6 different numbers on your opening play, other than 2 or 12.

The best possible situation would be to own: 4-5-6 on one settlement, and 8-9-10 on the other. This means that you will be "hit" on the resource die roll 2 out of every 3 times!

Consider the probabilities of different rolls of 2 six-sided dice:

Number # of ways to roll
2 or 12 1 in 36 possible ways to combine two dice
3 or 11 2 in 36
4 or 10 3 in 36
5 or 9 4 in 36
6 or 8 5 in 36
7 6 in 36

So in the example above, adding the possibilities, there are 24 total ways for your number to come up if you own 4-5-6-8-9-10 (3+4+5+3+4+5=24) out of 36 total combinations on two dice. 24/36=.6667 = 2/3

If you have this combination, and your neighbor has something like: 3-3-6 and 5-9-10, you have the advantage (2+5+4+4+3=18/36), as he will be hit only half the time (18/36=.50=1/2).

In a game that has probably 20 rolls of the dice, perhaps 10 in the opening stages, this is 5 hits to 7. If you have resource diversity as well as numeric diversity, in the long run you will win a lot more games.

Dave wins first All-Oberheu Catanonline Game

Played cousin Richard Oberheu and Bob Oberheu in Catanonline tonight, and won a big one: 10 to 5 to 3. Drew 2 victory points, and managed to sneak the longest road away from Bob for the win.

Was a difficult setup, particularly for Richard. He and Bob focused on getting Ore in their starting setup (normally a good thing), ended up short Brick, limited their ability to build outwards. There was some good trades, and they tried hard to block me out when I got to 5 points, but for no effect! :)

The game was notable for the lack of the thief, I think it only came up 3-4 times. Also, it was really quick, probably 25 minutes for the match. Good game guys!

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2/1 Update: Bob won a tough one tonight, same three players. He built a devastatingly long road to grab the final two points for a 10-7-5 point win. I had the five. Sigh. Good game Bob!

(Note to Rich - don't trade Brick to a guy with 7 points and a development card showing, when he can connect a 7-piece road and make it an 11-piece road with one play, and you only have an 8-piece road!)

2/11 Update: After several more games against Rich and Bob the results have been mixed, and now Bob is tearing ahead in the rankings. Rich is piling on a lot of games, and has passed me already with over 120. My ranking has been taking a beating lately.

Tab put on a Settlers clinic at the Gathering in Dayton. Stay tuned for his strategy guide, detailing his exploits and hints for how you to can go 12-0 in the Klaus Teuber classic! 

Tab is Lord of Catan and King of Pigs!

Yes, he won the big Settlers battle, not just one but two 4-player games! He also won Pass the Pigs, Nexus, Foosball, and Gobblet. Nice work, Tab!

Tab's dominance in Settlers

Ever play a game against a group of friends, and find that one person seems to win far more than their share of contests?

Some games it's easy to see why they win:

1. They play it way more than anyone else they play against

2. Everyone else they play against stinks

3. They whip out unusual rules or tactics that others are not aware of

4. They arrange games against opponents that fit poorly against their style of play

5. They play very aggressively and psych everyone else out

6. They cheat

7. ???

My brother Tab falls under rule 7. He seems to never lose at Settlers, winning maybe 12 out of 15 games he's played. He tries to explain how he does it, to me and... I still can't figure it out.

Maybe we can get him to post a strategy article for us.

What are the reasons that you've see why some people dominate some games? Post COMMENTS below (click the '# comments' link next to the time listed after the post).

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Gaming Ethics, the post from 6/16/05 was edited tonight, with some minor changes and highlights made after a discussion with Tab tonight.

Game activities: Acquire, Settlers-online, etc.

Not much boardgaming to report on these days. Everyone's been bus, myself included. I have had time for a few online sessions of Settlers, and NetAcquire. My rating for Settlers is around 1650 in 15 games, and I have probably won my share in Acquire.

I did purchase a new game, China a few weeks ago. By the same company and developer as made Hansa, so you know I'm going to like it. (China is apparently an update to Michael Schacht's Web of Power which I have never played, but is ranked 79th overall in the world according to the Geek).

MS Catan Online

MS Catan Online is up!

Okay, it's official. Catan Online has been launched by (the most powerful) company in the world, Microsoft!

I've been following the development of the game for some time, and I know many of us have played the computer version. Microsoft signed a deal with Klaus Teuber, having the exclusive rights to the only official version of computer Catan.

Now that the online version has launched, there should be more to come, perhaps in the form of cell phone games, probably an Xbox version for it's Xbox Live! service (yay!), and maybe even the expansions.

This has to be considered a major step in the popularizing of German-style games.

Find me online with the handle: Phuntomx, or better yet add me to your MS Messanger Friends list: oberheu_d@msn.com

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Days of Wonder has some excellent online games, that are free if you own copies of the game. Ticket To Ride, for example (game of the year last year).

$400 Settlers Game

A new Settlers game was just announced, with a retail price of $400 (listed at $319 at Fairplay). It's a 10th anniversary limited edition, with 3d pieces! Check it out here.

Yes, I'd like to have it.

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Update:

Kevin did some searching, and found this better link to the Mayfair site, with more information about the game, here.

Turns out it retails for $400, and will be available sometime in October.

Fairplay originally had it listed at $299, it's up to $319 as of 5/13/05.