Reflection on Settlers of Cataan

Ah Settlers. I'm not sure it was actually the first "German-style strategy board game" to make it big, but it was certainly among the first. Either way, it's still fairly indicitive of the genre: a fine balancing act between adversarial competition and implementing your own strategies, mostly sans chance. As has been noted, some elements of chance give rise of "variety of outcome" which is obviously quite important for a game. However, there are still games which trend even more towards removing elements of chance, such as "Puerto Rico" -- another colonization game, however one where chance plays the most minial of roles (crop tiles are revealed randomly from a pool).

These games are also interesting in that they become a type of puzzle, whose solution allows you to play optimally. This is opposed to the earlier style of board game popular in North America, the wargame. While obviously a variety of other games were prevelent (Monopoly is an easy counterexample), wargames were probably the genre that "hardcore" board gamers would be playing. I've heard it said, and look forward to seeing what others think, that female gamers are more interested in play experiences that aren't explicitly about mechanisms of shooting and killing. In any event, I'm sure most everyone welcomes the variety.

One thing that came up when we tried to run a distributed session of Settlers was the important of trading. If you haven't played the game before, merely knowing that trading is possible, but seeing the main mechanic of getting resources from the hexes you've colonized, you may not think trading is important. In fact, it is vital. From the first turn until the last, the trades you allow or oppose essentially make the game. That being said, it's hard to know how one should trade. Some people take the easy route, and do basically anything that's not immediately bad for them. Others try use trading to balance their hand size against the incursion of the robber. At other times, trading is obviously used to stymie the front-runner - perhaps others will trade to their own disadvantage if you can take away the longest road from the current top scorer, or else deny trades to that individual.

Still, I have witnessed the interesting dynamics of social behaviour at play. Players seem to feel bad about denying trades. People seem desperate for a certain resource so they can "actually do something this turn" and the turn bogs down while they cast about looking for a move. In the end, I'm not certain whether this reliance on the trade mechanic is good or not. On the other hand, the trade is what actually keeps playing interacting. I'd obviously be remiss in not mentioning that this trading seems like a type of prisoner's dilemma / game theory, the second instance of it within this game, alongside placing the robber (on 7's and the soldier card). I'd be interested to see if one could actually motivate certain kinds of responses through intelligent use of these two mechanics, ie promoting behaviour that helps you win by helping or provoking players with this mechanics.

I guess the other thing that came up during our play sessions was the importance of your starting positions. Missing out on a wood/brick settlement seems truly crippling, as there was rarely enough that other players were willing to trade it. The value of ports also varies, probably depending on how much other players are willing to trade with you. I don't think anyone actually used a port during our last game, except I think I did use my 2:1 brick port once during the game now that I think about it. This is widely different from past games I've played. I think it must be a tradeoff in how much players are willing to trade versus how much one must depend on themselves. I suspect experienced players go for the ports and trade somewhat less.

I look forward to using trade as an impetus for motivating behaviour. I want to see how well it works. :)