4 Placement Strategies for Beginners to Recognize - Journey to 1500 ELO in Catan Universe #5

When one is matched against lower skilled players the gaps in skill become noticeable. This is one of the best ways for beginners to learn and improve; by realizing how pivotal placements are.
In this game, I am matched against much lower ranked players than I. Despite myself not being ranked above 1200 ELO, the difference ~150 ELO makes is staggering. I believe beginners can find this video instructional on several strategies involving placements and why placement strategies win games.
Of course, much of the plays I made would be contested by more skilled opponents and further strategies would be needed. Yet, from a beginner's perspective, who would be playing against such low ranked opponents, one is able to see the impact of more informed placement decisions.
Note: Apologies for the pttk voice.
Official Catan Universe Discord:
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[@thesean161]

I know this video is old. But thanks for keeping me company while I waited out a Blizzard. Sat in my car for an hour waiting for the storm to blow over and you kept me entertained :)

[@InkFPS]

Sorry again for PTTK voice! 00:00 - 7:50 Placements 38:15 - Match Summary/Discussion

[@nuqb]

bro listening to this guy is making my IQ go up in 44 minutes when it's taking my Math class 12 years

[@xXcozonacXx]

For your fifth settlement, I think you should have tried to trade for another wood and then be able to build on the 9-4-11 giving you an additional ore and a chance for road by blocking grey. Great vid !

[@InkFPS]

Oh, a missed opportunity for sure. Would have been devastating for grey!

[@nathandepater1881]

That is exactly what I wants to comment hahaha

[@Patriciern]

Plus all that juicy wood to feed your port. Which would have cemented your victory.

[@DidierPilon]

100% agree. It would have locked longest road too

[@AMPStorm]

Yeah I opened up my phone to comment this exact same thing. I thought that grays road building card was a good move though so don't take my advice.

[@ethanboyd2981]

@15:59 you were critical of the guy building 2 roads. You probably missed that he used a road builder to do so. He did not spend resources.

[@ApplepieFTW]

Grey really handed it to you by not going on either the 3/4/8 or 3/6/11 with their ore spot tbh. And they screwed up too by not getting the free road Edit: and then they lost by building 3 roads before doing anything, which is so dumb (especially with strongest ore wheat in this case) 22:25 I would argue building towards the 8 sheep port maybe was a stronger play, considering longest road. Because had you wanted to get it, blue and red could maybe somehow break your ability to circle the 6 brick or 3 wood, in theory. Very nice vid btw :)

[@jimjuly6074]

At 25:40 you should’ve tried to trade brick for a wood so you could’ve built two roads and a settlement, so your settlement was on the 8-3 instead of just the 3

[@staxstix]

This is somewhat bad example with limited learning effect for the viewer. 1) You got lucky to move first to get the jackpot 6 rare resource. It would've been interesting to see what the strategy is if you don't get it, since you usually don't in most of the games. 2) Your opponents aside from blue were clueless and no one made an effort to challenge you. You were completely free this game. 3) You happened to get fortunate resource draws early on to get a commanding headstart from which point on the game is on auto-pilot. You won after the first 2 rolls, that's rarely the case in most games. Basically everything in this game went your way with the opponents being worse than beginner AI. There's very little to learn from this, but of course landslide wins like these are still satisfying.

[@AMPStorm]

No hate but yeah I do agree. I did like how he recognized that he should trade his clay to gray and possibly red to make blue lose his longest road.

[@bs6788]

25:30 would have been the perfect moment to try using your clay power for the first time and offer a trade for wood to build two roads and a settlement at 3/8/3:1.

[@adamwhite9560]

Starting placement was spot on, but you missed the fact that you likely wouldn't get ore on the board if you didn't take it with your first spot.

[@quasistellar_]

24:00 red could have mocked grey and built on that tripple wood spot to go with their wood port

[@quasistellar_]

nevermind, i'm blind, it was a sheep port)

[@centyrone]

Grey was clearly a weak player just by his settlement placement. If he had flipped his settlement placement he would've gotten the free road.

[@chrisv384]

greys starting placements gave his 50 Catan IQ away.. clearly a newbie

[@ipacmanr]

You got some really lucky rolls to give you exactly what you needed at exactly the right time, letting you expand out super early and put a foothold on your lead, placements definitely helped as you had the best placements, but you were getting all the rolls your way as well to start

[@centyrone]

Looking back would you have placed the road first instead of holding? If I'm playing a game where I monopolize the clay I'm not afraid to play a road and reveal my build path because it's too risky to lose that clay so early as you did.

[@lizmenard6359]

Hey which expansions or collection did you buy I love Catan one of my favorite game f all rime I would like to play with you

[@nicolasbizirianis2376]

So blue and red place not optimal in your opinion, because they dont have anything to go with their wood - meaning clay. grey picks up 2 clay spots and he still isnt placing good. so either explain what you would choose as red or blue (or grey) or try to be more consistent with your logic. its easier to learn from constructive explaining than just saying "this was bad and this was bad" otherwise thanks for sharing your thoughts

[@emberstrife6855]

IMO the second and third pick had to figure out a port setup. Sheep or wheet. It's either that or play for second / third

[@robertommb]

At 25:20 was it worth trying to trade for a wood getting a 2nd road and settlement at 11-4-9 instead of 3wood-port ?

[@NoticemeSinPi]

He might have been showing a little mercy to gray. That said, he should have tried to get the trade so he could go a road further to also get the 8sheep.

[@ryancparker]

So if you had bought the knight first turn you would have been better off. When you own a monopoly 6 resource you should expect the robber and need knights. Also brick and wood are the resources although if you like calling them logs and clay more power to you. Grey should most definitely not be blocking the 9...that’s just silly

[@mickyjgreen]

Wow, bet your glad you were in first place.

[@Pruuc]

9:24 What's the reasoning behind not building the road on the 4-3??

[@robotabo4485]

it wasn't his turn, the brick was stolen before he could use it

[@Pruuc]

@@robotabo4485 my bad

[@Stillfastasf]

25:40 100% should have tried trading brick/wheat for a wood to double road+settle on the 4/11/9 tiles. you fuck grey over, you already have a wood port, and you get way more value out of rolls

[@Bhuyakasha]

What if grey went on the 3/4/8 with double sheep and then the 2/5/9 pointing to the sheep port, I think that would have been decent.

[@centyrone]

I completely agree with your second settlement it's exactly where I was going to place. My question, what do you think about putting your road up instead and going for the 4/5/11 wood? This wood spot is spectacular for your wood port. You likely have the clay to get there first AND we know gray didn't place his settlements correctly to get a free road. If gray had gotten a free road off his second settlement it would've been instant block but in this case you have a strong chance at beating him there.

[@AMPStorm]

Yeah but he needed the strong 8 sheep 8th go with his ore/wheat so that he can defend his valuable clay with knights. Your move has value though.

[@ballaking1000]

29:48 Is this allowed to be said on YT?

[@bastange8856]

8:43 You already said it yourself, you're trying to monopolize the clay on the board. And you could really use the clay that red has 50% (he should have one clay and one ore). Why not place your first robber onto the 2 clay spot? Sure it's a weak producing spot, but just by placing it there you are cutting 2 players completely off of clay, you have a very good chance to get your clay, actually securing your 3/4/8 which blue can technically still contest, being the strongest development card player and the roadbuilder card being a real threat to your plans here. And wood is so plentifull on this board that locking the wood doesn't really accomplice all that much. P.S. red really wants to play the development card game too with his first placement. If he still wanted to, he had to actually get a good ore spot, or his game plan was shot, there was no alternative, since you are monopolizing the clay (therefore he can't really go for longest road). I still think he should have just taken the 4/11/9 for his ore, since it's a shared ore that will therefore be unlikely to be blocked most of the time. He was probably just scared about not having any access to clay.

[@bastange8856]

Also what just happens clearly illustrates why you do always want to buy that first development card. You want the knights early in order to avoid being cut off like this.

[@sanqueen]

why not building the 5th set on the 8/3 instead of just 3? i know u dont want to risk but it didnt seemed like blue would'd build first

[@AMPStorm]

He doesn't need more sheep but I would have made the same play except that the 11-4-9 spot works super well with his wood port.

[@prasanthinavolu5609]

At 25 min, u should have built a settlement at (9,4,11).

[@JokinJoe]

I've never played catan but I'm starting to find it fascinating. I bought the board game which I hope to play with my family soon. It looks like an incredibly deep game. It's like chess but more fun..

[@Chiewrt]

Yea it's such a fun game! U might enjoy Agricola too. It's a more complex version of Catan imo

[@rawadnasser474]

Hello dear is that on steam or how u are play the game. Graphics is different on mobile app

[@lana89001]

He is playing on the computer

[@DH-qz2so]

This free online version of the 'basic game' is available for free, through a 'Steam' account...you need to set up an account on Steam...then you can access the free online Catan game...it works well...! I tried it out for the first time last night with my son's help to get this all set up...

[@JosephLachh]

It seems like red just wanted to get the game over with.

[@kenvo2463]

What’s this app? Can it be downloaded on AppleStore? Does it have Desktop version?

[@אבנרמנשה-ת5ע]

Its called catan universe in pc, or mobile

[@gigione113]

its tooo much talking about initial placements , the best strat soo far is to pick high pick rates numbers , look for rare resource if any to be included in your dice pick and them look to have one 3:1 market or 2 special markets and that's it. The most important resource in this game is wheat.

[@MasterrsHeart]

Hi guys , i dont fully understand , what i can unlock if i buy 400 gold and buy catan base game . I can get multiplayer , singeplayer , game for 4 players and i will have each map different ? Or is there something more or less. Thanks for answering

[@jefik37]

That's pretty much everything you're gonna get

[@DaiLapCheurng]

Wow I watched through half the video until I saw your YT channel name. Ink from AVA! Now I recognize the voice from those CGO match commentaries lol.

[@iwersonsch5131]

Why is there Elo for being 2nd

[@andrewavanian2112]

You still beat 2 other people

[@iwersonsch5131]

@@andrewavanian2112 You didn't. You didn't reach 10 points faster than them. It's not possible to simply tell by score who was closest to winning aside from the winner

[@andrewavanian2112]

@@iwersonsch5131 Yeah, that's fair. It might not be a perfect system but at least it allows for some measure of your general success and how you would rank up against other players at random. Otherwise, how would you evaluate the difference between someone getting 9 points versus 4 points consistently in games?

[@iwersonsch5131]

@@andrewavanian2112You don't get 9 points consistently without getting unlucky, and if you win as much as a 4 point player over 200 games then the 4 point player must be following a high risk high reward strategy in order to try and win... Pragmatically, it does make sense to use points (not placement sorted by points) for like 30% of the result score, so say 21 points (9 from each) to the winner and around 9 total more based on the score difference at the end

[@lukassokolovsky9613]

I dont think this is some kind of educational video because u got dream map for being first to choose where to start and also oponents werent even challenging u. If i have to be honest if i compared my last 10 games where i won around 6x to this game, i never had such luck at the start as u had.

[@Arts66]

Its brick and wood not clay and log

[@lpduval7398]

how do we log 4 players in a game?

[@alexandersterett6426]

All newbs

[@wave842]

it is very obvious that you're playing vs really low skilled players. in high level match there is no way you would've gotten these spots for your seconds settlement. also with the board flooded with sheep, why not take the 9/10/2 or 5/10/2?

[@immabreakaleg]

I don't think your opponents made a decent effort with the placements so this game is not worthy to upload to youtube or commnet on it.

[@YGO-Shant]

Dude wtf is that profile pic