The Problem With Settlers Of Catan

[@albyshang]

Do you have any qualms with Catan? 🙀🐑

[@h0yj0y]

While waiting for your turn, there should be a game you can play with the wooden pieces

[@albyshang]

lol maybe flick a settlement between two road goal posts? maybe it's time to create a list of component mini games for in between board game turns haha

[@peterbedford449]

I agree with you. It's not that Catan has bad dice rolls, which a lot of people complain about. That is luck and that can happen to anyone. Over a long period of time - many games - that should balance out and be even more or less. But the problem is that you have no realistic mechanic to catch up. Winners win more and losers lose more. If the losers in any one game could start doing something to catch up, which wasn't available to those in the lead, it may force the winning people to adjust their strategy and play more defensively, which ultimately adds to the strategy of the game. Overall, I don't think Catan is a very deep game. There is a lot of skill to predicting what people will do and countering it - and importantly - I think that the game has more skill than some people think, but ultimately I think the game lacks enough mechanics to win with. In chess, there are multitudes of strategies to win with due to the amount of pieces on the board and the amount of combinations and permutations there in. Therefore, it is a very complex game to play. In Catan, there is a lot less to do.. If there were more mechanics to the game and win with the losers could diversify their strategies to something else if they are getting squeezed out of roads and settlements, for example. Dev cards are not enough to save this game. Adding more mechanics could save the game and make it more interesting for many people to play.

[@albyshang]

Exactly. While mechanisms like robber and trading tend to help suppress/target the leader with players who are more skilled, there isn't an inherent mechanism for helping the loser. And when a game that can become a poor experience for even 1 player, that is something that ought to be taken into account. The expansions I've heard help with adding more mechanisms to help losing players rebound (like a gold if no resources on production rolls in Explorers & Pirates expansion), but the base game doesn't have a tool like this.

[@29SecondMedia]

kinda late ot the party, but this was adressed in an expansion)I don't recall which) and it's called "Welfare Coins" basicly, if you don't get a resource on that dice roll(apart from 7) you get a welfare coin, and you can trade them to a resource at a rate of [current VP] to 1 in your turn, giving players who are behind an advantage as they caan get more resources faster than the players who are winning

[@MAdesignsVan]

The two main issues I have are: 1) Starting positions are not balanced 2) Most turns are quite boring 3) Most of strategy is in the placement of your starting pieces, after that, your turns kind of play themselves and its more luck than skill 4) The thief can sometimes feel punishing if you are behind and the other players use it to bully you - if you fall too far behind its sometimes impossible to comeback which feels bad 5) There isn't much replayability or variety, the game gets stale after a few times of playing I am currently building a game which is inspired by Catan but addresses the problems above.

[@oskarsstrobergs734]

I feel where are you coming from, but completely disagree, its just lack of experience and knowledge of game.

[@spiruandy]

And did you finish building the new game?

[@pointyflyer155]

Have you completed the game? I would love to hear your thoughts on how to address those issues!

[@geekedupboardgames1076]

I find online Catan gives me ALL these frustrations, but in person it encourages banter more than other games and that is fun for me… I find the best strategy is to spread out my numbers rather than going for a smaller range of ‘good’ umbers’😊👍

[@albyshang]

Usually I'm up for in-game banter, but that time I was so upset because I was behind AND my friend still stole from me lol. Agreed - diversifying numbers is the way to go!

[@marinafabijan2956]

1:12 They shouldn't have been able to rob that card due to the "Friendly Robber" variant. It is not found in the Base Game's rulebook, but it is found in the rulebook for Traders & Barbarians.

[@jonasbrownlee7279]

I think good social play is also the strategy of the game. In a vacuum, if there is no talking, may as well be bots as the game is solved. But communication and resource manipulation are what gets you the chance at the win.

[@guest_user1111]

Make the flying Dutchman's treasure hunt from season 1 of spongebob . If you need help the episode is Arrgh!

[@albyshang]

Ohh I just did some research, and I think someone made an online Steam version of that game. I'll keep it on my list of ideas, thanks!

[@joshuawright8280]

As someone who plays catan competitively in various leagues and tournaments, this video just sounds like “I think catan is overrated because I suck at it” to me. I win 100% of my games against friends and family (even with a handicap) so I can assure you luck is not the dominating factor of the game. One of the reasons why I love catan especially when compared to other strategy board games is because it’s incredibly simple in concept, but actually has a lot of depth to it strategically which often isn’t apparent at first. There certainly are ways to catch up from behind in catan but they often generally require players to work together to slow down the winning player, which inexperienced players often struggle to do effectively. Having said all that, people are obviously allowed to have opinions and not like the game. I just wanted to point out that your reasoning for not liking the game is not really accurate.

[@oskarsstrobergs734]

Completely agree, it’s just understanding of game and correct decision makeing. Dice balances itself long term.

[@alphabet2238]

@@oskarsstrobergs734 Dice does balance long term but by that point it's way too late. If you get the wrong dice early game or you make an unlucky settlement choices at the start then you are usually the one with maybe one extra settlement while the people who got lucky have many settlements or even some cities meaning more good number roles will give them resources making them more likely to be able to do something on their turn while you might need to wait several turns to get the resources necessary.

[@alphabet2238]

@Joshua Wright. I think your points are certainly valid but I'd argue you somewhat miss a point. If Catan was branded as a tournament heavy game then I would somewhat agree with you but the big problem for me is that Catan is branded as a "gateway game" implying that it is a good game for people to get into board games and I think that's completely wrong. I agree with most of the points in this video but one I would add is that is almost all board games you have an action to do on your turn and this is true of gateway games too, in Carcassone you place a tile, in pandemic you have a whole load of stuff, in ticket to ride you can build tracks, gain cards or draw new tickets. But Catan is driven by getting resources which first requires you to have the right rolls and while I don't dispute there is a skill level (especially with starting settlement placement) if you don't get the resources you LITERALLY don't have a turn unless you think you can trade which is almost non existent in the games I played. I'd say the main two skill elements are starting placements and deciding which direction to build but that is heavily determined by the start of the game rather than building a combo through the game. The development cards and dice are completely luck driven which should be the factors that give players a small chance of clawing back it shouldn't be ganging up on the leader which is a poor and depending on the players, potentially toxic mechanism. Overall point is that Catan is a poor choice for a gateway game and personally I'd either pick Ticket or Pandemic depending on the person I was introducing.

[@bvd2406]

that's why you try cover as many numbers as possible and if statistics don't look in your favor consider settling on a port. If Catan is just luck and you're losing all the time, you might just be super unlucky / special @@alphabet2238

[@DrTheRich]

This is what frustrates me even more about it. People who actually "get" the game. Usually have a good feeling for statistics, either because of intuition or mathematical genius. And then they win most of the time, Which makes the game a lot less fun from the start if you're not that person in your family. I also can't imagine for people who always win, it's always stays fun playing with family. Like if you're goal is to have a good time with your family, but you already know from the start they will always loose, and you will dominate by miles, will it still be a good time? I feel the game is only fun if everyone is bad at it, and everyone makes bad choices, or they are all competitive players. But playing with family it's usually a mix of both. Understanding the depth gives you too much of an advantage. I think I game that's good for mixed levels of skill the deeper strategies go the less of an advantage they should give you but still some. So that over many games a skilled player is more likely to win. But each game is still tense because there is still a sense you might loose. I don't think it's a bad game, I just think it's not that good of a family game, even though it's marketed and famous as such. A similar thing could be said for Monopoly. Everyone has it, it's one of the first being pulled out at a family game night. But rarely does it end in a satisfying evening of fun by the end.

[@Pandaneedshug]

Idk if you've ever played a lot of civilization, but I played a lot of civilization 5, and it really suffers from people who are behind never being able to catch up. The only upside is that it can still be fun to play while behind, and people might not actually realize they're behind.

[@albyshang]

I have! I have spent MANY hours playing Civ 5. One session would be minimum 5 hours, it was bad but also so addicting. I haven't played more than 2 irl players though, mostly 1 player vs NPC players. Yeah, it's a lot to keep track of lol, I can see how people might not realize.

[@Pandaneedshug]

@@albyshang yeah I got the privilege of being able to play civ 5 with my high school friends, so we had a lot of 3 player, and occasionally 4 player matches. We'd almost always play large or huge maps, so there'd be plenty of AI-civs. Once in college I got to play in a civ 5 tournament between 8 players, though 6 of them had dropped out by like the 3rd hour since they were behind. Though indeed, I also played a lot of civ 5 by myself with the ai 😅

[@albyshang]

@@Pandaneedshug wow awesome! I barely know one other person besides you who plays/played lol. How long did those tournaments last??

[@Pandaneedshug]

@@albyshang we didn't go past the modern era before the other guy conceded, so it was only about 5 hours. They only ever had the one, though I did play online civ 5 a few times through the built in online matchmaking portal. It can be so long to truly get all the way through a game. One of the issues civ 5 had that really held it back though was terrible connectivity issues. Once you had more than a few players, the game would have a lot of problems as the game dragged on. So the best experience really was for only a few people.

[@secret2350]

wow you are making me very interested in board games all i think about was video games but maybe i will try a board game sometime btw cool vid.

[@albyshang]

oo glad board games has become a consideration! thank you :)

[@joeledelblute]

Very nice. This makes me feel better about losing. Alby shang you on Sunday!

[@albyshang]

Haha yeah it can really be upsetting when you get behind. Yes, see you on Sunday! 😄

[@shen-f8c]

Guy’s gonna have a stroke when he finds out about ludo

[@teamcyeborg]

I personally really don't like this game because it's nearly fully luck based and somehow I always get the worst luck

[@MazusChannel]

I like catan the concept but hate that its too luck based

[@spiruandy]

Yes it is very true.... I`ve always said I knew from the 3rd round who will be the loser.

[@AnalynCatan-ze6hy]

Kanang asawa nga mag seling walay pulos labaw pod nga walay pulis

[@shadesonbroadway]

Catan is a better competitive game than it is a casual game. I play it at the highest level possible, and even I understand it has its flaws, but part of the thrill for me is having a game that you aren’t guaranteed to win.

[@mlheureux2663]

I feel like catan is in a weird spot. It like on the fence between mainstream luck reliant board game like Monopoly and moderns board games. Carcassonne is just one exemple of gateway games that represent well the feel of modern euro games without being overwhelming.

[@kspen72]

So many sore losers in one comment section. Just face it, you suck at Catan.

[@Ddboyz465]

Horribly luck game bad gateway to teach new friends