PASTIMES: Someone tell me about Settlers of Catan

[xorbie]

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Anyone for trying a game? www.jsettlers.com, Host 2, game oot.

Never played before, come pwn a n00b

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Blah. This keeps crashing my firefox and not showing up with IE.

[Cancer Merchant]

weird, doc and I are playing against bots. Fun game.

Apples 2 Apples is an awesome game, especially at a crazy drunken party.

[imported_anacardo]

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Yeah it's easy to gang up on someone in Settlers. This maybe a good alternative though:


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With the wrong friends, i.e. a hypercompetitive sociopath who has to win every argument, playing this game can be one of the most trying experiences of one's lifetime.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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With the wrong friends, i.e. a hypercompetitive sociopath who has to win every argument, playing this game can be one of the most trying experiences of one's lifetime.

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I think I'll leave this one on the shelf.

[BoxTree]

First of all, Settlers is the best board game ever. I devoted a thread to this topic a few months ago.

Second, thanks to Joker for pointing me here.

Third, go here to play Settlers online against real people. For free.

Now to your questions, Patrick.

It's easy to learn.

It's easy to teach.

It's a great game to play with in-laws. I play with the mother of a good friend of mine, my friend's 15-year-old brother, and a varying fourth player about once a week. And sometimes my friend actually plays, too. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

The game has a nice balance of luck and skill. A first-time player can win, but a long-time skillful player is more likely to win.

Collusion is quite possible but not to be feared. While it's certainly true that two or three people can gang up on one player, that strategy quickly goes down the tubes when the victim decides to exclusively help one other player. Just make sure you pick the same "ally" every game. Pretty soon, the other two players will stop colluding with the third player because they'll realize that, in thwarting you, they're only helping the other guy to win. It's a remarkably effective counter-strategy if you plan on playing with the same people over and over.

If your opponents are quite tough and become good at the game, introduce Cities and Knights (an expansion). It adds many layers to the game. Basically, C&K reduces the impact of trading and favors the players who are able to make the best use of many options.

Seafarers sucks as its own expansion. Seafarers with C&K and the original game is pure ambrosia.

For the original game, a dominant strategy usually becomes apparent for each game. But such a strategy varies from game to game due to the randomness of the board, and a dominant strategy for one player is almost never the same strategy for another player in the same game.

Aieee! Settlers rocks. If you'd like to chat more about it, PM me. I'm always excited to talk shop about this game.

I recently bought all three games for under $80 total. I can dig up the website if you're interested.

[Mason Hellmuth]

I agree that Settlers is probably too complicated for your in-laws. A good alternative would be Carcassonne. It's very simple to learn, even if you're not so bright, but a skilled/thinking player can run circles around the amateur. Luck can be a big factor at times, but it's not as bad as the card games you mentioned. It's just a freakin' fabulous game.

[BoxTree]

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I agree that Settlers is probably too complicated for your in-laws. A good alternative would be Carcassonne. It's very simple to learn, even if you're not so bright, but a skilled/thinking player can run circles around the amateur. Luck can be a big factor at times, but it's not as bad as the card games you mentioned. It's just a freakin' fabulous game.

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Carcassone is a good alternative. But I actually found Settlers to be less complicated. Either game should be fine, though.

[The Armchair]

Boxtree ruined my set by losing a piece.

[BoxTree]

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Boxtree ruined my set by losing a piece.

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Actually, I didn't lose a piece. I lost a card. A Monopoly card. And since you had the fux0red Second Edition German edition (printed in English) that had 3 Monopoly cards, 3 Road Building Cards, and 3 Year of Plenty cards (that were called something else...Early Harvest?), 19 Knights (not Soldiers), and 7 Victory Points, I actually helped to balance your farputchk'd game.

Once the American version was released, we realized that the original game was horribly unbalanced. So we took out one of each super card, five knights, and two victory points, and tada, we now had the same progress card distribution as the American (read: more balanced) version.

And I lost a sheep card, too, which actually would have come into play tonight when all 19 sheep were in the hands of various players. Whoa to the person who wished there were 20 sheep cards. Ah-cha.

And your set was already ruined for people like Yoni. Stupid color deficiencies.