OT - Settlers of Catan thoughts

MIJB#19 · 05-24-2003, 05:58 AM

Note that the words I use might be off as I'm obviously translating from German to Dutch to English in stead of from German to English.

At the moment I have two things in mind:

1. I'm trying to create a balanced 'board' so that each city-point will not have more then 10 out of 36 on the dice (for example, a combination of 6-5-9 would be illegal.)
On the other hand I'm trying to spread the resources, having the desert in the middle and putting the iron and clay 2 or 3 tiles away.

However, I fear the randomness will be gone, but all is to make sure the first person in the 'draft' or the person 'drafting' last in the first round and first in the last round will have a much better starting situation.

.

2. I'm trying to figure out which resources are best to have at the start. So far my startegy used to be:
A - Avoid the sheep, sheep are cheap.
B - Monopolize clay or iron income.
C - Build cities first, then expand.
D - Trades favouring the opponent are not bad if I can build a city through it.
E - Get as much different numbers for resources (3-4-5 & 9-10-11 > 6-6-4 & 8-8-4).

However, recently I won two games in a row starting with only moderate wood and poor clay resources (in clay scarce(?) games), having a wood harbour and acting as a tough trader, plus overtrowing our house rule for not using the 'black pie' in the early stage of the game.

With everybody I play against a lot addopting rule A, sheep have becoming hard to come around.
.

I'm talking about the 3-4 player normal set, although I play 5-6 player sets at times (even with 4 players) though 5-6p does not favour my strategies A and B, though it makes C and D easier to accomplish.

Any thoughts?

Celeval · 05-24-2003, 09:40 AM

It's been a long time since I've played - mostly because there isn't the 3-4 person group around anymore.

I never agreed with C - I was an expand-first kinda guy - but that partially depends on the resources available to me. E is a definite, and goes hand-in-hand with C when expanding.

Is there any way to play online? Hmm... I sense project.

Kevin

Barkeep49 · 05-24-2003, 10:36 AM

Now I am not an expert settlers player by any stretch of the imagination, but I am fairly competant. I personally really like the randomness of the board and think it is FAR more likely for the players picking the middle to get the short end of the picking stick. The first player can claim the best spot on the board and the last player to claim (first in second round) can have a definitive strategy planned out from the start. The middle players gain neither of these advantages.

As for your stategies, I think each board needs its own stategy. As your example illustates you can have numerous different winning stategies. Personally I often think that there are good trades to be made to build roads or settlements if it means that you're cutting off a person from a good expansion point. Although I do admit that I think that in general sheep is the weakest resource and iron the strongest.

witko · 05-24-2003, 12:10 PM

you can play online here:

http://settlers.cs.northwestern.edu/

Craptacular · 05-27-2003, 11:47 PM

I've found that the "draft order" doesn't seem to make a big difference in the grand scheme of things. As long as you don't make horrible choices whenever it's your turn to place, you can usually find a way to be competitive in the game. I think the robber has a lot to do with this, as the players in the lead (or best position) usually get picked on the most. Unless Lady Luck really hates you, there's almost always a way to win with whatever good resource-producing locations you end up with. I don't really have a set strategy when I play; you just have to adapt to what you're given.

QuikSand · 05-28-2003, 08:12 AM

The reason te game holds up so well over time is that there is no single proper strategy. In some layouts, it makes perfect sense to focus early on building roads, and acquiring territory. In other games, that makes no sense at al - and you're far better off building toward cities rapidly. Other times, it's control of the robber that will ultimately define the game - so your best bet might be to use development cards early and often.

You cannot simply set forth a proper winning strategy - it's wholly dependent on the board layout, your opponents initial locations, their apparent early strategies, and other factors that are determined game-by-game.

While my initial inclination in most games is to play the numbers (basically strategy E above), my particular gaming group has become merciless with the robbers. When that happens, you'll find that over the long run being placed on a 5 or 9 is frequently better than being on a 6 or 8, simply because the top numbers become targets for the robber.

Also, the frequency of inter-player trading is a huge factor. It not only makes reqouerec allocation much more flexible, but it subtly reveals tons of information about each player's strengths and planning. Your strategy must adapt to what you expect to see and do see at the negotiation table.

Finally, I frequently play with a properly customized deck of cards instead of rolling dice, which reduces the randomness a good deal. When we do so, this adds a very interesting lement of strategy to the game - as we get more than halfway through the deck, some people will be aware, for instance, that no 5s have come up yet... and work to get on them for the anticipated run of them.

Coffee Warlord · 05-28-2003, 09:22 AM

The single rule you must follow in Settlers.

Yaks make good bricks.

MIJB#19 · 06-02-2003, 04:57 AM

QS, does that mean you play with a 36-card deck making sure 12 will come out once every 36 rounds and 6's won't be thrown more then 5 times in the same period?
Sounds interesting...

Anyway, last Thursday, on vacation, I played a 6-player game with the by me hated building round (additional round of building after each player's turn).
The game was marvelous, the most exciting one I've played so far, with in the end 4 players battling for first place with 9 points, however 3 of them were extremly lucky with the 'development cards', as all bought 2 victory points with just 3 cards bought.
In the end, it came down to the longest 'trading route' being cut off by an opponent bulding forcing me to go for a biggest 'knights power'.
In the end I won, though the ending with 3 others at 9 victory points was great.
In this game I was able to monopolise clay towards 4 out of 5 opponents. This was as somhow all 4 clay tiles were drawn next to eachother and I was able to start bulding villages and was very lucky with the 12th village on another clay-heavy terrain.

Again, the most important aspect of the game was that as soon as a player reached the position of being one trade away from the victory, the player becomes victim of a non-trading pact.

QS, you might be right about there not being a perfect strategy towards the resources situation. Still, I think 9 out of 10 times it is possible to monopolise a resource due to tiles ending up next to eachother or all but one having 'bad' numbers like 3, 11, 2 and 12. Besides wool/sheep, I think all other resources lend themselves for this strategy as long as you as player can convince others you want a trade favoring you with the reasonable line that they are depending on your production of (insert resource type).

Or maybe I've just been playing bad players, although I seriously doubt that...

QuikSand · 06-02-2003, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MIJB#19
QS, does that mean you play with a 36-card deck making sure 12 will come out once every 36 rounds and 6's won't be thrown more then 5 times in the same period?
Sounds interesting...

Yes, basically.

After some exprimentation, we have decided to usually insert either one or two wild cards into the deck of 36, which trigger a reshuffling. That keeps it from being an all-out game to wtch what numbers have been called already (toward the end of the deck). However, making the probabilities dependent (when 2 or 12 has hit, it then becomes less likely that it will hit again) really does even out the game a good deal.

QuikSand · 06-02-2003, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MIJB#19
QS, you might be right about there not being a perfect strategy towards the resources situation. Still, I think 9 out of 10 times it is possible to monopolise a resource due to tiles ending up next to eachother or all but one having 'bad' numbers like 3, 11, 2 and 12. Besides wool/sheep, I think all other resources lend themselves for this strategy as long as you as player can convince others you want a trade favoring you with the reasonable line that they are depending on your production of (insert resource type).

I guess this depends on the players. I my games, there is often a great reluctance to let someone "get away with" this kind of measure. If someone moves to get the only good source of bricks on the board, for instance, you can bet that (1) the robber will spend a lot of time there, and (2) the player with bricks will have more difficulty than expected trading them away for a particularly good margin. My group sniffs out a shark pretty quickly, I suppose.

MIJB#19 · 06-02-2003, 07:23 AM

Keeping all in mind so far, I guess there is no best strategy in a way like always doing the same, like monopolising a resource, always building cities first, or the opposite, first claiming territory with roads.

Then comes the question, does experience in playing the game favor a lot? I mean, some situations keep coming back from time to time, meaning there is some sort of solution to a single problem. What makes the game so good is that you never know what situation you'll end up in.

QS (and others), in your experience, how much is the influence of the dice?
I mean, I somehow think you (QS) have been at least partly analyzing this.

So far, I could only figure out how much resources are needed to build enough roads, cards, cities to reach 10 victory points, however the randomness of the cards and the way of expansion of opponents make the number of needed roads and cards vary.

Remain one more question, how is the overall thought on the roll of 7? Sometimes I trade a card just to stay under the 8-card rule, meaning I'd "give away" a sheep card in the turn before I am to roll the dice.

Quote:

While my initial inclination in most games is to play the numbers (basically strategy E above), my particular gaming group has become merciless with the robbers. When that happens, you'll find that over the long run being placed on a 5 or 9 is frequently better than being on a 6 or 8, simply because the top numbers become targets for the robber.

I tend to disagree there, in my experience the robber tends to land on 6 or 8 and to a lesser degree on 5 or 9, but most of the time the most advanced player is struck more often. Also, tiles were several players get (for example) their clay from, are more prone to robbery as well.

QuikSand · 06-02-2003, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MIJB#19
QS (and others), in your experience, how much is the influence of the dice? I mean, I somehow think you (QS) have been at least partly analyzing this.

I think this is one of the most consistent and fair criticisms of the game - that so much depends on the dice rolls.

I have played in many games where the players had a strong impression that the result was an outcome of cerain numbers "hitting" more or less frequently than would be expected. Over the course of a typical game, we maybe roll the dice 80-120 times (I'm guessing)... it's not at all a statistical certainty that those rolls will bear much correlation to a predicted distribution. Get a game where the 4 comes up more often than the 6, and you have a very different result than expected - and not necessarily connected in any meaningful way to the skills or strategies of the players.

I really don't mind the randomness, but have some fellow players who care more deeply than I do. In my mind, though, Settlers is a far more luck-dependent game than is Carcassonne, where most of the people who are consistently "unlucky" simply need to gain a deeper appreciation for the game.

QuikSand · 06-02-2003, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MIJB#19
Remain one more question, how is the overall thought on the roll of 7? Sometimes I trade a card just to stay under the 8-card rule, meaning I'd "give away" a sheep card in the turn before I am to roll the dice.

I agree there - I do this sometimes as well. One of the quietly harmful things about losing cards on a roll of seven is that you go through a process of "keeping the good ones" - and make yourself an inviting target for the robber (right then and for a while thereafter), since the card that will be acquired will be from that self-selected group.

The psychology of the game - the information about what cards are present and needed - is a subtle element that's probably worth 5% overall.

Example - when I have a hand of mostly junk (especially a short hand of only one or two cards), I wil sometimes get into a lengthy trade negotiation with someone who needs ore, for example (even though I have none). I eventually break off the trade talk, but can disrupt the player's notion of where the ore is... and might get him to pursue one of my cards, and waste his resources trying to get the ore I never had.

This serves a dual purpose... one, to frustrate that player and get him to waste his time. Two, and more importantly, to temper the effectiveness of trade-based "fishing expeditions" which are rempant in my games. (Guy with robber asks "who's got bricks to trade?" partly hoping to find where to place the robber, in an attempt to heist the bricks...)

Barkeep49 · 06-02-2003, 08:39 AM

QS interesting strategy about the false trade offers, although I know that if you were playing with my group of friends in a four person game it would never work since we all have a fairly good grasp of who has what in their hands at any given time.

I was wondering if you had ever played Cities and Knights which I find I enjoy a great deal more than the regular version.

QuikSand · 06-02-2003, 08:50 AM

I own Cities and Knights, but cannot get my table to stop playing Carcassonne long enough to take up something new. (Plus, my semi-regular game group has largely been abandoned in favor of a semi-regular poker game... which suits me fine, too)

Barkeep49 · 06-02-2003, 10:08 AM

I don't know anything about Carcassonne; what's the premise?

QuikSand · 06-02-2003, 10:15 AM

Carcassonne is a tile-laying game... you place tiles domino-style (matching the edges of your tile with the ones it's placed adjacent to) and over the course of the game build a landscape of cities, roads, farms, and so forth. By placing the tiles and inhabiting certain areas as they are built, you are attempting to gain "ownership" of things of greater value, mainly as determined by their ultimate size.

It's an outstanding game - easily my favorite now.

Check it out at Funagain Games:

Carcassone for $14.95 at Funagain

Craptacular · 06-02-2003, 11:14 AM

I bought Carcassonne and Cities & Knights last week. So far, I've just played one game of Carcassonne (with one other player), and I can see the appeal and the replay value. The only thing I don't like about it so far is that our entire board ended up with one gigantic farm. I'm hoping this won't normally be the case, but I'm sure we'll get to understand the importance of different strategies after a few more games.

QuikSand · 06-02-2003, 11:27 AM

The farms, and how they evolve, is the biggest change between game #1 and game #10. I rarely see a game with farms getting big like that... eventually, someone figures out that it serves them well to build borders around the farm.

The other thing that will emerge is the critical nature of the ability to weasel into an already-occupied territory. That's positively essential to the game.

Craptacular · 06-02-2003, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by QuikSand

The other thing that will emerge is the critical nature of the ability to weasel into an already-occupied territory. That's positively essential to the game.

Yeah, you really need to pay attention to this. At one point, we each had two farmers on the board, knowing full well that they might eventually be on the same farm. However, my friend snuck in a 3rd farmer that also ended being on the same farm, and I just had a brainfart and didn't notice what he had done. He ended up winning by a few points before we even scored the farmers, so it didn't make the difference in the game. What we'll all have to figure out is the best number of farmers to deploy, since those take away from your total of 7 followers for the rest of the game.

MIJB#19 · 06-03-2003, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by QuikSand
(Guy with robber asks "who's got bricks to trade?" partly hoping to find where to place the robber, in an attempt to heist the bricks...)

A cousin of me pulled this trick ones and since then the people I play against most don't fall for this trick anymore.

Quote:

Originally posted by QuikSand
I wil sometimes get into a lengthy trade negotiation with someone who needs ore, for example (even though I have none). I eventually break off the trade talk, but can disrupt the player's notion of where the ore is... and might get him to pursue one of my cards, and waste his resources trying to get the ore I never had.

Interesting.
I never thought of this... I guess I'm to honest for that...

What I also try at times is trying to deal for example 3 sheep cards to a person with a sheep harbour to get him/her to trade for the card I need most.

Then arises another question concerning knowing other people's hands: How big an advanage is it for one person to be the bank (in the Monopoly way.)

QuikSand · 06-03-2003, 07:52 AM

I got to sit down and play a little last night for the first time in a while - two games of Carcassonne, and one of Settlers. Was nice to get back into the swing of things a little.

Regrettably, only one of the games was fairly close. I rolled everyone easily in the first Carcassonne, and was completely out of the Settlers game from the beginning. But the game in the middle, I could have won had I just completed one open space - but it just sat there for at least 12 turns, and I was never able to connect the two large farms into one, which was my key to winning the game. *sigh*

Daimyo · 06-03-2003, 09:56 AM

Would either of those games be much fun with only two players?

Craptacular · 06-03-2003, 10:18 AM

You can't play Settlers (the board game) with two players. They did make a Settlers card game for two players (more players with an expansion) that a couple of my friends own, but I haven't played it yet. Carcassonne can be played with two players; in fact, the only game I've played of it so far was with just one opponent. I would think the game gets much more complicated with more than two players, but it could make it more fun as well. Still, we both thought the game was pretty cool with just the two of us.

JAG · 06-03-2003, 10:19 AM

I can't speak for Carcassonne, but Settlers is not nearly as much fun with just two players, as part of the fun is the trading that gets involved with more people. The way I play with two is to have each side control two colors and require both of the colors to get 10 points to win. You can trade one for one with your partner any resources (I've also played you can only make one trade 1 for 1 a turn) or any trade you want with opponents, but those are rare. It can be fun and leads to some different strategies as you might be able to double-team and lock up one color on the opposing side.
There's also a Settlers card game for two players, but I've heard mixed reviews on that.

QuikSand · 06-03-2003, 10:20 AM

Settlers is not functional with two players, but Carcassonne holds up better tham most multiplayer games.

If your gaming is likely to be 80% or more with only two players, I wouldn't recommend it. But if you have any sort of mix of 2 and 3+, then Carcassonne is a cheap and excellent addition to a gaming table.

If you're looking for a cheap, but decent two-player strategy game, you're not the only one. One of my favorites is Kahuna (I have the previous version, called Arabana-Ikibiti but it's the same game I am told).

Funagain (linked above) sells this for $14.95, and it's a pretty decent game. Mrs. Q isn't a huge fan of abstract strategy games, so we don't play it much... but I like it better than most. A little more tepid than my praise for Carcassonne, but if you're itching, check this one out.

Celeval · 06-03-2003, 11:53 AM

The Lady and I own the Settlers card game, and the expansions for said card game - a pretty decent two-player version of Settlers, basically. I enjoy it, but I'm not the games connoisseur QS is.

Daimyo · 06-03-2003, 12:39 PM

I just placed an order for Kahuna and Carcassonne. Not sure if my wife will enjoy them anyway, so two-player could quickly degrade to single-player.

If only she enjoyed Magic: The Gathering or Warhammer 40k... they're expensive, but easily two of the best two player games I've ever played. I think the board game have much, much higher potential with her though.

QuikSand · 06-03-2003, 02:35 PM

I, for one, hated the two-player card game derived from Settlers. I have heard that the expansion set make it into something slightly more akin to a collectibel card game, which could rescue it - but in its original form, I give that game an F.

To each his own.

Ufer · 06-03-2003, 06:27 PM

There is a German online site to play Settlers, Carcassonne and other great games -- Puerto Rico is very good and very popular right now.

It is at: http://www.brettspielwelt.de

A good guide (maybe a bit outdated but you can figure out the differences):
http://markjohnson.150m.com/bsw.htm

Other favorites are: Ra, Princes of Florence, Web of Power........

MIJB#19 · 06-04-2003, 02:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by QuikSand
If you're looking for a cheap, but decent two-player strategy game, you're not the only one. One of my favorites is Kahuna (I have the previous version, called Arabana-Ikibiti but it's the same game I am told).

I'm playing Lale-Kahu and Lale-Iffi to destroy your bridge from Lale to Iffi.
That means you lose control of Lale and Iffi: I win the game!

06-02-2003, 10:15 AM	#17
QuikSand lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Annapolis, Md	Carcassonne is a tile-laying game... you place tiles domino-style (matching the edges of your tile with the ones it's placed adjacent to) and over the course of the game build a landscape of cities, roads, farms, and so forth. By placing the tiles and inhabiting certain areas as they are built, you are attempting to gain "ownership" of things of greater value, mainly as determined by their ultimate size. It's an outstanding game - easily my favorite now. Check it out at Funagain Games: Carcassone for $14.95 at Funagain Last edited by QuikSand : 06-02-2003 at 10:18 AM.

06-03-2003, 10:20 AM	#26
QuikSand lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Annapolis, Md	Settlers is not functional with two players, but Carcassonne holds up better tham most multiplayer games. If your gaming is likely to be 80% or more with only two players, I wouldn't recommend it. But if you have any sort of mix of 2 and 3+, then Carcassonne is a cheap and excellent addition to a gaming table. If you're looking for a cheap, but decent two-player strategy game, you're not the only one. One of my favorites is Kahuna (I have the previous version, called Arabana-Ikibiti but it's the same game I am told). Funagain (linked above) sells this for $14.95, and it's a pretty decent game. Mrs. Q isn't a huge fan of abstract strategy games, so we don't play it much... but I like it better than most. A little more tepid than my praise for Carcassonne, but if you're itching, check this one out. Last edited by QuikSand : 06-03-2003 at 10:20 AM.

06-03-2003, 06:27 PM	#30
Ufer n00b Join Date: Aug 2001	re: Playing online There is a German online site to play Settlers, Carcassonne and other great games -- Puerto Rico is very good and very popular right now. It is at: http://www.brettspielwelt.de A good guide (maybe a bit outdated but you can figure out the differences): http://markjohnson.150m.com/bsw.htm Other favorites are: Ra, Princes of Florence, Web of Power........

05-24-2003, 09:40 AM	#2
Celeval Pro Starter Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Cary, NC, USA	It's been a long time since I've played - mostly because there isn't the 3-4 person group around anymore. I never agreed with C - I was an expand-first kinda guy - but that partially depends on the resources available to me. E is a definite, and goes hand-in-hand with C when expanding. Is there any way to play online? Hmm... I sense project. Kevin

05-24-2003, 10:36 AM	#3
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	Now I am not an expert settlers player by any stretch of the imagination, but I am fairly competant. I personally really like the randomness of the board and think it is FAR more likely for the players picking the middle to get the short end of the picking stick. The first player can claim the best spot on the board and the last player to claim (first in second round) can have a definitive strategy planned out from the start. The middle players gain neither of these advantages. As for your stategies, I think each board needs its own stategy. As your example illustates you can have numerous different winning stategies. Personally I often think that there are good trades to be made to build roads or settlements if it means that you're cutting off a person from a good expansion point. Although I do admit that I think that in general sheep is the weakest resource and iron the strongest.

05-24-2003, 12:10 PM	#4
witko n00b Join Date: May 2001 Location: NC	you can play online here: http://settlers.cs.northwestern.edu/

05-27-2003, 11:47 PM	#5
Craptacular College Starter Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Mad City, WI	I've found that the "draft order" doesn't seem to make a big difference in the grand scheme of things. As long as you don't make horrible choices whenever it's your turn to place, you can usually find a way to be competitive in the game. I think the robber has a lot to do with this, as the players in the lead (or best position) usually get picked on the most. Unless Lady Luck really hates you, there's almost always a way to win with whatever good resource-producing locations you end up with. I don't really have a set strategy when I play; you just have to adapt to what you're given.

05-28-2003, 08:12 AM	#6
QuikSand lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Annapolis, Md	The reason te game holds up so well over time is that there is no single proper strategy. In some layouts, it makes perfect sense to focus early on building roads, and acquiring territory. In other games, that makes no sense at al - and you're far better off building toward cities rapidly. Other times, it's control of the robber that will ultimately define the game - so your best bet might be to use development cards early and often. You cannot simply set forth a proper winning strategy - it's wholly dependent on the board layout, your opponents initial locations, their apparent early strategies, and other factors that are determined game-by-game. While my initial inclination in most games is to play the numbers (basically strategy E above), my particular gaming group has become merciless with the robbers. When that happens, you'll find that over the long run being placed on a 5 or 9 is frequently better than being on a 6 or 8, simply because the top numbers become targets for the robber. Also, the frequency of inter-player trading is a huge factor. It not only makes reqouerec allocation much more flexible, but it subtly reveals tons of information about each player's strengths and planning. Your strategy must adapt to what you expect to see and do see at the negotiation table. Finally, I frequently play with a properly customized deck of cards instead of rolling dice, which reduces the randomness a good deal. When we do so, this adds a very interesting lement of strategy to the game - as we get more than halfway through the deck, some people will be aware, for instance, that no 5s have come up yet... and work to get on them for the anticipated run of them.

05-28-2003, 09:22 AM	#7
Coffee Warlord Head Coach Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Colorado Springs	The single rule you must follow in Settlers. Yaks make good bricks.

06-02-2003, 04:57 AM	#8
MIJB#19 Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Maassluis, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands	QS, does that mean you play with a 36-card deck making sure 12 will come out once every 36 rounds and 6's won't be thrown more then 5 times in the same period? Sounds interesting... Anyway, last Thursday, on vacation, I played a 6-player game with the by me hated building round (additional round of building after each player's turn). The game was marvelous, the most exciting one I've played so far, with in the end 4 players battling for first place with 9 points, however 3 of them were extremly lucky with the 'development cards', as all bought 2 victory points with just 3 cards bought. In the end, it came down to the longest 'trading route' being cut off by an opponent bulding forcing me to go for a biggest 'knights power'. In the end I won, though the ending with 3 others at 9 victory points was great. In this game I was able to monopolise clay towards 4 out of 5 opponents. This was as somhow all 4 clay tiles were drawn next to eachother and I was able to start bulding villages and was very lucky with the 12th village on another clay-heavy terrain. Again, the most important aspect of the game was that as soon as a player reached the position of being one trade away from the victory, the player becomes victim of a non-trading pact. QS, you might be right about there not being a perfect strategy towards the resources situation. Still, I think 9 out of 10 times it is possible to monopolise a resource due to tiles ending up next to eachother or all but one having 'bad' numbers like 3, 11, 2 and 12. Besides wool/sheep, I think all other resources lend themselves for this strategy as long as you as player can convince others you want a trade favoring you with the reasonable line that they are depending on your production of (insert resource type). Or maybe I've just been playing bad players, although I seriously doubt that...

06-02-2003, 08:39 AM	#14
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	QS interesting strategy about the false trade offers, although I know that if you were playing with my group of friends in a four person game it would never work since we all have a fairly good grasp of who has what in their hands at any given time. I was wondering if you had ever played Cities and Knights which I find I enjoy a great deal more than the regular version.

06-02-2003, 08:50 AM	#15
QuikSand lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Annapolis, Md	I own Cities and Knights, but cannot get my table to stop playing Carcassonne long enough to take up something new. (Plus, my semi-regular game group has largely been abandoned in favor of a semi-regular poker game... which suits me fine, too)

06-02-2003, 10:08 AM	#16
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	I don't know anything about Carcassonne; what's the premise?

06-02-2003, 11:14 AM	#18
Craptacular College Starter Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Mad City, WI	I bought Carcassonne and Cities & Knights last week. So far, I've just played one game of Carcassonne (with one other player), and I can see the appeal and the replay value. The only thing I don't like about it so far is that our entire board ended up with one gigantic farm. I'm hoping this won't normally be the case, but I'm sure we'll get to understand the importance of different strategies after a few more games.

06-02-2003, 11:27 AM	#19
QuikSand lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Annapolis, Md	The farms, and how they evolve, is the biggest change between game #1 and game #10. I rarely see a game with farms getting big like that... eventually, someone figures out that it serves them well to build borders around the farm. The other thing that will emerge is the critical nature of the ability to weasel into an already-occupied territory. That's positively essential to the game.

06-03-2003, 07:52 AM	#22
QuikSand lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Annapolis, Md	I got to sit down and play a little last night for the first time in a while - two games of Carcassonne, and one of Settlers. Was nice to get back into the swing of things a little. Regrettably, only one of the games was fairly close. I rolled everyone easily in the first Carcassonne, and was completely out of the Settlers game from the beginning. But the game in the middle, I could have won had I just completed one open space - but it just sat there for at least 12 turns, and I was never able to connect the two large farms into one, which was my key to winning the game. sigh

06-03-2003, 09:56 AM	#23
Daimyo College Starter Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Berkeley	Would either of those games be much fun with only two players?

06-03-2003, 10:18 AM	#24
Craptacular College Starter Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Mad City, WI	You can't play Settlers (the board game) with two players. They did make a Settlers card game for two players (more players with an expansion) that a couple of my friends own, but I haven't played it yet. Carcassonne can be played with two players; in fact, the only game I've played of it so far was with just one opponent. I would think the game gets much more complicated with more than two players, but it could make it more fun as well. Still, we both thought the game was pretty cool with just the two of us.

06-03-2003, 10:19 AM	#25
JAG Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: St. Paul, MN	I can't speak for Carcassonne, but Settlers is not nearly as much fun with just two players, as part of the fun is the trading that gets involved with more people. The way I play with two is to have each side control two colors and require both of the colors to get 10 points to win. You can trade one for one with your partner any resources (I've also played you can only make one trade 1 for 1 a turn) or any trade you want with opponents, but those are rare. It can be fun and leads to some different strategies as you might be able to double-team and lock up one color on the opposing side. There's also a Settlers card game for two players, but I've heard mixed reviews on that.

06-03-2003, 11:53 AM	#27
Celeval Pro Starter Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Cary, NC, USA	The Lady and I own the Settlers card game, and the expansions for said card game - a pretty decent two-player version of Settlers, basically. I enjoy it, but I'm not the games connoisseur QS is.

06-03-2003, 12:39 PM	#28
Daimyo College Starter Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Berkeley	I just placed an order for Kahuna and Carcassonne. Not sure if my wife will enjoy them anyway, so two-player could quickly degrade to single-player. If only she enjoyed Magic: The Gathering or Warhammer 40k... they're expensive, but easily two of the best two player games I've ever played. I think the board game have much, much higher potential with her though.

06-03-2003, 02:35 PM	#29
QuikSand lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Annapolis, Md	I, for one, hated the two-player card game derived from Settlers. I have heard that the expansion set make it into something slightly more akin to a collectibel card game, which could rescue it - but in its original form, I give that game an F. To each his own.

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