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[ftl]

This is absolutely not the case.  By variance, I mean, 6's rolling instead of 8's, or the 10 being rolled a lot.  At the end of the game the bell curve is almost always intact.

I don't think that's true. I  played for a while with a guy who would chart the rolls over the course of the game, it was rare for it to actually even out to a bell curve over a single game. Not a large enough sample size.

Hence my claim that overall, the luck in the game is definitely there, but it's not a luckfest any more than Dominion is a luckfest if you open Chapel/Silver and draw them on Turn 5.  In which case you are probably lost anyway no matter what.

That said, I entirely agree with that statement.

There was a guy in college who would consistently win roughly two-thirds of his Settlers games. (And those are 3 or 4-player games, not 2-player games). And he wasn't playing with newbies either, there was the same core group of players around who knew what they were doing. (And he'd lose games against newbies because it was his policy that in somebody's first game, he'd give them helpful advice all game long if they wanted it.)

So that's my estimate for the variance inherent in the game, a great player can have that sort of advantage over merely good players.

[blueblimp]

This is absolutely not the case.  By variance, I mean, 6's rolling instead of 8's, or the 10 being rolled a lot.  At the end of the game the bell curve is almost always intact.

I don't think that's true. I  played for a while with a guy who would chart the rolls over the course of the game, it was rare for it to actually even out to a bell curve over a single game. Not a large enough sample size.

I've done the same thing before with Settlers, and yeah, the games aren't long enough to get a proper curve. You usually have some number getting screwed pretty badly. And that's only looking at total production, ignoring that some number might roll fine overall but destroy a player at a critical time in the game.

One variant I've played a few times (and liked) is zero-trade Settlers. Maybe heresy, but it speeds up the gameplay (no annoying haggling) while increasing the number of turns (because it's harder to DO anything), which leads to a more even roll distribution in the end. It also makes ports more valuable than in the original game, which seems nice.

[Ozle]

One variant I've played a few times (and liked) is zero-trade Settlers. Maybe heresy, but it speeds up the gameplay (no annoying haggling) while increasing the number of turns (because it's harder to DO anything), which leads to a more even roll distribution in the end. It also makes ports more valuable than in the original game, which seems nice.

Removing the haggling makes it surely more dice roll dependant surely?! And takes away the skilful part

Its not hard to see where the best village placements are, and when to upgrade or buy developments

[blueblimp]

One variant I've played a few times (and liked) is zero-trade Settlers. Maybe heresy, but it speeds up the gameplay (no annoying haggling) while increasing the number of turns (because it's harder to DO anything), which leads to a more even roll distribution in the end. It also makes ports more valuable than in the original game, which seems nice.

Removing the haggling makes it surely more dice roll dependant surely?! And takes away the skilful part

Its not hard to see where the best village placements are, and when to upgrade or buy developments

Well I'm no Catan pro, but the idea is that the lack of trading increases the number of turns quite a bit, because nobody has the resources they need. You see a lot of 4-for-1 trades, for example, which IMX in the normal game are more rare. Edit: And the point of this is that, the longer the game, the more the rolls even out.

The placements become a bit more subtle, because ports are greatly increased in value, since that's your only way to trade (outside of horrible 4-for-1 deals).

Edit: I've only played it a few times, so I can't speak to how much depth it has, but it was interesting.

[theory]

Uhh, lack of trading would basically destroy one of the few ways in Settlers to rein in the leader (other than the robber, which the leader can control with dev cards).

[theory]

As for the bell curve, try http://www.betweenwaters.com/probab/dice/dicemainD.html

Input 60, which is a vague guesstimate for how many rolls there will be.  Most of the times I've tried, it comes out at least approximating the bell curve, with only rare extreme discrepancies.

Of course, just because the final product is a bell curve, does not mean that it was "fair", since timing of resources matters a lot.  But therein is the kind of luck akin to Turn 5 shuffle luck in Dominion.  You try to rein in the leader with trading/robbers, or you just suck it up and play another game.

[Captain_Frisk]

As for the bell curve, try http://www.betweenwaters.com/probab/dice/dicemainD.html

Input 60, which is a vague guesstimate for how many rolls there will be.  Most of the times I've tried, it comes out at least approximating the bell curve, with only rare extreme discrepancies.

Of course, just because the final product is a bell curve, does not mean that it was "fair", since timing of resources matters a lot.  But therein is the kind of luck akin to Turn 5 shuffle luck in Dominion.  You try to rein in the leader with trading/robbers, or you just suck it up and play another game.

Did you set it to session mode?

Roll   Session   Expected
2   8.33% (5/60)   2.78% (1/36)
3   3.33% (2/60)   5.56% (2/36)
4   1.67% (1/60)   8.33% (3/36)
5   11.67% (7/60)   11.11% (4/36)
6   23.33% (14/60)   13.89% (5/36)
7   16.67% (10/60)   16.67% (6/36)
8   13.33% (8/60)   13.89% (5/36)
9   1.67% (1/60)   11.11% (4/36)
10   10% (6/60)   8.33% (3/36)
11   8.33% (5/60)   5.56% (2/36)
12   1.67% (1/60)   2.78% (1/36)

[Ozle]

2   8.33% (5/60)   2.78% (1/36)

Remind me never to take you to play craps!

[Captain_Frisk]

2   8.33% (5/60)   2.78% (1/36)

Remind me never to take you to play craps!

I feel bad for the dude who thought that 9 was going to pay out this game!

[sherwinpr]

In a Settlers game I played last month, which was incidentally the first time I played settlers in maybe 4 or more years (I played at least a few dozen games 5-6 years ago), I think 7 was rolled about 4-5 times, with the first 7 being rolled around the half way point in the game.  Only one player ever discarded cards to a 7.

[Robz888]

Me and my friends play a good amount of Catan (or did for the last two years or so, anyway). And one of my friends kept track of a lot of stuff on his laptop while we played. One thing he recorded was dice rolls for resource production. In fact, we have a chart of all our dice rolls over all the games we have. Basically, the thing follows the bell curve just as it should, with one exception.

4. We never roll 4. Not nearly as much as we should.

We've actually rolled about as many 3's as we have 4's. It's fairly eery. I mean, I know that can happen obviously. But it's almost a factor in the game. Normally I like diversity of numbers in Catan--I want to see if I can hit all the numbers 4-10 with my two opening settlements. Except in the back of my mind there's always that truth: The 4 doesn't actually matter, because nobody's going to roll it.

Weird.

[eHalcyon]

Maybe your dice are rigged.

Is it any eerier if I tell you that 4 is an unlucky number for Chinese people?  It's because the word sounds like the word for "death".

[blueblimp]

At one point me and some others did a statistical test of the dice that came in the box, and concluded with reasonable certainty that they were unfair. Never could quite replicate that, so it might have been a fluke.

[sherwinpr]

At one point me and some others did a statistical test of the dice that came in the box, and concluded with reasonable certainty that they were unfair. Never could quite replicate that, so it might have been a fluke.

Did you test the joint probability of the sums (rolls of 2 through 12), or did you test each die individually (rolls of 1 through 6)?

[blueblimp]

At one point me and some others did a statistical test of the dice that came in the box, and concluded with reasonable certainty that they were unfair. Never could quite replicate that, so it might have been a fluke.

Did you test the joint probability of the sums (rolls of 2 through 12), or did you test each die individually (rolls of 1 through 6)?

I'm pretty sure it was individually, as doing them together would be pointless.

[^_^_^_^]

One thing I want to see irl is something like the dice rolling technique called 'double hit' but with 6-sided dice. I remember when I was little I found a way to get 6/6 6/5 every time. Sadly, I've forgotten how. Although, that may be better lol.
(the technique used in yugioh)

[Saucery]

The board in that picture has some sides of length four and the others length three. Is that an expansion or variant? I've always played with a regular 3 length hexagon..

[Kirian]

The board in that picture has some sides of length four and the others length three. Is that an expansion or variant? I've always played with a regular 3 length hexagon..

Expansion.  That's the setup for 5-6 players.  You can also see the brown pieces used by a 5th/6th player.