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[Forge!!!]

Part of the problem for me with Settlers is that when you play it with the same group over and over the politics aspect gets a little old. You know everyone's tendencies too well and how good they are and everything. It seems like it would do much better as a tournament game where you play against strangers where you can work to manipulate them a lot easier.

[mistergnome]

Hey all, I run the Catan strategy site www.SettlersStrategy.com. Though I won't be launching in full for another month, part of my intention for the site it to show that there is in fact plenty of tactical 'on the board' strategy. Surely politics are important, but there are lots of other things that can be optimized-- robber strategy and development card timing and expansion planning and resource balance-- and so on and so forth. You can even manipulate your hand size to protect valuable cards in your hand from being stolen.

I'll let this community know when we fully launch, you're a bright bunch and I'm looking forward to your feedback.

[Kuildeous]

You can even manipulate your hand size to protect valuable cards in your hand from being stolen.

Indeed, I've done some trades to ensure that I didn't have eight cards in my hand when my turn comes around in case I do roll a 7. If you already have 10+ cards, then one card won't make a difference. If you are teetering between 7 and 8, then you're in a dangerous position.

Of course, I try not to let the other person know that he's doing me a favor when I trade him an extra card.

Naturally, this works best if you dump your eighth card on the turn before yours. Do it too soon, and you may end up getting more resources to push your hand size beyond 7.

[werothegreat]

Is Guido Teuber wearing a shirt saying "University of Catan"?

Also, I love have Settlers has absolutely nothing to do with the original topic.

[Schneau]

Is Guido Teuber wearing a shirt saying "University of Catan"?

Also, I love have Settlers has absolutely nothing to do with the original topic.

[mistergnome]

Is Guido Teuber wearing a shirt saying "University of Catan"?

That's me, and yes. They gave us all those polos before the final game. The website it pretty bizarre: http://www.universityofcatan.com/

[eHalcyon]

I am a huge Settlers fan.  I agree that there is certainly skill involved.  With the group I usually play with, I'd say I tend to win 60-65% of our games and if I don't win then it is usually one other guy.

I think the game is much more interesting with Cities and Knights.  The commodities add a lot more depth to initial placements and which Cities to upgrade.  Barbarians are always a factor to consider (I've won several games where my friends neglected to have the resources to build and activate knights, crippling them early).  While I think I have intuitively figured out most of the strategy in the base game*, I am sure there are lots of things I could still learn for C+K:

- relative strengths of the three sets of progress cards (I favour Science for Inventor and Alchemist)
- relative strengths of City Improvements.  I tend to favour Science because I really like the Aqueduct and I think I undervalue Politics (because Mighty knights seem lacklustre, although they really aren't)
- evaluation of Barbarian threat
--- how much to give up for that crucial Wheat you are lacking
--- how much to squeeze out of opponents in exchange for that same Wheat if you have it)
- use and management of knights
--- when is it worth fighting for the Defender VP?
--- when is it worth deactivating a knight to move it, or to kick out an opposing knight, or to move the Robber?
- Commodities vs. Resources
--- if you're at your hand limit, when do you prefer holding onto Commodities to try to get to that Metropolis vs. resources to build a new City/Settlement?

I have thoughts on those issues, but I think C+K introduces a lot more subtlety.

OTOH, I don't think Seafarers adds much to the game.  Island hopping isn't that fun to me.

* this is not to say that I am competitive at all.  I'm not good at card counting.  I know it's important, but I don't try very hard to do it.

[mistergnome]

I am a huge Settlers fan.  I agree that there is certainly skill involved.  With the group I usually play with, I'd say I tend to win 60-65% of our games and if I don't win then it is usually one other guy.

I think the game is much more interesting with Cities and Knights.  The commodities add a lot more depth to initial placements and which Cities to upgrade.  Barbarians are always a factor to consider (I've won several games where my friends neglected to have the resources to build and activate knights, crippling them early).  While I think I have intuitively figured out most of the strategy in the base game*, I am sure there are lots of things I could still learn for C+K:

- relative strengths of the three sets of progress cards (I favour Science for Inventor and Alchemist)
- relative strengths of City Improvements.  I tend to favour Science because I really like the Aqueduct and I think I undervalue Politics (because Mighty knights seem lacklustre, although they really aren't)
- evaluation of Barbarian threat
--- how much to give up for that crucial Wheat you are lacking
--- how much to squeeze out of opponents in exchange for that same Wheat if you have it)
- use and management of knights
--- when is it worth fighting for the Defender VP?
--- when is it worth deactivating a knight to move it, or to kick out an opposing knight, or to move the Robber?
- Commodities vs. Resources
--- if you're at your hand limit, when do you prefer holding onto Commodities to try to get to that Metropolis vs. resources to build a new City/Settlement?

I have thoughts on those issues, but I think C+K introduces a lot more subtlety.

OTOH, I don't think Seafarers adds much to the game.  Island hopping isn't that fun to me.

* this is not to say that I am competitive at all.  I'm not good at card counting.  I know it's important, but I don't try very hard to do it.

This is good stuff. For the most part, the site will focus on the base game, in no small part because that is what tournaments feature. I do enjoy Cities and Knights, though it's a different game. There is certainly more going on creating more 'room' for strategic decisions. But the base game is a much tighter experience, area control is much more important, and I feel like a tighter game has its own strategy involved (ie development card timing, as you can only play 1 per turn).

If I can find someone with enough C&K experience (I've probably only played 50 games, compared to 3000+ of base), I wouldn't mind featuring a few guest articles on strategy specific to the expansion.

[Kirian]

Is Guido Teuber wearing a shirt saying "University of Catan"?

That's me, and yes. They gave us all those polos before the final game. The website it pretty bizarre: http://www.universityofcatan.com/

Congrats on the big win!

[mistergnome]

Is Guido Teuber wearing a shirt saying "University of Catan"?

That's me, and yes. They gave us all those polos before the final game. The website it pretty bizarre: http://www.universityofcatan.com/

Congrats on the big win!

Much appreciated!

[Turambar]

The correct answer is to have all of the expansions and make a merry mix from all of them.

People afraid of complexity can find better games to play.

There are better games than Dominion?

I think Agricola comes pretty close. It does have immense replayvalue, even if the games feels less varied than Dominion.

(The play-agricola website has about 10 players with 2000+ games. Considering a game of Agricola takes 90 mins and a Dominion game takes 10 min, this corresponds to 18000 Dominion-games in time-usage. And still they haven't quit playing.)

[ConMan]

I agree that Settlers + Cities and Knights has some real strong strategic and tactical choices in it. More so when you play 6 players with a build phase - with a smaller game, it's often viable to aim for a monopoly on a resource and trade it (particularly if you can get the harbour as well) for the things you actually need, but when you hit 6 players it's a much riskier proposition, but that balances with the larger number of players you could do inter-player trades with.

[Gherald]

I always say Settlers with and w/o Cities & Knights is the difference between checkers and chess.

This is but a mild exaggeration.

[Loschmidt]

There are better games than Dominion?

I think Agricola comes pretty close. It does have immense replayvalue, even if the games feels less varied than Dominion.

(The play-agricola website has about 10 players with 2000+ games. Considering a game of Agricola takes 90 mins and a Dominion game takes 10 min, this corresponds to 18000 Dominion-games in time-usage. And still they haven't quit playing.)

I love Agricola too I've played a few dozen games and it still feels like I haven't scratched the surface of strategy. And there is so much variety built into the game with the occupations/improvements that it feels like it'll be years before I've even seen all that the base game has to offer.

[Ratsia]

(The play-agricola website has about 10 players with 2000+ games. Considering a game of Agricola takes 90 mins and a Dominion game takes 10 min, this corresponds to 18000 Dominion-games in time-usage. And still they haven't quit playing.)

While that total count is very impressive, it's not quite that extreme. With the physical game the experienced players say it takes less than 20min per player, so 40-60 min for 3-4 player games. I did not find an estimate for online games, but unless the interface is very bad I would presume an average game between good players to be over in less than 30 minutes. It's certainly longer than an average Dominion game in Isotropic, but not by a factor of 9.

[Octo]

Tried Settlers C&K and there were some great ideas in there (eg the progress cards etc being more varied and stuff), but there was just something not there about it. It was too long for my group and it seemed to lack that elegance that vanilla has. In fact that's something I'm wondering about with Dominion: DA (bought it, just waiting to play it) and it's often something that expansions have a tendency to spoil. So while I own C&K we never play it, and I wonder if it will be the same with Dark Ages (though more likely that'll be due to my mates not being experienced enough with Dominion to properly grok it).

To bring this back round to the real topic at hand: I can imagine DA not going down too well with the BGG crowd (though haven't looked to check) because of much the same reasons we give C&K a miss. I think ISO has really changed the nature/community of this game in a fundamental way, because other than DXV hammering it out in testing hardly anyone would've played enough games to generate the level of analysis and strategy we have here.

[theory]

The correct answer is to have all of the expansions and make a merry mix from all of them.

People afraid of complexity can find better games to play.

There are better games than Dominion?

Twilight Struggle is, after all, my favorite game!  Its chief drawback (being 2-player only) doesn't really seem like it would be a turnoff for this crowd.

[Schneau]

Twilight Struggle is, after all, my favorite game!  Its chief drawback (being 2-player only) doesn't really seem like it would be a turnoff for this crowd.

I went to BGG to check it out based on your recommendation, and I noticed this: In the description, it says:

It is a quick-playing, low-complexity game...

I then go and look at the playing time, and find... 180 minutes!!! Do these people not understand what quick-playing means? I can play about 15 games of Dominion on Isotropic in that time!


To be fair, they probably mean compared to other strategy / war games, but seriously folks.

[Turambar]

(The play-agricola website has about 10 players with 2000+ games. Considering a game of Agricola takes 90 mins and a Dominion game takes 10 min, this corresponds to 18000 Dominion-games in time-usage. And still they haven't quit playing.)

While that total count is very impressive, it's not quite that extreme. With the physical game the experienced players say it takes less than 20min per player, so 40-60 min for 3-4 player games. I did not find an estimate for online games, but unless the interface is very bad I would presume an average game between good players to be over in less than 30 minutes. It's certainly longer than an average Dominion game in Isotropic, but not by a factor of 9.

It does of course depend a lot on who you are playing, but I've played 325 games online (so I consider myself experienced), and claim that it takes 70-100 mins to play a 4-player game, which is the standard format (just as 2p is standard in Dominion). 2-player games obviously takes a lot less time(could easily be over in 30 mins), but almost all games are 4p.

I've never played a 4-player Agricola in less than an hour, an I used to be the fastest player on the site (never done it IRL either, even with 4 fast players). Remember people are drafting cards for the first 5-10 mins.

[Ratsia]

It does of course depend a lot on who you are playing, but I've played 325 games online (so I consider myself experienced), and claim that it takes 70-100 mins to play a 4-player game, which is the standard format (just as 2p is standard in Dominion).

Thanks for the correction and clarification. I've never played it online and had to make the guess based on how much games of decent complexity (Dominion, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, etc) speed up when switching from table to online. Anyway, I just noticed my estimates for table games were off too. One doesn't quite get 40-60 minutes if we multiply "(a bit) less than 20 minutes" by 3-4; I really miscalculated that.

Anyway, I'm quite surprised that playing online does not seem to speed up Agricola as much as some other games. Maybe it's because of the nature of the game, or then the implementation is just a bit suboptimal.

Remember people are drafting cards for the first 5-10 mins.

That sounds a bit slow, though understandable.

[theory]

Twilight Struggle is, after all, my favorite game!  Its chief drawback (being 2-player only) doesn't really seem like it would be a turnoff for this crowd.

I went to BGG to check it out based on your recommendation, and I noticed this: In the description, it says:

It is a quick-playing, low-complexity game...

I then go and look at the playing time, and find... 180 minutes!!! Do these people not understand what quick-playing means? I can play about 15 games of Dominion on Isotropic in that time!


To be fair, they probably mean compared to other strategy / war games, but seriously folks.

The Designer's Notes for Twilight Struggle note that it was borne out of the desire to find an "epic" wargame that plays in an evening, rather than 8 hours.  Which is funny, because it's still a 3-hour game, but it is certainly the "epicness" of an 8-hour game.

In reality, I tend to finish an online game in about 1-1.5hours.  IRL it probably takes about 2 hours, 2.5 max between experienced players.  With beginners it will almost certainly be 3-4 hours.

[werothegreat]

I love how Intrigue is ranked higher than original Dominion on BGG's list (which has TS at the top, hence why I'm mentioning this).

[Octo]

TS?

[Rabid]

Twilight Struggle

[Ratsia]

I love how Intrigue is ranked higher than original Dominion on BGG's list

It should be, due to the expansion-effect: All kinds of gamers will try the original title. Mostly only the ones who like it will play/rate the expansion. Hence, they are rated higher on average even if they were not better. For example, my average rating (for the some 500 games I've tried) is more than one point lower than my average for expansions, despite the fact that I'm slightly against the concept of expansions for proper board games.

The only reason why most expansions are not ahead in the ranking is that the ranking system discredits games with few ratings. Intrigue has enough ratings, so as an expansion it gets ahead of the base game. If you take a closer look at the actual rating averages, you'll see that all of the expansions except Alchemy are rated better than the base game. Especially Dark ages and Prosperity are way ahead, hitting more than 8.5 whereas the base game and Intrique are around 8.0.

Edit: Also, I guess BGG does not include pure expansions in the overall ranked list, partly for the reason above. Intrique is stand-alone, but the expansion effect still certainly influences its ratings.