A co-worker of mine recently started playing Settlers of Catan.  Though he seemed to like the game he didn’t like the set way to layout the tiles and place the numbers.  In typical developer fashion he wrote the Settlers of Catan Board Generator.  This application can generate a standard board but also long, skinny boards.  It will also randomly place the numbers.

We played a couple games and it was fun because it was different.  Playing on a long snake like board opened up some different strategies but also made apparent why Settlers board’s are setup in a certain way.

The main problem is the random placement of the numbers can create one or two really good spots (i.e. a spot adjacent to two sixes) and the winner is decided by who gets to place first.  For example, say board shown on the right is generated.  The player that gets first turn is going place their piece on the double brick (6-8, in the top right corner).  If that same player is able to get on a 2-for-1 brick then they have a huge advantage before the first round.

I’m not sure how many rounds a typical Settlers (Google was no help) lasts but I’ll try to estimate it.  Say the average game is 60 minutes long with 4 players.  Each player has an equal amount of turns and a, on average, will take the same amount of time per turn.  The average turn involves rolling the dice, collecting your cards, then trading.  Let’s say the average turn takes a minute so a game will typically have 60 turns, or 60 rolls of the dice.  The number of times a number will come up in this game is:

2: (2.78% * 60) = 1.67
3: (5.56% * 60) = 3.34
4: (8.83% * 60) = 5.30
5: (11.11% * 60) = 6.67
6: (13.89% * 60) = 8.33
7: (16.67% * 60) = 10.00
8: (13.89% * 60) = 8.33
9: (11.11% * 60) = 6.67
10: (8.83% * 60) = 5.30
11: (5.56% * 60) = 3.34
12: (2.78% * 60) = 1.67

Now the player that is on the 6-8 brick corner is probably going to be able to place their last settlement on another 6 or 8 title.  That means over the course of the game they will get 24 resources from their initial settlements alone.  Other players who only control 2 6/8 titles will be get 8 less resources.  I know this a bit simplistic as there are other factors such as the robber, cities, etc but I think it shows just how much of an advantage that first player has.

Playing on these random boards really gives you an appreciation on how hard Klaus Teuber (the designer of Settlers) must have worked to make the game balanced.  If your board of the standard Settler’s game then give the random generator a try.  You can also try variations found at the University of Catan site.  I haven’t tried any of these special rules (I haven’t even found time to play all the expansions for Settlers yet) but some of them are written by Teuber so should be pretty interesting and balanced.

If you don’t like the luck factor of Catan then you try the new Settlers Event Cards which replace the dice with a deck of cards.

 I added a list of the board and card games I currently own, check out the summary page for all the details. In my youth I was a big fan of games like Monopoly and Risk but in my mid-life crisis years I’ve started liking the so called “German” or “European” games such as Carcassonne and Settlers. These games tend have more strategy and a lot less luck. They are not mindless party games, but rather “mind-full” party games.

I’m also starting to like games where no one is eliminated half way through the game. Risk is a fun game but runs into trouble where someone is eliminated then has to sit and watch the remaining players for next 3 hours. Even in Settlers if you realize you aren’t going to win you can still play and make meaningful actions till the end.

For some interesting articles about games, ethics in games, why we play, etc check out The Games Journal.