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Catan Online Set to Debut This Month
Thanks to GamingReport.com for the news that http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=14646>The Settlers of Catan Online will make its international online debut at Spiel '04 in Essen, Germany. "Catan Online will launch exclusively at MSN Games this winter. With MSN Games' base of 30 million registered users worldwide, more people than ever before will have access to this global gaming phenomenon." Besides being able to check out the game in depth, MSN is going to be running several tournaments and exhibitions of the game.
For those that really enjoy board games, it's a fun place (and there are many people that speak English there too).
Settlers of Catan is a German Board game created by Mayfair Games. In it, you use cardboard tiles to randomly assemble an island (Catan). You then begin the game by placing two settlements on the board. Each tile on the island represents a resource, with a number between 1 and 12. You roll a pair of dice, and the number that shows up dictates what resources "appear" for that round. Resources are used to purchase roads, settlements, and cultural improvements.
It's very simple to learn, but *very* hard to master, and is possibly one of the best board games ever made.
I didn't know the games there were a secret. :)
There's also Carcasonne ("CC"), Lost Cities, Go, Puerto Rico, etc, etc.
I hope I'm not inviting a hard slashdotting if they can't take it, but it sure would be nice to have a few more players on there with some regualrity :)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlers_of_Catan
Settlers of Catan is a board game that started in Germany and is huge in Europe. Apparently there are leages for it over there. Myself and many friends of mine play settlers often.
It's a great board game because there is a great deal of veriablity from one game to the next. This is due to the board being composed of tiles that change every game and the die roll. Depening on the way the tiles are layed out (randomly), certin resources become more or less valuable and this changes how one needs to play the game. The object of the game is to be the first person to get 10 victory points.
During the game there is a lot of player interaction as resources are bartered back and forth.
A game of regular settlers (there are expansions and variations) with people who know how to play typically takes from 30 to 60 minutes.
The game has some similarities to Monopoly and Risk but is really a completly different kind of game. Most people to like Risk seem to really enjoy settlers.
There's also Sea3D, and a number of other open source implementations.
Not to mention Gnocatan. The AI is poor (I haven't tried the Java version you link to, so I can't compare) and the UI a bit clumsy, but it works pretty well as a networked game.
There are at least three different environments for playing settlers of catan online.
http://www.s3dconnector.net/ is a very nice client, with lots of options for choosing 'house rules'.
Also because of the ladder setup, many people don't quit just because they're losing, a perpetual problem with onlinegaming environments.
http://solito.free.fr/catane/ is a nice client, but there's no rating system, so not so many people use it.
http://settlers.cs.northwestern.edu/ is the 'original' site. It lacks the nicer graphics, but is often heavily loaded, with lots of players around, (when it's up)
I really like strategy games, and many of the games I like don't appeal to people who aren't really into games. Settlers of Catan is a great game in part because it appeals to people who aren't "gamers".
I think part of the appeal is that it is pretty simple to learn. Also, although it is competitive, it is not very confrontational or combative compared to most other strategy games. For example, stuff you build (settlements, roads, cities) can't be destroyed by other players. (At least in the basic game set). And, you have to cooperate in the form of trading resources with others, at least in the beginning, or you'll never get anywhere.
I wouldn't say that it's all that hard to master, esp. compared with games like Tigris & Euphrates or Vinci, but it definitely has a high enough level of strategy to be fun even for fairly hard-core gamers.
Most of the best board games published these days come from Germany. I don't really know why. These games share common features:
Quick playing - usually no more than an hour or so,
No players are eliminated during play,
There is usually no "combat" and if there is it's only a small part of the game,
Simple rules but the games require careful strategy,
The games are usually not "simulations" of anything but rather have a "theme" pasted over clever mechanics,
Usually luck does NOT determine the winner,
Nice components, usually including wood pieces,
Go to http://www.boardgamegeek.com and check out the top-rated games.
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The Wrinkled Future of Online Gaming
http://settlers.cs.northwestern.edu/ This is the java applet version of basic catan, four player max and you are able to play against bots. Two positives are that you can play solo(against 3 bots) and since it's an applet there's nothing to download/install(play from work.. who? me?!?) Using wancatan and finding players via wannagame you can play with any or all of the expansions, different maps, rules, sounds, dice roll tracker, more players etc.
Settlers of Catan is a German Board game created by Mayfair Games.
As a point of fact, Settlers of Catan was originally published by Kosmos as Die Siedler von Catan and created by Klaus Teuber. See more information Here. Mayfair Games has republished it (3 editions I believe) in English, here in the USA.
This is a much better boardgame portal. You need to configure it to use english instead of german (if that's your language of choice), but it has a great community and lots and lots of german board games. If you aren't familiar with classic titles like Saint Petersburg, Puerto Rico, and Carcassone, you should really check it out. These games have been beautifly adapted to the java interface, so anyone can play with any OS with java support.
The german style of boardgame is interesting. The games are under an hour, you may be down, but you're never out, and it'll be your turn soon. The are easy to learn but hard to master. Unlike the American designers, the germans don't like direct conflict or random chance. Instead, there's a lot of resource denial and bidding strategy.
Brettspeilwelt has a metagame that advances players in rank. Experienced players have more control over games, and can build game rooms of their own. Generally, playing space, in terms of server resources is optimally allocated this way. There's a lot of prestige in offering the new game and so forth. Also, the Germans are very polite gamers. No cussing or racial slurs, just "good luck and have fun" type comments. If you like boardgames like Settlers, this is the place to be.
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I don't know how many games of Catan I've played where the dice suddenly seemed to start rolling 2,3, and 4 over and over again then suddenly start rolling a huge long string of 9, 10, 11... Around here the Catan dice are infamous for that behavior.
Um, ALL sets of dice are infamous for clumping behavior. You might want to look at a basic book of statistics.
A famous example of clumping in real life (and how we perceive it) can be demonstrated by convincing two of your friends to perform a little experiment. Have one toss a coin 100 times and write down the results. Have the other write up a "random" assortment of 100 heads and tails that they came up with in their head. Don't let them tell you which person used which method, instead tell them you will figure it out. Ninety-five percent of the time, the person flipping the coin will generate a series of seven or more heads or tails in a row. You almost never see this in the list the other person makes up, as they invariable think that seven or more in a row will never happen.
In terms of what to expect in a game like Settlers, similar clumping of production numbers will occur. Just like the person making up the heads/tails, this will seem extremely unlikely (or really bad/good luck), but it isn't; what seems to be really strange clumping is in fact quite common.
You have to assume weird clumping will happen, and plan for it. For example, consider spreading out your production centers in the early game onto different numbers so this has less of a chance of happening to you. This is especially important if you are playing a strategy that emphasizes cities (i.e. the ore-grain strategy), as you will have less production centers (and by extension, be located next to fewer production numbers) to begin with, and therefore are at a greater risk from clumping.
Not to nitpick, but "-1, Inaccurate."
Settlers of Catan is the English edition of Die Siedler von Catan, a German Board game created by Klaus Teuber, and published by Kosmos verlag GmbH in Germany, and Mayfair Games in most of the English-speaking world.
In it, you randomly build a hexagonal island out of smaller, hexagonal tiles. Each tile represends a resource (wool/sheep, lumber/wood, brick/clay, ore/stone, grain/food: These are some of the names that the five resources are known by), each with a number from 2-12. Etc, etc, etc. You know what, just look here, or here.
Part of the appeal of Settlers is its scalability: For beginners starting out for the first time, there's the basic set, which remains fun several plays later. More advanced players, or those craving a bit more variety, can snap in the Seafarers expansion, which adds the option for larger maps, alternate victory conditions, and scenario-specific points and goals, while those wanting a more micromanaged approach can try the Cities & Knights expansion, which allows players to build up their specific cities with improvements, and generally mess with the core game.
The popularity curve tends to favor Seafarers over the basic set and Cities & Knights, but they all have a pretty strong following.
Also of note are the other Catan games, including:
Starfarers of Catan
Starship Catan
Settlers of Catan Card Game
Candamir: The First Settlers (which is not yet released or even translated).
Then there's the novel, the computer games, and the whiskey bottle edition. No, seriously.
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3/1 brick ports
Poser. Everyone knows brick ports are 2/1.
Chuckle.
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