Settlers of Catan Strategy, part 1

I just played in the PAX tournament for Settlers of Catan today, as run by Mayfair Games. It pushed me into writing about a game and its strategies, which I don't prefer to cover.

In the single-elimination semi-finals, I lost at 9 points. But the loss was to a good player, and all of us felt like we had our chances. (Thanks Andy, Andrea, and Nate.) We had good conversations throughout the game, and Nate asked at the beginning - where do we find good strategy articles for Settlers? Huh. I'm going to ignore my google-fu for now, and assume that it should still be covered.

First, everyone has their opinions, which is generally why I wouldn't bother talking about it. But, Nate - this short series is for you, and whoever else finds it useful.

Second, the game can never be played the same, so people fall back to "well, if played well..." You can always lose to numbers, bad fortune in development cards, and to unfortunate people issues. There are ways to try to mitigate some of these, but they will always be part of the game.

I like the game a lot. (I like the Cities and Knights version much, much better.) I was fortunate that my friend Kevin brought it in, and that I was able to share it with...let's say hundreds of other people. After the local game store would close down for the night, Settlers would start up at my place in 20 minutes - long enough to pick up salsa and chips, and for people to pick up their contributions at the market. (The LGS staff would tell me stories of people coming in and looking for the 'settlers' game that they played the previous night with a friend of a friend...Jimmer? Oh, you know him?)

Pips by the numbers:
Modern sets have pips on each number, when it comes for tiles to produce goods. One for 2/12, two for 3/11, etc. You don't need to know probability, but the chances of a 2 from two six-sided dice is 1 chance in 36 (1/6 * 1/6, as both dice need to be a one). Just looking at the resource disk, you can probably guess that 3 is 2 chances in 36. Catan further makes it more obvious by making the 6 and 8 in red font - "THESE ARE THE BEST." It will be a rare win, if you manage to pull off a game without being built on one or the other...or both.

Goods by the numbers:
3 stone/ore/rock - I'll use terms interchangeably...in a future article, I'll mention why. :)
3 brick/clay
4 wheat/grain
4 wood
4 sheep

Placement is huge, and is a big part of playing more of a numbers game. I think pips are my first gut-check when looking placements for the game set-up. There might be two wheat on the wheat port, but if they are a 3 and 11....4 pips is a weak placement - a 6 or an 8 by itself is 5! Your first settlement placement should be able to get you 10-13 pips. Even if they are poor resources that no one wants, you are going to be racking up lots of goods. There are very few actual circumstances where you should allow the 1st or 2nd player to have that kind of placement for their second settlements.

Here's where you'll find some personal preferences: pips vs. resources vs. ports
Some folks like resource-diversity - get 4 or even all 5 resources from their starting locations.
Some folks like pip-diversity - be on 5-6 different numbers.
Some folks require a port from at least one of their settlements.

If I can be on 3 resources, I'll be moderately okay in an average game. I like SOME pip diversity - I don't want to sit on my hands except for the 5/8/10 rolls, and it can end with you discarding a lot of cards to the robber's hand size limit of 7. I will put up with 4 different numbers, but I generally like playing at least 5. Ports - in a tighter, more competitive game, you'll use it more often. In a highly social and/or casual game, you should be able to find your trades more often than not.

I'll leave discussion of what resources are best/worst for next time.