Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

malcolmong.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 48 posts

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#11

Post by Tossrock »

gte910h wrote: post #10

Settlers of Catan has piles of luck compared to many other games that only get uncertainty from the chaos of a bunch of other players moves. The die rolls, especially using the wooden dice that come with the game, are very likely to come out very biased and not very even for a given game, as well as the very rare powerful cards buried in a sea of knights in the dev card deck. Luck is not bad . Luck is merely a thing…

Could you explain how 5 card draw is more skill based than Hold 'em? This is not in a combative tone, I really want to know.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#12

Post by biot »

Meta-question: board games like chess and go are entirely based upon skill, but are there board games similar to Monopoly or Catan where you have the board, pieces, cards that grant abilities, etc. which are based entirely upon skill?

You'd have to eliminate dice entirely and make movement solely the choice of the player, within a defined set of rules. Cards wouldn't come up randomly but would be earned based on objective criteria. Conflicts for position/status/etc. need to be settled objectively as well.

I can think of a number of computer games which might fit the criteria, but I'm unaware of what's out there in the physical board game world.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#13

Post by dalke »

markyc wrote: post #7
ktrgardiner wrote: post #3

Short answer: a fair amount. Anecdotal story: The one time i played, having never even heard of the game before, I learned as I went along and ended up winning. I'd say my final few plays were the only ones based more upon strategy and less upon "Is this a fair play? Yes? Well then here's my play." So a good deal of luck is involved because a novice can't beat pros in a game based entirely upon skill.

apart from chess, I don't know of other games based entirely upon skill :)

tic-tac-toe and go also require as much luck as chess.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#14

Post by starwed »

markyc wrote: post #7
ktrgardiner wrote: post #3

Short answer: a fair amount. Anecdotal story: The one time i played, having never even heard of the game before, I learned as I went along and ended up winning. I'd say my final few plays were the only ones based more upon strategy and less upon "Is this a fair play? Yes? Well then here's my play." So a good deal of luck is involved because a novice can't beat pros in a game based entirely upon skill.

apart from chess, I don't know of other games based entirely upon skill :)

Chess/Go/Checkers are one category of game where luck plays no part, but not the only one. The thing they all have in common are 2 players and perfect information.

Then there are games like Stratego, which have no 'luck' but require you to make decisions based on imperfect information.

And games like Diplomacy, with no random element but a social dynamic. I'd assert that this game has no 'luck', but someone else up thread defines luck a bit differently and says that it does. :)

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#15

Post by ruedaminute »

If you play Cities and Knights (Catan expansion), the contribution of luck to a victory decreases by quite a bit, methinks. The game is much longer (play to 13 or more points) and involves a heck of a lot more strategy. There are more ways to win. You can also play with cards instead of dice (or like me, build a quick web-based cards prototype because I was too lazy to go physically buy them)

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#16

Post by herge »

gte910h wrote: post #10

Settlers of Catan has piles of luck compared to many other games that only get uncertainty from the chaos of a bunch of other players moves. The die rolls, especially using the wooden dice that come with the game, are very likely to come out very biased and not very even for a given game, as well as the very rare powerful cards buried in a sea of knights in the dev card deck. Luck is not bad . Luck is merely a thing…

There's good game design around luck (randomness) and bad game design around luck.

Monopoly has a lot of randomness, and it is hard to design a strategy to mitigate bad luck, which is probably why it isn't worth playing more than a few times.

Settlers of Catan and Texas Hold'em Poker both involve randomness, but a good strategy will mitigate bad luck (for example , in settlers, avoid holding a lot of a commodity to not be crippled by the monopoly card) and exploit good luck.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#17

Post by herge »

Tossrock wrote: post #11
gte910h wrote: post #10

Settlers of Catan has piles of luck compared to many other games that only get uncertainty from the chaos of a bunch of other players moves. The die rolls, especially using the wooden dice that come with the game, are very likely to come out very biased and not very even for a given game, as well as the very rare powerful cards buried in a sea of knights in the dev card deck. Luck is not bad . Luck is merely a thing…

Could you explain how 5 card draw is more skill based than Hold 'em? This is not in a combative tone, I really want to know.

Yeah, I think the Hold'em players skip 5 card draw because it is less of a skill based game.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#18

Post by aw3c2 »

gte910h wrote: post #10

Settlers of Catan has piles of luck compared to many other games that only get uncertainty from the chaos of a bunch of other players moves. The die rolls, especially using the wooden dice that come with the game, are very likely to come out very biased and not very even for a given game, as well as the very rare powerful cards buried in a sea of knights in the dev card deck. Luck is not bad . Luck is merely a thing…

Any proof on those dice being biased? I am truly interested in this now, surely some geeks tested various game company's dice.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#19

Post by WadeF »

What makes Settlers fun is that there is a good deal of randomness (luck), but you can play the game in such a way that you more often than not luck is on your side.

For instance, having access to all five resources leaves you in a better position for trading and buying, having diversity of numbers guarantees more often than not you'll collect a card, and having access to ports means you can have favorable trading.

There's also a good deal of diplomacy involved, because if someone decides to shut down your resources with the robber or refuses to trade with you because of some ribbing you can really limit your chances to win.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#20

Post by nekojima »

For those interested in playing Settlers of Catan, but don't have the game or enough players handy, it is available on BSW, a German site that also has an English interface. The quality of play is generally quite high & competitive, for this game and many of the others on the site.

http://brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/Siedler/

There are also a number of the other card/boardgames mentioned in the rest of this discussion which are available on BSW.

Post reply on HN