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How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

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Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#31

Post by Someone »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #25

What bugs me about Settlers isn't that it's got too much luck, it's that I can pretty much tell who is going to win (or at least one of two) based on the initial settlement placement. Or at least who's going to lose. And it's pretty much completely no fun to play a game where the result is preordained that you'll lose. Speaking of settlement placement: There aren't enough rolls in a game of Catan for the distribution…

I disagree. Going for the low-variance option is a good idea if you do not want to lose, but not one if you want to win.

Consider a game where one player gets two items for every roll above 7, another two items for every roll below 7, and a third one item for every roll that is not 7. With any not perfectly even distribution of rolls, one of the first two players will have the highest production, and the other of the two the lowest. There is no set of throws that will give the last player the most produce.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#32

Post by anthonyb »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #25

What bugs me about Settlers isn't that it's got too much luck, it's that I can pretty much tell who is going to win (or at least one of two) based on the initial settlement placement. Or at least who's going to lose. And it's pretty much completely no fun to play a game where the result is preordained that you'll lose. Speaking of settlement placement: There aren't enough rolls in a game of Catan for the distribution…

I find that it's not so much a balanced distribution of numbers, but that you don't have to cash in 4 for 1 for a resource that you need.

Also, you don't need a deck of dice - just draw on an old pack of cards with a permanent marker :)

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#33

Post by anthonyb »

Someone wrote: post #31
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #25

What bugs me about Settlers isn't that it's got too much luck, it's that I can pretty much tell who is going to win (or at least one of two) based on the initial settlement placement. Or at least who's going to lose. And it's pretty much completely no fun to play a game where the result is preordained that you'll lose. Speaking of settlement placement: There aren't enough rolls in a game of Catan for the distribution…

I disagree. Going for the low-variance option is a good idea if you do not want to lose, but not one if you want to win. Consider a game where one player gets two items for every roll above 7, another two items for every roll below 7, and a third one item for every roll that is not 7. With any not perfectly even distribution of rolls, one of the first two players will have the highest production, and the other of the…

Except that rolling high vs. low vs. a balance of both all have equal probabilities.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#34

Post by Someone »

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.

How much of it is luck depends heavily on where you place the plateau of what "everybody knows".

For example, it is a skill to use the heuristic that one should not place the robber near one's own towns, or that one should try and build additional towns and roads. If that is considered something that not everybody knows, the skill factor likely is over 50%.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#35

Post by mtm »

biot wrote: post #12

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 obje…

The closest one I've run into is Agricola: it's almost pure skill ('almost' because there is an optional set of 'occupation' cards that get randomly distributed at the beginning of the game). The theme is building out the best farm by the end of a set number of turns.

The main thrust of the game is for players to take turns choosing actions from a limited common pool that is reset at the beginning of each turn. One of the actions is 'go first next turn'. Everyone ends up competing for actions. The game seems complicated at first but is actually fairly simple. Great fun!

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#36

Post by gte910h »

aw3c2 wrote: post #18
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.

A wooden die that has carved pips with no active attempt to prevent bias (aka, a weird weight in the middle, etc), will exhibit a bias from the fact some faces have more pips (which are pits in the wood) than others. This means some sides are more likely to be pulled face down, and end up face down.

That is why in vegas you use those certain red dice at a craps table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dice#Precision_dice

I play catan with craps dice.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#37

Post by gte910h »

herge wrote: post #16
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 n…

Monopoly's biggest issues are that it eliminates people, and people refuse to play with the auctions and other game rules as written (and do stuff like letting people survive, etc, prolonging it longer).

To each his own, for sure, but that game takes forever without the auctions.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#38

Post by gte910h »

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.

Starting hand strengths are MUCH further apart in holdem and 5CD.

You can start with the nuts (Straight flush to the Ace) in 5CD, but in holdem, AA is only about 450:1 better than a random disconnected offsuit (2s 8h).

Tight play is overwhelmingly rewarded (you can start with a hand thousands of times better than your opponent). So in a 5CD game against bad players, the good players fold repeatedly until they get a strong hand, and take all the money, repeatedly.

Against people of similar skill, draw (with the antes most people play with) is more of an actual game, and less of a horrible train-wreck of watching bad players getting fleeced. But in a similar holdem game, a guy can sit down, play every hand, and will often turn out okay.

*My comments are about cash games. For tournaments, the tournament dynamics dwarf a huge quantity of the strategy in the actual game.

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#39

Post by gte910h »

biot wrote: post #12

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 obje…

You've hit my hobby (but I dislike the games you're talking about).

I'd contend chess's outcome is based purely on the decisions of the players, but there are often close calls in that game as well, which it is reasonable your opponent will zig or zag, etc, where your chances of winning come up entirely on if you happened to believe if he was zigging or zagging and did moves to counter zigging or zagging appropriately several turns ago.

Multi-player games still have the chaos of multiple people making decisions. So yes, there is no technical randomness, there is still chaos and uncertainty:

Lifeboats: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/249/lifeboats http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy Stratego: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1917/stratego Blokus: Lay down tiles and try to last as long as possible http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2453/blokus

Gemblo: Same as blokus, harder to find in the US, done better: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19427/gemblo

Antike: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19600/antike only luck is who you get as your place on the board. It's okay, but it has a certain snowball quality to play some games. Somewhat Risk like

Hive: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2655/hive chess, without a board, with bugs. Fun, short, but non-random

1830: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/421/1830-railways-robber-... a game about being a robber baron. Interesting stock market mechanic, etc.

Of these, lifeboats is a little fun, but honestly, most interesting game mechanics are there to make a game playable more than a few times (which is one thing the above games lack), and most of them have some degree of randomness. The next crop of games has a minimal random element:

Power Grid (Random element: which power plants will be up for auction): You all play Monte Burns esque robber barons over a electrification empire. Very "brain burner" to many people's minds: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid

Puerto Rico (Random Element: which plantations are available this round): You play plantation owners on Puerto Rico during the days of the sugar trade. The theme is distasteful to some http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3076/puerto-rico

Chicago Express (Random Element: Seating order): Robber baron type scenario, but playtime is http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31730/chicago-express

Re: How much of Settlers of Catan is Luck?

#40

Post by gte910h »

anthonyb wrote: post #33
Someone wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Going for the low-variance option is a good idea if you do not want to lose, but not one if you want to win. Consider a game where one player gets two items for every roll above 7, another two items for every roll below 7, and a third one item for every roll that is not 7. With any not perfectly even distribution of rolls, one of the first two players will have the highest production, and the other of the…

Except that rolling high vs. low vs. a balance of both all have equal probabilities.

A good distribution of numbers is a dominent strategy in catan due to the robber taking half your goods if you have more than 7 cards when a robber is rolled.

Late game overclustering (aka, being on too few numbers) is very brittle to rolls of 7 and additionally to the robber stopping production there as well.

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