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Real-Time Settlers of Catan

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Real-Time Settlers of Catan

#31

Post by olejorgenb »

declan_roberts wrote: post #18

> Settlers of Catan is still a fine game, but can be tedious when you have to wait for other players to take long turns One house rule we use that dramatically speeds up the game is open-hand resources. No more asking "Does anybody have...?" incessantly. Just look around and get ready for your trade. The bulk of game time is actually just trading. We also remove the bandit and rolling an 7 is an automatic free resour…

IMO that would make certain aspects of the game quite different. Knowing which resources the other players have is an advantage (eg. when competing for the same spot) and open cards removes all the advantage (and challenge) of being good at keeping somewhat track of that.

Monopoly card becomes a lot easier to play optimally as well.

I usually advocate playing no-rob-on-2-point players. (taken from the xplorers online version)

Re: Real-Time Settlers of Catan

#32

Post by hot_gril »

olejorgenb wrote: post #31
declan_roberts wrote: post #18

> Settlers of Catan is still a fine game, but can be tedious when you have to wait for other players to take long turns One house rule we use that dramatically speeds up the game is open-hand resources. No more asking "Does anybody have...?" incessantly. Just look around and get ready for your trade. The bulk of game time is actually just trading. We also remove the bandit and rolling an 7 is an automatic free resour…

IMO that would make certain aspects of the game quite different. Knowing which resources the other players have is an advantage (eg. when competing for the same spot) and open cards removes all the advantage (and challenge) of being good at keeping somewhat track of that. Monopoly card becomes a lot easier to play optimally as well. I usually advocate playing no-rob-on-2-point players. (taken from the xplorers online…

If people are playing so carefully that they're constantly checking others' resources like this, it might actually be slower.

Re: Real-Time Settlers of Catan

#33

Post by declan_roberts »

olejorgenb wrote: post #31
declan_roberts wrote: post #18

> Settlers of Catan is still a fine game, but can be tedious when you have to wait for other players to take long turns One house rule we use that dramatically speeds up the game is open-hand resources. No more asking "Does anybody have...?" incessantly. Just look around and get ready for your trade. The bulk of game time is actually just trading. We also remove the bandit and rolling an 7 is an automatic free resour…

IMO that would make certain aspects of the game quite different. Knowing which resources the other players have is an advantage (eg. when competing for the same spot) and open cards removes all the advantage (and challenge) of being good at keeping somewhat track of that. Monopoly card becomes a lot easier to play optimally as well. I usually advocate playing no-rob-on-2-point players. (taken from the xplorers online…

It just becomes part of the strategy.

Re: Real-Time Settlers of Catan

#35

Post by cdelsolar »

demiculus wrote: post #26

Hello, I'm Demi from https://colonist.io team. I love this. It feels like what Bananagram did to scrabble. Scrabble -> Waiting turns Bananagram -> Everyone plays at the same time The difference in fun is 10x. We will use your app to see how it plays out. We might just end up implementing it :)

Cesar from the https://woogles.io team - bananagrams is definitely not nearly as fun as Scrabble :)

Re: Real-Time Settlers of Catan

#36

Post by komadori »

declan_roberts wrote: post #18

> Settlers of Catan is still a fine game, but can be tedious when you have to wait for other players to take long turns One house rule we use that dramatically speeds up the game is open-hand resources. No more asking "Does anybody have...?" incessantly. Just look around and get ready for your trade. The bulk of game time is actually just trading. We also remove the bandit and rolling an 7 is an automatic free resour…

Indeed, I prefer to openly display information that, were it kept nominally secret, could be determined anyway via lots of tedious bookkeeping.

Re: Real-Time Settlers of Catan

#37

Post by komadori »

I once did something in a similar vein, but with much less sophistication. We had 8 players and 2 copies of Catan. The games were played simultaneously and the rule was that the first player to win a game was the overall winner. Everyone was very motivated to play frantically!

Re: Real-Time Settlers of Catan

#39

Post by gnfurlong »

epolanski wrote: post #10

Slightly ot any interesting boards game you can recommend for a couple?

I absolutely adore Hanabi, especially for two players. It's a cooperative game with very limited communication.

Also another vote for Splendor Duel. The original Splendor is probably my favorite game and Duel is the better version for two players.

Re: Real-Time Settlers of Catan

#40

Post by autoexec »

n_plus_1_acc wrote: post #24
declan_roberts wrote: post #18

> Settlers of Catan is still a fine game, but can be tedious when you have to wait for other players to take long turns One house rule we use that dramatically speeds up the game is open-hand resources. No more asking "Does anybody have...?" incessantly. Just look around and get ready for your trade. The bulk of game time is actually just trading. We also remove the bandit and rolling an 7 is an automatic free resour…

I hate the 7 because it just adds too much randomness to a strategy game.

I don't mind leaving some room for the Fates to influence a game, considering you're not entirely dependent on luck. Skillful players will still do better in the long run and just as in life anybody can have good/bad luck. You could change the roll to something other than a 7 to keep some element of chance with lower odds of it being an factor.
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