Sunday, March 8, 2015

The Placement of Catan

My buddy Anna posted about the Settlers of Catan and I wrote a long comment about my strategies for placing and playing the game but it's too long to be accepted as a comment! So I'm posting it here instead. So probably read her post first!

My strategy for placement depends on when I am placing.

For FIRST placement

1. Placing first I strongly consider placing on a spot that has the highest frequency aggregate. If you play on a board which indicates relative frequency with dots on the tokens you can just count the number of dots and place on a space with the most dots. An exception to this is if that gives me double of one resource and I may sacrifice a dot or two for three different resources rather than doubling up on one.

Another exception would be if one resource is really imbalanced with one good number and two or three really bad numbers. But placing first I would only do that if I get a good frequency on the other numbers.

Relative frequency is the most important factor when placing first because you're second placement is going to be very very restricted and you can't rely on having a good range of resources - go for the numbers because you might need to rely on trading.

Don't worry about where you point your road - everyone's going to muck your plans up anyway. If you're unsure, build a road toward the sea.

2. Placing second is similar to placing first but the first player's placement makes a difference to where you play even if you don't think the first player took the "best" spot.

As you can only place a settlement two vertices away from an existing settlement placing directly opposite another player locks out quite a lot of the board. As there are still FOUR settlements to be placed before you place your second settlement you probably want to make sure you place "on grid" if possible. That way you increase your choices with your second placement.

A major exception to this is if the first player has placed on a rare resource (say one brick has an 8 and the other two bricks are a 2 and a 12. You need to get on that 8 and if you can ensure only two of you are on that 8 you make that resource even more rare and valuable).

But generally, follow rules for placement as the first player but all things being equal try and place on grid.

Don't worry about where you point your road - everyone's going to muck your plans up anyway. If you're unsure, build a road toward the sea.

3. Placing third is, I think, the worst position to be in. But if you're playing with someone who you've played with a lot you may be able to guess where player 4 will place their settlements and work around that (as 4th player my settlements are VERY predictable so someone who plays 3rd player against me might have an advantage for placement because they will be able to guess what I'll do).

As there are only two settlements that will be placed before you place your second settlement it's worth considering what you want from your second settlement. Take a look at the resource combinations on the board - sometimes there will be a LOT of placements that give someone both wheat and sheep, or both wood and ore. If you look at the board and you can see that unless you're very unlucky you'll be able to pick up a wheat/sheep spot on your second placement I think it's worth taking that brick/ore/wood spot even if it's not the highest-frequency spot left.

You can't often predict exactly where your second settlement will go but by looking at the board you should be able to tell what sorts of spaces will be left for you. Try and make sure you can cover most (if not all) resources and I'd even consider placing on a space with a 3 or an 11 (which aren't very frequent numbers) if you think you'll be able to get a full spread on your second placement.

4. Placing fourth is by far my favourite because I heavily favour resource diversity and a large spread of numbers.

If I can place so that I cover all resources and don't double up on any numbers I will do that above almost anything. Of course there are always exceptions and occasionally that isn't possible. In which case my strategy resembles that of placing my second placement as third player.

Don't worry about where you point your road - everyone's going to muck your plans up anyway. If you're unsure, build a road toward the sea.

3. If you placed your first settlement well and fourth player didn't do anything super weird or out there you should be able to take, if not the space you wanted, at least something resembling that space. If you can't cover all the resources you need to consider your resource combinations. You can't use brick without wood and vice versa. Ore requires wheat. Your start game will be pretty crippled if you can't build settlements unassisted but development cards can get you there so if you can't cover brick/wood/wheat/sheep then make sure you have wheat/sheep/ore. If you can't build either of those things on your own then you'll be relying on trading which makes things difficult.

Strategically placing off grid at this point can severely lock up the board. That may be a good or bad thing.

If you can't cover even those resources consider a port for one of the resources you have plenty of!

If you can place your road toward a resource you didn't pick up, go for it. Or you know, build a road to the sea.

2 & 1 Placing your second settlement as second or first player is pretty much the same as third player only you're more restricted in your choices. Try and cover as many resources and numbers as possible or grab a port if you've got something in abundance. Again make sure you can build either settlements or development cards without having to trade with other players.

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Placement is important and I enjoy introducing new people to the game just so that I can talk to them about where they could place and what benefits and downsides each spot or combination would have (I consider it a personal achievement if a player I coached in starting positions beats me at the game). But I've seen games where terrible starting placements won and sometimes with what I consider to be a "Perfect" starting placement I still don't do well.

Once you've placed that part is done but the game hasn't even started yet! My strategy for playing the game is very simple. It is basically: don't do anything unless it will give you at least one point.

A. Don't trade with another player unless you can do something that gives you a point. Can't build a settlement or a city on your turn with that trade? Don't do it. Just don't. Assume that whenever you trade with another player they will be able to use whatever you trade them to add a point to their score.

B. Don't use a development card unless it gives you at least one point. (Exception: soldier. Use a soldier whenever you're being robbed). Save the monopoly and the year of plenty cards until you can use them to build either a city or a GOOD settlement (one that is actually increasing your ability to bring in resources). Use a monopoly or a year of plenty AS SOON AS doing so will build you a city. If you're holding a monopoly card keep a rough track of how many resources of a certain type you're looking for are out there and use it when that will give you a city. Sure maybe it would have been "better" to save the monopoly until it gave you 10 wood... but if two wheat now will give you a city I say go for that. Sometimes you can get two points out of a monopoly if a couple of big numbers have been rolled and you have a port for that resource or something. Take that opportunity if it comes but don't hold out for it.

In general treat development cards as roughly worth one point each for both the purposes of buying them and for estimating how well other players are doing. Soldiers and road building will often be used without granting the player a point immediately but the benefits of those cards (and the ability for a well used monopoly to give someone two points if used well) mean that 1 card = 1 point is a good estimate.