
Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre - nadim
http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/magazine/17-04/mf_settlers
======
mechanical_fish
Have I entered some sort of time warp? I was introduced to this game at the
gaming club at Cornell. In _1997_.

When reading this article I had to keep looking up at the dateline to make
sure I hadn't accidentally slipped back into graduate school. Talk about
existential terror.

The moral of this story is threefold. First: I was a much bigger game geek
than I ever thought I was. Second: Your business can take a _really_ long time
to reach its full potential. Third: Just because something is old news to you
doesn't mean that there aren't lots of people encountering it for the first
time.

~~~
electromagnetic
I was never a board game geek, but that might have been a side effect of
growing up in the 90's. I had friends who I couldn't hang out with every day,
because we lived so far apart. So I ended up being killer at early video games
and for the most part I still am although I rarely play the first person
shooters or the RTS games anymore due to time (and, for the FPS', interest)
constraints.

Yet even _I_ knew what Catan is. Even my wife does, I told her about 3 months
ago that the next time we waste money on a board game we're actually going to
get one I like, so I pointed it out to her.

So even for me that was a sort of bizarre 'deja vu' experience. Then again, I
grew up in the UK so I suppose this game probably hit the market much bigger
and much sooner than in the US. I guess an addendum to your second moral is
that foreign markets can act in unexpected ways.

------
nadim
Here's one thing that stuck out to me, his iteration and testing on real
people:

"""Every once in a while, he would bring the new game upstairs to test it out
on his family. They would play along, but Teuber could tell that the game
wasn't working. Sometimes, in the middle of a match, he would notice his
youngest son, Benny, reading a comic under the table. Other times his wife
would suddenly remember a load of laundry that needed immediate attention.
After each of these sessions, Teuber would haul the game back downstairs for
further refinement. He repeated this process over the course of four years."""

~~~
misuba
Of course! Games are essentially just user interface - imagine if your
software product didn't _have_ an underlying set of tasks that had to be
accomplished, or even a mental model on the user's part of what was being
done. How much more important would UI testing be?

~~~
bendotc
As one of several game makers on HN, I want to take issue with the idea that
"games are essentially just user interface." Games almost always present an
interface to an underlying system. Many games have an underlying system that
is not particularly simple or intuitive and take significant effort to learn.
And, because unlike tools, they do not offer to assist the user in doing
something that she already knows she wants to do, we often provide many more
incentives along the way, as struggling with a system is often not amusing,
and amusement is usually the goal.

This is all to say that the UI is very important, but to consider games as
_chiefly_ UI is to fundamentally misunderstand what games are and how we
interact with them.

~~~
misuba
Yeah, my statement's only true in certain senses. It might be more accurate,
with tabletop games at least, to say that games are a UI to the other players
- that is, they channel social interactions in certain ways.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
this is my feeling. the games that last are ones that distill some aspect of
friendly competition between people. and the very best games are the ones that
cause you to interact with your friends in some new way (games that involve
auctions or mini-economies tend to do this well)

------
sanj
If you're playing this game without the "Penny Rule", you're missing out.

SoC suffers from a bit of a compound interest effect: a few bad (non-
producing) rolls at the beginning can screw you for the entire game.

To make up for this:

Anytime there is a roll on which a given player doesn't get _any_ resources
(and not because of the thief), they are given a penny.

During trading, a player can buy a resource from the bank using pennies for
the cost of _number of victory points showing._

This dramatically reduces run-away-winner syndrome.

~~~
time_management
That's a great design hack. Did you come up with it?

If only someone could do something similar for mana drought/flood, _Magic_
would be a pretty good game.

~~~
freakball
Mulligans are built into tournament rules.

That being said, I find that they are quite the leveler; high tempo decks with
less lands suffer less than a control deck, but need mulligans more often.
It's a trade-off, and evens out the playing field more than people realize.

~~~
Erf
Even with mulligans, I'd argue that mana screw is one of the biggest failings
of M:tG. Make your best estimate of what percentage of games you think are
decided by mana screw or mulligan-reduced hands, then ask: "Is that too high?"

~~~
time_management
In my experience, it was about 1/3. Then again, I wasn't a great player.

In 2003, I came up with a Magic-like game that solved a lot of these problems.
It wasn't a kill-your-opponent game, but a German-style TCG with a Victory
Point (VP) system, making it more amenable to multiplayer games. There were no
"life points", but you had Action and Focus points that you could use to draw
extra cards or resources, to give creatures an advantage in combat (making it
more nondeterministic), etc. The number of strategic options per turn was
vastly greater than in Magic, so it was harder for a player to get "stuck" and
unable to do something useful.

Unfortunately, at the time I knew nothing about programming, nor had any money
(I was 20). It was pretty obvious that the only way the game had a shot would
be to take it online. Now I could hack it up, but I've forgotten most of the
mechanics.

The disadvantage of this game, and why I think it wouldn't have ever taken off
the way M:tG did is that, despite having "better" design from a Euro-style
perspective, it wasn't a game that would finish within 30 minutes. A turn
involved multiple players (most phases of turns were concurrent) and had a lot
more strategic options than Magic's "untap, draw, cast, attack" formula that
describes 90% of turns, so a single turn would last 3-10 minutes.

------
misuba
I agree with a lot of other commenters here that Catan is luck-driven and
essentially over (except for a lot of tedious listening to people tell you
_again_ that they don't have the resource cards you want) after you make your
initial placements. What deserves more attention, though, are the ways in
which "worse is better" applies here - the specific things about Catan that
make hardcore gamers dislike it are, in many cases, the things that make it
popular.

For instance, lots of people like to feel that when they win, it's because
they were skillful, and when they lose, it's only because they were unlucky.
On the other hand, if you really _are_ investing your skills in your decisions
but still lose due to luck, you'll be really frustrated. Catan does an
excellent job of keeping players busy, but essentially on an equal footing of
powerlessness. On this basis it really appeals to people who get all kinds of
nervous when asked to play any kind of game of skill with friends.

~~~
blinks
A better game for that group would be Fluxx
(<http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/258>) -> lots of fun, interesting
decisions, but a massive element of luck. In Fluxx, if you know what you're
doing and get lucky, you can win extremely fast. If you don't get lucky,
though, you're stuck. I've found that people interested in a light-weight game
always end up liking it.

~~~
jvdh
"if you know what you're doing and get lucky, you can win extremely fast."

I would turn that around. The luck factor in Fluxx is staggeringly high.
However, what makes Fluxx fun is that it does not make any attempt whatsoever
to hide that fact.

My problem with SoC is that it has a very high luck factor, but that the game
also tries very hard to hide that fact. The expansion Cities and Knights or
using a deck of cards with the dicerolls make SoC bearable.

------
mkinsella
Anyone interested in board games should check out
<http://www.boardgamegeek.com>. It's an amazing resource.

~~~
misuba
Why is there still no usable way for me to add my collection of games to
BoardGameGeek? I've got to load the page for each game I own and click "I own
this" separately. Even for a modest-sized collection like mine, this is enough
to stop me from using what's obviously a tremendously powerful community tool.

~~~
blinks
They just redesigned the backend; hopefully this'll make changes like that
easier. Personally, every so often I want to make my own version, but the user
data on BGG is so useful, I think it might keep others out of the market.

------
josh_nyc
I was introduced to Catan during college and we quickly had a weekly game
going. The interplay of luck and skill is intrinsically woven into the
gameplay, which kept things very dynamic. The "wheeling/dealing" aspect of the
bartering keeps things interesting when it isn't your turn.

Just when things would get boring on the skills side (someone was far ahead of
everyone else), luck would rush in to make things interesting. Just when
things would get boring on the luck side (a series of bad rolls), there would
be opportunities to strategize around it.

I haven't played it in years, though (not near that group of people anymore),
so it was a pleasure to see this pop up on HN. And it is pretty relevant
insofar as the "programming" and game loop is quite clever.

There are some great online versions too (asobrain, jsettlers, etc... would
provide links but I don't know what the best online versions are today).

------
habibur
You can't figure out, what game the article is talking about until you finish
reading a lot of text. So here is the link.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlers_of_Catan>

It's called Settlers of Catan.

~~~
Flemlord
And it's a great game. There's also a decent version you can download for XBox
360:

<http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/puzzle/catan/index.html>

------
msluyter
Huge boardgame fan checking in. Settlers makes for a great "gateway game," a
way to introduce non-gamers to the world of eurogames, but most hardcore
gamers in my crowd find it a little too luck driven. We tend to prefer games
like Agricola, Powergrid, Caylus, and El Grande these days. But I still think
it's a pretty good game.

If you're new to boardgames and like Settlers, I recommend going to BGG
(boardgamegeek.com) and checking out their list of the top 20 or so games and
trying some of those.

If you're looking for people to play with, there are a number of active
boardgame Meetups. You can also check out <http://www.brettspielwelt.de/>,
which is a German site with a lot of popular boardgames available for online
play.

Happy gaming!

------
sant0sk1
I learned how to play this a few weeks ago. I had no idea at the time that I
was playing a "perfect" board game!

Seriously, though. It was just okay. The game always ended just when things
were getting interesting.

~~~
tipjoy
You need to play with the 'cities and knights' extension. It makes the game
more complex. Also try the board game Puerto Rico, which we're just getting
into but seems pretty awesome.

~~~
blinks
Puerto Rico, Power Grid, Race for the Galaxy >> Settlers of Catan, all the
way.

Basically, start at the top and go down:
<http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame>

~~~
eru
In my experience --- and I am from Germany ;) --- The top games at the
boardgamegeek are too complex as first games.

Settlers, Bohnanza and Carcassonne are excellent starters into the world of
boardgames. Geeks will want to graduate to Caylus, Puerto Rico and the like
later on.

------
mynameishere
Come on. Nothing beats a good 40-hour marathon of Axis & Allies.

~~~
run4yourlives
40 hours, and all that matters is whoever can hold the Caucasus for longer
that 2-3 turns.

------
syntactic
Funny a friend just introduced this game to me a couple weeks ago, it is
pretty fun and easy to learn buy in my opinion too short, more like a rush to
get 10 points than a thorough strategy game. For the first few games, just
when I had my little economy humming along somebody would bust out their ten
victory points out of nowhere.

------
mapleoin
The luck and strategy part is also very nicely done in
<http://www.wesnoth.org/> which is inspired by Settlers of Catan and other
such games. You might be repulsed by the graphics at first, but after a while
you actually get to appreciate them and find that they fit in perfectly.

~~~
jibiki
Wesnoth is nothing like Settlers, but it's still a good game, especially
considering the price. IIRC, ESR wrote a campaign for it.

~~~
mapleoin
yup, ESR is an active contributor. You can find him in
#wesnoth@irc.freenode.net sometimes.

------
thomaspaine
I used to play this game all the time, but eventually just got tired of it. It
became too predictable.

------
Tichy
It certainly has become the new Monopoly in Germany. I prefer Carcassonne,
though, or at the very least, Settlers with the Cities and Knights expansion.

Also the settlers of catan card game is very good in my opinion (I like it
much better than the board game).

------
rjprins
I don't really like it, I guess it's a personal preference, but I need a game
where skill is just a little bit more important.

When I play Catan I just feel like I'm following a train track - zero options.

I prefer Warcraft, the board game! :)

~~~
mcu
Truly one of my favorite board games! That, Twilight Imperium, and A Game of
Thrones!

~~~
spyrosk
Twilight Imperium is really great. A couple of others that I really liked is
Android and Arkham Horror (different style though).

Has anyone played Diplomacy and/or Long live the King? I love their concept,
although I haven't played any of them..

Slightly off-topic: I play a lot of rpg's, but for some reason I don't like
their newer versions, ie d&d v3+, vampire: the requiem etc. Are there any
others who have gone through the different versions? How do you feel about the
most recent ones?

------
kbrower
Can someone please make this game into an iphone/ipod touch app already

~~~
icefox
A lot of the fun of the game is playing with other people, taking and in
general hanging out. I get together with a handful of people about once a
month to play board games. We try to play one new game every time and then
replay the good ones. Puerto Rico, Agricola, Power Grid, Ccitadels, etc. We
any of the Boston hackers be interested in joining or starting a
startup/hacker board game night?

~~~
misuba
That said, though, I wonder why there aren't more "hot seat" style mobile
games, designed to be played on one handset that gets passed around. Or on
many handsets that share game info wirelessly but depend somehow on co-
presence in the real world.

~~~
eru
I've played "Das verrückte Labyrinth" in this way with a friend on two
Nintendo DS.

------
falldowngoboom
As others have said, I find Settlers to be all about the initial positioning
of your pieces. Choose wrong and it's a slow grind to an inevitable defeat.

------
wlievens
If you want (as the article claims) a real Monpoly-how-it-should-be game, give
Chinatown a try.

<http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/47>

It's about free-style trading much like Monopoly _should_ be, except that it
doesn't suck.

------
2bit
I had no idea they were releasing a new PC version soon, that's great news.
I'm hoping they introduce a tutorial mode. I've tried introducing friends to
PlayCatan.com but having to explain all the rules in chat they lose interest
right away.

------
jcromartie
And Puerto Rico is even better :)

------
chris11
Here is an unofficial online flash version of Settlers of Cataan.
(Registration is required) <http://games.asobrain.com/>

------
fbailey
growing up in germany I lost a lot of my youth time to this game

------
joshu
This is a new thing? I've hated this game for years.

------
albertcardona
It's one of the best board games I've ever played.

And there is a java version called jsettlers with online ladders and so on,
that helped a lot to spread word about Settlers. The java version was created
to test artificial intelligence applications for robot players, with some
success (although robots never beat a trained human).

Settlers as a game pushes the player to discover different business strategies
and to commit to them; in between strategies never win. And always to invest!
Cards in the hand lose value very fast (and get taken away en masse with a 7,
and by the robber as well). It's fascinating.

Edit: some here mentioned the "Cities and Knights extension". I have never
played the game without them -- even back in 2001, the board game you can buy
on a shop already had Cities and Knights included. I didn't know it existed
without them at all.

Edit 2: the JSettlers applet: <http://www.jsettlers.com/>

~~~
brunoqc
We can also play for free on the official website :
<http://www.cms.playcatan.com/content/view/137/59/lang,en_US/>

And there's also another open source version, Pioneers :
<http://pio.sourceforge.net/>

~~~
euccastro
There is a nice Java implementation and community at

<http://games.asobrain.com>

It's called "Xplorers" for copyright reasons.

------
time_management
Solid game, but not the best of the genre. _Tigris and Euphrases_ FTW.

~~~
mcu
Tigris is a much deeper game.

