Lords of Catan

[EdLee]

Lords of Catan ( Sep 24, 2015 ).

[wineandgolover]

Lords of Catan ( Sep 24, 2015 ).

Catan has a significant early player advantage, and no komi to compensate.

[EdLee]

Catan has a significant early player advantage

Is that a 30k, 1k, or pro opinion ?

I'm probably 25k, and played with mid-dan level friends;
didn't notice the 'significant' advantage so much...

[jeromie]

This comes from the publisher on Boardgamegeek.com:

...our analysis of several years of Catan tournament data (by a mathematician) suggests that first placement is NOT an advantage and does NOT win the majority of the time. SECOND placement seems to be the most desirable, in fact, but it's not by much). The analysis that was done suggested 2-1-3-4, and the only significant gap (and it's very small) is between the two ends of the scale.

There are a lot of factors playing into this: this is based on US and Canadian players, and the winners here are among the best players in the world. Specific board setups, resource scarcity and other factors all come into play when choosing your spots. (It's one of the reasons we do 4-round tournaments for the World/NA qualifiers, assigning each player one game starting at each of the positions.) You recognize your data as anecdotal, which is good; beyond that, I'd suspect you see your play patterns change over time.

Alex Yeager
Mayfair Games

[wineandgolover]

Catan has a significant early player advantage

Is that a 30k, 1k, or pro opinion ?

I'm probably 25k, and played with mid-dan level friends;
didn't notice the 'significant' advantage so much...

I'm a Catan beginner. My statement was based on multiple Reddit and BGG threads. Hell, there are even papers written on this stuff.

Catan was a milestone in modern game design, and is still hugely popular. I really have no dog in this fight, and it was just an excuse to mention go's solution.

[DJLLAP]

I play quite a bit of Settlers of Catan with an accountant friend who meticulously records data about every game played in our group of friends (even those he does not play in). His results say that First position wins the most, followed by the turnaround (last) and then second position. We play using the Cities & Knights and Seafarers expansions.

In any case, using dice as randomizers the single most important factor on who will win a game is how the dice roll. At least when playing in a group of reasonably competent players. It seems like at least half of the games I play the dice slant heavily in one direction. A ton of 8s, but no 6s or 11s rolling constantly, so the person unlucky or unwise enough to set up on two 11s can't be stopped.