Catan situation.

Here's a cool little scenario that took place in a game of Settlers of Catan Online the other day. Three-player game against players with solid ratings. You're blue, second to act, and the board comes to you as follows:


Now, where do you go here? In my mind there is a clear correct choice, but it takes a bit to see and it goes a little deep. Clearly there is a grain shortage on this board, so it would make sense to hog up the good grain spots. The first player has predictably taken the best numerical spot on the board, but he's left you with some options to sacrifice numerical strength for consistency.

The clear correct choice is actually to avoid getting in on a grain spot for now, and hitting the 8/4/5 with two wood and a brick, as follows.


This spot has a few advantages. For one, it's numerically strong, and will generate a resource one out of every three rolls. For another, it monopolizes every good wood spot in the game, with the exception of the 8/10 port. And for a third, it will allow you good number diversity with your likely second pick. You should know where the second settlement will go by now, by the way, unless the third player goes completely insane. It's not obvious but it stacks the odds greatly in favor of a win. The third virtue of the spot is that it is an "unfriendly" spot, in that it closes off the 5-spot for the brick. The 5/8/10 spot adjacent to it had the same resources with the same probabilities, but it spells almost certain defeat by allowing the third player to grab the 5/4/11 with his second spot, start with a road, and stifle any expansion possibilities. Because if you haven't figured it out by now, early settlements will be the key to this game. The third player doesn't have that many great choices available to him, and is extremely unlikely to block our coveted second spot.

Green went predictably, hogging two good numeric spot and nabbing a 6 and an 8. Here's what the board looked like after his placement.


Now, this is where too many people would shoot themselves in the head by choosing a bizarre second settlement like the 8/4/3 (destroying our number diversity and shorting us both grain and sheep), or the 6/11/3, allowing red to take a 9/10/11 spot with two grain and control grain for the entire game.

No, here's where we have to take the 9/10/11 spot, which effectively damn near wins us the game 90% of the time. It's the perfect spot for us. First, it gives us near-full number diversity. We have every good number camped but the 6, and that's not a big deal for two reasons. First, the 6 is on unaccessable brick and an ugly rock spot. With so little grain in the game, rock is devalued. Second, it gets us a decent sheep spot and a starting sheep, which will be crucial for settlement development (including that all-important first settlement). Third, it starts us with two grain. This is absolutely crucial on this board; while both of the others will be laboring to trade for grain, I'll start with enough for two settlements. Fourth, it's all resources that work well together. And finally, it opens up a nice 6/3/11 spot for a quick first settlement to fill in our numerical, and resource-oriented, gaps.

I placed there, and red made a small blunder by hitting the 8/4/3. He's obviously hoping to control the rock and brick, and hoping for an early expansion to the brick port, but that isn't going to do him enough good. He's numerically strong, and the resource he has shorted himself is sheep, which is good (particularly since green will be in abundance, and will be willing to trade), but apart from an opening road, he doesn't have a credible wood source. I am the only one that does, and he doesn't have any resources that I need (I'm certainly not trading for rock early). He can give himself a chance if he nabs the wood source with the powerful 3:1 port, but just doesn't quite have the forethought.

At the end of the opening phase the board looks like this:


It may not look it, but barring freakish rolls, I have this game won. Green is destined to be a non-factor, and really did kind of get screwed by map placement, though his road placement was not good. Red places his opening road non-aggressively, towards the brick port, and despite being numerically strong, most of his numbers come as rock, meaning he either needs cities or a lot of trading. His strategy at this point lacks cohesion, since with only one grain, on a 9, a city/dev card strategy just isn't viable. With my good numbers on road-building materials, and two starting grain, a quick settlement is a sure thing. I get it on my second turn after we roll a 6, a 4, two 8's, and an 11. I trade a wood for a brick, and a grain for his second brick, and am on the 6/3/11 in no time flat. I'm rewarded with an immediate 6, and use the rock to buy a development card, since I've taken the lead and definitely need to protect myself. The 8/10 spot with the 3:1 port, another insanely powerful spot, comes next, though to my credit I *never once* had to trade using the port. My resources worked that well with each other, and they came in a steady flow.

The first settlement to go to a city was, strangely, my first expansion settlement: the 6/3/11, since by then I had also expanded to the 6/8/12, and we all know how advantageous it is to be able to generate three rock with one roll. Red sputtered along, grabbing the brick and grain ports, while green was left with a slew of unimpressive expansion spots available to him, grabbing the 5/2 and the 9/4 (ouch). But since I was generating a resource on essentially every roll, and had a mix that worked well with each other, I cruised to an easy 10/5/5 victory by grabbing the largest army and longest road, though there were several paths to victory.

The lesson, then, is making sure you pick resources that work well with one another. The opening spot with the two grain was crucial, and put me in the powerful position of having the best grain sources of anyone, and being the only person with a credible wood source. I was only making trades that were beneficial to me, and the game pretty much played itself from there on out. A good example of how smart opening position placement can lead to a victory.

The game would have been mightily different had red not automatically chosen the best numeric spot. I think that, strangely, the 5/9/10 spot adjacent to it may have made for a better choice, since those resources work well together (and he's not stuck with a 6 on rock without a great grain source and no sheep source at all), but maybe it's a little numerically weak. I probably would have gone with the 8/4/5 spot that I opened on instead, I think. You probably wind up having to short yourself sheep, but you can live with that with a good stranglehold on road-building cards. In any case, this was a strategically fascinating game that was all but determined by opening placement selection.