Board Game Arena

Catan is a social game. It is primarily a game of chance and strategy, but there is a social element built into the gameplay as well. If you put the robber on someone five times in a row, they could very well target you next chance they get, even if you are losing by a lot. So perhaps you will think...

Agreed there needs to be a faster option. And the default animation speed is super slow and slows the whole game down. You can change your own animation speed in the settings, and I recommend everyone do that. Makes the game much more enjoyable instead of watching your cards sliiiiiiiide around the ...

Yes, it's an official alternate rule of play. It is not the official standard rule of play, for good reason.

if they'd change their random numbers to just not allow any number to be next to itself, and disallow 2 and 12 from being next to each to prevent "dead spots" on the board where nobody wants to build, then the random numbers would at least be improved. If only there were a variation that ...

The standard number arrangement is designed to distribute the odds as evenly as possible. By nature, random number placement is concentrating better odds in certain spaces of the board. Whoever has first dibs at those spots then has an advantage. Of course that doesn't mean the first player always w...

Can anyone verify if the numbers are still random? I don't want to start a game just to quit as soon as I realize that unfair rule hasn't been fixed. I've actually been really productive the last three months with no playable version of Catan on this site. Spending a lot more time in the real world ...

I would like to add that this situation is significantly worsened by BGA's current rules for Catan with the new "random number placement" nonsense. That inevitably results in players having all of their eggs stuck in one basket, needing 5s or whatever for a fair shot at winning. It skews t...

Bumping this. The game moves very, very slowly. Lots of waiting on other players when you could be working at the same time!

The arena is supposed to be "tough". It's less about luck, you need more skill to select good placements that won't end up with you being in an unwinnable situation. More tradeoffs and planning involved. 3p is just... easy and more luck based as someone can get ahead early and is unstoppa...

4-players is tough because it emphasizes luck as well - some players can get screwed by a bad map. But I don't mind it. This current "random number placement" rule is absurd, though. What is the point? The resources are randomized, so the board is already random and different every game. T...