Conceding in Catan

[embattled llama]

I don't understand why it's not possible for a player to concede in Catan. The other two could then battle it out to the end and be given an actual score. Why the punishing penalty points? It's definitely a sensible move if you're playing a team?

[Stroom]

Quitting games is weak. It ruins the experience for the winners. If you agree to start the game, play through to the end. You being in the game still influences how the game goes.

[embattled llama]

But you can concede in other games?

I concede in Backgammon when the other player is evidently winning, and mathematically there's zero chance of a comeback on my part. I don't see it as weakness, just a gracious acceptance of facts. Otherwise fighting through to the bitter end is boring and a waste of time.

Why the penalty for accepting a situation and moving on?

[Stroom]

Catan is a multiplayer game. In a 2-player game, the other player wins and no other player is affected. If you concede in a 3-player game, you are going to throw the balance of the game out of the window. So the 2nd place might not be able to catch up anymore because you are missing.

It is an etiquette issue. I would not quit a 2-player game as well. Often there CAN be ways to catch up and many people tend to quit without even trying. Weak. You started the game, play it through. Otherwise you ruin the course of the game and everyone else's experience. You can still try to play your best, try new kinds of strategies to see if they'd work better. Seeing that you have no way of being 1st does not mean you can't learn from the game and become a better player.

[euklid314]

As Stroom wrote it is the difference between 2-player and multi-player that matters.

What would be possible is to implement a conceding possibility in multiplayer as follows:
*) If one player B proposes to concede the game to player A and all the other players C,D,E,... also concede to player A, the game ends with winner A and all the other players share 2nd place (i.e. tie against each other).
*) If player B proposes to concede the game to player A and at least one other player does not agree, the game continues.

In my eyes this is still fair and one could propose such a conceding procedure as a feature request to BGA (I won't, because it is not important to me).

Such a conceding would happen only if the outcome seems very clear to all players of the table and if all of the non-winning players aren't interested (and don't even care) about who gets 2nd, 3rd,...