Tetris Catan: a solution?

[beppim]

Hello all
I came here to see if I'm the only one to be annoyed by Catan's dice, and it looks I'm not the only one. But as an informatic person I don't think that there is any problem with the random rolls on BGA. This is simply a flaw of the game, that depends too much from dice results. The fact is...
The board game has limitations. A software can override these limitations!

Well I think I have a solution.
This is the first time I enter the forum, so I don't know if this solution has ever been proposed, but I want to propose it myself anyway. In case it already existed... sorry.

In Tetris there was the exact same problem. In tournaments RNG was too heavy, long sequences of same pieces or the "I" missing from play created lots of disparities, and they came in with a clever solution.

Instead of taking every piece randomly, in Tetris they now fill a sack with the 7 pieces, then extract them randomly; when the sack is empty, it is regenerated. Easy and effective. The same piece can wait up to 13 steps to come back or even come twice in a row, but every 7 turns the piece distribution is perfect.

This could be a perfect solution for Catan: it garantees perfect dice distribution while maintining randomness.

So, I propose:

• Create a stack with all the 36 possible dice rolls combinations, they have all the same probability.

• Randomly sort the stack

• Extract the roll and decrease the stack, until the stack is empty

• Restart.

If many players underline this possible solution, maybe it could be implemented as a variation. The implementation is very easy and the result effective.

Thanks for the attention.
Beppi

[gignomai]

I believe this would ruin the game, though this is a good statistical solution and a common programming paradigm to smooth probabilistic results (since most people don't like or understand true randomness).

The true random dice is intentional to teach you to balance risk and reward when determining timing of when to buy. If we went with the solution you suggested it would destroy that dynamic as people could easily "count the dice" (as in "card counting") leading to much more accurately time buying assets dramatically reducing risk. For me this risk and true randomness is a feature and not a limitation of the game.

[Mathew5000]

This is what Apple did when it received complaints about the iPod shuffle; Steve Jobs said "We're making it less random to make it feel more random." https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/luck/m ... ess-random

Well I think I have a solution.
This is the first time I enter the forum, so I don't know if this solution has ever been proposed, but I want to propose it myself anyway. In case it already existed... sorry.

Yes, it's been proposed on this forum before. This proposal would make the game much more predictable, especially in the middle to endgame when there have already been 26 rolls then players will know exactly what the next 8 rolls will be, not in order of course, but it means you can plan ahead. If there are a few sevens that come out at the start, you will know that they are less likely in future so you can stockpile cards with reduced risk (or if you've already seen seven 7's, you can stockpile with zero risk).

[Stroom]

Catan will always be an essentially random game. The order in which the dice rolls come up will still matter.

If player A has settlements on 5-6 and B has settlements on 8-9...
and at the beginning you draw more 5-6 rolls...
then player A can just expand and build settlements on 8-9, knowing that these rolls will come up too.
So in conclusion player A will have the benefits from both rolls. And he essentially knowns that this will happen. So it defeats the purpose of trying to make it more fair by being less random.

People who hate randomness should move on to better board games. Catan gets boring very fast.

[Jellby]

It won't stop complaints or conspiracy theories. People would still claim that "there's always a 7 before my numbers are rolled", or that "all 5s are clumped together to favour premium members", or whatever.

[Gulchen]

Due to what Mathew5000 pointed out, my thought along the OP's lines was

the stack has 72, not just 36
and
restart when the stack has 35, rather than waiting until it becomes empty

.


(The ​ 35 rather than 36 >​< is so the restart isn't always on the same player's turn.)

[thoun]

People who hate randomness should move on to better board games. Catan gets boring very fast.

Probably the better solution. Playing Catan is accepting a game heavily based on randomness.

And to answer to original suggestion, BGA doesn't allow house rules. You can do it when you play physically, but it won't happen on BGA.

[beppim]

Well I understand that Catan is a random game and I assure everybody that I understand very well randomness. Indeed, I propose it as a variant, to be manually choosen.
As Gulchen said, the solution can be implemented in various ways, for example 72 combinations instead of 36. Well enough. There are many solutions with different level of hardness: you can even reset the sack after rolling 18 of the 36 combinations, that would anyway decrease unfairness and remain unpredictable. Any solution that is voluntarily chosen by players would still be an improvement and would not harm other players.

Very interesting the points about tactics. It's true: if you know that certain combinations already came out, you can pile cards or direct towards different terrains.
However, I think that this is a point in favor and not against the variant hypothesis. In fact, it gives better players the opportunity to exploit more elaborate tactics and gain an advantage.I don't see an improvement in denying this opportunity behind a die that equates players capable of developing tactics with players who can't.

I don't agree with the fact that randomness is a integral part of the game, as soon as Klaus Teuber, when created this masterpiece, created it to be played with 2 standard dice. There may be more refined solutions, which respect Klaus Teuber's original idea, which could not be implemented in a cardboard box but can be implemented in software.

Another thing I don't agree with is that the game teaches to deal with risk. I manage risk by choosing frequent combinations and accept some rarer situations, expecting them to occur as frequently as expected. I think there is not much to learn when you bet on very frequent combinations and are beaten by players who chose unlikely combinations, who benefited from frequencies 5 times higher than the probability.

However, I think that proposing solutions and discussing them to implement them is a way to proceed forward, I hope that the solution will still be taken into consideration, perhaps on an experimental basis, for the pure pleasure of appreciating this game more. I remember that many games, when brought to a competitive level, had to undergo small changes to be more balanced. Tetris is an example.

[Mathew5000]

I think there is not much to learn when you bet on very frequent combinations and are beaten by players who chose unlikely combinations, who benefited from frequencies 5 times higher than the probability.

Suppose you are the most skilled Catan player in your group of friends. Should you then win every game you play with your friends? If Catan were modified to increase the win rate of the most-skilled player, would that make it a better game? (I bet your friends wouldn't think so.)

[fiscused]

There is an expansion to Catan that uses cards instead of dice. I have it in the "Traders and Barbarians" expansion, but I believe it was sold separately.