How to deal with misfortune

[Rufasu]

This topic came to me out of curiosity.
Catan is a game of luck.
As I am sure you have all experienced, when you are unlucky, you lose no matter what you do.
And when you are lucky, it is rare.
Even if you are lucky, the probability of losing is high considering the fact that your opponents are also trying hard and there are many of them.
However, there are many fierce players in the BGA with an ELO of over 1700.
How do they cope with their bad luck?
What do you all think?

[euklid314]

Top Catan players on BGA have an EAS of around 1800 and an Elo of araund 460.

That being said, Catan is a game of probabilities. Top players place their settlements in a way that they are strong in either decelopment cards (i.e. knights) or roads (longest road card) or both.

They stay flexible and keep options alive (e.g. for not being blocked in) and they value synergies: Having the same numbers on wood and clay (even if it is only a 4) has some value because then you get wood and brick at the same time.

And they are strong in trades. They know what ressources they might get via trades because they know what other people have in their hand and what might be valuable for those other players. Of course they also work well with harbors to get favorable 2:1 and 3:1 trades without being dependent on fellow players.

If they get unlucky dice rolls they usually still have a strong game because they are flexible and work out the optimum with the dice they get. They might still win a game with mediocre rolls that we would lose badly.

But in the end, luck is a huge factor. They also have games where they simply have no chance against the dice. In such a case they usually just accept it. In a luck based game you have to accept that you can only steer winning probabilities in general and not winning of certain games.

[Mathew5000]

Catan is a game of luck.
As I am sure you have all experienced, when you are unlucky, you lose no matter what you do.
And when you are lucky, it is rare.

That's exactly why Catan is a good metaphor for life, as pointed out in this thread:

The true random dice is intentional to teach you to balance risk and reward when determining timing of when to buy.... For me this risk and true randomness is a feature and not a limitation of the game.