Turn based not viable?

[hopeful vega m]

I tried joining turn based game of Catan. It was set at 24 moves per day, so I thought it'd be still active enough to be possible to play and finish the game in 1-2 days. However, the game is going really slow, we did 4 rounds in 1 day, forget about any trading offers, etc. Of course all the interest in the game is thoroughly lost on my part and we have only started.

So is it Catan not suitable for turn based game or it's just this one experience?

I've had wonderful experience playing turn based mode with other games like Five tribes but in Catan it seems to be not viable at all.

Side question - playing hours set at 11-23 but do not mention time zone. Should I read it as automatically translated into my time zone?

[majorboto]

Oh, it’s the worst.

[Jellby]

Playing hours should be in your timezone, or at least in the timezone BGA believes is your timezone.

Any game where there are lots of "small" actions or where players can interrupt another player's turn at any point are (in my opinion) not suitable for turn based. I would include games with auctions or trading in this category.

In the best conditions you should expect 24 moves per day to mean 24 total (not yours) moves per day, or 8 moves per player per day (per 12 hours). Unfortunately, you should not be surprised if players miss or ignore the speed and playing hours settings and run out of time. This was probably you problem, and not the type of game.

[Cos-]

I used to play this game turn-based a lot. It was completely spoiled for me by people who disabled trading because then they wouldn't see any trade offers anyone else made, which is a core part of Catan - so I stopped playing for that reason. But that's a flaw in the implementation - it should not allow people to disable trading at all, it makes no sense to play this game without even seeing when someone wants to trade. That could be fixed.

Aside from that, turn based is very viable, it's just that your expectations are off. You should not expect a game to finish in 1 or 2 days! Turn based is designed more for people who want to have a lot of games going, check in a few times a day, make their moves in all their games, and then move on to do something else. I play lots of turn based games on BGA and while a few of them do sometimes finish in a day or two, it's normal for games to take longer then a week.

For some games on BGA, "fast turn-based" (which is what you tried) does often lead to 1-2 day games, but that won't work for Catan most of the time. If you want quick but not real time Catan games, you should try friendly mode. Or play with friends who you can ping on some other chat when it's their turn. But for the more usual way people use turn based, where you have multiple games going and you're looking to check in occasionally to make your moves in a bunch of them, and it doesn't matter if they last a week or longer, Catan is fine.

[Mathew5000]

I play turn-based Catan frequently on BGA, mostly in tournaments where max game duration is set to 30 days. I find that it works fine if all players usually log in at least twice a day. If there's one player out of four who usually logs in just once a day, that can slow the game down to the point where it might not finish within 30 days.

I recommend using the "Configure trade alerts" feature frequently to avoid being notified about trades you won't be interested in. For example, if your current holdings are three sheep and two ore, you could set the trade alerts not to notify you when someone posts an offer asking for wood, brick, and wheat. Or you might also want an alert when someone is offering wheat (even if requesting brick, say) so that you could counteroffer, for example sheep for wheat. I usually set the configuration to be active either "until I gain resources" or "until my next turn". This speeds the game along, because if I'm not being alerted of certain trades, the offeror gets notified sooner.

[Meeplelowda]

I recommend using the "Configure trade alerts" feature frequently to avoid being notified about trades you won't be interested in. For example, if your current holdings are three sheep and two ore, you could set the trade alerts not to notify you when someone posts an offer asking for wood, brick, and wheat. Or you might also want an alert when someone is offering wheat (even if requesting brick, say) so that you could counteroffer, for example sheep for wheat. I usually set the configuration to be active either "until I gain resources" or "until my next turn". This speeds the game along, because if I'm not being alerted of certain trades, the offeror gets notified sooner.

Although this works for you, it feels like needing to configure a game like you're setting up conditional formulas in an Excel spreadsheet in order for it to run smoothly is expecting a bit much, especially of a user base that frequently never adjusts default settings.

[Jontia]

I'm not sure what you mean by not viable. Looking at your post, it totally seems we have very different expectations from turn-based games. They work perfectly for me because it means when I have time, I login, take turns in anything from a couple to a couple of dozen different game and then go back to whatever else I was doing. Yes a game of Catan with the default timing on can take a couple of weeks, but it's not like that's the only game I'm playing over that time.

People not finishing (or with Catan more than any other game I play) not startinging the game (never placing the first settlement) is significantly more annoying, and the kama system is hopefully making that better over time.

[Cos-]

IFor example, if your current holdings are three sheep and two ore, you could set the trade alerts not to notify you when someone posts an offer asking for wood, brick, and wheat.

This is actually one of the reasons I really really hate this rotten feature on BGA of letting you turn off trade "notifications" (which in turn-based games actually means, completely disable your ability to see or participate in those trades). You may THINK you only have three sheep and two ore, but then the next die roll gives you wood. That player sees you got wood, and they really want it, so they offer two wheat for one wood. If you saw that trade, you'd go for it, because two wheat will get you close to being able to build a city, which is what you want to do next. But because you thought you didn't have wood, you configured your trades not to see this offer, and you won't even know it was made until after that player's turn is over and they did something else with their resources.

Despite that, lots of people do think like you suggested here, and assume they know in advance what trades they will or won't be interested in on the next few turns, so they hide trades without knowing what the situation will actually be. And in a turn based game, they just won't see it, and there's no way for another player to do anything at all about it. It's so incredibly frustrating to offer a trade and see another player's clock stay frozen and know they will just never even know you're offering that trade, never look at it and decide if they're interested or not.

In my opinion, this is horribly broken and makes the game unplayable. It's why I don't play Catan on BGA anymore except for a very few games with people I know in person, who I know will never use this horrible feature.

[Jellby]

How is it different from someone receiving the notification, but systematically refusing every trade?

[Mathew5000]

You may THINK you only have three sheep and two ore, but then the next die roll gives you wood. That player sees you got wood, and they really want it, so they offer two wheat for one wood. If you saw that trade, you'd go for it, because two wheat will get you close to being able to build a city, which is what you want to do next. But because you thought you didn't have wood, you configured your trades not to see this offer, and you won't even know it was made until after that player's turn is over and they did something else with their resources.

You're wrong. I would see that trade offering wheat, because in the part of my post that you chose not to quote I mentioned that the settings can be configured so you are notified about both trade proposals that seek a resource you have and trade proposals that offer a resource you need. I also mentioned that the configuration can be set to remain active "until I gain resources", which is useful for exactly the scenario you are talking about, where I might produce a certain resource that I will wish to trade, before my next turn.