Awful new Catan balance for new season

[Unlimited Juice]

Why did they change the board balance for the new ranked season?

Makes the game so much worse.

[SherlockC]

Agreed, makes it so imbalanced. I just played a game and I had first pick - got 5 wheat, 5 ore and 8 sheep - game over!!

[vamoscosmos719]

It needs to be random spiral, these current boards are pretty awful I agree

[silentProtest]

besides it being 3 player, what exactly is bad/changed? O.o (sorry the ignorance).

Ive gotten this settings shown for arena:
Terrain tile layout
Variable setup with random numbers (Change)

Harbor layout
Shuffle frame pieces (Change)

Combined trade/build phase
Enabled (Change)

- which is fine, right ? O.o (the only thing implicit is that, no tiles with red numbers can touch... but that always worked like that, did it not ? )

[SadPuffin]

Yup, came here to say the exact same thing. I played hundreds of games every season for a few years now. Ever since this new season started, the game is unplayable. Every single game is a blowout over in minutes and it's entirely luck. I'm wondering who asked for this change??

I think I am quitting Catan until it's changed. It just is not fun anymore. I wish every other game didn't take half an hour to find players. I am seriously regretting paying for a premium account.

[Stroom]

What about 4p like the tournaments were intended in the first place?

[SadPuffin]

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. The only thing random number placement changes is it randomizes how large of an advantage the early placers get. The original number layout is literally designed to keep the game as even-balanced at the start as possible. Who would want to play a game where you roll a die at the beginning to determine who starts with a massive leg up and who's gonna have an uphill battle the entire game? Bananas.

[Stroom]

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 unstoppable if other players don't roll as many 7s to block him.

[JethroF]

100% agreed...random numbers leads to such a wildly imbalanced board where one 1 or 2 spots are insanely overpowered...game is completely unplayable with this option. Might check back in in 3 months for next season

[SadPuffin]

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 unstoppable if other players don't roll as many 7s to block him.

I didn't say 4p is "tough" because it's challenging. I said it's tough because it's less challenging and more luck-based. With 3 players and a fair number arrangement, everyone has a shot at some good placements. With four players, the good spots are already taken by the time the last person picks, and whoever went first is gonna get totally screwed when it comes time for their second placement.

3p with a balanced number arrangement is the closest I've seen to a fair game. There's occasionally an unbalanced map because of resource arrangement, but not nearly as bad as 4p or the current godawful "random numbers" rule.

Ultimately this is good for me because I've been spending way less time on this site since the rule change.