Comments on: Settling For Less

By: c0wb0ys7y13

c0wb0ys7y13 — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:14:03 +0000

Just so you know, avoid Catan Online. It has THE WORST USER INTERFACE IV EVER SEEN IN A GAME! Their is no in game tutorial, so if you don’t know the rules, your shit out of luck mid game. It doesn’t clearly tell you that you cant build things. It doesn’t tell you whos turn it is. It doesn’t tell you where you can move the bandit. It has no turn timer, so one player can go afk and everyone has to either put up with it, or kick him.

Its as if the game designers sat down and said “how little information can we give the player while still making the game playable.” I cant imagine anyone is so stupid that they would make a UI this bad. It must have been on purpose.

By: NegativeZero

NegativeZero — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:25:36 +0000

We played the crap out of Catan at work, to the point that I can’t play it any more and still enjoy it. After a while it gets stale and you realise how much of the game is simply about luck. One player can completely dominate if the dice go their way.

As a result, our lunchtimes have moved on to a wider range of european board and card games. Carcassonne with a few expansions is always good, and Alhambra, Dominion, Puerto Rico and recently Race for the Galaxy all get some pretty fun sessions too.

Now if I could just convince everyone to commit to playing every lunchtime for a week, we could dig out my copy of Arkham Horror.

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:32:55 +0000

However, that would require you to play Second Life. Not worth the sacrifice.

By: Calistas

Calistas — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:43:19 +0000

You can also play a game of Settlers in Second Life. There’s a fully automated version of the game available if you look around. Try a search for “Settlers of Second Life” in game.

By: Paul Moloney

Paul Moloney — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:22:58 +0000

I would love to buy downloadable games for my week-old XBox 360. However, it turns out that my XBox Live gamertag, which I originally created for Games for Windows Live, has its country code set to the United States for some reason (i guess their developers don’t realise the rest of the world exists), and I can’t use an Irish credit card to buy Microsoft Points. I rang the support line today who say they can’t change it for any reason. Absolutely bizarre. I’m stuck with an XBox account that I can’t use online or can’t play downloadable content on.

By: Spanish Technophobe

Spanish Technophobe — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:53:10 +0000

Anyone else think it’s pretty rich that someone who thinks that Settlers is too luck-based would suggest Carcassonne? I love Carcassonne, and Settlers looks like it’s up my alley, but every move you make in the former is all about the random tile you draw.

Give me Cosmic Encounter or Borderlands or even the new Risk any day before you start railing on luck.

By: syrion

syrion — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:34:06 +0000

Tigris & Euphrates and Samurai are excellent as well, and are less luck-based than Settlers.

Of course, Go is the best board game of all time.

By: Ozzie

Ozzie — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:01:44 +0000

Ah, but there were times when I didn’t need a foum account to have the ability to edit a post! I long for them…..

By: Still annoyed

Still annoyed — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:56:38 +0000

“The first entry in the computergame-series came out in 1993 for Amiga.
The boardgame came out in 1995.”

Yeah, I’ve never understood where this misunderstanding comes from. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it, and it just does not make any sense. I mean, even if you ignore the fact that The Settlers came out earlier than Settlers of Catan, there’s very few similarities between the two games. They’re strategy games and they have “Settlers” in the name. It makes as much sense as thinking Warhammer is based on Warcraft.

By: qrter

qrter — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:10:13 +0000

Ah, the missing edit function, a cause for much pain, anger and frustration…

Create an account at the forum, log in – hey presto, you have editing capabilities.

I know, deviously hidden.. but still, it’s there..

By: JonCormier

JonCormier — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:45:44 +0000

Man, you forgot the best part – the Monopoly card! Trade away all of one resource, making everyone happy then monopolize it all back and build cities, roads or whatever you were planning to before you “loaned” it out.

The trouble is, this only works once and nobody will trade with you ever again for the rest of the night or in the next game. So you need new people to introduce the game to… etc etc etc.

By: Ozzie

Ozzie — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:26:28 +0000

There’s also Catan: Die erste Insel, a German software conversion of the boardgame. I doubt that it was ever released in English, though…

Ah, the missing edit function, a cause for much pain, anger and frustration…

Geez, but now it should work! :-/