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Sometimes random doesn't feel that random. It's not a great feeling when the roll of
the dice doesn't seem to be hitting the numbers it's supposed to. Or worse, the randomness
seems to be working against you. Welcome to every game of settlers of Catan where the
dice don't play nice.
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It'll give you some comfort to know that you're not the only person that feels this way. In
fact, this video was inspired by a Reddit thread talking about this very problem and
in the same thread. Luckily, a lot of people have some really good solutions of how to
deal with it, how to minimize the randomness or circumvent it
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altogether. And I've collected a few of them that I thought were either super useful or
interesting. All of them are pretty unique enough that you have a good selection to choose
from, and I'm sure that after hearing them, you'll find one that works just right for
you.
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And if not, I have my own picks at the very end of the video. Method one Event cards.
Let's start with an official attempt to deal with the randomness of Catan created by the
producers at Catan. Here's the gist of it.
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You get a deck of cards with 36 cards in them, and the 36 cards represent the total number
of combinations of rolling 2 6-sided dice. And each card is basically an event card where
once it's drawn, which is the equivalent of rolling the dice, you do whatever the card
says, so it's basically 36 unique ways to distribute
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resources to everyone. It feels a little overkill, and you'll see why in a second, take a second
to look at these cards and pause to read. I think you get the general idea. There's
a few more rules with what you can read on their website link in the description below.
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I should also mention there's a second official attempt to deal with the randomness called
helpers of Catan. Link in The description below Method number 2 pre-balanced Catan boards.
Now we tend to blame the dice for the unfairness of the game, but sometimes it just comes down
to the board state.
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Some boards are kingmakers and others are fair ish. And that's just what this website
provides a nicely laid out collection of starting boards for Catan where it shows you the layout
of the hexes and where to place the numbers.
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It's super easy to look at and set up and will bring balance to your world of Catan
link below. Method number three. Pity tokens You ever get super excited when it's about
to be your turn, and you know that the roll of the dice has to roll something in your
favor and you just have like a really
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great board set up, and there's no way that you're not going to hit something. And yet
somehow. You get literally zero resources. Not a great feeling. And as you share your
woes with the other players about like how you should have got a resource that's not
fair, doesn't make sense and they take pity on you.
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That's why it's a pity token. But this time, the pity serves the function. Each time a
player doesn't get any resources from anyone rolling the dice, that person is given a pity
token. You can use coins or beads or whatever a small trinket things you have lying around,
making them on their turn.
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Use those pretty tokens to exchange them for any resource that they like. But here's how
it gets balanced. The cost of the exchange depends on how many public victory points
that player has. So if a player has three points, then it costs them three tokens to
get a resource.
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But if a player has nine points, that it cost them nine tokens to get a resource and to
avoid any one token hoarding, you can apply the same rules as rolling seven and something
having too many cards in their hands.
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So if you have more than seven pity tokens and a seven is rolled, you have to return
half of them to the bank so works out well that way too method number four the fairest
dice. Now, instead of averaging out the possibilities of two 6-sided die where there's heavy you
waiting for those center numbers, you're kind of
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throwing that away and replacing those 26 sided die with one. Twelve sided die. And
that makes all numbers equally possible. Amazing, right? However, it also makes every spot on
the board equally favorable and kind of takes away from that strategy part of the game.
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Just a note here. You would treat ones in sevens as the robber and act accordingly.
Method number five. More dice. So two dice one treating you well, maybe three will. So
how this works is you roll all three dice and then you get to pick which two dice you
want to add up to be the final results
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. This is not bad because it gives you three numbers to choose from, and you can kind of
pick and choose what you think is useful to you. It's a little bit more math and board
analysis, but I think it gives you a lot more control of the game, which is kind of nice.
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It also gets interesting because as you're picking which no results to choose, other
people might chime in and say, like, Hey, if you pick the four results, then I'll trade
you this and that method number six Crucible. Now, this method is almost a mini game all
of its own within the game.
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Book Adobe You can get a full description on this person's website link in the description
below, but here's the gist of it. You replace the two to twelve numbers. Read with a two
to seven numbers spread and place those on the board based on the rules and the website.
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And then you take a pack of playing cards and separate it so that each player gets extra
seven to hold in their hand. You need two decks of cards if you have more than four
players, which shouldn't be a problem because if you're watching this video, I would bet
a like comets and subscribe that you probably have
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at least three decks of cards in your house anyway. So instead of rolling, dice, what
happens is that on your turn, you get to choose from the seven numbers that you have in your
hand, and it's all random.
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You can just pick whatever number you want to lay down, and that's basically your dice
roll and also the resources you the board produces. But once he plays that card down,
it stays face up on the table until your hand resets resets by playing an ace, which is
basically functions as the robber.
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But you can look at the finer details in the website. But imagine being able to negotiate
with cards you play. It opens up a whole new level and layer of the trading phase of the
game. So then you can say things like I'll play my five if you give me some of the resources
you get from me
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playing this number. It definitely has a lot more to think about and might slow down the
game more than expected. But. So cool, method number seven. Real talk. Now this is where
you either start clicking out of the video or spamming the Dislike button because I'm
about to get real with you.
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Settlers have gotten is perfectly fine as it is. Yes, there is a lot of randomness in
the game that's kind of off-putting for a lot of players, but there's also a lot of
things you can do in the game to offset that randomness.
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There are so many strategies and unique paths to victory. And on top of that, there is the
creative and cunning of trading. And on top of that, it is a perfect knowledge game, which
means that if you really wanted to, you could keep track of who has what cards at all times.
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These factors have been proven to outperform the randomness of the game, as proven by the
results of major settlers at Gaten tournaments. You will often find the same people doing
well in these grand tournaments, which says a lot because it takes a lot to get there.
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first, you have to win your local qualifier, which is already a handful of games, and then
you move on to your countrywide qualifier, which is another big set of games. And then
you get into the Europe wide super tournaments, which again, you have to play a bunch of games
and the people in this list got to those
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europe-wide super tournaments at least twice, and some of them even three times. These are
the names pulled from the 2009 to the 2019 south of the Guitar Europe super tournaments,
which is just a really long way of saying that sometimes randomness can be dealt with
with skill.
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Also, since you watched this far in the video, I'm going to assume that this scheme was actually
kind of important to you, and I feel like part of the charm of the game and what keeps
you coming back for more is that randomness, that feeling of excitement, of almost winning
but not having the absolute certainty of doing
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so. If Method Number seven resonated with you and you want to try and get better at
this game, I can make another video with the list just like this, but with different things
to focus on to get better.
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Oh, and if you have any ideas to deal with the randomness in Catan who would love to
hear it? Please put it in the comments and that's about it for me. I'm just going to
roll some dice until I get a seven and turn off this video.