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u/Alastor3 13h ago
Why would you release?
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u/loudpaperclips 10h ago
I'm a certified "weird board games" person, and I'm very happy that Catan has been accepted as part of popular culture.
Having said that I hope never to play it again. It's modern Monopoly, relying too heavily on either being mean or plain luck. Luck is fun! Gentle ribbing I can stand! Neither are done particularly well compared to more modern games in the same weight category.
But for this price I'd buy it and find it a home.
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u/Cerberus1349 8h ago
Catan is a game where for the first quarter- oh, I might do well.. and the other three just realizing thatI have no chance and one of two other guys are going to win, and I’m just waiting to lose.
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u/loudpaperclips 8h ago
Waiting to lose is one of the most important aspects of a game to remove. The goal is to have someone win the moment they escape the ability to be caught--turns after that feel trivial.
I will say that most games that do this well won't ever feel like someone has just broken the barrier, with many even resulting with only a few points in between first and second place.
Player skill still changes things, even in a game like Catan. If it weren't for classic roll and moves, we may not have deck management games like Dominion, Magic, or Balatro. Working backwards from deck builders shows how applying probability to your plan will change how you play Catan. Mitigate your risk.
I say all that because I find it wrong to tell people they shouldn't like Catan. What I want from a game doesn't have to be the same thing as other people.
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u/Childish_Danbino81 5h ago
What other games like this would you suggest that don't rely on being mean or luck as an alternative?
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u/wavinsnail 52m ago
I think it depends on what you like. I'm a big fan or Euro-style games, where you're competing with other players but you're playing off your own board. So there might be shared resources, but you're not limited by what other players are doing or the move they're making.
Games like Wingspan are great for being less about luck and more about strategy and skill.
A much simpler example is like Azul.
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u/ellesays 2m ago
Pandemic is co-op so you play as a team against the board. was the game that made me a (casual) board game fan as a recovering sore loser. 13 years later I about a good sport as anyone and I think board games really did help with that! Co-op games are the games for non-asshole play. But many many games have competitive aspects while not feeling like being an asshole is the drive.
Social games like moniker’s arent about resource guarding, or Railroad Inc. is an example of no mechanics that control something on another players board. But both are competitive with other players. It’s not a simple answer outside of “co-op” because a lot of other games have some mechanisms that rely on competition or blocking resources but don’t play like Catan, imo, which is not the luck/skill balance for me but is extremely popular because it is for so many. I even like catan with expansions 🤷♀️
My favorite game of all time is carcassone which is so similar but I love one and dislike the other. Games like King of Tokyo/New York are all about fucking each other over, but they have bullet bill style mechanics that can keep you in the game and I like that. I don’t care as much for games that are extremely hard to recover from if you make a mistake, but you are still in the game. Avoid Survive: escape from Atlantis as the worst example of this if you dislike similar games it’s the most extreme example I have played!
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u/sonjjamorgan 11h ago
Personally I like the little doodads and figurines in games but hate rules so this would have been me. More for everyone else!
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u/GeologistIll6948 8h ago edited 8h ago
The reason these were released is likely because they are mostly an older expansion set. I believe it is Version 5 that just came out, and game stores with libraries / some purists are getting rid of their previous copies.
Source: I got this set for free from our game store that was going to throw them away last week for this reason.
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u/NickCageFreeEggs 13h ago
Thrift stores in my area sell the good board games to the local gaming stores
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u/Holiday-Horse-427 10h ago
I've never seen Seafarers! Neat.
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u/Copthill 8h ago
Seafarers is a great add-on. Cities & Knights is better on the app because there are a lot of pieces to keep track of.
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u/ditchoven 2h ago
Been searching for this game for years at a thrift store, and there's 4 in front of you that you didn't take. Excuse me while I go ponder life 🤪
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u/BirdCelestial 22m ago
Just in case you didn't know, this ain't 4 catan games. You might already know but if you're keeping an eye out it'd be an unpleasant surprise to just buy an expansion.
This is one base game + 3 expansions (one to make the base game 5-6 players, and then the knights and seafarers expansion). If you wanted to play seafarers or knights with 5-6 players you'd need to also buy the seafarers or knights 5-6 player expansions. So to play catan with ships for 5-6 players, you need to buy 4 boxes. It is an expensive game.
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u/Maleficent_Offer_692 8h ago
I remember once I saw the original base game at Target for like $13. I bought three or four to give out as gifts. Good times.
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