Everyone is playing on the same board, after all, and if one player takes a lead then the others have adequate tools available (the robber, trade embargoes) to slow the leader down. I wouldn't recommend extensive rules for setting up the board any time you might gain in the play would be eaten up by the longer setup! I do not play Catan competitively, but I have a friend who plays in convention tournaments, and have never heard him mention any setup other than random.
If you want to prevent this from happening in a game you're playing, an easy house rule/trick is just to swap a bad stone tile with a good tile of some resource that's very abundant, leaving the number chits in place. Scarce brick is something that good players will be aware of and work around, of course, but I don't think it slows the game as much as a stone shortage, and I wouldn't fiddle with the board to make more available except maybe with a first-time player at the table. By contrast, if brick is in short supply, players can trade their excess wood/sheep/whatever with the bank at their convenience and often use it right away to build the road or settlement. Stone is particularly vulnerable to scarcity because there's only three tiles, and building a city requires a lot of stone all at once, so it's difficult to trade with the bank to get enough. This means that cities don't get built for a while, which slows the game down, and development cards aren't bought much, which means you might not see the Largest Army or VP card bonuses accelerating the game end. Two factors can cause this: the stone having poor numbers, of course, and most of the stone being next to poor tiles (the desert, the coast, lousy ports like the stone port, other poor numbers). When I see a Catan game drag for lack of resources, it's usually because the stone is in short supply. † only with novices do I really worry about that. Just make certain that no resource dominates in the 6's and 8's. Wheat wound up 3, 11, 11, 12 - and never got rolled. Oh, and the longest game I played was a 3 player where stone was on 6, 6, and 8, and sheep were 5, 8, 9, 9. but in general, no matter how fair the board is, at least one player in a 4 player game will wind up with a sub-optimal starting position. The thing is, a "Fair Board" is merely one that allows all players an equal chance to win. This is especially vital on the 5-6 player map. I've found that after that, you should be able to handle any board that has at least one stone outside the range 2, 3, 11, 12.Īlso, when you move on to randomizing number positions, make certain no 6 nor 8 is adjacent to another 6 or 8, and no number is next to itself. (4b) if two are, swap them with each other (4) no port is touching its own resource. (3) it's may be worth avoiding more than 1 each in the 5's and 9's.† (2) at least one stone is in the 5, 6, 8, or 9. (1) no resource has more than one of 6 or 8 Then, for the next several, use random tile placement and random port placement, with the fixed number sequence, but then swap out a marker so that (And for both senses of only - beginning setup only and only for a few games.) I would advise using the beginning setups only for a few games. Longer Answer: it's pretty easy to generate reasonably fair boards for the starting tile assortment. Short Answer: No, I've never seen such a list. I'm open to any suggestions in this regard as well. We have also experimented with a "drafting" of tiles as we lay them down, with rules about putting too many of the same resource touching, or near a port. Is there a list of user created recommended starting positions for tiles? Perhaps for tournament play? What do competitive players do to ensure variety and balance? I understand that the rules say to place the tiles randomly, but it can sometimes lead to long and boring games. I have found a pretty decent tool for generating random boards, but I find myself flipping through multiple ones that place 6s or 8s next to their respective ports, or place all the clay on 3s, 11s, and the like. "new editions of the game also depict a fixed layout in their manual, which has been proven to be fairly even-handed by computer simulations, and recommend this to be used by beginners" wikipedia I noticed it was mentioned online as well: I just bought a copy of Settlers, and noticed that there was a suggested starting layout that is included in the Almanac.
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