Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Settlers

Settlers is a 4 player board game where you gather resources to build roads, towns, and eventually cities. The trick is you won't be able to gather all the resources yourself, so you'll need to work with the other players.

Unless you want to be a total dick about it, that is.

Step 1: Development cards fuel this strategy. So when you're placing your starting settlements, see if you can grab the necessary sheep, wheat, and ore required. Plus side is this sends you to a city build later on, fueling more of the same resources, allowing for more development cards and opportunities of dick moves.

Step 2: Screw the hell out of your opponents with development cards.

Soldier will be your most common play early on; you're using these to slow down the leader and steal resources. This is important! Many times the right play is to stop the leader by moving the robber to his resources, but steal the resources from the other player. The flow of the game will dictate this; don't blindly nuke the leader. Don't use them defensively; move them offensively against others early.
If you can, move the robber to block wheat/ore, to keep your monopoly and increase the trading value. Starving them of resources will up the value of your trades. (provided they're nice enough to trade with you after these sorts of plays)

An important thing to note is the timing of this step - ideally you want to attempt to trade with someone prior to hitting them with the soldier. Feel out what they have in their hand. Sometimes you can offer a "sweetheart" 2 for 1, then immediately rob one of yours back. Sometimes they'll straight up trade 1 for 1 and you will laugh and laugh as they realize the depth of your betrayal.
(this is a good time to mention - make sure you've practiced your evil laugh in front of a mirror. It takes practice to make sure it really rubs in your cruel play)

This approach is the way I like to play the development card Monopoly as well - attempt to make trades with everyone, inventorying their resource positions. Figure out what everyone has the most of, trade away your own for value, and hit them all with monopoly.

Settlers is filled with opportunities for political moves as well. Often in the early game, 2 players will both build roads to a certain spot on the board, trying to lay a town ahead of one another. Trading between these players can be quite rewarding; do it on your turn so you can force them into bidding wars. They won't be trading with each other on their turn, but lord knows they really need that wheat to build a town. . . who has more cards in hand? Because you're getting all of them.

We'll revisit Settlers when people (WIFE) decide they'll play it with me again.

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