The Settlers of Catan has been the flagship of German Style Designer Games for many reasons, some of the main ones being its elegant simplicity and depth of strategy. Your choice of strategies will influence your starting setup and the game in general. The separation of strategies described in this series is a bit artificial, but it is useful to understand the concepts behind them. In practice, players will use a combination of these strategies during the game. This article, the fourth in this series, will discuss monopoly and cartel strategies.
Monopoly and Cartel strategies are strategies to gain exclusive control (monopoly) or shared control (cartel) of a particular resource, usually ore or brick, as they have the fewest number of hexes in the basic game (three, versus four of all hexagons). others).
First, the Monopoly variant, to gain more or less exclusive control. This is usually attempted by trying to control all the good hexes (usually just one) of a resource by yourself. It rarely works. The biggest problem with this strategy is that the thief almost always sits in the monopolized hex. Since you are the only person on that particular hex, the thief will stay there until YOU draw him (or until a seven is rolled), unlike shared hexes. Also, unlike shared hexes, all players EXCEPT YOU consider that hex to be fair placement territory for thieves, especially since they want a chance to grab that monopolized resource from your hand.
A potentially better way to test the monopoly strategy is to let other players surround the best hex for that resource and go for the two least marginal (in the case of ore and brick). Then try to place the thief in the good hex throughout the game. This has the advantage of being able to place your starting settlements away from the rest of the crowd. You will need a lot of knights to get the thief out of you and into the best hex. This would be good combined with the Card Builder strategy (to get the knights), especially if you’re trying to monopolize ore or wheat.
If someone in your group has the nerve to try a monopoly, it will become apparent very soon, probably in the initial setup. You can use this to your advantage by remembering that ports have become more valuable real estate, and using the monopoly player as a lightning rod for aggression from other players instead of yourself (and drawing people’s attention away from your own designs). .
The Poster variant. Basically, this is a strategy to share control of a particular resource to reduce the thief problem to a monopoly, but to ensure that you are the dominant player in that cartel. In this variant it is only necessary to control most of the resource. For example, if you control two of the three settlement locations in a good hex of a rare resource. The other player will work just as hard to keep the thief away, but will only collect half of it. This is more common in a good ore hex. Another way to do this is by having majority access to multiple hexes for a commodity that you have a port for. The other players can’t keep the thief in all of them, and will probably only keep him in your main hex. Sheep and wheat are the most typical of this type of cartel, because they are not the commodities that people usually target during initial placement. Note that this is very similar to the commons strategy.
Similar to the Monopoly variant, you’ll need a lot of knights to keep the thief away, and preferably in your opponents’ most productive hexes, or in a resource that your opponent has a port for (so they can’t easily trade for your resource). This way, if you are in full control, you can make really good trades. Depending on your group, you can do 3:1 trades if people are desperate, and even turn them down if you’re ahead and force them to bank 4:1 trades.
For more information on the game, visit the author’s Settlers of Catan fan site. This series is based on the Settlers of Catan Guide to Strategy and Tactics, found at http://settlersofcatan.blogspot.com