I’ve recently been messing around with Jsettlers2, a java implementation of Settlers of Catan featuring AI players (it also allows network play, but I don’t really see the point in that. Most of the fun of Settlers is in the in-person social interaction).

I’ve got the source code and it looks as though it was designed with the idea of allowing new bot AIs to be plugged in. The existing AI is pretty credible. Anyways, I am curious enough about how it all works to download the whole Java dev stack. I might try to make my own AI.

Most people don’t realize that Settlers is a completely broken game (as are most games that allow free trading between players). Rationally, the player in last place should be holding the player in first place ransom – constantly demanding resource concessions lest he throw the game and give all of his resources to the player in second place. If you are playing with a cut throat crowd, this is the inevitable outcome of the game. In this regard, Settlers is most similar to War on Terror. It’s either clumsy game design or a brilliant commentary on the human condition. AI players, naturally, play a much more civilized version of Catan.

I gave my sister a copy of Small World for Christmas. For those who are not aware, I am pretty serious about my board games. If you are interested in game design, as I am, there’s often a lot more meat in a board game than in a computer game. So yeah. I guess you could call this “research”.

Premise of the game:

Someone took the “Rise and Fall” Civ 4 mod and made it a board game. In “Rise and Fall”, you control a civ during it’s golden age, then you cycle to controlling a new one. You often end up sacking the civs you have built up in the past.

So the real genius in this game is threefold:

First, the civilizations you play each game are randomly generated from a stack of “adjective” tiles and a stack of “race” tiles. Like so:

The adjectives and races each have their own special powers, so when you combine them, you get a ton of replayability. It’s like Cosmic Encounter when you play with more than one alien power at a time.

Second, these adj/race combos are sorted in a priority order, so that each player effectively “bids” on the combo that they want. To skip over a combo in the order, you need to place 1 VP on it. Unloved combos accumulate VPs until someone snatches it up.

Third, unlike “Rise and Fall”, the player is in control of when to put their race into decline and pick up a new one. Picking up a new race is nice, because new races come with a vital stack of tokens, which allows you to do more on your turn. Old races tire and eventually run out of tokens, but you score points for every territory they hold. Choosing when to throw in the towel with your current race is often a difficult decision.

In any case, Small World is fun, and if you like to play board games you should pick up a copy. It’s the best new game I’ve played since Dominion.

Jo, in the back of Trent’s pickup truck

My cousins and my aunt Kim (collectively the Daleys) came to visit us at the beach for two and a half days. Usually when the Daleys come over it means board games, cheesesteak, and a bonfire. This year was no different.

Cheers!

Trent pondering his next move

We played a couple of games of Starfarers of Catan, which I have come to think of as the little bastard brother of Settlers of Catan. I hear that several watch_your_back members {Brendan, Eric, Michael} have also been playing this game over break, which is the main reason why I mention it. The main problems with this game, as I see it are:

My girlfriend is adorably cute