SETTLERS

i love playing settlers. the simple gameplay with multiple underlying layers of depth and strategy played on a randomized game board with different dynamics every game.. golden.

recently, though, i've encountered some settlers controversy with me and my good friend, matthew. we played a lot of settlers together, and it got to the point where we'd be at each other's throats over in-game disputes on "how to play correctly" or "what the right thing to do is" and stuff like that, and we decided that we shouldn't play together. yeah, it was that bad.

ironic, because just a few weeks ago, i was amused by something matthew said:

"i love playing settlers because i get to hate you for those 45 minutes"

this makes me think a bit. what IS it that makes settlers enjoyable? what makes it "ruthless" as many people put it?

there are probably infinitely many different reasons, but here are some of my thoughts..

apparently, there are some unwritten "rules" to settlers.

"i'm sorry, but i have to!"

one of these rules that some people strongly believe in is that you must always do whatever you can in your power to help yourself to win. use the robber whenever you have the chance to, and everything and anything else that can benefit you, you must do.

another of these rules is that you have to target whoever is winning. it's not "right" to target people who aren't winning, because you're upsetting the natural balance of the game. the debate here comes into play when figuring out who is actually winning. some people judge it based only on points, which is accurate, but naive for a few reasons. check it out:

if person A has four settlements, and holds longest road, person A has 6 points.
if person B has five settlements, he/she only have 5 points.
who's winning?
points-wise, person A.
LOGICALLY AND SMARTLY SPEAKING WISE (heehee, i'm not biased at all), person B. why? person B has 5 points worth of settlements/cities, so we can call those 5 "resource-producing" points. person A only has 4 points worth of settlements/cities, so theoretically speaking, person A isn't making as much as person B. by attacking person A who has more points by using the robber and such, person B will be able to continue gathering resources and his rate of production will be much greater than person A because the attention is off of him.

some people also find it important to point out who's winning, or who has the most points, or when someone reaches x amount of points. i don't see this as bad, since some people may slip under the radar and get close to winning, so it's important to "notify" the general public.

here's a big question: is winning itself the only point of settlers?

yeah, i play to win, naturally. it's fun to win! it's a nice sense of accomplishment, especially in an intense four-player game. but, as with many other things, the desire to win can result in a lack of other courtesies that you would normally exhibit as a person outside of the game, such as, oh, BEING NICE.

i don't just mean being nice as in "oh i won't put the robber on anyone!" i mean being nice as in attitude, words spoken, and general play style exhibited. it is just a game.

some people get annoyed at people who take the game too seriously and tell them "it's just a game, stop being so serious!"

it's funny, because then i also see people who take the game seriously provide reasoning for how they play by saying "it's just a game, chill out, i'm nice in real life."

i accept that, and i don't think that people who play meanly in settlers are mean in real life, because i know they aren't. however, i think, whether people notice it or not, the way that people play settlers is also somewhat representative of their own selves.

there's also something to be said about "becoming how you act". yeah, that's the informal way of putting it and i'm not sure how psychology puts it or whatever, but if you play enough mean/selfish games of settlers, there's only so much time that will pass before that play style starts to gradually become accepted (by yourself and others) as traits and characteristics of your own personality as a person.

back to the point, if winning is the only goal of settlers, then technically everyone should go all out and do everything in their power to win, right? meaning being mean in every way possible, being selfish in every trade and expansion and use of development cards, etc.

however, there's the other side of people who realize that if they play the crowd correctly, they can win by being nice. being nice allows you to have a certain veil over you as a player, since less attention is brought to you when you're not putting the robber on other people or stealing cards from other people. and being under the radar is always a key to victory. it's also a good strategy to be nice, because sometimes other people just roll more 7's than you do, at which point, if you got on their bad side, you're screwed!

for me, as well as a few people that i know, i get just about as much (if not more) enjoyment as i would from winning, when i help someone else to win. it's even more exciting when the person i'm helping is the underdog by a big stretch, and together we team up to make a huge comeback to steal the win from the first-place player. kind of a jerk move, but if a team effort results in 3 people working together and winning against 1 person, then the greater good is achieved right?

i remember once in game, me and abel weren't winning, but we pooled our resources together and helped the person in second place to build 5 roads in one turn and steal longest road, and thus the game, away from the point-leader, eric chen. yeah, eric wasn't too happy about that, but the whole enjoyment came from the fact that it was so epic and seemingly unachievable.

sometimes when i build up a partnership with someone else in the game, i end up realizing that i would be just as happy if they won as if i myself won.

i feel like because settlers is "just a game", it provides a cover (or excuse) for the "evil sides" of people's personalities to be free and run rampant. kinda like, it brings out the worst in people. ya know? [not everyone, mind you, so don't get the impression that everyone is suddenly super evil and selfish and mean and ruthless when they play settlers, haha]

what a fun game.

[riii]
-i took karate when i was younger, like in elementary school sometime. i think i generally enjoyed it. i don't think it actually taught me anything useful, though, since i don't remember any of it now.
-i was part of a swimming program at the ymca in 4th grade, and i HATED it. freestyle was the worst. i kept feeling like i was going to drown, hahah. i would occasionally grab onto the floating lane lines to support myself, once or twice while swimming across the pool. i did, however, enjoy the backstroke. it was relaxing, and i didn't feel like i was going to drown. i was just afraid of drifting sideways, and also hitting the concrete on the other end of the pool.
-i played indoor soccer, also at the ymca, when i was in 4th grade. i liked this a LOT. i remember i always played defense, always always always. i was the tallest kid on my team. on the contrary, i remember our goalie was the shortest kid on our team, and many a goal were scored on him since he was so small. noob. i probably saved his butt a billion times. i think i scored like one goal, or maybe two, by kicking it super hard from my end of the field, since the overall field was so small. OH. and one time, i went for a ball at the same time as this kid from the other team, and we collided shins together pretty hard. he cried like crazy because it hurt, and yeah my shin hurt a little too under the shinguard, but the funny part is i specifically remember trying to limp or grab my leg to make it look my shin hurt because i felt bad that he was crying and i wasn't. joke time!: i liked sharks and other marine animals when i was younger, so when we voted for team names, i chose the blue sharks, naturally, since blue was my favorite color. i didn't realize until some time later, since no one told me, that our shirts were purple. no wonder the crowds or parents were always kinda confused when they heard our team name.