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They say that the Borg in Star Trek is nothing but fantasy.

I don't Star Trek, because sci-fi doesn't excite me, but I tell you what, they're wrong.

I work in a Company with a collective conscience. Don't believe me?

So I was browsing on the net for some Catan strategy when I came upon some rule clarification.

Out of the blue, I decided to email our regular Catan crew.

Literally a minute after, Dashin emails out (again, from out of the blue) the EXACT SAME rules that I just sent out. He didn't know I was going to send it, and I definitely had no clue he was reading the exact same website as me.

....But for the record, I sent it out first! posted by losir at 4:08 PM

And so, in the span of 3 nights, I no longer like the game Settlers of Catan.

Surprise, surprise. Not only do I not have any luck in the games (of which it is universally accepted that Catan's biggest drawback is that luck is involved), I also just don't know how to play the game because I can't seem to figure out any decent strategies.

Not that we're keeping score, but out of the 7 games we've played as a group, I've won once. Out of about 5-6 computer games? I've won half a time. Why half? Well, there was someone else playing with me, and between the two of us, we beat the computer.

....Anyone want to buy my board game? posted by losir at 1:31 AM

For all you non-pirate types or those that really don't like MSN games, you can play the java version of Settlers of Catan HERE.

Unfortunately, you'll never see me there, because of my colourblindess, I can't see the different colours representing the different resources.

....Sucks to be me! posted by losir at 9:20 PM

And yes, you can find the registration key so that your game becomes fully registered. :D

....Joy! posted by losir at 2:36 AM

Settlers of Catan has become an addiction. I was hooked in the span of 2 games.

So much so that I went and bought the game for $57 CAD after taxes tonight so I could play with my friends from 10pm until 12:30am. Suffice to say we're all Catan junkies.

Which I guess isn't new. The game has been around at least 10 years. I mean, the game has had 4 expansions to it, and we're still playing the very first iteration of the boardgame.

I love games that are easy to pick up but hard to master. If you've never played, you OWE it to yourself to download the paid online/free offline version from MSN. Yes I know it's an MSN game (booooo), but trust me, this game rocks.

I can probably explain it to you real quick too.

The object of the game is to be the first person to obtain 10 victory points. There are 5 resources in the game: brick, ore, wheat, wood, and wool. Combinations of these resources allow you to build 1 of 3 things: road, settlement, city. A settlement is worth 1 point, a city is worth 2, while roads are worth nothing.
The last combination of cards buys you a "development card".

Development cards are faced down and not shown of which there are several different types. There are cards that automatically grant you 1 victory point while others let you do things out of turn, like automatically building 2 new roads. You can also get solider cards. I'll explain this later.

There are 5 ways you can obtain victory cards - Build a settlement/city, or draw one from the dev cards. You also get 2 bonus victory points for having the longest road, and 2 bonus points for having the largest army. Which is one use of the soldier card. You need at least 5 adjoining roads to be the "longest road", and you need 3 soldiers cards to have the largest armies. If any of your opponent(s) have a larger army or road, it gets taken away from you.

So now you understand the scoring. How does the game play?

Let me first mention that the original game requires a minimum of 3 players and a maximum of 4. Everyone plays on a 21 hexegon grid which makes up the island you attempt to conquer. Each hexegon represents 1 type of resource and has a number on it; except for a desert card, which doesn't produce any resource - and does not contain a number.

The island is laid out in the order of 3/4/5/4/3 cards. It makes a round land mass of sorts. Surrouding this hodgepodge island is the sea. I'll come back to this in a bit.

The game is played not on the hexegon itself, but on the edges and corners. If the island was a soccer ball, then the game is played in the grooves and the corners where the grooves intersect. These "grooves" are your pathway to paving roads and building settlement/cities.

The first rule is this: you cannot place two settlements/cities adjacent to each other. Hence, if you numbered the hexegon corners from 1 - 6 starting from the top and then counting clockwise, you cannot build a settlement on #1 and #2. You must build on #1 and #3. Simple.

The second simple rule is that you cannot build a road in the middle of nowhere. A road must be next to another road or your settlement/city.

The third rule again straight forward, is that you can only build your settlement/city on the end of your own road.

Let's say you're the colour blue. You have a settlement with 2 roads extended allowing you to build another settlement (because rule number 1 says you can't build a settlement right next to each other). However, your opponent from another part of the map builds a road which cuts you off. Hence, you cannot build a settlement on the end of his road, even though you're at least two "spaces" away from any settlement. Still with me? Again, you can build a settlement only on the end of your own coloured road.

The numbers on the hexegons represent the total of the dice roll. The game is progressed via a single roll of the pair of dice. Let's say you roll an 8.

Let's make an example. Say that 8 on the map is a wheat resource. Do you have a settlement on any corners of this hexegon? If you do, you get a wheat card. If you had 2 settlements on the same hexegon (in theory, you can have a maximum of 3 settlements/cities on one hexegon), you'd get 2 wheat resource cards. To further this, each city receives 2 resource cards. So if you had 1 city on this hexegon (number 8 - wheat), you'd get 2 wheat cards. 2 cities on the same hex = 4 wheat cards, all for rolling an 8! See how important cities become?

However, you need the correct combination of resources PLUS a settlement to upgrade to a city. You can't just build a city, but must be upgrade from an existing settlement. You can't relocate the city to another spot either.

The dice roll dictate what card(s) you'll obtain. This dice roll is for everyone. If both you and your opponent has a settlement on the wheat hexegon numbered 8, and s/he rolls that number, both you and him/her get a wheat card. So even when it's not your turn, you have to pay attention to what "properties" you have, so you can pick up your card(s). Forgeting to do this will only hamper you.

Catan is an island, so the coastal areas has ports. In this game, we pretend that ports allow easier "trades".

A port simply allows you to trade X amount of any one resource to 1 of any other resource you choose. So for our wheat example, if you capture the 2:1 wheat port, every 2 wheat card you have can be traded to any other resource cards (brick, wool, ore, and wood.) You can see how this can benefit you. If you have a city adjacent to a hexegon that makes wheat, on our number 8, and the dice roll of 8 keeps coming up, you will get a lot of wheat cards in no time. Capturing a port (by builing a settlement on the 2:1 icon) will allow you trade cards much easier.

Why is this important? Because at anytime during your turn, you can trade any 4 cards of the same type to any other 1 resource. So if you had 4 wheat cards, you can get 1 wood card.

The biggest factor in this game, which I've left until now, is the "bartering" between yourself and your adversaries. You can ask to trade cards during your turn.

This is the most fun. There's a lot of social hacking to be done here. If all you needed was wheat to build a settlement, you can ask to trade. Maybe you've got too much wood - you can trade wood for wheat. Everyone sees what resources you pick up, but you can hold it like a poker hand so that over time, people can and generally do forget. Therefore they don't have to tell you what they have in their hands - only how many cards they have.

You can trade 3 woods for a wheat, or 1 wood, 1 brick, and 1 wool for wheat. This can be any combinations of up to 5 cards. Of course, if you had 4 wood, then you can just trade it in for a wheat without hitting up on your opponents for help. This is one of the rules of Catan, any 4 resource for any other 1 resource during your turn, there are no exceptions here. But the fun is to get him/her to give you a card that will benefit you quicker.

Remember our desert? It harbours a criminal - a robber. This robber once unleashed, can never be contained again.

The robber can make/break a game. Each time a 7 is rolled, the robber moves. The person who rolls the dice determines where it is placed. After moving him out of the desert, it cannot go back - it can only be laced on another hex. It must move, you can't roll a 7 and ignore the robber. When you place the robber on any of the hexegons (not the desert and certainly not in the sea!), see if there is/are any settlements/cities bordering on the hexegon. If there is (and you'd be stupid not to place on a hex that has at least an opponent's settlement), you can pick randomly one card out of your opponent's hand which you can keep. For example, if you place on the hex where RED has a settlement, you can "go fish" for one of his/her cards.

Now, no one can pick up the resource card associated with the hexegon that the robber resides on. For example, if you opponent (red) has a settlement adjacent to the wheat hexegon numbered 8, and the robber is on this hex, rolling an 8 will not allow him/red to pick up a wheat card. This includes you. If you place the robber on the 8 wheat hex, and your settlement happens to border this hexegon, you two is not allowed to pick up any wheat cards. Be careful!

That's it. That's pretty much all the rules to the game. A typical round goes like this (assuming there are 3 players named red, blue, white):

Red rolls a 6. Everyone checks whether they have settlement/cities bordering on the hex numbered 6. If you do and the robber isn't on it, everyone who has a settlement/city picks up the resource card.

If red can't do anything (build a road, settlement, city, buy dev card, trade in cards to get another resource card, or no one is willing trade for cards) turn ends.

Blue also rolls, and again, each person(s) pick up cards according to their placement locations, and also tries to do "something" (listed above). If again, s/he is out of options - or decides to do nothing - saving up resource cards for something else, the next person rolls.

You can do as many things as you like during your turn, providing you have the cards. Let's make an example:
You have 5 wheats, 1 brick, 1 wool and 1 ore. What you don't have is wood.

So you trade in 4 wheat cards to buy a wood. With a brick and wood you build a road. With the remaining wheat, wool and ore card, you can buy a dev card.

I caveat that I didn't mention before which is now important. You cannot use the dev card on the existing turn. After you buy your dev card, you have to wait 1 turn before you can use it. The dev card can can be used before you roll the dice.

Oh yes, another important point - for all you pack rats. If anyone has 8 or more cards in their hand when a 7 is rolled (including yourself) the person loses HALF of the cards in their hand! That means if you had 10 cards, you lose 5. 12 cards, you lose 6!! I'm not sure what happens if you had 9 cards.... never happened to me yet. But you get the idea. About the only silver lining is that you get to choose which cards to discard, but still this hurts. So try and use your cards when you can, and keep it below 8.

Yeah, that's it. Trust me, it's easier to learn by playing than by reading my blog. I can't believe I just spent the last HOUR writing out all the rules. Trust me however, when I say that it is really quite addictive, and once you start, it'll be hard to stop. Playing the computer version is not as nearly addictive as playing against human players, because you get to interact, trick, and more importantly, taunt your opponents for cards.

Finally, remember, you can trade for anything. You can bargain that if you give him/her a needed card, s/he will not place the robber on your hexegon for X amount of turns in a game. Of course gentleman's (and woman) rule apply which means you should honour your word, but there's NO stipulation that you can't just ignore and become a dastardly landlord.

I've left out the initial set up of the game. It's important, but mostly for strategic reasons, just let the computer prompt you where to go and follow.

....Game on! posted by losir at 1:12 AM

I finally got a chance to watch Memoirs of a Geisha, and I have mixed feelings about it.

I don't have the energy to write it in detail, so I'll just list the things that REALLY bug me about this movie.

Why are they all speaking English with an accent? The people should be speaking Japanese, but because we aren't, the language is translated on the fly. If they speak in broken English, it would essentially mean that it is their Japanese that is poor, no?

If they are speaking Japanese, how is it that they can speak English as well to the Americans? How is that possible?

Then there's the fact that Mameha, played by Michelle Yeoh, degrades into a Chinese accented English in the end, which completely throws me off.

....I still liked it, even if it was kinda long. posted by losir at 3:13 AM