Alexandre Lemire November 24, 2022

Settlers of Catan Reflection Question

Question: Describe two strategies you employed this month and discuss which was more

effective, and why?

During this Wednesday session, I have tried many different strategies to gain the upper

hand over my opponents and become victorious. The first strategy that I have recently tried is

placing my primary two settlements on tiles that provide wheat and stone in order to speed up

my ability to build cities. I often find that when I play Settlers of Catan, I get off to a fast start by

building roads and settlements. However, once I get past that preliminary stage, I usually slow

down, and it takes me a lot of time to upgrade my settlements to cities because I do not have the

resources to build those cities. Therefore, I decided to place the two settlements that I started

with in places that would provide me with the materials that are required to build cities: wheat

and stone. Unfortunately, this did not work out for me as well as I expected it to. Because I did

not place my settlements on tiles that would provide me with wood and brick, I could not build

any roads or settlements. I was able to upgrade my first two settlements to cities, but I could not

progress any further. I was stuck in the same position in the game for a long time, unable to build

anything.

The second strategy that I have recently tried is gaining control over a port that allows me

to trade in a specific resource that I am rich in for any resource I want. Two weeks ago, I made

sure to put both my starting settlements in positions where I could collect a lot of wood. The

wood port was near one of my settlements, so I gained control of that port and began trading in

wood for other resources. I used it to get resources that I was lacking in, as well as get resources

that my opponents wanted. I then traded these resources back to my opponents in exchange for
Alexandre Lemire November 24, 2022

resources I wanted (and these trades were always a good deal for me). This allowed me to gain

power through trading, and was quite reliable whenever I needed resources that I could not

obtain from my settlements/cities.

In conclusion, the second strategy, the one where I gained control of the wood port and

had a monopoly on wood, was more effective for me. I won neither game, but I was more

successful and had much more fun in the game where I gained control of the wood port. I plan to

use the strategy again in the future.