What is Java Settlers?
My Experience with Java Settlers of Catan
I while back when I went to college, I realized that few people played the Settlers of Catan. I realized that I needed to satisfy my withdrawl symptoms in some way. That is when I remembered that there was a type of Settlers of Catan in a Java format that I had tried playing once. I immediately went back to it and became an addict. The only real positive that came out of this was that I could play Settlers of Catan anytime I wanted...almost.
First a little about this online version...
The games are designed so that there are always 4 players. I am used to 3, so it makes me a little claustrophobic. The only real problem with this is that when there are no other human players, the computer players put in place are awful. I think they are working to change this right now, because I've noticed that the computer players actually win sometimes recently. There was one game I played several months ago that was against 3 computers and I won 10-2-2-2. Come on, you start out with 2 victory points! They have clearly fixed this problem, but right now, they have made it so the computer players can't trade.
In recent days the servers have been filling up and it is near impossible to get on. The ladder server which used to be sacred and have few players is now overrun with Cataners that have no clue what the ladder is, but just want to have fun playing the "greatest game of alltime"...well second, Starfarers is No. 1 in my book. The main problem with this is that with the new players not on the ladder, it is now nearly impossible to play a true ladder game. A positive in this is that the harecore ladder players like to play with some "variants" actually more like house rules, that I can't stand. Those new to the ladder generally want to play a normal game.
I guess this would be a good time to mention these variants. As much as I don't like them, I should keep people informed anyway, because I'm not a cheessy reporter; I'm just a Catan fanatic. NT is one of these house rules. It simply means no trading with the other players. RR means reversed robber which means you cannot use the robber against the other players when you roll "7" or play a knight (takes all the fun out right there!). RR7 is like RR except knights are ok. Then there are some other rules that don't completely make the game stupid like "Coastal," where your first settlement is placed on a coastline. I can't really bash these rules too hard, since there are few variants that you can have when you play on the computer. But really, it's no fun when someone is winning and you can't put them in place with your development cards that you wasted your valuable resources on.
So now you are probably thinking, gee, I want to play Settlers of Catan on the computer but apparently I can't. I have checked the internet and it looks like there are some alternatives so not all is bad. What I'd really like to see is Seafarers, Cities and Knights, maybe even 5-6 player games made available online for free. It looks like Java Settlers of Catan is in a tough position right now. There is an overload of people playing the game and they are changing things. Clearly they need to change the "right" things or it won't work out. My prediction is that within the next month it will either sink or swim.
-Eselbeus (01/17/03)
Back to home
