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PC Games (Games) The Internet Entertainment Games

Microsoft Packs Up, Moves To Catan 40

Posted by simoniker from the german-board-game-attach dept.
Klytus writes "According to a press release posted at GamingReport.com, Catan GmbH and Mayfair Games have made a deal with Microsoft for the creation of the 'Catan Online Game', based on the popular Settlers of Catan board game. From the post: 'Available on Microsoft's Premium Game Service, the Catan Online Game will be accessible via both the MSN Zone and MSN Messenger. There will be multi-player online and download variants, each with rich graphics and a sophisticated AI.' Now we can play Catan endlessly through MSN." This deal is in addition to Capcom's various versions of Catan for console and PC in Japan.
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Microsoft Packs Up, Moves To Catan More

Microsoft Packs Up, Moves To Catan

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  • Catan is already available online (Score:5, Informative)

    by borisbfurry ( 738057 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @11:23AM (#8327362)
    Right here [northwestern.edu]

    • *Was* available.... (Score:3, Informative)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )
      ...both servers seem to be slashdotted. Regular players are probably not happy with you!
      • They're probably full most of the time. The beta is one of the top five results at google when you search for catan. Though I imagine they're getting a little more attention than usual now. :)
      • Regular players can't get online anyways. That server is usually only reliably playable late at night.

        It'll be a shame if that site is forced to shut down. They've got better bots than any of the other Settlers games I've played.

  • I smell a lawsuit... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @11:24AM (#8327375) Journal
    Let's see -- Microsoft just bought a license to do an online version of Settlers of Catan, and there's already an excellent GPL implementation in the form of Gnocatan [sourceforge.net]. I have a bad feeling that the poor maintainer may be llooking at a lawsuit. :-(

  • No Solo (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hambonewilkins ( 739531 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @11:33AM (#8327502)
    My friends and I got hooked on Catan over the summer and found the Java version that you could use for netplay. Obviously, however, we prefered the real deal. Now, however, we're spread across the country, some of us without internet.

    We talked about how strange it is that no "single-player" Settlers of Catan game (for computer) existed and hypothesized that it is due to the sheer complexity and the AI implementation would be quite difficult. There have been computer versions of Risk, but I actually think Settlers is more complex.

    • There is a one person version of Catan avaliable. You will have to google for it. Be warned that it is German (not a major problem), for DOS (alt enter to get full screen DOS window), and the AI seems to cheat, other then that its fun.
    • no, there was a dos version available some 4 years ago. It was smart enough for the 3 computer playes to trade with each other, and to offer or take trades other than 1 for 1. The docs were in German, so I never did figure out how to play the other maps.

    • Re:No Solo (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Nyhm ( 645982 )
      I'm not an AI expert (but I worked with some in school). Catan is a GREAT game, but it seems to have a number of balance-swaying heuristics. That is, there are limited high-level strategic directions you can choose, which can really affect the gameplay. This is perfect for humans, but an AI routine can iterate a few general strategies to find out which one works with the current state of the board.

      My point is, an AI could be too easy to develop and be too good at the game. Then again, I've seen a lot of g
      • Well, I have actually created my own java-based version of the game (private, because I'm using all the copyrighted images). You are correct, the AI is actually quite simple, because there's a finite and small number of ways to play the game.

        You can try to expand and play land-grab. You can try to build to castles. You can try to establish military supremacy. Etc. Each strategy is quite easy to program as there is often an optimal move that is easy to determine.

        I like the idea of a commercial online
        • Huh? In the version I played there aren't castles or a military to speak of (soldiers, but they don't attack).

          I understand the AI may seem simple, but I think there's a long-term v. short-term strategy that can be quite complex and difficult to implement in a computer version. For example, saving up say wheat to built a city. Do you save the wheat or do you just buy a devo card? Do you risk losing cards if a 7 is rolled?

          I know very little about AI implementation, but it seems as though these would be

      • Re:No Solo (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CuteAlien ( 415982 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @03:35PM (#8331254) Homepage
        First of all, there IS a settlers game for windows out there, since more than 4 years. It's was done by funatics development in strong cooperation with Klaus Teuber (the creator of catan). There's also a version of this game for the PS1 (which does not use the same AI) and some more versions for the Settlers Card Game and for Settlers in Space (i actually don't know if it's called exactly like this in english). I've done the AI for the PC Version, but many ideas for it where also contributed by Teuber. I'm not going to do an ad - i've stopped working for that company several years ago ;)

        It was a hard projekt to do, but i wouldn't blame it so much on rules which are to difficult to play for AI, but more on the usual factors which happen a lot in game development. Like me not beeing very experienced at this time, very tight schedules (first project of a new company - you're not allowed to miss many milestones in such a situation) and some more problems which would probably sound familiar to anyone in this industry (like doing a peer-to-peer network solution and still trying to synchronice the game and the bots).

        The basic high-level strategies are mostly getting the longest road, getting the most knights, or winning by building the most settlements and cities. Then there are a rules how to complete this goals and to check if they can be completed. At the lowest level are the ratings for individual building positions, which are mostly influenced by the amount of resources you can reach by them, by harbours or other special points (in other scenarios than the basic one) and by the danger of someone else reaching them first (or the need to reach them to block someone else). A set of rules for which resources are most useful for the player is needed (different strategies need different resouce distributions and certainly it's also important too see what others do already own, to find out which resources will be rare).

        The setting of the raiders is easy - check the resourceneeds and if you want your bot to be emotional then make sure to remember who angered you lately and prefer this player and play some additional samples just to make sure he knows the bot is pissed off :).

        One of the most complex parts is the trading. We did several approaches to this and i guess if we'd had more time we would have tried some more. Transfering the communication of a table game to computers is close to impossible. You just won't get that feeling when playing against bots. It's not so much which resources the bot needs, but more of a problem like when to stop trading or when to push the player some more in hope to get another resource. Some problems: In real life people talk at the same time (which sounds horrible in a computer game - you have to do it serial) or stop trading by just looking someone into the eyes or at theire gestures. These are elements which can't be simulated in a computer game (actually we did insert some shortcuts for "stop bothering me" and "make faster" in the first patch).

        Besides the basic rules we inserted some more scenarios which all had different game rules and needed other strategies, but once the basic catan ai did work it was not difficult to adapt it. To make things a little harder for the poor AI we also gave each bot a different personality which had to take care that his reactions (and the animations) did fit those of a few friends sitting around a table.

        After the projekt i was not too happy with the results of the ai. It was a fun game for someone new to catan, but experienced players could beat the ai without much problems. If i just would have had a little more time ... (once more i guess that anyone in the game industry has heard or said this sometimes).

        An interesting fun fact: Teuber did himself complete a whole AI which did not play bad just using an excel sheet! You typed in the dice result and your move in a column and using some heavy magic the sheet displayed the answering move of the bots in another column. Most impressing thing i've ever seen done in excel.
    • Gnocatan has single-player support.
    • "First Colonists" [the-underdogs.org] has a single player mode, except when playing with expansions (Knights & Cities or Seafarers). It's a very polished rendition of the game. The AI is actually quite poor though. Be sure and download the nice music tracks that go with it.

      Settlers 3D [s3dconnector.net] doesn't have single-player (last time I checked), but is still worth checking out. The PS2 version is playable on the Net but only available in Japan. Capcom was supposed to bring it to the US, but it looks like that fell apart. From the pr [gamespot.com]

  • Live? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by August_zero ( 654282 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @11:46AM (#8327658)
    Who would I have to kill to get them to do a version for x-box live?

    This is exactly the kind of game that live needs, FPS and sports are all fine and good, but what harm could a little variety do?

    • Re:Live? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by papadiablo ( 609676 )
      Who would I have to kill to get them to do a version for x-box live?

      I thoroughly enjoyed the boardgame, but i wonder what they might add to a real online version. Obviously spruce up some graphics, but what else? A more in depth battle system? An online version of just the boardgame, while fun, might not be too successful.

  • I Almost Misread This Topic (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spencerian ( 465343 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @11:47AM (#8327663) Homepage Journal
    Oh! Catan, not Satan.

    For some reason I thought that this topic was just a rehash of a past Microsoft acquisition... [bbspot.com]

  • an online, multiplayer Settlers exists (Score:4, Informative)

    by mithras the prophet ( 579978 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @11:51AM (#8327710) Homepage Journal

    see here: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/gate/jsp/base/index.j sp?nation=en [brettspielwelt.de]

    The legality is uncertain, but brettspielwelt has Settlers and lots of other popular boardgames in a thriving community, with ~ 500+ people online at any given time.

  • Oy... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cjpez ( 148000 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:11PM (#8327997) Homepage Journal
    ... what do you want to bet that the existing independant SoC programs are gonna get Cease+Desisted once it's been released? That'll suck. I know that Klaus was very unhappy about the existance of s3d [s3dconnector.net], but with the legal and financial power of Microsoft to back him up, he could probably be much more successful in closing these things down.

    I mean, in all fairness, he *does* own the copyrights for this stuff, but it sucks for those of us who have been buying Mayfair's stuff forever now and like playing online too.

    • do I learn of this software. What an excellent implementation of Catan. MS has some catching up to do. Unfortunately, if they're willing to bully a teenage kid into relinquishing a domain then what chance do these projects have.

  • Settlers board game (Score:3, Insightful)

    by capoccia ( 312092 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:05PM (#8328642) Journal
    Settlers of Catan is quite a fun game. The only problem is that the games can be very long. When my family (6) plays, the games average 4 hours. So we don't play it very often because it takes up the whole day.

    • Re:Settlers board game (Score:5, Funny)

      by Schezar ( 249629 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:24PM (#8328974) Homepage Journal
      When my family (6) plays, the games average 4 hours.

      Then you're playing the game wrong. There's a funny story about the man who designed Settlers:

      In an interview in Germany, he was asked about time issues with the game. Specifically, what to do about people who spend too long thinking before making their moves. His response was something along the lines of:

      "Well, we play these games with our friends, and usually in pubs. If someone is taking more than a few seconds to move, we begin chanting "Move, or we will hit you! Move, or we will hit you!" If they continue to dally, we hit them. It's never really a problem." (paraphrased and translated from German)

      Basically, these games can be won by whoever thinks hardest and longest. If everyone spends an hour on each turn, they'll play a much cleaner game. Anyone could always make the optimum move given enough thought: the skill is being able to make these moves QUICKLY.

      If it takes you 6 hours to play Settlers, I suggest the "Bewegen oder wir schlagen Sie." treatment.

      A good rule of thumb is that you shouldn't spend more than 5-10 seconds at MAX without taking some action on the board. This goes for most all German games.

      (Check out Puerto Rico, El Grande, Tikal, and Amon Re while you're at it. Right on par with Settlers.)
      • It's not so much that people sit there and do nothing but think when it's their turn. Some people will continue to offer trade propositions for several minutes before giving up.

        >Move, or we will hit you!
        That's a pretty funny story, but threatening bodily harm doesn't do much for family harmony. Especially since my Mom is the biggest offender.
        • Some people will continue to offer trade propositions for several minutes before giving up.

          If you feel players are abusing the limitless amount of trade propositions they can make, tell them to hurry up, and in extreme cases start boycotting them. That'll teach 'em.

  • Puerto Rico is still a better game, not to knock settlers or anything.

    Oh yeah, play german board games! They are awesome!

    If I get some free time maybe I will make a network-able gui version of puerto rico that doesn't suck.
  • Or what my friends and I like to call it, 'crack', is probably THE most addicting board game i've ever played. The thought alone of posslibe X-box Live action gets my tastebuds tingling even more. I couldn't even begin to describe the hours I have spent playing this game and the one fear I have if it does come out on X-box Live is weither my girlfriend and I will be together a couple of days after I get it! Another thing about the board game, everyone know that Settlers of Catan is a German made game an
  • There's a DOS-based version of Settlers available here [solicitor.de] which plays a pretty mean game.

    I also recommend BSW, although I only play Puerto Rico on there. Believe me, if you like Settlers, Puerto Rico is even better.

  • Is there a decent online tutorial on how to Settlers? My friends always play and i'm left out... :(

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