This was originally posted as a comment to this article. With the permission of erudite reader Beaker, I have moved it here for the reading pleasure of all. Beaker is a demon at Catan, by the way; the rule of thumb when determining how big of a threat Catan opponents are is to credit him with two extra VPs.

I have spent a few days thinking about the role of luck in Catan (hence the delayed comment), and I think I react differently. I play Catan on different levels depending on whom I am playing with. I play very friendly and helpful if my wife is playing. If I am playing with some serious veteran players who are my friends, I tend to concentrate harder and trash-talk a lot. If I am playing at Origins in a tournament, I am outwardly friendly while counting every card and paying very close attention to the precise rules with a win at any cost attitude as long as it does not involve cheating.

If I lose in any of these I feel bad. If I lose against my wife (because she monopolied all the brick and put down 5 points in 2 turns) I tell myself I could have won if I had really wanted to at any cost. If I lose to friendly veterans I tell myself if I was concentrating harder and not egging them on I would have won. If I lose in a tournament, I tell myself that they were just better. In any of these situations I could also lose because of bad luck. In all of these cases (except the tournament) I can maintain that I am the best Catan player in the world, so my ego is salvaged, but I do not really worry about my ego that much. I play Catan because I enjoy the friendly competition, the trash talk, and the huge adrenaline rush of a close no-holds-barred game.

So how does luck fit in with all of this? If I am playing Catan and the numbers are very unbalanced I feel cheated. This holds true whether I win or lose. I am being cheated out of a competitive game I enjoy. My skill and planning become less important. If I end up winning, I feel empty, because anyone could have won given that degree of luck. If I lose I feel angry, because no matter how good I was I could not have won. Either way I maintain my ego, but I lose the competitive joy of the game.

This only really applies to egregious examples of improbability. I enjoy the nail-biting final rounds where whoever’s number is rolled first will get that final point. Losing a close game is more fun for me than winning a blowout. Even winning the Origins Catan tournament felt a little cheap. I had won several of those nail-biters in the quarter and semi finals, but the finals I won by four points and it was not much of a game, so I always question whether I earned it.

I guess the point of all this is that I find too much amount of luck in a game to cheapen the experience. Saving my ego is not something I really worry about. That being said, regular Catan is the best game ever and usually has the perfect amount of luck and skill for me, while the other variants like starfarers are fun once and a while but have too many luck factors to give me the enjoyment Settlers gives me.