Overview

This past week on Sanctum I focused on implementing trading: a core feature to the original Settlers of Catan game.

Trading with Peers

In Settlers of Catan, trade is essential because of the limited number of resources that you will be able to accumulate in your settlement locations, especially if they have a low probability of being activated. Trade with players can sometimes be an imbalanced transaction: they may ask for two of your resources in exchange for one of their own. I was able to implement this functionality in Synthicate by allowing each player to specify a variable number and type of resources to exchange. I was really satisfied with how I implemented this feature because when either of the clients update their resource offers, the change is reflected in the window of their peer.

Trading with Depots

Depot trading offers a more limited, yet reliable alternative to trading with other players. Each depot has a specific type of resource that it requires for trade. A player must first establish an outpost or stronghold next to a depot to trade with it. From then on, players can exchange two of the depot’s requested resource type during their turn to gain any resource of their choosing. One such strategy in Catan is to maximize your production of one type of resource while simultaneously occupying the port for that resource. This essentially allows you to trade your most collected resource for any other resource. However, depot trades operate on the 2:1 trade ratio, so players will always loose more resources than they’re gaining. This trade off is even more interesting with the random / miscellaneous depots that allow to trade 3 of a kind of any resource to get on resource of your choosing.

Other Thoughts

One feature that I didn’t think much about but should consider adding is the four of a kind rule. This allows players to trade four of the same type of resource to get one of any resource they choose. This is a nice last resort for players who do not have great trading options with their peers or depots.