Dice Game
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Foreword to Player

This guide assumes that you know how to play the Catan Dice game. If you do not, learn by playing the game with the tutorial enabled.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is NOT a magic formula but a set of principles that you can use as a base to develop your own strategy.

Following this strategy guide should allow you to score 106 or more about 1 game in 5 or about 7 in a month if your lucky. Your top 7 scores are used to calculate your monthly score.

Logistics

Where : The Catan Dice game is played in the Assembly Hall in COW.
When: You can play for a recorded score once per day.
How Play with tutorial the first time

Objective

The objective is to get the highest score in 15 rounds of 6 die. Each round you have 3 tries to roll the dice you want.

The following table summarizes what you need to be able to build with the 15 rounds to achieve a certain score. Notice how the mix changes as the score increases. We describe

  • a basic strategy for the first 3 columns where the goal is 6 knight roads and 3 double roads,
  • an advanced strategy for the last 2 columns with higher risk for higher reward.
Score 102 105 109 114 121
To Build
Roads 12 12 12 12 12
Knights 6 6 6 6 6
Cities 4 4 4 4 4
Settlements 1 2 3 4
Combinations
2 roads 3 3 3 1
Knight road 6 6 6 4
3 roads 2 4
2 Knights 1 3
Road Settlements 1 2 3 4
Cities 4 4 4 4 4
Misses 2 1
Total 15 15 15 15 15

A combination is what you are trying to build with our round of 6 die. So one way to build 12 roads and 6 knights is with 6 knight-road combinations (uses 5 die) and 3 double road (uses 4 die). A more efficient but much more difficult to get way is with 4 triple roads (6 die) and 3 double knights (6 die). Which takes 2 combinations less. If you build settlement roads with these 2 combinations you can get a maximum score of: 125.

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Basic Strategy to get 102 - 110

Overview

In 15 rounds we are trying to get: 6 knight / road + 3 Double road + 4 cities = 102 points, This leaves 2 rounds for up to 9 extra points for 2 settlement / roads.

General Principles

  • Be clear on what score you are trying to achieve. The higher the score, the higher the risk of failure.
  • Let your first roll determine what you are going for when possible. Generally 3 or more of the resources on the first roll. eg
Combination First Roll Comments
Knight road 3 of 5 of (wood, brick, wheat, sheep ore) most common roll
double road Wood wood brick or brick wood wood will succeed 82%
cities ore ore wheat best 3 resource start because you need 1 or each
  • Avoid at all cost a zero production round. This will cost you 2 points.
  • Try to balance what you make to leave yourself a choice of combinations as late as possible. e,g, don't build 6 knights first or leave all cities till the end if possible

Knights

  • knights are essential to get a good score regularly
  • Save the ore, wheat and gold knights for cities if required.
  • try to get the wood and brick knights before building too many double roads

Cities

  • cities are usually the hardest to get. Grab the opportunity when you can get one.
  • Getting the "natural" city (without knights) is usually the hardest to get.
  • try to make sure you always have a city available to build in case you get a lucky roll. Nothing more frustrating then having a natural city roll (3 ore, 2 wheat) with nowhere to place it.
  • Try to get the wheat and ore knights before trying to build a city or you risk getting a zero production round.

Roads:

  • are the easiest to get because only 4 die.
  • Try for other things first where possible.

Settlements

  • save the settlements for when nothing else works. if You don't get one you can still get a good score.

Misses

  • I start out by thinking I have 2 misses, or actually 4 half misses, A half miss is getting only one road OR one knight in a Knight road combination, or only one road in a double road combination,
  • 4 half misses = 102. More means a score < 75.

Gold

  • Never keep a single gold
  • always keep a double gold unless you need to get a 6 die combination (e.g. 3 roads).

Starting out

  • Try to get a couple of knight-road combinations to start. This connects you to the first city and gives you the two knights (wheat and ore) that you want as back up before trying to build a city.

Advanced tactics

  • You can use a knight to increase the odds of getting something else e.g.

** e.g. you roll wood brick sheep wheat for a knight road combination. You have 2 rolls of 2 dice to get the ore (56% probability of success, see table below). If the sheep knight is available, you could choose not to save the sheep and roll 3 die for the ore. This increases the odds of getting the ore to 82%. If you don't get another sheep, you use the knight.

Advanced tactics for a score of 110+

A brief tutorial in probabilities

There are 6 dice with 6 different symbols: 5 resources and gold.

Probability to get a given symbol

Tries Dice Probability Comment
1 1 1 in 6
1 2 1 in 3 36%
1 3 1 in 2 58%
2 1 1 in 3 31%
2 2 1 in 2 56%
2 3 4 in 5 82%

Probability of getting 2 specific symbols

Tries Dice Probability Comment
1 2 1 in 36
1 3 1 in 6 18%
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