What is the best port? Stats from twosheep, the best online alternative to Catan.
Each game is filled with tough choices and paths to victory. But what strategies consistently lead to success at the highest level of play? I analyzed data from 108 games played on twosheep.io, the best free online alternative to Catan, by the elite Champs D1 league to uncover some fascinating trends.
The Best Ports: Which to Prioritize
Ports provide vital trading flexibility. But are certain resource ports significantly better?
- Wheat and Wood Dominate: Games where players secured Wheat and Wood ports had the highest win rates, at around 32%.
- 3:1 Ports Strong: The general 3:1 port still holds value with a respectable win rate.
- Sheep Lags Behind: Surprisingly, sheep ports were associated with the lowest win rate of the 4 tile resources. This could signify an over-emphasis on sheep in higher-level play.
Longest Road vs. Largest Army
The classic debate! Should you focus on roads or knights when aiming for those coveted extra victory points? Here's what the data says:
- Both is Best: Players who achieve BOTH Longest Road and Largest Army have a shockingly high win rate of over 90%!
- Longest Road Dominates: If you can only get one, Longest Road appears to be the stronger choice, leading to wins in almost half of the games where it was achieved.
Unique Starting Resources: Diversity Matters
Your initial settlements determine available resources. Does a wider variety lead to more wins?
- 4 is the Magic Number: Players starting with access to 4 unique resource types had the highest win rate.
- 5 Isn't Better: Interestingly, starting with all 5 resources types saw a slight drop in the win rate. This suggests that focus and specialization can be valuable.
- More Data is Needed: The data here is not conclusive, more analysis is needed.
Placement Production: Resource Impact
Using advanced analysis (logistic regression), I examined how the initial production of each resource, based on settlement placement, influences win rate.
To run logistic regression we first have to transform your starting production into a percentage. I chose to represent your starting production as a percentage of the starting production on the board. For example if there was a 6 ore (5 production), 3 ore (2 production) and 12 ore (1 production) the total production on the board in 5 + 2 + 1 = 8. If you settle on the 6 ore, you start with 5/8 = 62.5%.
The results are quite interesting. Here if the value is positive it increases in win, negative it decreases win rate:
- Wood 0.12
- Brick 0.37
- Wheat 0.72
- Sheep -0.05
- Ore -0.55
- Wheat is King: Higher initial wheat production has the most significant positive correlation with winning.
- Brick Matters: Players with good initial brick production also tended to win more often.
- Sheep Isn't Key: Initial sheep production had little impact on win rate.
- Ore is Risky: Surprisingly, high initial ore production had a negative correlation with winning. This could indicate a tendency to over-value ore early on.
The following graphs shows your win rate based on your % of the total wheat and ore production on the board.
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| Managing to snag 100% of the ore production on the board with starting placements reduces you win % to 18%! |
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| Starting with no wheat drops your win rate to 19%, the data suggests starting with 50% of the production on the board (or more) to gain an advantage |
Key Takeaways
- Exploit the higher win rate of Longest Road.
- Starting positions offering access to 4 unique resources seem optimal.
- Prioritize wheat and wood ports for the best trading opportunities.
- Initial wheat and brick production significantly boost win rates. Don't overvalue sheep and be careful about relying too heavily on ore.
Important Note: This data represents a limited sample. Take these findings with a grain of salt - more data is needed to determine if these patterns will hold up!
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Thanks for the analysis, interesting. Not sure I draw the same conclusion on aiming for both Army and Longest Road as being a "powerful strategy". It looks like it only happened in 11 out of 100 games. That's an 11% win rate, not 90%! It is not surprising that when players achieve this they tend to win - this is four victory points, and to get there you tend to have already accumulated 6 other points. Put it another way - try winning army and road and NOT winning the game! The way I read the data, players winning either army or road won the game 6x more often (40% of 84+94 instances= roughly 70 games) , and even those who got neither won twice as often (10% of 243 , roughly 20 games).
ReplyDeleteI think you are conflating likelihood or rate of occurrence with win rate, but yes I see your point!
DeleteAre you able to interrogate the data to see if picking first helps you win? or 2nd etc? Also would be interesting to know how often the early leader wins (eg first to 7 points)...My experience is that the early leader usually gets picked on and loses. Might save some arguments...
ReplyDelete