Catan is a board game developed by Klaus Teuber which caters to folks who enjoy negotiation with others, pillaging, and long-term strategic thinking. Players are tasked with the attainment and usage of myriad resources as a means of expanding their presence on the game board, which entails the building of roads, cities, and settlements. I seek to argue that my team’s game, Mandate of Heaven, shares a few similarities with Catan in the realm of player negotiation while also offering enough key distinctions from Catan’s trading system to make for a novel experience.
Trading is, of course, the primary focus of Catan as the acquisition of resources that are scarce to you but plentiful to others is a surefire way of getting an edge on folks who don’t trade (which is especially important in the early-game). Negotiation between players in Catan is facilitated through the trading mechanic: on a given player’s turn, every other player in the game is free to make trades with that player and with nobody else. The manner in which negotiation is facilitated in Catan differs in some key ways compared to my team’s game, Mandate of Heaven (name subject to change), which from here on I’ll refer to as MOH. Due to the asymmetrical nature of MOH, advisors are only free to request resources from the emperor, and all trading between advisors is forbidden. Similar to Catan, players are looking to cut deals to their own benefit. In MOH, advisors seek to lie to the emperor about how much a crisis “costs” to resolve, and make points through the embezzlement of any resources received from the emperor but not needed to solve the crisis. Yet, this differs from Catan in the sense that resources in Catan cannot be safely hoarded (if you have more than 7 cards when a 7 is rolled, you have to give up half of your hand!) while in MOH an advisor’s resources will likely be safe and secure in their hand (also subject to change).
The emperor is also looking to cut beneficial deals in the sense that they know the advisors get lots of points from embezzlement. Thus, the emperor will find success in being as stingy with their advisors as possible while still solving enough crises to stay in power. Through this we see a general imperative for the emperor to abstain from deals that are too beneficial for other players, which is a critical facet of making good deals in Catan as well. There’s a key distinction here to take into account, however – negotiation in Catan is optional, yet in MOH it’s absolutely crucial for the emperor due to the fact that advisors need the emperor’s resource cards in order to solve crises. If an emperor cannot reach the minimum threshold of crisis levels solved (the default is 5 levels solved in a round) they must give up the throne.
Successfully staying in power for an entire round grants a legacy token to the emperor, which is worth a substantial 5 points. Advisors must therefore carefully consider whether they want the emperor to solve their crises at all, as an emperor with many legacy tokens is in a great position to win the game. Advisors can take a risk by abstaining from negotiations with the emperor in the hopes that they’ll be forced to abdicate, with the tradeoff being that an advisor who doesn’t negotiate has no path to embezzlement, essentially forfeiting any point gains that round. This is clearly similar to trade calculus as it’s conducted in Catan – my friends and I have on many occasions enacted an embargo against the first-place contender despite needing first-place’s spare resources, as even a single resource traded to them at the wrong time could result in the game being lost. However, a key difference in MOH is that an advisor feels the pressure to avoid negotiations with the emperor from the very beginning (rather than only once the emperor develops a lead) – every advisor who doesn’t work with the emperor in a given round has a random chance of being the next emperor, encouraging advisors to consider betraying their leader right out of the gate. This has made for very spicy gameplay so far, and even a sense of betrayal like what might be seen between two long-time trade partners in Catan. One might be a loyal advisor to the emperor for a couple of rounds, building up trust by solving crises without embezzlement, only to turn on the emperor as soon as it becomes convenient. In playtesting MOH with my team, I’ve found that the ideal time for you to betray is when every other advisor in the game has cut their deals already, but the emperor still needs your support – you’re liable to inherit the throne!
