Do we categorize mechanics too much? Trying to see if "Catan" is a hidden worker placement game

For me it is 'chicken or egg' situation.
I think it is fine to think of it the way you do, many others do.
I look at it as it has a number of elements of 'eurogames', but is different. It is like the creators blended a bunch of stuff together and came up with partial systems/mechanics that work well...OR...the creators put it out, and users took mechanics and fleshed them out to make a game of that mechanic, then made games featuring a bunch of these mechanics that all function together cohesively, as separate games within a big game.

I feel that settlements were chosen over people because of the implied size of the space.
I can imagine if people were used instead, there would have been blowback of something like- 'Why no battles? A person is supposed to occupy that land alone?'. Settlements can't fight settlements, people fight people. Settlements mean there can't be war. (I have no idea if war has been added at some point, only played the base version.)

@ssm: are you saying they are settlements because the designer DID NOT want to have a "combat" mechanic added to the game (in this case Catan)???

That's pretty astute of you! It makes a lot of sense that if settlements were actual workers (or Farmers), then there could be room for "combat"... Something that the designers probably did A> Not want or B> Did not think of.

If it's Option B, well that makes for an interesting VARIANT of the game!

Could someone take Catan and transform it into a more "conflictual" game... For some reason, I think someone might have already designed such a game (Not sure).

http://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/heroes-capitols

Someone more familiar with Catan can tell me IF this is "kind of" what you might be talking about with "People/Farmers"...

Cheers.

Here are my 2 cents but I could be wrong...

A game in the most basic sense is an action or set of actions taken by players with or without components within the framework of a set of rules to form an outcome that is not known until that action or set of actions is completed by the player(s).

The very basic anatomy of a game in a simple form:

• Rules (mandatory)
• Player Action (mandatory)
• Unknown Outcome (mandatory)
• Components (optional)

The way I see it when any of the things above are mixed together to form a specific part of a game we call it a mechanic or mechanism. The truth is, every single unit of anything in a game whether a rule or a component is a mechanism of the game. I don't feel that any mechanism can be anything but abstract in and of itself. The reason this topic is more complicated is the words mechanism and mechanic are many times used for both the parts and the mixtures found in games.

Anytime we are talking about mechanisms in games, to me, they are devoid of theme or are independent of a theme.

When we add theme we do it for two main reasons. First, so we can have names for things in games and those names are used so we can talk about the subjects more easily. These names are imposed purely out of our human need to be specific and differentiate one use of a mechanism from another. Second, we add the theme from our human need for interest and intrigue.

As I have said in another thread "Worker Placement" is a theme designers have added to a very specific scale of tracking actions selection where the overall theme and scale of the actions supports the idea of individual units of abstracted workers. This can be a limited action selection where the first limitation is the number of workers a player has to use and/or how many may be placed on a single action selection by the players.

When we lump a bunch of mechanisms together and they become conceptually larger than the word we are using, we start to call them procedures, systems and the terms and definitions begin to vary more widely.

If we strip off every element of the theme in a game we are left with only the parts, many times this cripples the game and it is no longer fun at all, other times the game is still fun but only for those who like math, strategy, or some other more technical aspect of games. Even many games considered abstract have some very thin threads of theme, the way chess has “kings and queens”. This is not to say there are no themeless games in the world as there are a few out there.

In the case of Settlers of Catan, if we strip off every part of the theme we find that the settlements/cities/roads are not used by the player for the tracking of their action selection. Instead, we find that they are used to track the area control on the game board. Because they are used for this purpose, even if you themed them as “meeples”, rather than becoming “workers” use to show what actions players are taking, they instead become “settlers” who are being used to claim territories on the board. The way a component is used in the game helps to show the mechanical function it has. I would not consider Catan to be a worker placement game. Without any theme, the game becomes an area control lite strategy game with elements of luck mixed in.

Components use for tracking, sits up in one of the top tiers of mechanisms found in games from a hierarchy standpoint. What is being tracked and the why/how the player can manipulate what is being tracked are the thematic foundation layers of many games. The “father” mechanic is just number or state tracking and the children mechanics are action tracking, area control tracking, or health/stat tracking and so on based on the thematic reason for the tracking. In fact, even score tracking is either number or state-based tracking. This is seen as either a number of points and/or a win/lose boolean value for the end state of the game.

However, we should also understand that games are not all that simple to implement in new ways and can encompass much more than just the sum total of a game’s parts. In another sense, games are experiences either had alone or shared with others. There are ideas, feeling, and relative concepts thrown in such as fun, excitement, and challenge that are much harder to nail down.

As always, this is just intended as "food for thought".

@BHFuturist

You managed to point out the various modifications you could do to worker placement to make new mechanics

As for settlers of catan:

Is it because you have to "build" your workers?

Workers are a resource. It a bit weird to spend resources to use resources.

Is it the fact that the workers don't take actions - they just sit there until triggered by a dice roll?

That can be acceptable, I would see having a worker placement game where the outcome is not immediate.

Is it the fact that the workers don't move from turn to turn, as they should be moved, like in Puerto Rico?

The fact settlements are permanent is another good reason for not being a worker placement game. Remaining somewhere more than 1 turn is fine. But if you are stuck there for the rest of the game, it fishy.

Carcassonne is another confusing example of placing people on the board tiles permanentlly, while not really being a worker placement game.

Is it the fact that the "corners" of the land hexes don't really represent "actions" to take?

Catan and carcassonne place a good importance on geographic positionning. While worker placement is somewhat about chosing a limited set of actions. Here is 10 actions, but chose only 3. There is no geographic positionning in a list of actions. The result of an action can have a position.

Finally, I would say that most of the time, worker placement are illogical with the theme. Most of the time because I did action A so you cannot do action A. I only have 1 worker placement game "Leonardo da vinci" in my closet, because it the only one I found that makes senses. But most worker placement fans don't like this game.