There was a period in my life when I played a lot of Catan. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a board game where you try to gather resources and trade them for various kinds of points.
A core component of the game is the ability to trade, which is an important lever to success because the different types of resources are not always evenly distributed. I was quick to understand the strategy of resource collection, but the trading was more difficult.
Over time, a pattern emerged: if I nailed my starting strategy, I’d have the very best resource setup and quickly turn it into a lead in points. This lead, however, was visible, and so the other players would agree upon the ‘strongest player’ and either implement a trade embargo, or least unfavorable trade conditions. Basically, if someone was too good too fast, they became the object of suspicion, and that status was permanent for the duration of the game, even when someone else inevitably took the lead because of the handicap.
I wasn’t the only one:
As an aside, this dynamic is reminiscent of the Barbarika paradox of Hindu tradition:
But in this case, the antipathy towards the early winner did not lead to ‘an endless cycle of destruction,’ partly because you can slow someone down in Catan by denying them points but you cannot take any of their points away (so everything is progress towards the end state of the game).
I started to notice something else, too. Early winners would get pulled back, but even more than that, the other players were sometimes happy to help someone else win the game, as long as it wasn’t the early winner and agreed-upon common enemy. In essence, once it is clear to someone that they don’t have a shot at the title, they start to play a different game: helping the best person win. Sometimes, the early winner would still pull through and take the crown, but everyone else was always very disappointed.
There was one specific game that finally made things clear to me. My sisters, my cousin, and I were sitting around my grandmother’s dining room table. I had taken the early lead and was on the way to becoming the scapegoat of the game. Stupidly, I had even flaunted a few small wins and furthermore targeted one of the weaker players with an aggressive move. In the first five minutes, I had destroyed all chances at favorable future trade. My cousin Katie, far better with people and with more love in her heart, was in close second. I was too focused on the thrill of little victories and the adrenaline of the game to see what was going on, but inevitably my trade was throttled, and Katie pulled ahead to clinch the win. Though I was frustrated by the seemingly invisible forces that had prevented me from winning, I was still aware enough to notice something: Katie had won graciously, and my sisters were genuinely happy for her. I was a far cry from the disappointment I had seen in their faces when I had won in previous games.
In that moment I came to realize that there was a game within the game. The goal was not just to win by having the most points: it was to win in such a way that everyone was happy you had won. And over time it became clear that the two games were often one and the same, because when people were on your side, the trade advantage was substantial enough (or, conversely, painful enough for the pariah) that the odds of winning the game went up dramatically if you were also winning the political game.
This reminded me of an excellent take by Joseph Heath, on winning arguments. Or rather, on actually winning when you find yourself in an argument:
I don’t play as much Catan now, but I think the core principle still holds: don’t play to get the most points. Play to become the type of player that others want to win. The best way to do this seems to be by playing virtuously: help the weak, negotiate but don’t drive too hard a bargain that people resent you for it, and look for win-win solutions, even when it means leaving a few chips on the table.