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I've often played Catan by dealing in futures contracts. "I will give you two sheep for one wood now, and also the next three brick you receive from any source"
by rckoepke 7y ago
I've often played Catan by dealing in futures contracts. "I will give you two sheep for one wood now, and also the next three brick you receive from any source". That practice is quickly banished in every house I've played in. No one thinks it's "unfair" per se but everyone, including myself, believe that it horribly breaks the game.
- kortilla 7y agoNot trying to be too nit-picky, but that’s not a futures contract (nor a forward). Neither futures nor forwards require payment up front for the exchange in the future. Futures and forwards are for locking in the price for the future trade, not partially completing the trade in the present and finishing it in the future. What you’re describing is just boring old debt.
- rckoepke 7y agoThank you!
- philwelch 7y agoWhile you can't officially do this according to the rules, I've gotten around this by trading "deposits". In other words, for your trade I might trade two sheep for one wood and one ore, and later trade one ore for three brick. That way there are two separate trades and you're not just giving me brick on a later turn to satisfy a previous trade. The flip side of this, of course, is that there's nothing stopping you from welching on the deal later, aside from the normal game-theoretic reasons you may not want to screw someone over. So I'm incurring significant risk this way.