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I just saw the release of the update 2.1.0 of November 2020. Maybe since then, bugs are less present and the game is somehow fixed ?
Lol nope
It's gotten a lot better. I played the beta back in 2016 when the app was only in German. Back then, you couldn't get through 1 game without a game breaking bug.
These days, the main bug is the "loading dead match" bug, where the game attempts to load you into a game that has already been completed. The most annoying thing about this bug is that you have to contact customer service to get this issue resolved, and that can take days, sometimes. Another bug is the "AI Timer" bug, which happens when 1 player leaves the game, and the AI uses that players entire timer as if they're holding their seat for them to come back for the entire game (and not just the 3 turns that disconnected players usually get). This one is more of an inconvenience than anything else, but it will turn a 30 minute match into an hour long match easily. All in all, it's gotten better, but I'd expect more after 5-6 years of development.
oh yeah, that AI timer one sucks
Colonist is perfectly functional for me and I find the design pretty solid. I do wish they had an elo system so I can evaluate if I'm even good at this game haha.
We will have an ELO system eventually
Here is our todo list: https://colonist.featureupvote.com
And the votes mostly reflect our timeline. We do whatever the players want most.
nice! as a product manager I appreciate letting your customers directly vote on backlog items.
I have roughly 50 hours in Catan Universe and have never had an issue, nor have any of the people I play it with. It's an awesome game. I understand how some people get confused by the way trading works but that's usually a one time issue until they figure it out, from my experience.
Same, I don't frequent this subreddit but when I do, I always see people saying the game is buggy. I have been playing on the app for about over a year now and the only time it gave me problems was when I was in a backwoods town and had no internet connection basically
It’s definitely a lot better than it was even 6 months ago. There was a point where it felt over half the games were crashing for me, but they seem to have fixed the major issues.
For me it depends on what kind of game I want. Do I want a slow paced game where I’m exploring all trade possibilities and trying to track cards? Universe. Do I want a game that’s fast paced and I can play while doing other things that take away my full focus? Colonist
wow, I imagined it would be the opposite. (i only play universe)
Sometimes I feel like its not much different than playign against bots because people don`t chant much, and without voice communication...
It was great about a year ago, with no issues. Played it a lot during the early part of quarantine and then they rebooted it and it took a turn for the worst.
People like to hate on all kinds of things for any number of reasons. Both platforms has their pros and cons.
I like that CU has an alternative and I think the popularity of colonist has pushed them a bit to smooth things out.
It just feels super frustrating to have invested 30 minutes+ and being unable to finish a game.
This happened a dozen times for almost half the games. So then you quickly get a grudge against the game.
I also mostly prefer Colonist for the community it brings. There are loads of tournaments being hosted every week and their discord is more active. The devs interact with the players all the time.
But if I was a casual(read not tournament competitive) who likes to just play some catan I would also pick catan universe.
I think the bugs are mostly ironed out. The big one I was aware of was crashing on older iOS devices.
The reason I still prefer Colonist is you can play it with a mix of friends and strangers. CU won’t let you host a game with one or two friends and then fill it out with strangers. Also has some trading features that make the game a little smoother.
My only problems with it:
-dice there seem to be agaisnt me as much as in real life.
-Seafearers doesnt have the cool scenarios with monuments and lost colonists....
-most people dont seem to understand the counter offer mechanic (it took me a while to get it though)
The system used to be really buggy but for the last 4 months the it’s been really great
I just started playing last week and I’m hooked. It’s the fun of Catan but on my couch instead of my uncomfortable kitchen table.
My wife, and brother and sister in law all log in and play almost everyday
To play with friends, they all need to pay money. Colonist is free for all four players. To play with the expansions, only one person in the Colonist group needs to pay. Catan Universe is too expensive.
The developers are horribly slow at fixing things. The rejoin loop? Going on for months and they just do not release a fix. Just manually resetting players. Any self-respecting developer would fix that in a week at most.
Similar bugs have been happening for 5 years and when you read the responses to criticism, it shows that they do not really care.
Anyone who mentions how to do things better, gets told "This is how we decided to do it and this is how it will be".
I am done with it. Better to play on colonist where your opinion is actually being heard. I only play base game anyway so colonist is good enough, although the trading system needs to be better (like PlayCatan was)...
I never had a problem playing it bug wise, it just seemed like they dice are always against you and it got super annoying super quick. For example, I'd need an 8 for wheat and only 6s are rolled. Then someone else rolls a 7 and moves the robber onto your 8. And then they can't stop rolling 8s. Happened to me almost every single game I played so I uninstalled it and haven't played it on the computer/phone in 8 months. I own the board game and most of the expansions though because it is a quite fun game to sit down and play with the family
Thank you for sharing your experience. I will look at it then, but in my opinion I think it is not a bug. These broken dice situations happen to me irl too
I was playing yesterday and commenting to my friends about how we haven't noticed many bugs recently.. about two minutes later I couldn't see any of the roads I built... That being said, I still prefer it to colonist.
Tried playing with friends back in April (May?) and we literally couldn’t get past like turn 4-5 without the game breaking. We all wasted money that day.
I enjoy Catan Universe. I'd argue that you should gain access to each expansion when you buy the physical version at least for a discount (like Stonemaier does for their games). The only infuriating thing is that i feel like the kick timer takes too long and sometimes never kicks in. I've had entire games of the base game take 2 hours because of players who didn't play and were never replaced by AI.
When I played on CU a yearish ago it would have a weird disconnect bug which would have you in the game, with no control
I joined in spring 2020 and kept kicking me off, impossible to play and now, much much better. Totally worth $5 or whatever it is.
Needs 5-6 player extension, i would pay for it when thats added. Colonist is great tho too.
The only actual bug I've experienced in catan universe, is having the game lock up my mouse/pointer on the pc.
However, the game play against computer/AI opponents feels... off. The computer opponents don't seem to make better decisions, other than getting more aggressive with the robber, they just seem to get better dice rolls. They get more "luck" while you get less, which is just frustrating and doesn't really help my game. I'd rather play against smarter opponents than luckier ones.
Also, the computer opponents don't seem to trade well. Overall, the AI seems poor. Playing against actual people though, you don't see any of that and the great visuals make it the superior platform.
Its been terribly buggy but may have improved. A summary of the issues I have experienced
- Dead match bug where we all join into a game and then nothing happens. It appears like its waiting on a user to make a move, but on their end they are waiting on the previous person
- One time they did an upgrade and my language switched to german! They quickly patched that though
- If you type your password wrong 3 times you get locked out for a number of hours, ridiculous, make it 5 minutes so you can get in and play again.
- Constant lock ups waiting for other players turns, and errors saying you cannot connect to other players.
It’s the best for Mobile that’s for sure. I’ve still heard there are plenty of bugs though, and if I’m gonna be playing with friends colonist.io literally takes no time to set up.
It’s a nightmare.