The Settlers helper is a Flash application that generates a random board and regularizes the dice for the Settlers of Catan board game.
The Board Builder can be used to generate a random board based on the scenarios defined in Settlers of Catan or Seafarers of Catan. A truly random board often has an uneven distribution of dots per terrain type and clumps of the same terrain type. The board builder will create a random looking board that distributes dots evenly to each terrain type, spreads out the terrain types and the numbers and tries to make clumps of land.
To use the Board Builder, pick a scenario from the list. These are the same scenarios that are available in the Settlers manuals. Some of the scenarios are fixed (not random) and those boards are simply displayed. If the scenario defines all or part of the board as random, those hexes will have question marks. Select what type of game you are playing and click the "Generate Fair Board" button. The program will fill in the hexes and display the score (higher is better) and type distribution. You can generate boards until you find one you are happy with.
Some scenarios are 'exploration' scenarios where you don't know what a tile will be until you build a boat to that tile. In these scenarios, the program will not display the face down tiles until you click on them. For these scenarios, generate the fair board like normal and begin play. When a player builds a boat to a face down tile, click on that tile to find out what tile and value to use.
Picking the game type determines the number of dots per tile type (Forest, Sheep, Grain, Hills, and Mountain) the program tries for. In Settlers of Catan, the program tries to give each tile type the same number of dots. In Seafarers, the program gives extra dots to Forest and Sheep at the expense of Grain and Hills. In Cities and Knights, the program gives extra dots to Grain at the expense of Forest, Sheep and Hills. These distributions where determined by looking at the dot distribution of the non-random scenarios in each game.
The Die Roller is used to regularize the die rolls during a game of Settlers of Catan. With a real die, the number rolled doesn't depend on what has already been rolled this game. That means that in a particular game, you could roll dramatically more eights than sixes, or get several twos but no twelve. The Die Roller fixes this problem by changing the probability of each number based on what has previously been rolled while keeping the rolls random enough that each roll still feels random.
To use the Die Roller with Settlers of Catan simply click the "Roll" button for every normal roll of die during your game. If you are playing Cities and Knights of Catan, first click "Reset Roller", click "Cities&Knights", click "Reset" and then "Roll". If you accidentally Roll click "Reject Last Roll" to undo.
Options: If you would like to see how the probabilities are being adjusted by the program click on "Show Chart" to display a graph of the current probability of each roll. More details (like the number of times each number has been rolled vs. the expected number) are available by clicking "View Statistics". You can change how aggressively the program tries to regularize the rolls by changing the 'Randomness' setting. Click "Reset Roller" and adjust the randomness parameter and click "Reset". Do this before the start of your game. A low randomness means that it is very unlikely to roll a number more or less times than expected. A high randomness makes the program behave more like real dice. To get a feel for this, bring up the chart and roll a few time to see the effect on the probability.
Details: The probability of rolling a number is multiplied by 2^(-error/randomness) to get the new probability, where error is the difference between how many times that number has been rolled and how many times we would expect the number to be rolled. In Cities and Knights of Catan, the combination of red die value and color is also regularized. You can see this by looking at the statistics popup. The program first determines the roll (2-12) and then picks the red die and color based on the probability of the possible combinations.