Austin Scholar #3: The Sheep God of Catan
Austin Scholar #3: The Sheep God of Catan
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Today from Austin Scholar...
An article that describes the importance of being a Sheep God.
The story of how I chose my Masterpiece topic.
Three sources centered around the concept of a Sheep God.
Today's article is one of the first blog posts I wrote, and also one of my favorites. I had been struggling with inspiration, so while I was at school I decided to take a break and play a game of Catan with my friends, and the rest is history.
The Sheep God of Catan
Last year, I joined a Settlers of Catan club. Catan is a strategy game that highlights resource management because players need the correct resources to build settlements and cities and earn victory points. The board is set up to where depending on where players build their settlements, they can earn certain resources: brick, ore, wheat, lumber, and sheep. Though a critical resource in building settlements, the sheep resource is often overlooked during gameplay. This fact is the basis of my Catan strategy.
I realized that my favorite way to play Catan was to play to cause chaos, not to win. I played against opponents who had spent hours memorizing the rules of Catan and watching hours of strategy videos on YouTube. I, on the other hand, had not. I knew I could not win against these Catan experts, so I decided that if I was going to lose, I was not going to go quietly. I was going to cause as much chaos in the game as possible. I decided I wanted to become the Sheep God of Catan.
In each game, I built my settlements in places that allowed me to be the sole player with the sheep resource. While the other players fought over brick and lumber, the popular resources, I built my sheep arsenal. When the rest of the players needed sheep to continue building, they could only turn to me. I was in control of all of the sheep in the game. I was a Sheep God.
The Sheep God concept is not only applicable in Catan, though. Just like monopolizing on sheep gives you full control over the sheep in the game, becoming a domain expert in a specific niche allows you to have full control over that domain. David Perell's article on Building Your Personal Monopoly outlines this concept. "Pick a small, but ever-growing market and learn everything you can about it. Build expertise before the other settlers arrive."
Just as it is almost impossible to win the battle of brick and lumber in Catan, it is incredibly challenging to become the world's expert in a domain that many people are fighting over, such as “math,” “chemistry,” or “fashion.” This is where Personal Monopolies and Skill Stacks come into play. Combining your interests and skills in a unique way allows you to become the world's expert in your own domain. You will control the output and the world's perception of your domain, or your “Sheep.” My “Sheep” is “How to educate teens in the 21st century through adaptive apps and life skills.”
It is also crucial for your domain to have an incredible potential for growth and output, or to have relevance in the world. In Catan, the Sheep God strategy would not work if the sheep resource was completely useless in gameplay. David Perell explains it well: "All you need is a tiny, but lucrative sliver of intellectual real estate."
Your domain, or "Sheep," must be unique and relevant, and have the potential for incredible output.
Being a Sheep God grants you the opportunity to be the best in the world and the recognized expert in your domain.
When I joined in on the war over brick and lumber, I didn’t win a single game and was seen as the weakest player. But once I accepted my status as a Sheep God…