Game Theory Lab 2: Settlers of Catan with SPECS

🎲 Meetup: Game Theory & Georgist Catan — Rethinking Strategy Through Land Rent

What happens when you take a classic strategy game built on land grabs… and rebuild its rules around Georgist principles?
This meetup explores exactly that.

Join us for an evening where Settlers of Catan becomes a living laboratory for game theory, cooperative strategy, and land‑value–based economic design. We’ll play using a Georgist‑repurposed ruleset—where unearned land rents flow to the commons, monopolies lose their bite, and players must rethink how to win when speculation no longer pays.

🧠 What to Expect

• A short intro to Georgist economics
  How land value taxation, common resource dividends, and anti‑rent‑seeking principles reshape incentives.
• Game theory insights
  We’ll unpack how strategic behaviour changes when:
• hoarding land no longer yields private windfalls
• cooperation becomes rational rather than charitable
• public revenue replaces zero‑sum extraction
• Playthrough of Georgist Catan
  Using modified rules such as:
• Land value taxes on high‑yield hexes
• Community treasury funding shared infrastructure
• Anti‑monopoly mechanics that reward productive play
• Negotiation dynamics that mirror real‑world rent‑seeking vs. value creation
• Post‑game analysis
  We’ll compare outcomes with standard Catan:
  Who wins? Who cooperates? How do alliances shift? What strategies emerge when rent extraction is off the table?

🎯 Who This Is For

• Fans of Settlers of Catan who enjoy clever variants
• People curious about Georgism, land value taxation, or economic justice
• Game theorists and strategy enthusiasts
• Educators, policy thinkers, and designers exploring how rules shape behaviour

🌍 Why It Matters
Games are micro‑economies. When we change the rules, we change the incentives—and when we change the incentives, we change the society that emerges from them.
This meetup is a playful but serious demonstration of how Georgist reforms can transform competitive landscapes into cooperative, productive ones.