Layered Codes: Settlers of Catan Viking Pieces

Board game bits are clearly interchangeable, as evidenced by the countless variants of Monopoly and Chess that can be found in any game or toy store.  A related phenomenon more common in Euro games are replacement bits: these are pieces meant to replace the original pieces that shipped with a game, as opposed to an entire re-skin like Simpson’s Monopoly.  An example are these Settlers of Catan Viking-theme pieces.  (These are currently not available in the US, and were brought to me by a good friend from the Netherlands).

Settlers of Catan Viking Pieces

In the picture above the red pieces in front are from the original set that came with the game, while the green pieces in back are from the Viking set.

The pieces in the basic set, from left to right, represent a city, a settlement, and a boat.  As fiction-signs they are a mix of symbolic and iconic: they vaguely resemble their signifieds, perhaps the boat most of all.  The same is true when they are considered as rules-signs: the boat can move, but in a very limited fashion and usually does not.  A city is capable of harvesting more resources than a settlement, which makes sense if you assume a city has more people and hence more available workers.  On the other hand, the fact that the city and settlement generate resources at random intervals pushes the rules-signs towards symbolic modality.

The green pieces in the back are the Viking pieces meant to replace the original pieces.  According to the Catan website, the replacement city is modeled on a Nordic stave church, the replacement settlement is a traditional Viking house (identifiable by the gable cross roof), and the boat is based on a Norse merchant ship known as a knarr. As such, the Viking pieces are iconic fiction-signs, but the rules-signs are a mix of symbolic and iconic.  The knarr and house are generally iconic, for the same reasons above.  The church operates more symbolically, as churches are not typically centers for production.

However, the Viking pieces are also signs for the original Settlers of Catan pieces: the Stave church represents the city, the house the settlement, and the knarr the boat.  This is possible because the pieces operate in a very specific code that governs how this representation occurs.

I want to emphasize that this is not just replacement or re-skinning, in the vein of Simpson’s Monopoly, but is in fact representation.  This is because the rules of Settlers make no mention of Stave churches or other alternate components.  The player must know that this is how the Viking pieces function.

(This raises an important point about the arbitrary and authoritarian nature of codes: I only think of the Viking pieces as replacements/representations because the Catan website says they are.)

The Viking pieces operate in more codes than the other game objects I have discussed so far.  They operate in the code that allows us to see them as representations of various parts of Viking culture.  They also operate in the ludic code that governs how they function in-game, but we only have access to this code once we understand the rules code of Settlers in conjunction with the code that translates the Viking pieces into the pieces that come with the base game.

As a counter-point to the prior example of the rook, Go stones are interesting because they illustrate the semiotic concept of codes. A code is essentially a framework needed to make sense of a sign; you are able to read and understand this sentence because you know the relevant code - English. Unlike the rook, Go stones only operate as rules-signs: there is simply no fictional element here.  While we could interpret the rook on its own as representing a tower, a Go stone does not represent anything. However, if we know the relevant code - the rules of Go - the stone is a sign, as it signifies the rules of how it works, or the game of Go in general.  As someone who knows the code, I cannot look at a Go stone and think of it as anything but. Of course, these stones can also carry an enormous cultural meaning as well, you just have to know the codes.

As a counter-point to the prior example of the rook, Go stones are interesting because they illustrate the semiotic concept of codes. A code is essentially a framework needed to make sense of a sign; you are able to read and understand this sentence because you know the relevant code - English.

Unlike the rook, Go stones only operate as rules-signs: there is simply no fictional element here.  While we could interpret the rook on its own as representing a tower, a Go stone does not represent anything.

However, if we know the relevant code - the rules of Go - the stone is a sign, as it signifies the rules of how it works, or the game of Go in general.  As someone who knows the code, I cannot look at a Go stone and think of it as anything but.

Of course, these stones can also carry an enormous cultural meaning as well, you just have to know the codes.