Was recently reviewing this Finals game and thought I'd post it for review as it really was a interestingly placed out board with a lot of twists and turns throughout the game. Placement order was Pink -> Brown -> Blue -> White.
I think if I had my choice, I'd pick Blues position, because the 9-3 and 3-1 expansion is a great dev setup where you can just churn your wood to buy devs every turn once you're set up.
I have been running organized 4-player Catan tournaments online and started tracking the data last week. Across the last 3 tournaments, here's what the seat position win rates look like and the average resource allocation after placements per seat position.
The sample size is still small but the consistency across all 3 tournaments (4th was best in all 3) is what surprised me. I'm curious if you've seen something similar in the more competitive games you've played, and what stats you might be interested in me tracking in the upcoming/future tournaments.