Great mechanics that are unique to classic games

[ErikPeter]

For starters, Catan really hasn't been ripped off much considering has been so influential. But my favorite part--and it's just a small one--is the end ga

[ErikPeter]

.l. Damn iPad.
... Is that the game end condition is very tight. How many games have a VP system where individual VP are so important? War of the Ring, I guess, trick taking games not really because individual tricks don't feel super important.

Alien frontiers has tight VP and endgame. I just wish the beginning was more tense in two- (and somewhat in three-) player games. That is the drawback of area control abilities.

Another classic you don't see ripped off as much as you'd expect is cosmic encounter.

[cfer...@gmail.com]

I was just having that conversation the other day. When Dominion came out within 2 years there were several games that were obviously directly influenced by it. I'm not sure what was officially the first "worker placement" game, but many games use the basic mechanics that were first made prominent in Caylus. However, you don't really see much that so directly borrows from Catan or Cosmic, which does seem odd given the popularity of those games within the hobby market.

Not to say there aren't games that borrow a bit - randomly selected asymmetric starting powers are a part of many games, and the idea of collecting resources and turning them in for functional improvements certainly appear in many places, but other than Catan spinoffs I can only think of one game (Boomtown) that uses catan's version of dice-based resource generation, and I can't really think of anything that is terribly similar to Cosmic (though I do suspect that if Cosmic was released today it would have a hard time gaining traction due to it's inconsistency of pace and experience from game to game - that may be a reason why potential imitators have not gotten off the ground).

As for games with similarly tight VP systems to settlers, Twilight Struggle comes to mind (though the 'tug-of-war' aspect is different), and sorta Cyclades, though you are playing to 2. 

[aramis]

You don't see many knockoffs (Settlers of Zaramela, anyone?) because
Settlers has so official variants... I've seen a half-dozen unlicensed
computer versions of Settlers... all of which are knocking off core
Settlers, not any of the variants (Settlers Card Game, Settlers Dice
Game, Kids of Catan, Starfarers of Catan, Starship Catan)... but the
commonality is random resource production and player ability to trade
both with other players and with the bank, plus the use of specific
resources in specific combinations to build items which get you VP.

I'm certain other games have that same combo... I just haven't played
any.

I've played a couple games with random resource generation - and they
predate Catan. They didn't link it to *where* you built, tho...