Is trading actually a good thing? I see people play and they seem open to trading for trades sake. Unless your opponents are making pointless trades to confuse, doesn't it just help their position?
Catan's alright, but it's too random to be really enjoyable. The strategy seems outweighed by getting lucky on rolls or draws.
Trading is definitely a good thing. I find that when placing settlements at the beginning it's crazy to try to get exposure to all 5 elements, but if you get really strong exposure to 3 of them you can trade for what you lack. Then you don't have to spread yourself too thin. Plus you know what people will do with what you trade them ... don't give up wood if you don't want people building roads.
Trading is good to increase own resources (I almost never trade 1:1, mostly 1:2, depending on how badly the other person needs my resources) or doing the inverse: getting down to 7 resources during another player's turn to prevent having to dump half of it if a 7 is rolled.
Catan's alright, but it's too random to be really enjoyable. The strategy seems outweighed by getting lucky on rolls or draws.