Social Gaming: Settlers of Catan

Ok, so I've officially been sucked into Settlers of Catan.  It's definitely an interesting game, and personally, I feel it's a better alternative for those who might otherwise be inclined to play Monopoly.  The basic principles are mostly all there, but the game's maximum time more closely resembles Monopoly's minimum time.  It's still not a quick game, but its progress is pretty automatic.  The theme basically has the players colonizing a new island, using their settlements to generate resources so they can develop further.  There's some stuff to diminish your opponents' capabilities, but it's not really the dominant thing of the game as in Monopoly.  Dice are rolled each turn, whoever has settlements next to tiles with that number will get that particular resource.  If you care to read more, I'll go over the strategies I've noticed for the game.

Your starting positions are really important, though the last player has more flexibility.  If you want to try working with resource development from the dice, wood and brick are essential to get for the roads you'll need to expand.  You'll still need wheat and animals to build settlements though, so beyond that, you either have to find a good spot to get those or else establish a position with a favorable port.  If you want the development cards to be your primary method of... well... development, your primary targets are going to be wheat and animals, particularly because that's what everybody is going to need at some point.  You don't really care as much about road building.  Ore would probably be an easy follow-up target unless someone else has a similar strategy.
I've also found an easy method for figuring out how often each settlement is supposed to pay out.  Count the dots under the numbers and add them together with the same from connecting tiles.  The total is how many possible outcomes will generate some kind of resource.  This makes it really easy to spot the good places.  Worst-case scenario, you can still do 4:1 port trades when you've got a lot of resources.
There's more strategy in regards to positioning relative to your opponents' positions, but I have to leave for work now.  I don't really use those strategies much, anyway.  Here's hoping I can get in some good games of this in the future.  BTW, I purchased the game on Xbox Arcade, so if you readers have it, I'm easily up for a game.