I used to somewhat enjoy Settlers but I now consider it a terrible game. Exponential Growth Cascade Failure games are generally bad, but they are even worse when the aren't over quickly Using die rolls as the mechanic for who gets to make the key play makes it especially terrible because you don't even get to figure out what you could have done better a lot of the time it's just losing a 55-45 situation on whom gets the resources first.
I don't know if there's a good resource such as TV tropes, but board games absolutely have tropes, usually in terms of mechanics. For example there is worker placement, card drafting, "coints" (coins are points), hidden victory point cards, etc.
There's probably a more comprehensive list somewhere on BGG (Board Game Geek), but the website is so hard to use I can't find it...
Catan has made me very wary of "open trade" games, because they always seem to devolve to "that one player surely knows how to manipulate his friends into handing him the win real good..." It'd be easier to enjoy if trades were regulated somehow.
There are more accessible and more strategically meaningful ways to introduce player interaction into a game.
