What do gamers take for an upset stomach? Settlers

Imagine if you will it's the golden age of sail and exploration and there is an island that has only recently been discovered. Now imagine you're the leader of a group of people who have left their old lives wish to settle on this newly discovered island. Grab your axe, and don your shepherd's outfit

Welcome to Catan

Story

A long time ago in the golden age of sail and exploration when ships were made out of wood and were powered by the wind, there was an island that lay unclaimed by civilisation. All that changed when those looking for freedom and a new place to live settled on the unclaimed island of Catan.

Game Mechanics

Dice Rolling, Modular Board, Route/Network Building, Trading

Number of Players

2-4

Play Time

Up to 2 hours. Takes a bit of time to play when you first play, but after a few games it can be played inside an hour

Down Time

The down time is all about deciding how you want to get to victory points

How Does It Play

It's incredibly easy to pick up and play. It set's up in about 10 mins and doesn't require a lot of space, just remember to shuffle the development card pile

The game itself is played over a series of rounds. Each round a player will roll a dice and whatever number the dice make; that corresponding tile generates resources to those who have settlements adjacent to that tile

There are 5 resources in the game: -

Wood/Lumber

Bricks/Clay

Sheep/Livestock

Hay/Grain

Stone/Ore

All players start with two Victory Points, due to the fact all players get to start with 2 settlements which are placed at a point on the board of the players choice when starting the game. The aim of the game is to get 10 VP

How do you get VP? Well that's both really easy and really difficult. The ways you can get VP are:-

Building roads - If you manage to build a chain of 5 or more consecutive roads you are awarded the Longest Road award, worth 2 VP. You need to build roads if you want to build a settlement as settlements must be a minimum of two roads away from other settlements.

Building settlements - If you have the resources and you're at least two rads away from another settlement you can build a new settlement worth 1 VP

Building Cities - If you're savvy enough and manage to earn the required resources you can turn a settlement into a city. Cities are worth 2 VP, that is the VP for the settlement you replaced and an extra VP, raising your VP score by 1, not 2

Victory Point Cards - If you have the right resources you can buy a development card, sometimes the Development Card deck will give you a VP card

Building an Army - Like the VP cards above, the Development Card deck will also spawn Knights. Knights are super useful as it allows you to move the robber to any tile on the board. If you use 3 knights you get the Largest Army award worth 2 VP

When you have Longest Road or Largest Army keep an eye on your opponents, these can be lost whenever your opponents beat your record

Resource Math

Wood + Brick = Road

Wood + Brick + Sheep + Grain = Settlement

3xStone + 2xGrain = City

Sheep + Grain + Stone = Development Card

The Robber

The game is played with two dice, used to generate resources on rolls, but watch out for number 7. If you roll a 7 on the dice you activate the robber. The robber is useful if you're the one who rolled the 7, when you're opponent rolls a 7 the robber is a [expletive deleted]. On a 7 roll, the robber can be placed on any tile in the game and the player who rolled it can then take a random resource from the player of their choice who owns a settlement on that tile

Game Components

Board - The board is a modular board made up of 19 hexagonal tiles, later edition games have a blue border frame that acts as a template for the board as well as providing the much wanted harbours

Player Pieces - Each player will have 15 roads, 5 settlements, and 4 cities

Card Library - There are 6 decks of cards, one for each resource and one for development cards

Dice - 2 magical resource generating dice

The robber - He's a massive [insert colourful metaphor here]

Theme

The theme of this game is to be the first past the post of 10 VP. It's super competitive and is great for those who want to transition from games such as Monopoly into something, well better.

It requires all the same strategies as Monopoly. You need to be able to trade with people to get the resources you need, but you also need to plan how you're going to get your VP. It's a great gateway game for those who are still stuck in the mindset of board games come in 4 flavours (Monopoly, Scrabble, Cluedo, Risk)

Replay Value

Tons, yes the board set up is the only variable in the game, but the competitive aspect to the game makes you want to play it more

Favourite Part

It's quick to learn and easy to play

Least Favourite Part

Rolling the the same number every turn and generating an f-ton of resources for the same player

Expansions

Tons. Seafarers, Cities & Knights to name a few. Check them out for yourself

The Bottom Line

This isn't a good game, it's a great game. I've wanted to play this for ages since I first tried it out and despite the fact I lost to my son, I will be playing as much as possible (along with my other games so they don't feel left out. I would recommend it to anyone who has never played it, and to those who have who need to play it again. It's a fantastic example of a competitive euro game that can convert the Monopolyites into Catanians

10 VP

Game Designers: Klaus Teuber

Game Artists: Volkan Baga , Tanja Donner , Pete Fenlon , Jason Hawkins , Michaela Kienle , Harald Lieske , Michael Menzel , Marion Pott , Matt Schwabel , Franz Vohwinkel , Stephen Graham Walsh

Pubishers: KOSMOS