Settlers of Catan
A board game where you compete with other players for resources by building towns and roads. It's an economic resource management game, where you gain resources based on the die roll, which corresponds to a value determined randomly at the beginning of the game.
The goal of the game it to reach 10 Victory Points first.
The game was designed in 1994-1995 by Klaus Teuber. It's produced by Kosmos in Europe and by Mayfair Games in the US
One of the more fun aspects is trading, where you and the other players barter for better deals. This can lead to alliances, truces, and broken hearts as each player competes for a better position (while trying like hell for it to look like they're way behind everyone). It can lead to hilarious moments too. Yelling "I got wood for sheep!" is quite possibly the best thing that can happen in a board game. Especially if you're playing with a Greek or Welshman.
Expansions
There are tons of expansions for Settlers of Catan as well:
- Settlers of Catan
- Settlers of Catan 5-6 Player Expansion
- Cities and Knights of Catan
- Cities and Knights 5-6 Player Expansion
- Seafarers of Catan
- Seafarers 5-6 Player Expansion
- Fishermen of Catan (mini expansion)
- River of Catan (adds a new resource, gold, and replaces 3 tiles in the base game)
- Catan: Traders and Barbarians (includes Fishermen, River, and a bunch of new shit)
Play
The game board is created new each time, consisting of hexagonal tiles that fit together in a rough circle (unless you're using the 5-6 Player Expansion, in which case it resembles an oval). After the various land types are laid out, the values are drawn and placed on them in a reverse pattern.
Resources
When the die roll indicates a land with a settlement on it, the player owning that settlement gets a resource card of that type. These are:
- Forest - Wood
- Mountain - Ore
- Fields - Wheat
- Plains - Sheep (or Wool)
- Quarry/Clay-pit - Brick (or Clay)
You can hold any number of resource cards, but if someone rolls a 7, everyone with more than 7 cards must discard down to 4. Then whoever rolled the 7 must move the Robber.
The Robber
The robber is a special piece. It begins play on the Desert hex (arid, it doesn't produce anything) and if someone rolls a 7 or plays a Soldier card, they must move him. Whatever hex the Robber is placed on cannot produce while he is there. The player moving the robber can rob any player who has a settlement on the hex that he places the Robber on. This is a good way to let someone know you're thinking of them. Especially since you're depriving them of a resource plot.
Spending Resources
To gain points in Catan, you must build. The major caveat is that you may only build if what you're building is connected to one of your pieces, and that you have the proper resources to purchase it. The first thing most people build is Roads. You can build more settlements eventually, which increase your resource production, and eventually you can upgrade those settlements into cities, earning you even more resources and an extra Victory Point. You can also buy Development Cards.
Development Cards
These are special cards. They do not count against your hand, and can bestow special functions. The Soldier card allows you to chase off the Robber and put him somewhere else, Monopoly lets you take all of one resource from every player, road building allows you to build roads (duh) without expending resources (not so duh) and some cards, like the Chapel, give you Victory Points. (It's a good idea to conceal all development cards, people tend to get mean if they know you have VPs in your corner)
Victory Points
The goal of the game is to get 10 of them. There is a base scale to measure these, which include two 'special condition' awards:
- Settlement - 1 point
- City - 2 points
- VP Card - 1 point
- Longest Road - 2 points (Special Condition of having a longer road than all other players, of at least 5 segments in length)
- Largest Army - 2 points (Special Condition of having played more Soldier cards than anyone else, with a minimum of 3 played)
Videogame Ports
There have been several clone versions of this game available online for years now, and one official version released for home computers a few years ago.
There is currently a licensed version of the base game on the XBox Live Arcade. It costs 800 MSP and has online multiplayer, but only single player local games against the computer.