100th Post! Review: The Settlers of Catan

A few historical tidbits on boardgames:

While the bulk of boardgame sales have historically gone to the party and parlour games produced by Hasbro, Parker Brothers, and Mattel, there has long been a niche for alternative games.

Wargames (historical simulations) have always had a devoted base, which was greatly expanded when the hex and counter system was devised, permitting movement in 6 directions. Not really germane to the discussion--didn't want to leave them out.

The 3M company was an early unlikely player in the alternative market, eventually producing the Bookshelf series of games in the 1960's, including Twixt and Acquire.

In the late 70s and early 80s, there was an explosion of interest in role playing games, which culminated in the codification of the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, and led to a series of spectacularly bad movies.

The collectible card game burst onto the scene in the late 80s, with Magic: the Gathering. Wallets were emptied, refilled, emptied again.

In 1995, Settlers of Catan was released in Germany. People played it. A lot. Suddenly, America was aware of the German boardgame scene. Catan came to America, printed in English by Mayfair Games. An explosion of sorts occurred. Settlers of Catan is now considered to be one of the most influential boardgames of the late 20th century.

Roughly two bajillion games in the "Euro" style are released over the next ten years. I read roughly 1 bajillion accounts of how Settlers of Catan was the starting point of a great new hobby for them, and how they played it over and over, on Boardgamegeek.com.

I play quite a few "Euro" style games, then try Settlers of Catan. I'm not impressed.

So this is where I was prior to Joe and Chris coming over for dinner and a game last Saturday. I wrote up the game in a session report on the Geek. Since I was still a bit shaky on the rules and strategy, even after playing a few games, I decided to wipe the slate clean, and give Settlers a fresh shake. Or whatever.

In Settlers of Catan, players are racing towards 10 Victory Points (VPs). You get VPs by building settlements or cities, by drawing +1 VP cards from the development deck, or by having either the longest road or the largest army (2 VPs each). Everyone starts with two settlements, so 2 VPs. You must collect resources in order to build things; for example, it takes one each of brick, wood, wool, and wheat to build a settlement. Resources are found on the game board, which represents the island of Catan (see below). Each large hex represents one type of resource (yellow=wheat, lt. green=sheep, dk. green=wood, red=brick, gray=ore). If you build a settlement at the vertices of three hexes, you have access to those resources.



The number found inside the hex is the number that must come up on a roll of two dice in order to claim the resource. Every player who is adjacent to a wheat hex with an '8' on it receives one wheat card if an 8 is rolled by any player. The arrangement of hexes and numbers is randomized with each play.

On your turn, you roll two dice, and everyone collects resources according to the result. Then you may build a road, settlement, city, or you may pay for a development card. Some development cards have VPs on them, some allow you to mess with other players, and most are Soldier cards (more on these later--in short, the more Soldier cards you play, the bigger your army is). You may also attempt to trade with other players, by simply asking something like, "I would give up two bricks if anyone has a wheat to trade". Often, it works, unless you're the clear leader. You may also trade in 4 of any resource to the bank for one of any resource. When you're done screwing around, it's the next person's turn.

If anyone rolls '7', there is no resource collection. Instead, the active player moves a pawn called the Robber to any hex. As long as the Robber is there, no resources may be obtained from that hex. After moving the Robber, the active player chooses a player who has a settlement adjacent to the Robber hex and takes a resource card from their hand. Any player caught with more than 7 cards in their hand loses half of their hand (ouch).

When someone plays a Soldier card, they may move the Robber and take a resource as if they rolled a '7'.

That's almost it. Building, though, is one of the more tricky parts. You can't build a settlement in the absence of a road. You can't build a settlement less than two road spans from another settlement. After the initial placement, you must connect all subsequent settlements to one of your first two by road. All this means that it's hard to expand. The board gets really crowded early, and by midgame, you can really be hard-pressed to find a place to easily build. Since building is one of the routes to VPs, this means that you must be flexible and willing to forgo building to purchase development cards or to pursue the longest road/largest army scenarios.

What do I think? Well, luck plays a huge role in this game, as you can be totally hosed by bad rolls. However, I think that much of the luck is mitigated by other opportunities for tactical victories on the board. There's ample opportunity for interaction, via blocking roads, and devious placement of settlements.

There's also a lot of room of chatter, especially during the hold-your-breath dice rolling phase and the trading phase. I like the replayability factor brought about by the randomizing capability. It's not a particularly heavy game, but it can run a bit long. The expansion, Cities and Knights of Catan, adds slightly to the depth and significantly to the run time, but I've read almost unanimously that it is essential.

So, it doesn't hold a candle to some of my very favorite games. However, I would definitely like to try it again, and Jill is leaning towards adding it to our collection.