Board Game Review: Settlers of Catan

Photo: Boardgamegeek.com

My first, well… second introduction to non-traditional board games was Settlers of Catan.  Technically my first was Hero Quest, but it was so close to D&D that I didn’t really think of it as much different, or even a real board game for that matter.  Thanks to some friends who swore by this game and a little prodding by the guys at D6 Generation podcast, I dove in to board gaming headfirst.

My first impression of Settlers when I heard about it was “Well, that sounds boring as hell.”  I mean come on; there were no weapons, no killing stuff, no treasure, no tanks, no miniatures (to really speak of), and no real terrain.  What could possibly be interesting about “settling” a group of explorers?  Well thanks again to the D6 generation guys for talking it up along with other games they loved that sounded much more interesting.  So I figured if they liked it then maybe I would to, and I was right.

So during one of Tammy and my weekly Thursday game nights, Mal and Ryan brought over this wonderful little box.  If you’re not familiar with Settlers, it’s primarily a resource management style of game.  You have to collect resources such as wheat, ore, wool, etc. to build settlements and cities.  To get to areas where you can build, you have to lay roads down first.  First person to 7 points wins.  But nothings that simple, there are some tricks from the resource deck that can come into play.

The starter game comes ready for 3-4 players.  Average game length is about 90 minutes.  One person is the “banker” which handles passing out of the resources cards each turn as certain land numbers are rolled on a 2D6 (two six-sided dice for the Lvl 1 geek).  The game board consists of a number of different resource type land tiles and a water tile frame.  Each tile is given a number tab, that indicates which resources are gained each turn when the players roll the dice.

There’s this sneaky thief that can be moved around the board by the player whose turn it is and placed on any resource land tile on a roll of seven.  The Thief figure prevents any one having settlements or cities on that tile from collecting resources should the number be rolled.  Up to three settlements or cities can be on a single land tile because you can’t have two cites or settlements closer than two spaces from each other. When the associated number is rolled, every settlement on a tile grants you one resource of that land type and cities give you two.

Roads, settlements, and cities all require different combinations of the five resource types.  Sometimes you will be in need of a resource you don’t have and this is where the trading part of your turn comes in.  You can trade as many cards from you hand to other players for different card types that you need to accomplish your goals.  Of course you don’t want to give up too much, because your opponents wouldn’t be trading if it weren’t in their best interest.  You can also trade four of one resource to the bank for a single resource type in return.

This is the part of Settlers that sucked me in.  The strategy associated with trying to get the correct resource land tiles and enough cards to build what was next on your list, without giving too much advantage to your opponents is a blast.  I found I didn’t need to bash the face of a gargoyle or blow up Tau crisis suits to have fun.  Somewhere along the way through my life I became competitive and I don’t know where.  It really took me by surprise when I realized it for the first time.

Another great function of Settlers of Catan is the replay ability and expandability.  The basic game can be expanded to 5-6 players with a relatively inexpensive expansion with includes two more color game piece sets and more tiles and cards to expand the board.  In addition there are a small handful of expansions available to change the flavor of the game.  Seafarers, Cities & Knights, Traders & Barbarians, and a series of Histories sets are all the English language expansions.  In addition to these there are a number of scenarios available in many different languages.  So with all those expansions plus the variation in the board set up for every game, Settlers has very high replay ability.

Cost point for the game is good.  The basic set, and all basic expansions run around $30-50 USD.  All the player expansions for each of the expansions and basic set run around $15-25 USD.  It definitely makes the game more valuable being able to expand it to 6 players for people like Tammy and I who may have a high number of people over.

Overall I’ve really enjoyed the game, Tammy not so much.  She’s more of a faster paced, dungeon crawl sort who can’t handle long game lengths unless things are constantly changing and moving.  For me it’s simple enough to pick up and get rolling quickly because the set up is simple as well.  The one thing I’m finding is living in a NY apartment is that cramming our footrests together to make a gaming table won’t last forever.  Some of the games we’ve been playing recently take up a bit of space.  Creative solution is in the works…

Which is your favorite resource in Settlers?  As always thanks for reading!  Good gaming!