CATAN | Base Game 5 and 6 Player | Board Game EXTENSION |

I’ve wanted to play Catan for some time, so when it was half price for Black Friday I took the plunge. Really happy with the game itself. We watched a you tube video to help with easier set up and to understand the rules. It isn’t as complicated as I first thought. I think my 10 year old will be ok playing next time round. BUT my game firstly arrived just wrapped in plastic, no Amazon box. It was handed to one of the people for whom it was a gift. This was annoying. Then when I opened it to play, I found that there was no Robber piece included. This was disappointing. We have decided going forward to use Lego mini figures in its place. First time round Dumbledore was our robber. Highly recommend game but not happy with delivery and missing piece.

As an aside, whilst I had played this game before, we took the plunge to buy our own copy because we had been talking with our children about economic trade agreements. With the U.K. and it’s ongoing EU brexit fiasco it was a demonstrable way of explaining how people/nations develop relationships through trading goods and having shared interests. With that in mind, Catan becomes a useful educational tool!

It’s also fun. I find it has a good level of complexity. it is not simple, but I have noticed that after just one play through, most people are able to grasp the basic mechanisms which make the game work. it’s recommended age of 10 is probably about right. My daughter started playing it at 8 but she’s a smart cookie. She perhaps doesn’t play as strategically as someone older might, but she still manages to win sometimes when she monopolises on a certain commodity!

Others have stated that it is a good game for introducing newbies to the wider world of board gaming and I would agree. It’s deeper than Risk or Monopoly, but still accessible for most. And it has high replayability (at least in our house anyway)

Story:
I awoke one morning on the island of Catan, at the time I didn’t know I was on some island in the middle of nowhere. After walking around all day, I ended up strolling down a hill, towards the sunset, hoping it would take me away from the madness of hexagon terrains covered with fields, forests and mountains. People were all around trading their beloved sheep for a piece of grain, or a chunk of rock for an entire tree.
Hiding behind one tree that someone had just given away for a brick, was a robber. Dressed in grey, he was waiting patiently, and I soon found out what he was awaiting for as two hopeless pillocks came along and rolled a couple of dice along the ground. They rolled a 7, and quickly the robber came flying out and smashed them both over the head with a tree branch and rode one of their sheep off in to the sunset. I don’t know what was more bizarre, the sheep riding robber, or the fact two people just stopped to roll a couple of dice in the middle of a path as if it was a normal day, and as if they hadn’t got anything else better to do.

Further on in to my journey, I discovered more people, building roads, Knights hitting people and taking things to give to other people, and others begging for ore… I carried on walking to get away from this crazy world, but I was trapped on an island of pure insanity. The only way off, wait for the Seafarers to bring their boats, and even then they would take me to more madness. It’s fine though, ‘Scotty, one to beam up’. ARGH! No wait, it’s more madness in space. I just saw a Klingon Robber smash someone’s skull in to steal their Oxygen!

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Review:
The game known as Catan, or to the more experienced a tabletopper, Settlers of Catan. Created by Klaus Teuber, he’s created many more versions since he first started this back in 1995, which include Star Trek and Game Of Thrones. It’s sold millions upon millions of copies and remains one of the best board games that too many people still don’t know about.

This is a trading game that’s easy to learn for 3 or 4 players, but could end up making you hate dice more than ever, but you’ll still be playing it for years. It can be turned in to a 5 or 6 player game with the expansion, and that’s a joy in itself. You build the board by creating a hexagon seascape, and fill it with an island using 19 hexagon pieces of different types of terrain that provide resource. Of course, when you play your first game of Catan, you’ll use the standard rule names for resource like lumber, grain and wool. It’ll soon turn in to wood, wheat and sheep. The classic line of course while trading is “Do you have wood for sheep?” It even went as far as The Big Bang Theory in an episode called The Recombination Hypothesis. Make sure you look that one up if you haven’t seen it. The innuendos are incredible.

On setting up the game, you have a nice looking island with different land masses like mountains, forests, and even one tile that has a desert. This really is a dirty place because it’s the original home of a robber. More on that entity in a moment. Each tile gets a number. This can be set up from the Game Rules and Almanac you get with the game, or you could be really daring and mix up all the tiles before placing them down, and that goes for the circular numbers which are placed on each tile as well. Mixing them up seriously creates a challenge, and always makes for a different game every time and gives it more longevity.

Now the board is ready, everyone takes their coloured pieces which consist of 15 roads, 5 settlements and 4 cities, and also have a Building Cost card which comes in very handy. Try and play the game without fiddling with your game pieces. Apart from playing the game properly, you’ll be building things with them every chance you get. To kick off the game, choose the starting player who puts down a settlement and a road in between the terrains (on the corners of the hexes), or even on the edge of the island near the sea if you wish. Then players go clockwise. Once it gets to the last player, they take their turn and then have another turn and then placements go anti-clockwise so everyone ends up having two settlements and two roads on the board. On the players second placements, whatever the settlement is touching for example, two forests and a pasture (which will soon be called sheep), you’d get two wood cards and a sheep… I mean wool card. These cards can be used to build things, as long as you have all the required cards, which you collect, trade and spend throughout the game. Important rules, each settlement placed at the start has to have their road placed next to that piece so it’s always a good idea to observe the board before placing anything, and also settlements/cities cannot be next to each other, there is a two space rule for all settlements/cities. That becomes very clear and easy from the first game.

After placing all the pieces, the game begins with the throw of the dice by the player who first put down their settlement and road (who is also the last person, which is fun). When the dice land, whatever number comes up, players with settlements touching terrain of that number get the resource cards. Later on, when players have cities, any city touching a terrain would get two cards. It’s quite a simple game, but the dice decide your fate more than anything. Great fun though.

When it’s a players turn, after doing the rolling and getting resource phase, trading can take place. It’s only between the current players turn and everyone else. Players cannot trade with each other if it’s not their turn.

Let’s talk about that dirty Robber. This originally sits in the desert, but once a 7 is rolled, or if someone uses the Knight Development Card, it can be moved and placed on any number on the board, which blocks that number until the robber is moved to another one. So if the Robber is placed on a ‘5’, if anyone has a Settlement or City next to that terrain with that covered number, they wont get any resource cards connected with it until it’s moved. It’s evil, especially if you get a game where the 7 comes out constantly, and it does happen. By the way, whoever places the robber and puts it on a number that’s connected to another players Settlement or City, they can steal a random card from them, if two people are next to that terrain, the robbing player chooses only one person to steal from. Like I said though, evil.

Every player has a Building Cost card to show what you need to build roads, more settlements, cities, and development cards which can end up putting anyone who buys them in a strong position. These development cards hold such things as Knights, when used can move the robber on the board to a new number, usually someone you want to block and/or steal a card from. Handy tip about the Knight card, you can use it before rolling when it comes to your turn, always fun to steal someone’s card before things really kick off. There are also Monopoly cards which gives you the power to say any resource and every player gives you ALL of what they have of that resource. There are cards that give you Victory points, which gets you that little bit closer to winning the game, and these are revealed as soon as you have 10 points to be victorious, but never shown until the end. All development cards can only be used once, and you can’t use a development card as soon as you buy it unless it’s the Victory point card that gets you to your 10th point.

Yes, 10 points, that’s all you need for victory, to be the lord of the sheep and master of bricks. The King of wheat and a God of the forests. It doesn’t sound much does it? 10 points. Good news, everyone when they set up the game starts on 2 points for having two Settlements, which are worth a point each. Get a City to replace a Settlement, it’s worth 2 points, so you’re aiming to get as many Settlements and Cities on the board as possible. But games can go on for an hour or two before there is a victor, and even longer if you have the 5-6 player expansion. It’s brilliant. Winning is earnt through strategy, but every roll you want certain numbers to give you the resource to build what you need. It doesn’t always work out as you plan.

Other things that can get you the 10 points are the bonus missions. If you have the longest road, you claim the Longest Road card which is worth 2 points, and also the Largest Army card, also worth 2 points, for anyone who has the most Knight cards. This can take time, they’re only available when someone has a road length of five, and three Knight cards. They can be taken though from anyone who manages to get more, meaning they lose the 2 point advantage and the new player gains it. I think having these cards puts you on more edge than anything.

Having a Settlement or City at one of the Harbours is brilliant and gives a player a huge advantage. There are regular harbours that you can trade three of your resource cards for one different resource card, this is known as Maritime Trade. There are special harbours where you can trade two specific resources for one different card. If you manage to have a settlement next to the wheat for example, and wheat is doing really well for you, and you build a settlement next to a harbour that can trade two wheat for a different resource, you’re laughing all the way to the bank. The less you can trade for what you want is a path to winning Catan.

There are all kinds of different versions out now, along with expansions. There’s even a card game called Struggle For Catan, and a brilliant little dice game that wont take up 2 hours of your life.

If you’re a veteran at board games like me, growing up with games like Cluedo and Monopoly, you’ll appreciate this game for the rest of your life. It’s an amazing game and there’s a reason why it’s still going strong after 25 years. Don’t just sit there… Game!