The Settlers of Catan

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Our Price:  £21.99 Model:  159 Publisher:  Mayfair Games Playing Time:  60 - 90 Minutes Number of Players:  3 - 4 Designer:  Klaus Teuber Suggested Minimum Age:  10 Availability:   In stock, immediate despatch

Players are recent immigrants to the newly populated island of Catan. Expand your colony through the building of settlements, roads, and villages by harvesting commodities from the land around you. Trade sheep, lumber, bricks and grain for a settlement, bricks and wood for a road, or try to complete other combinations for more advanced buildings, services and specials.Trade with other players, or at local seaports to get resources you might lack. The first player to achieve 10 points from a combination of roads, settlements, and special cards wins.

Wizardopoly adds: if you've read my little introductory bit to Modern Games you'll know how important Settlers of Catan is. This is the Grand-Daddy of a whole new genre of games which came to be known as Eurogames (because they usually originate from Continental Europe, and they are certainly very popular there). Settlers still measures up well alongside games which have come along after it, so much so that the publishers thought it was worth releasing a special super-mega-deluxe (not to mention expensive) version rendered in three dimensions to celebrate the game's tenth anniversary. To be completely honest the original cardboard version is probably easier to use, but, hey, would you rather play chess with a cheap plastic set or a beautifully hand carved, gem encrusted antique?

So what's it all about? The board is made up from nineteen hexagonal land tiles arranged randomely to create a hexagonal island. Blue sea tiles are then arranged around the island, every other one of which shows a port symbol. The land tiles are decorated to look like forests, pastureland, wheat fields, mountains and quarries, plus one desert tile. Then a numbered disk is put on each land tile (numbered 2 - 12), except the desert. At the start of the game each player has two settlements in ther own colour which they can place at any intersection of three tiles, plus two roads which have to be placed between tiles next to each of their settlements (i.e. leading away from the settlements). The placement of these settlements is all important, because at the start of each player's turn they roll two dice. Any lands whose disk number matches the number rolled on these dice produce resources, and these resources belong to whoever has settlements next to these land tiles. So obviously the lands with 6 or 8 on them are more likely to produce than those with 2 or 12. If a seven is rolled then the dreaded robber is moved (by the player who roilled 7) to any land tile. That tile now cannot produce anything, even if its number is rolled. To add insult to injury, or perhaps just more injury, one of the  players with a settlement next to the robber's new home gets a resource card stolen from them by the player moving the robber!

Each type of land tile produces a different type of resource. Resources are used to buy extra roads and settlements (settlements must always be at least two roads apart), or to upgrade a settlement into a city, or to buy development cards, which allow you to do a number of helpful things like move the robber, build two roads for free or just give you a victory point. Which reminds me, the whole aim of the game is to be the first to ten victory points. Other ways to get victory points include settlements (1 point), cities (2 points), having the longest road (2 points) or the largest army (this just means having played cards to move the robber most often  - 2 points).

This is a wonderful game. It moves along at a nice pace, everyone is in with a chance to win (you don't get one player streaking out in front). All players are involved at all times (even if it's not your go you can still receive resources, and trade them with whoever's turn it is). I wonder what they'll do to celebrate 25 years.