Wolve’s Clothing

“You’ve NEVER played Catan? NEVER? and neither has your brother…. Ok let’s fix that”, thus i found myself playing Catan after quite a break from it.

Settlers of Catan is a classic game which is shockingly knocking on twenty years of age. Catan was like the Dune II of Boardgames. It was new. It was fresh and if kickstarted a new genre into life. Catan is still a great game. It’s aged well. If you haven’t played it. It’s definitely worth a go. Actually if you consider yourself a gamer it’s your duty to play it. It’s patriotic.

Catan sees you and three chums trying to get to ten points first, so it’s a race game. It has you building settlements and roads on a map, so it’s a conquest game. You need to trade resources to get the ones you want so it’s a trading game. It’s got sheep in there and wood so it’s a great setup for jokes game

If you haven’t played this game it’s pretty straightforward. A random spread of five possible typed and numbered hex tiles makes up the map. You setup your starting settlements on the edge of them so each of your bases is at the nexus of up to three tiles. Each turn you roll two dice and the corresponding numbered tile pays out to whomever is next to it.

These resources when you have the right combos can be exchanged for roads, settlements, cities or cards. The bigger your civilization the more points it’s worth. First to ten wins.

Bonuses come from having the longest road or the most soldiers. Oh and let’s not forget the robber. Roll a seven when you’re seeing which spots pay out and you get to move the robber who zooms in like an unwelcome relative and sets up shop in one spot shutting it down until another seven is rolled. (he also has a nasty hand size reduction trait you’ll come to hate)

There’s surprisingly good opportunities to block other players and generally cause mayhem. I forgot how much cursing and swearing accompanies this game as you’re THIS close to winning and someone micturates on your plans.

This is rightly a classic game. It hasn’t aged badly. It’s still balanced. Some people complain that there’s luck involved but I disagree. Roll a dice enough times and it events out. There’s real skill here in negotiating and out thinking your opponents to a win. A great game always worth a play

Huzzah!

Vic