[Board Game] Settlers of Catan

[Matrix XII]

Well I started playing Settlers of Catan and I honestly can't stop playing the game. It's so much fun with friends and it's perfect when you don't know what to do!

I'm sure others here have played the game before, what do you think? For those who are experienced, what is your favourite expansion?

[:: Lyon ::]

lol I remember we had a blast playing this about 2 times a week for a few months. We played the expansion that has the fish as the new commodity item (I forgot which extension it is though)..

[Matrix XII]

haha nice! It's so fun to play together with friends :)

I think that version may have been Seafarers.

[MR_Candyman]

I love it too. I have seafarers and cities and knights. I love the game, and it really came alive with seafarers, but honestly, cities and knights is meh.

I see they have a new one called Traders & Barbarians which I'm going to have to pick up one of these days.

I don't play it much, mainly play it on holidays with my mom, dad, and girlfriend.

[mad_onion]

:o best board game ever. It's different everytime, most fun when there's a distinct lack of one resource. Trading gets pretty intense lol; at least it does when I play it.

[Minifig]

My all time favorite board game.

I love it so much I actually have a PC version of it.

[Raa]

Educate us that are unknowing in this game! :p

[revvo]

The game's pretty awesome, before this I only liked risk and axis & allies (and monopoly obviously :p).

You basically randomly setup those pieces of the map at the start of each game. That means every game is different, requiring different strategies. The goal is to expand your village by building colonies/cities near the resources that you'll need to expand. As you build and grow the village in each round of dice, you gain points.

One really fun aspect is that you can deal with others when you want to for example trade resources, and you have to at some point because you'll most probably be lacking in something. So, you'll make some temporary alliances with key players, but careful because you might be helping out your friend a little more than you'd wished in your trades.

It's not a cheap board game though. My friend bought it with the expansion pack for something close of $200 I think?

[Srugie Veteran]

Settlers of Catan is by far my favorite board game of all time!

[TheGhostWalker]

It's pretty good indeed but somehow I also still like RIsk and another one where I forgot the name off >.< (a game with a map of the mediterranean see and it was in the timeframe of 1400-1500 I think. You could conquer cities, exploit them (for resources) etc...)

[Matrix XII]

Educate us that are unknowing in this game! :p

It's fun if you can get at least 2 other people to play, and you can have all the way up to 6 people (if you have the expansion) so it's really fun if you are sober or drinking. The one thing is people can't be getting too drunk while playing it because it takes some concentration and strategy, although my friends and I play a lot and we've been able to haha

This is a quote from wikipedia because it would be pretty hard to explain it without actually telling you face to face..

The players in the game represent settlers establishing colonies on the island of Catan. Players build settlements, cities, and roads to connect them as they settle the island. The game board representing the island is composed of hexagonal tiles (hexes) of different land types which are laid out randomly at the beginning of each game[4]; new editions of the game also depict a fixed layout in their manual, which has been proven to be fairly even-handed by computer simulations, and recommend this to be used by beginners.

Players build by spending resources (brick, lumber, wool, grain, and ore), represented by resource cards; each land type, with the exception of the unproductive desert, produces a specific resource. On each player's turn, they roll the two six sided dice, determining which hexes produce resources. Any players with settlements or cities adjacent to hexes marked with the number rolled receive resource cards of the appropriate type. There is also a robber token on the board; if a player rolls 7, they move the robber to any hex, which will no longer produce resources until the robber is moved again; they also steal a resource card from another player. (Some play with "Friendly Robber" gameplay rules, where the robber cannot be placed on resources that other players occupy if those players have two or fewer points. This was first introduced with Catan: Traders & Barbarians but is not a rule to be used solely in Traders & Barbarians. Players may agree to allow this optional rule in all Catan variants.)

A giant game of Settlers being played Gen Con Indy 2003. This is one of many Settlers of Catan custom extra-large boards seen during demonstrations and tournaments at Gen Con.

Players are allowed to trade resource cards among each other if both parties to the trade agree on the terms; players may also trade off-island (in effect, with the non-player bank) at ratio of four of one resource for one of any other. By building settlements in certain spots on the edge of the board (ports), players may trade with the bank at three-to-one or two-to-one ratios.

The goal of the game is to possess ten victory points on one's turn. Players possess one point for each settlement built, and a second for each settlement upgraded to a city. Various other achievements, such as establishing the longest road and largest armies, grant a player additional victory points.

Resource cards can also be spent to buy a development card. Three types of development cards include cards worth one victory point; knight cards (or soldier cards), which allow the player to move the robber as if they had rolled a 7; and a third set of cards which allow the player one of three abilities when played. Having played the most knights also earns the player victory points.

Teuber's original design was for a large game of exploration and development in a new land.[5] Between 1993 and 1995 Teuber and Kosmos refined and simplified the game into its current form. Unused mechanics from that design went on to be used in Teuber's following games, Entdecker and L?wenherz. The game's first expansion, Seafarers of Catan, adds the concept of exploration, and the combined game (sometimes known as "New Shores") is probably the closest game to Teuber's original intentions.

You can just head over to wiki, they have more or you can view vids on youtube, but anyone who likes strategy board games ought to give it a try! The only problem was the game was around $55 and that's quite a bit of money to spend on a board game, but my friends split it like 3 ways so it was easier to handle the cost.