Name: The Settlers of Catan
Designer: Klaus Teuber
# of Players: 3-4
Playtime: 90 minutes
MSRP: $54.99 CDN
Link to Rules
Synopsis: You are immigrants to the island of Catan, trying to tame the land and establish a foothold for your colony. You build roads, settlements and cities by spending resources that you produce and harvest from the areas around you, or trade for with your fellow islanders. The game turns into a race to build settlements (worth 1pt), cities (2pts), the longest road (3 pts), the largest army (3pts), and special monuments (1 pts) as the first one to 10 points wins!
Are you ready to build the best colony on the wonderful island of Catan?
The one, the only, Settlers of Catan! This game has been largely responsible for the modern resurgence in boardgaming and for introducing "Euro" style games to the North American masses. It is a modern classic and is often the first game of this style that people learn to play, as was the case with me.
As with most mass-adopted classics, Settlers' rules are elegant in their simplicity: roll a pair of dice; collect resources based on which tiles are adjoining to your buildings; trade to get the resources you are missing; then build roads, buildings and developments to expand your colony and to get you closer to the 10 point victory goal. The novel-for-its-time modular board also lends itself to a considerable amount of replayability.
From my perspective, the best part of the game is the negotiation phase, where you trade the resources you collected with those players who have the resources you need. Offers fly fast and furious with everyone trying to get the best deal possible for their prized resources. The fine balance between getting what you need and preventing your opponent from getting the better of you really allows this game to shine.
It wouldn’t be Fallcon without our annual Settlers tournament. If you haven't yet played this classic, the scheduled event is a great time to have us teach you the game. Mind you, we'd be just as happy teaching you in the open gaming area. Find a couple of your friends and join us at the table!
Darren
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