Settlers of Catan - Board game Review

You have just arrived at an uninhabited island which you name Catan and start to build your home on. However, news of the island spreads fast and now the island is crawling with other settlers. You must compete (and sometimes even trade) with them to gather resources in a bid to build the greatest civilisation on Catan.

In the excellent classic of Settlers of Catan you win by getting 10 victory points. These are acquired by building roads and towns (and upgrading your towns into cities) on the hexagonal board you play
on. To build these structures you must pay resource cards (which are sheep, brick, wood, grain and ore). You get these by having the result of two die, that are rolled every turn, match the number on the correlating hexagon you have a town or city placed on the corner of. However, if you don’t have enough resources (which is almost certainly the case) then you can trade with other players to try and collect that one last ore that you need to upgrade your town into a city or that wood for the road.

Well, one of the main things that makes this game so darn good is that it packs so much into to its easy to learn mechanics. While it takes only a brief explanation to learn, even small parts of the game
give you a lot to think about, like how to best barter with you opponents for that wood resource card you need or where to build your next town. These decisions are easy to make though, due to the intuitive design which lets even new players who have no idea what they are doing pick it up and play with minimal help.

The games simple mechanics are further helped by the fact that you always have something to do (so no more waits that make you drift of and start contemplate the meaning of life, before you get to do something again). Each turn, two dice are rolled and then everybody who has towns or cities on the corners of spaces which the sum of the two dice on them collects a resource card. This means, that everyone round the table will be intently looking at those dice to see whether they get anything this
roll, even if it isn’t their go. Couple this with turns that go at a galloping pace and you have got yourself a game where there is never a dull moment.

My only small gripe with Settlers of Catan is that sometimes players can be left behind if by unlucky chance the numbers on the spaces that they have towns next to never come up. While for some people won’t mind that, others will definitely find this exasperating.

Overall, this game is a bona fide classic, that rewards our in-bread sense of satisfaction with feeling like we are building something that we all love. I would suggest playing this with practically anyone, from people who haven’t sat down to play a board game in years or for youngsters who want to take a step on from the monotony of snakes and ladders or other kids games. Settlers of Catan is a timeless classic, and I think it deserves a place at anyone’s family get togethers or board game night.