Geek vs Life

Hey people I don’t know if you know or not, but playing board games is pretty geeky. Or so I have been told. It doesn’t matter that the past time is gaining popularity and perhaps at its peek. Of course that last sentence is only true in Europe, especially in Germany. Yet Americans are Europhiles, so give it a year or two. Everyone else will catch up. In the meantime, I am going to suggest the game “Settlers of Catan. (The name in English.)” (This game was created in Germany.)

Settlers of Catan’s goal is simply be the first to gain 10 points with your new civilization. You gain points by creating new settlements, or growing your settlements into cities. There are other ways to get points but those two previous methods are the most common ways you gain your points. You even start off with two settlements and two roads. (In essence you start with two points in Settlers of Catan.) Another thing to remember you cannot build a settlement adjacent to another settlement or city. Also you need to have at least two roads to separate each settlement or city. Roads give you no points for the most part.

The first question you should ask is how do I build this objects. The reply would be resources. The resources are brick, wheat, ore, wool, and wood. These resources are represented by spaces on the board, where they are created. Brick for example is mined from the hills space. Forests spaces created the wood resource. Each of these spaces are given a value  of  two through twelve, except for the value of seven. Before each players turn you roll two dice. The value of dice determines which resource is “created.” Of course true gamblers and statisticians alike will tell you that some values will be more likely then others. The number seven will come up the most on two six sided dice.

The seven if you remember has no value in creating resources. In fact it activates the Robber pawn. The robber pawn is placed on a resource space. Every time that value is rolled the resources are blocked by the robber. The only way to get the robber off a space is someone to roll another seven or to play a soldier card. (I will get into that later.) The soldier card does not attack other players.

In fact to get this out of the way, this is not Risk. You don’t physically attack people, take their land, or resource cards. This not a game of conquest, but of diplomacy. A player could wait until their resources are all rolled, but the way a player primarily gets their resource is through trading with another player. The player’s turn gets to a initiate trade. Everything is fair to trade, so trade wisely. For example a player, may need wheat to build a settlement, so they trade two ore to procure the resource they need.

These are not all the rules, nor should they be consulted as a rule book. This is just to give you an idea. The cool thing is every time you play Settlers (as it is affectionately known) the island and the values of the island changes. So the game is very re-playable. It is so gratifying to play a game where it isn’t attack after attack. It is also pleasing to sneak in a victory, while trading with the point leader. It is also addicting, one that I fear I have not adequately conveyed in this review.

The game is for three to four players and takes about forty five minutes to play. You can buy expansions to change the game up. I have not played any of these expansions, so I cannot comment on them. (One of the expansion allows up to 5-6 players to play instead of 3-4. It is also adds more amounts of resources to the Island.) I can add that Settlers of Catan doesn’t need to have the expansions to be fun.