If you are looking forward to an enjoyable board game night with family and friends, there is one game we highly recommend: Settlers of Catan. Created by Klaus Teuber in 1995, Catan has been translated into 35 languages and sold 25 million copies worldwide. It is a strategy board game involving intelligent resource management. You earn victory points from building settlements, cities, and development cards, i.e., having the longest road and the largest army.
Catan is actually really easy to set up and learn. The starting set-up makes it easy for new players to learn Catan, set up the board, and start playing sooner. The game comes with a rule book that contains an overview of the game. There are only four pages of game rules, and the A-Z Almanac provides a quick reference that explains the rules in more detail.
Find more information about the game below.
How Does The Game Work?
You select a player’s color and get the five villages, four cities, and 15 routes of that color in front of you.
On the board, place two settlements and two roadways. Follow the layout in the rulebook if utilizing the recommended starter configuration. Instead, the experienced player rules require each player to establish a colony and one nearby road in turn, with the order of placement reversed (so the last player goes first) to place a second settlement and adjacent road.
Each player receives a building cost card, which serves as a reminder of the resources required to construct more settlements, highways, and cities, as well as to purchase development cards.
Along with the game board, place the Longest Road and Largest Army cards, as well as the two dice. Sort the materials into piles based on their category: sheep, wood, brick, ore, and wheat.
Take the resources of the region surrounding the settlement designated by the white star in the rules for the recommended starting setup: Yellow is given a sheep, a tree, and wheat. Red receives wheat, wood, and sheep. Blue receives a brick, a sheep, and ore. White receives ore, wood, and sheep.
Instead, when you use the experienced player configuration, you earn resources from each of the tiles adjacent to your second settlement.
Is Catan Suitable For Kids?
Catan is suitable for players aged 10 and above, but it may also suit younger players who have played board games before or with adult supervision. Catan has a starting set-up for beginners as well as a flexible set-up for expert players, allowing games to be adapted to individual player skill levels.
Catan is an excellent choice when you have a variety of ages and ability levels eager to play; it is one of the best board games for player interaction.
It is designed to keep players interacting. All players are involved in dice rolls and trade, even when it’s not their turn. Negotiating a trade of resources is an integral and enjoyable part of playing Catan.
Even though the luck of the dice may be frustrating for some players, the fluctuating fortunes and good-natured competition keep everyone engaged and talking.
How Many Players Can Play Catan?
Catan can be played with up to 6 people. Simply add this basic game expansion if you wish to play the CATAN base game with 5 or 6 players. With up to 6 players, you can settle Catan and cruise the seas. With up to 6 players, you can establish Catan and use knights to defend your cities against barbarians.
You may even play with more people thanks to the 7-8 player expansion pack games!
What Makes Catan Interesting?
There are several ways to acquire the necessary 10 victory points to win, which keeps things interesting. Some techniques, such as constructing towns and cities, can be tracked by your opponents, allowing them to determine how many victory points you have.
If you opt to purchase development cards, you can keep them hidden, accumulating secret victory points that will allow you to overtake other players quietly. It keeps everyone on their toes because no one knows who is in the lead.
Things can get intense fairly quickly in Catan, with players ganging up on each other to sabotage whoever they believe to be winning. This can be done by refusing trade deals, repositioning the robber, and cutting off their settlements from expansion.
Is Catan Like Monopoly?
Both games rely on the randomness of the dice, but Catan allows you to hedge and control that luck a little more because you can choose the combination of numbers you go after. Monopoly forces you down a road with the hopes of stumbling upon a property before others.
Where Catan is about have countless decision options and making the right investment choices with those options, Monopoly is about racing to get on the game board as possible so you can take all the money from other players before they do the same to you.
The theme for Catan is more original, is set in a medieval era, though it lacks in the regard of any story. It’s a relaxed environment, and there is a lot of sculpting to do, but nothing right now will provide you with a rich story-driven journey.
Monopoly is easier than Catan because you are pretty much guided in what you have to do, you roll the dice and deal with where you land. The most foresight you need is to risk buying that extra house in the late game or holding on to cash reserves just in case. Catan is the complete opposite, you are broken free of the linear track and have many paths to victory.
Conclusion
Catan is a board game that can be played with 5 to 6 players. It is relatively easy to set up and learn and can entertain children and adults. It is a strategic, fun game to enjoy in your free time.
