The Settlers of Catan
by Mayfair Games
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Toys and Games Reviews of The Settlers of Catan
Customer Review: Best Family Game of the Year for Us!
Summary: 5 Stars
We purchase at least one new family game each year. After some extensive research, I decided to purchase The Settlers of Catan. When we opened the box the day after Christmas, we were overwhelmed! The directions, the set-up, well.. everything seemed so overwhelming! My ten year old son and I decided to take the advice written on the box and watch the directions online. We proceeded to watch sample game play online, and we were even given the opportunity to print out an additional cheat sheet/synopsis directions at the end of the viewing. This was a huge, tremendous help!
After we watched the directions and followed the written directions to set-up the board, we started playing. Two of my sons, my husband, and myself played the first match. We had an absolute blast! With only four people playing at a time, it was a little frustrating on making someone set out each time. We all wanted to play!
My housework has suffered over the break, but oh, have we had a great time! Last night, my husband and I decided to play Settlers after the kids went to bed. Unfortunately, you really need three people to play. We were tempted to go wake one of the boys up!
After some family battles about who gets to play and when, we purchased the extension pack. This pack allows for 6 people to play at one time... which is perfect for my family. The directions on the extension pack change the game play a little, but I have yet to get to play it.
Now, about the game.... It is a strategy game. Most strategy games are not able to be understood properly by young children; my seven year old loves this game! Now, he sometimes makes a few choices that we wiser, older people wouldn't make... yet it works for him! He wins quite often!
The premise is that you connect settlements and cities with roads across the different landscapes. You get the products that each type of land produces. These products allow you to buy the above-said settlements, cities, and roads. There are also Development Cards... these cards allow you to do special things on your next turn. They are purchased using the products from the land.
This game is loved by all six in my family, even by my husband who says he doesn't like games! I highly recommend it.
Customer Review: A lot of fun!
Summary: 5 Stars
Having read about this game for years and seen it in game shops for years and I finally pulled the trigger and bought the 4th edition. After reading some of the reviews on Amazon, I have some comments.
1) Construction: Yes, for 40 odd bucks, the game does seem cheaply made. How much does it cost to manufacture die cut card pieces (and not too thick at that) and some cards and wooden blocks? I'd have thought that they could have put some more dollars into the product and maybe come up with some wooden or at least plastic pieces. The Monopoly board is at least twice as thick as the cardboard here. I'm thinking they could have sold this game for $15 and still had made a profit!
2) Ease of play: It was very easy to learn, we learned this game in about 10 minutes, and played as we learned while reading the rule book. By the second game, we already learned the game back to front. And afterwards I found that they had an interactive tutorial ([...]), so there can be no excuse that this game is hard to learn!
3) Game play: The rules are easy, and you can play it on many levels, as a beginner or as a master. As a beginner, you can be very strategic on where you place your settlements in the beginning looking at the harbors, terrains and number tokens. The real strategy is actually in the human part, it's all in the trading and maneuvering. By guile, you can draw out what cards your opponents have so you can steal them (legally in the game), you can pretend to have more or less in what you have, you can trick your opponents into making bad moves, you can trick them into helping you. Machiavelli would have loved this game. The reviewers who have found this game "boring" or the ones who don't do any trading, they are the ones who I don't think really understand this game or are playing this game the way it was designed. So on the basic level, it's a dice and card game, on a more complex level it's a game of confidence, strategy and Machiavellism. On an educational level, I would even go as far as to tell parents that it would be a good game to teach your child how to deal with people.
Our playing group has found this game very enjoyable and we look forward to adding the extensions to it. It's much more than a dice and card game, it's highly recommended.
Customer Review: Settlers of Catan is to Monopoly what cocaine is to caffeine
Summary: 4 Stars
Settlers of Catan is a highly addictive game. The robber usually prevents any one player from getting too far ahead, so no one usually loses by that much. This produces an "I almost had it!" feeling in the losers that make them instantly want to try again until they win.
For winners it is no less addictive, since the rush of winning is similar to scratching off a winning lottery ticket. There's also a feeling of "Well I won, but was it luck or skill?" which makes them want to play again to prove to themselves that it wasn't luck. Of course this is impossible really. There is no skill involved in Settler's aside from an elementary understanding of probability and the realization that the city/dev card strategy is best (one notorious strategy guide online will say differently, but as a veteran of hundreds of games I know.)
One of the negative things about the game, and why I wouldn't recommend it for kids, is that since people are competing with each other so directly through blocking with roads and the robber, and since getting blocked or robbed has such an impact, it can make people very angry and irritable with each other. I'm an emotionally mature grown man, and there have been games of Settlers that have frustrated me so much that I've went into a rage and broke things. It's also not very educational. There's nothing to be learned from this game except a simple math lesson on probability which you could teach to the average kid in ten minutes.
If you would like to play Settlers of Catan for free online against human opponents from all over the world, I've found that the best sites are [...] and w[...]. The former site is down as of this writing but should be up again soon, the later is in Dutch, but simply click on "Aanmelden" and enter your username and email to register, select "default official island" for the original game board.
Overall Settlers is a rather mindless, sometimes frustrating, but fun and addictive game. Perhaps not the greatest choice if you want something substantial or that will require a lot of intellect, but it's a classic, very well designed game for the masses that belongs in any board game enthusiasts collection.
Customer Review: Risk in an Agrarian Setting
Summary: 4 Stars
If you have played the game Risk, then you will see the similarities between that game and this one. However, Catan is set in an agrarian society, and, as such, may appeal more to families. It is rarely "violent," although your fellow game players may be tempted to throttle you should you place the Robber Baron on their property.
Contrary to the box's assertion, this game is not easily learned in 15 minutes. It is one that you really need to play repeatedly and fairly frequently in order to fully enjoy. The learning experience is much more enjoyable if you are able to play with experienced Catan players. One caveat, if you are playing with a "shady" character - beware their advice, they are probably setting you up to their advantage!
Almost anyone will enjoy this game. We have played with our daughter and her husband; they frequently play with their pastor and his wife. Our nephews (13 and 15) loved playing this and have requested it for Christmas. Quite a feat when you consider they are serious video-gamers!
On a personal note, I have noticed that individuals who are engineers or pilots tend to do better at playing the game overall. They seem to be able to view the game in total, taking in the "big picture," rather than focusing on separate distinct parts. Individuals, who are not spatially oriented or have more of an artistic penchant, enjoy the game, but not to the extent that more technically oriented players seem to.
We bought the fourth edition because there were no more third editions available. The quality has definitely deteriorated; the card stock is thinner, and the dice seem to roll 7's much more frequently than is statistically probable. If the second set we purchased for friends has the same characteristic, we are going to replace the dice. On the other hand, the interlocking border is a welcome addition, and we had no trouble connecting the pieces.
I rated this item as four stars rather than five because it is not universally appealing and because it does take some time to learn to play.
Customer Review: The best legal, G-rated fun in a box!
Summary: 5 Stars
I read that this game was addicting, but I had no idea. If you like board games, you REALLY need to purchase this game. The pros to this game are: even though the "how to play the game" booklet is huge, it REALLY is easy to learn; the booklet shows you the easy way to learn the game - and it even has a link to view video instruction on-line (which is very nice!); once you learn the basics, you can change the game to make it more challenging and a totally different game each time you play; in addition there are expansion packs available! The big con-side is that the game suggests a minimum of three players and a maximum of four players for the game without any expansion packs. I usually only have one other person available...so we either take turns being the "third player" or we just play the game with the two of us - it is not as much fun (the 3rd person really adds to the challenge of the game), but we still have a great time! The dynamics of the game really are best with 3 to 4 players. The game itself is made of a very sturdy hardboard/cardboard, but we play SO much that we have squshed the corners of some of the pieces (we are hard on games). The game will still last us many more years of enjoyment, though, because the pieces are sturdy. I love this game because we can make it as challenging as we want and it never goes "on-and-on-and-on" - the game booklet claims the game can be played in about an hour, and no lie, no matter how challenging we make it, the game lasts almost exactly one hour. Then we can play again or stop for the evening. We can make it super easy (play for less points or give ourselves a 'city' to begin with, for eaxmple) if we only have a half an hour.
The Settlers of Catan is a fun game. It teaches cooperation, deal-making, strategy, and planning by giving you "resources" that you can use in a number of ways to win...there is no totally "right" or totally "wrong" way....just like life, there are so many paths we can take to the same end result and so many ways to "win" ....