The Settlers of Catan
by Mayfair Games
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Toys and Games Reviews of The Settlers of Catan
Customer Review: An intelligent games for the whole family
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm a big fan of board games, so much so I'm terrified the huge collection of them in my closet will someday collapse and bury me alive. Settlers of Catan is the game that gets played most in my family. Why? Several reasons:
1. The whole fantasy of settling an island, building roads, ports and cities is fun.
2. It has a perfect mix of strategy and luck.
3. Anyone age eight and up can play and have an almost equal chance of winning. I'll help the kids choose their starting places, but after that, they're on their own--and they do win as often as the adults do.
4. While the instructions seem complicated at first, once you start playing, you discover the rules are actually brilliantly simple.
5. Because you assemble the island before you start, you can make it a different game every time you play.
6. The Seafarer's Expansion makes the game even better.
7. Games are neither too short nor too long.
8. Everyone plays with ever turn, so no one gets bored waiting for his or her turn.
My only quibbles:
1. You can only play the game with 3-4 players, although expansion packs let you play with 5-6.
2. The cardboard pieces have warped over time, although this could be because a young guest accidentally turned ours into her own "seafarer's edition" by spilling water on it. The game isn't cheap, so it's a shame the pieces aren't made of sturdier stuff.
3. We're not crazy about thieves blocking resources, so we've changed that to allow for bribes. Essentially, if you roll a seven or play a knight card, you can choose one card from any player. Resources are only blocked if the other player doesn't agree to fork over the card.
This is the best board game you can buy that the entire family can play without ever a dull moment. Highly recommended.
Customer Review: Nice updates
Summary: 5 Stars
The primary, and best, addition in this 4th edition of Settlers is a very nice interlocking border which is placed around the game tiles. This replaces the individual hex tiles of previous editions. No longer will your tiles/pieces scatter/split apart when someone accidentally bumps the playing surface! One side of the border has the ports "built in" but you still get a bit of randomness when assembling the pieces. The flip side of the border is blank "sea" on which you can put the included port tokens for a truly random placement.
The updated graphics are nice and colorful but take a bit of getting use to if you regularly play with an older edition.
The box has a vacu-formed type insert designed to hold all the pieces and keep everything neat.
All-in-all a nice upgrade to the 3rd edition.
It's a simple sounding premise: You gather resources in order to build roads and settlements to earn points.
However, there is a wonderful randomness which lends complexity to the game as the layout of the game board tiles differs with each play right down to the number on the dice needed to harvest a resource from a given tile. This makes *every* game unique. Strategy comes into play as you must determine the best location for your settlements and roads to get maximum value/points.
If you've never played Settlers, find someone who has a copy and give it a try. If no one you know owns a copy, go to your local comic shop. Odds are someone there will have a copy readily available and delight in teaching the game to a new player! It's easy to learn, difficult to master, and quick to play with a typical game lasting only an hour or less.
This is one of the truly classic games and belongs on the shelf of anyone who enjoys board gaming.
Customer Review: SO MUCH FUN!
Summary: 5 Stars
Settlers of Catan is a great game, and lots of fun! The best part is that you will not get bored because the game board is never the same twice. Be ready to come up with a new strategy every time you play!
Although the rules are not really that complicated, it does take time to teach new players. Be prepared to spend a good 10-15 minutes before the start of any game involving first-time players. If possible, try to play with at least one other person who has played before rather than teaching 2or 3 new people at once. I taught just my mom first, and that made it so much easier to teach two new people the next time we played because the newbies could watch and observe our strategy.
Like I said, the rules are easy to understand once you start playing, but you will probably have a much better idea of the strategy involved after the first time you play.
I would recommend this game for anyone who enjoys games that make you think. This is not your standard rule the dice/flip the card and do what it says game.. the decisions of the players really impact the way the game turns out. They say ages 10 and up, but most of the 10 year olds I know would probably get bored (it takes at least an hour, ,usually more to complete, and might not be on a level-field with older players. I would recommend having younger players team up with an older player if you are playing with a mixed age group.
I cannot get enough of Catan, and that seems to be the way it goes for everyone I Introduce it to. Get ready for tons of replay value!
PS If you want to change up the original, they offer various expansion packs that add new elements. I havent tried any of them myself, but I look forward to trying them soon!
Customer Review: THE Best Board Game You Can Buy
Summary: 5 Stars
Settlers of Catan is one of those games that keeps you coming back for more. The game changes every time you play, so you need to invoke new strategies to win for every game. 3 or 4 people can play, but it's the most fun to play with 5 or 6 (you can buy an extension that allows you to play with more people). After playing only 2 games of Catan, I realized I needed to buy the extemsion because this game is just that fun. And now it's even MORE fun! 20 games later, I'm still fully enjoying it! Players must achieve victory by collecting 10 Victory Points. Victory Points are acquired by building settlements and cities, and by collection Victory Point Cards. Players collect various resources throughout the game which they can use to build roads and settlements etc. The beauty of this game is the fact that a 10 year old can enjoy it just as much as a 50 year old. The 10 year old will build whatever he can to try to achieve victory, the 50 year old will try to base his game play on strategy. And believe me, there is so much strategy involved in Catan. Trading is an important aspect of the game. Players trade resources with each other so they can build more on the board. A fun twist me and my friends add to trading is this: Any deal is fair. Where some people would only trade resources, we trade ANYTHING. This means we could agree to not build on a certain spot on the game board if the person gives us the resource we want. It also means that we could pay someone $1 for one of there resources if we so choose. This special rule really adds a lot to the game because trading is important. Catan is an AMAZING game, I'd recommend it to anyone! It's my favorite board game I've ever played, and I love board games.Customer Review: Great game, iffy build quality
Summary: 4 Stars
Explaining the greatness of Settlers would be a whole review unto itself- Amazon provides an excellent description, and it's easier to say that if you regularly play board games with about four people (more through expansions), this is one of the best games you can buy. Catan is one of the kings of "Eurogames"- games entirely about the social aspect and mechanics of gaming, instead of the game's flavor or setting. It appeals to an audience that spans ages and cultures and generations, and you need to own it today.
The problem with this particular version is in the build quality, especially along the island borders. The borders are printed in too-light and too-easily-warped thin cardboard, or thick cardstock. They are supposed to interlock like jigsaw pieces, but due to the flimsy printing, they easily come apart. This quickly becomes an issue during setup, when you lay the hexes inside the border and it takes some help from everyone at the table to get things to line up decently. And if your table or tablecloth is anything less than perfectly flat, it's impossible to get things to fit exactly, and tiles may slip under the border if anyone jostles the setup.
So it's still an extremely fun game, and well worth playing. Much like playing chess on a cardboard dollar-store board versus playing it on a real board, there's quite a difference in the quality of play when you aim for higher-quality materials. I'd still recommend this version if it's the only one you can afford, or the only one you can get your hands on, but if you're already a fan and you want a board you can really put some miles on, I'd look elsewhere.